*                  Today in Black History - June 7                    *

1863 - Three African American regiments and small detachment of white 
	troops repulse a division of Texans in a hand-to-hand battle 
	at Milliken's Bend, Louisiana.

1917 - Gwendolyn Brooks is born in Topeka, Kansas.  She will become the 
	first African American to win the Pulitzer Prize (1950).  She 
	will win this award for "Annie Allen," which is about the coming 
	of age of a young African American and her feelings of loneliness, 
	loss, death and poverty.  In 1963-1969 she will teach poetry and 
	fiction workshops and also freshman English and 20th century 
	literature.  In 1967, she will organize a poetry writing workshop 
	for a gang, and her home soon became a meeting place for young
	people interested in arts and politics.  In 1985, she will become 
	the first African American woman to take the position of Poetry 
	Consultant to the Library of Congress.  Her job will be to give a 
	lecture in autumn and a poetry reading in the spring.  She will
	be the 29th and last Poetry Consultant.  In 1988, she will become 
	the second Poet Laureate of Illinois.  She also will be inducted 
	into the National Women's Hall of Fame. She will join the ancestors
	on December 3, 2000.

1931 - David C. Driskell is born in Eatonton, Georgia.  An artist and 
	professor of art at several universities, Driskell will be acclaimed 
	as one of the foremost art historians and curators of African 
	American art exhibits. He will hold a Master of Fine Arts degree from 
	Catholic University and nine Honorary Doctoral degrees. In 2000, he 
	will be honored by President Bill Clinton as one of 12 recipients of 
	the National Humanities Medal. A publication, "David C. Driskell: 
	Artist and Scholar" by Julie L. McGee, will detail Driskell's life 
	and work, wand will be published in 2006. He will be represented by 
	DC Moore Gallery. His first exhibition at the gallery will be held in 
	October 2006.

1943 - Yolande Cornelia Giovanni, Jr. is born in Knoxville, Tennessee.  
	She will become a poet and author that will be known for her 
	books "Black Feeling", "Black Talk", and "Black Judgment," and the
	name "Nikki." In 1973, she will establish NikTom, Ltd., a 
	communications company that will edit and publish "Night Comes Softly," 
	an anthology of poetry by black women, "Re: Creation," "Poem of Angela
	Yvonne Davis," and her other prominent works. In the mid 1980's, her 
	opposition to the boycott of South Africa will lead to her being 
	blacklisted by TransAfrica and subsequently to bomb and death threats.  
	She will receive at least six honorary doctorate degrees and a myriad 
	of literary awards.

1946 - U.S. Supreme Court bans discrimination in interstate travel.

1950 - U.S. Supreme Court avoids a general ruling on "separate but equal" 
	doctrine.

1958 - Prince Rogers Nelson is born in Minneapolis, Minnesota.  He
	will become a singer and prolific songwriter and producer
	known to the public as "Prince."  An incurable movie fan, he 
	will have a passion for drama (and comedy).  His own films 
	will include "Purple Rain," "Under the Cherry Moon," 
	and "Grafitti Bridge."  "Purple Rain" (1984) will be hailed 
	by some critics as the best rock movie ever made and earn 
	Prince an Oscar for best original song score and soundtrack 
	album.  Because of his desire to have complete artistic control 
	over his music, he will endure several years of a contract 
	dispute with his label, Warner Brothers, which results in him 
	appearing in public with the word SLAVE written on his face.  
	In 1993, he will change his name to "The Artist Formerly Known 
	As Prince" (TAFKAP or The Artist).  He will come out of the 
	Warner Brothers conflict happily.  He will establish a new 
	relationship with EMI Records that will allow him to record 
	and produce whatever he wants to release.

1966 - The voter registration march from Memphis, Tennessee to Jackson,
	Mississippi is continued by Martin Luther King, Jr. and other 
	civil rights groups and will register almost 4,000 African 
	Americans. The march had been interrupted the previous day by 
	the shooting of James Meredith, by a white sniper.

1987 - Mae Jemison, becomes the first African American woman astronaut.
	Jemison entered Stanford University as a 16-year-old National 
	Achievement Scholarship student. She majored in Chemical 
	Engineering and Afro-American Studies, graduating in 1977. She 
	then went on to Cornell University to get a M.D. in 1981. She 
	worked as a medical intern in Los Angeles, California in 1981. 
	Later, she served as a staff doctor with Peace Corps in West 
	Africa 1983-1985.  Then she worked as a general practitioner 
	for CIGNA Health Plans of California in Los Angeles from 1985
	to 1987.  After her internship, she joined the Peace Corps for 
	two years in West Africa giving medical attention to Peace Corps 
	volunteers and State Department employees in Sierra Leone and 
	Liberia.  Finally, she became an astronaut for the National 
	Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in Houston, Texas 
	in 1987.

1987 - Lloyd Richards wins a Tony as best director for the August
	Wilson play "Fences".  The play wins three other Tony awards,
	for best play, best performance by an actor (James Earl Jones),
	and best performance by a featured actress (Mary Alice).

1998 - In a crime that shocks the nation, James Byrd Jr., a 49-year-old 
	African American man, joins the ancestors after being chained to 
	a pickup truck and dragged to his death in Jasper, Texas.  Three 
	men, white supremacists, are arrested in the case. The atrocity 
	will prompt President Clinton to issue a press release condemning
	the act. Two of the killers will be sentenced to death for the
	crime, a third to life in prison.

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