* Today in Black History - September 24 *
1825 - Frances Ellen Watkins Harper is born free in Baltimore,
Maryland. She will grow up to be one of the most famous
African American poets. Harper's mother will join the
ancestors before she is three years old, leaving her an
orphan. Harper will be raised by her uncle, William
Watkins, a teacher at the Academy for Negro Youth and a
radical political figure in civil rights. Watkins will
be a major influence on Harper's political, religious,
and social views. Harper will attend the Academy for
Negro Youth and the rigorous education she will receive,
along with the political activism of her uncle, will
affect and influence her poetry. In 1850, she will
become the first female to teach at Union Seminary in
Wilberforce, Ohio. After new laws pass in 1854, state
that African Americans entering through Maryland's
northern border could be sold into slavery, Harper will
become an active abolitionist and writer. She will be
known for her writings, "Forest Leaves," "Poems on
Miscellaneous Subjects," "Moses: A Story of the Nile,"
"Achan's Sin," "Sketches of Southern Life," "Light
Beyond the Darkness," "Iola Leroy: Or Shadows Uplifted,"
"The Martyr of Alabama and Other Poems," "Atlanta
Offering Poems," and "Idylls of the Bible." She will join
the ancestors on February 22, 1911.
1883 - The National Black convention meets in Louisville,
Kentucky.
1894 - E.(Edward) Franklin Frazier is born in Baltimore, Maryland.
He will become a sociologist and professor at Morehouse
College, Fisk University, and Howard University. He will
organize the Atlanta University School of Social Work (for
African Americans), later becoming its director. He will
write the controversial publication (1927) "The Pathology
of Race Prejudice" in Forum Magazine. His writings will
include "The Negro Family in the United States" (1939),
among the first sociological works on African Americans
researched and written by an African American. He will
also write "Negro Youth at the Crossways" (1940) and
"Race and Culture Contacts in the Modern World" (1957),
which deals with African studies. He will have a
distinguished career at Howard University as chairman of
its sociology department as well as serving as the first
African American president of the American Sociological
Society. He will join the ancestors on May 17, 1962.
1918 - George Spencer "Spanky" Roberts is born in London, Kanawha County,
West Virginia. He will be the first African American military
pilot from West Virginia and a member of the famous Tuskegee
Airmen during World War II. He will graduate from Fairmont's
Dunbar High School in 1934 and from West Virginia State College
(now University) in 1938, with a bachelor's degree in mechanical
arts. After receiving his pilot's license in the Civilian Pilot
Training Program, he will enter aviation cadet training with the
first class of Tuskegee Airmen, who train at the Tuskegee Institute
in Alabama. He will complete his training on March 7, 1942, and will
be commissioned a 2nd lieutenant. He will enter combat in North
Africa in May, 1943, eventually flying more than 100 missions against
the enemy in Africa, Europe, and the Middle East. Following the war,
he will become the senior Air Corps ROTC instructor at Tuskegee
Institute. He will also serve in Korea and Okinawa. In 1963, he will
be assigned to Griffiss Air Force Base where he will be responsible
for all ground radar in the Air Force. During the Vietnam War he will
serve as deputy for logistics for fighters in Vietnam. He will retire
with the rank of colonel at McClellan Air Force Base in 1968. His
decorations include the Air Force Commendation Medal with four oak
clusters and two presidential citations. He will join the ancestors on
March 8, 1984 in Sacramento, California.
1931 - Cardiss Robertson (later Collins) is born in St. Louis,
Missouri. Elected to the House of Representatives in 1973
after the death of her husband, George, she will serve in
a leadership capacity often in her Congressional career.
Throughout her political career, she will be a champion
for women's health and welfare issues. In 1975, she will be
instrumental in prompting the Social Security Administration
to revise Medicare regulations to cover the cost of post-
mastectomy breast prosthesis, which before then had been
considered cosmetic. In 1979, she will be elected as
president of the Congressional Black Caucus, a position she
will use to become an occasional critic of President Jimmy
Carter. She will later become the caucus vice chairman. In
the 1980s, she will ward off two primary challenges from
Alderman Danny K. Davis, who will finally be elected to
replace her in 1996. In 1990, she, along with 15 other
African American women and men, will form the African
American Women for Reproductive Freedom. In 1991, she will
be named chair of the Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on
Commerce, Consumer Protection, and Competitiveness. Her
legislative interests will be focused on establishing
universal health insurance, providing for gender equity in
college sports, and reforming federal child care facilities.
Cshe will gain a brief national prominence in 1993 as the
chairwoman of a congressional committee investigating college
sports and as a critic of the NCAA. During her last term
(1995-1997), she will serve as ranking member of the
Government Reform and Oversight Committee. She will join the
ancestors on February 3, 2013.
1935 - World Heavyweight Champion, Joe Louis, becomes the first
African American boxer to draw a million dollar gate.
1941 - John Mackey is born in New York City. He will become a
football player in the National Football League in 1963
and will play all but one of his pro years with the
Baltimore Colts. His career record will include 331 catches,
5,236 yards, and 38 touchdowns. He will be enshrined in the
Football Hall of Fame in 1992 (the second tight end to be so
honored).
1946 - Charles Edward "Mean Joe" Greene is born in Temple, Texas.
He will become a star football player for North Texas
State and will be a number one draft pick in the National
Football League in 1969 and will play his entire career
(1969-1981) with the Pittsburgh Steelers. He will become
the "cornerstone of franchise" that dominated the NFL in
the 1970s. He will be an exceptional team leader,
possessing size, speed, quickness, strength, and
determination. He will be NFL Defensive Player of The
Year twice (1972 and 1974). He will be All-Pro or All-
AFC nine years and will play in four Super Bowls (won
all four), six AFC title games, and 10 Pro Bowls. He
will be enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame in
1987. He will become a defensive line coach with
Pittsburgh after his retirement as an active player.
1953 - "Take a Giant Step", a drama by playwright Louis Peterson,
opens on Broadway.
1954 - Patrick Kelly is born in Vicksburg, Mississippi. A fashion
design student, Kelly will move to Paris, where his
innovative and outrageous women's fashion designs,
featuring multiple buttons, bows and African American
baby dolls, will win him wide acclaim and make him the
first and only American designer admitted to an exclusive
organization of French fashion designers. He will achieve
his greatest commercial success in the late 1980s and in
1988, he will become both the first American and the first
person of color to be admitted as a member of the Chambre
syndicale du pret-a-porter des couturiers et des createurs
de mode. He will join the ancestors on January 1, 1990.
1957 - President Eisenhower makes an address on nationwide TV and
radio to explain why troops are being sent to Little Rock,
Arkansas. President Dwight D. Eisenhower, earlier in the
day sends 1,000 U.S. government paratroopers to Little
Rock to aid in the desegregation of the public schools.
The troops will escort nine school children to Central
High School in the first federally supported effort to
integrate the nation's public schools. The nine Black
students who had entered Little Rock Central High School
in Arkansas were forced to withdraw because of a white
mob outside.
1962 - United States Circuit Court of Appeals orders the
Mississippi Board of Higher Education to admit James
Meredith to the University of Mississippi or be held in
contempt of court.
1973 - Leaders of the African Party for the Independence of Guinea
and Cape Verde (PAIGC) declare the independence of
Guinea-Bissau from Portugal. Portugal will recognize this
independence the following year. The PAIGC was formed by
Amilcar Cabral and Raphael Barbosa in 1956. Luis Cabral,
Amilcar's brother, will become Guinea-Bissau's first
president.
1977 - Rev. John T. Walker is installed as the sixth -- and first
African American bishop of the Episcopal Church when he
is installed in the diocese of Washington, DC.
1988 - Jackie Joyner-Kersee of the United States sets the
heptathlon woman's record (7,291).
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