*               Today in Black History - April 20               *

1853 - Harriet Tubman starts the Underground Railroad.

1871 - Third Enforcement Act defines Klan conspiracy as a rebellion
        against the United States and empowers the president to suspend
        the writ of habeas corpus and declare martial law in rebellious
        areas.

1877 - Federal troops are withdrawn from public buildings in New
        Orleans, Louisiana.  Democrats then take over the state
        government.

1908 - Lionel Hampton is born in Louisville, Kentucky.  He will become
        trained as a drummer and starts his musical career on this
        instrument.  In 1930, while in a recording session with Louis
        Armstrong, He will become fall in love with the sound of a
        vibraphone that was used only to play the famous NBC bing-bang-
        bong station identification.  This will lead to Armstrong asking
        Hampton to add the instrument to the score they were about to
        record.  "Memories of You", the song premiering Hampton on the
        vibraphone, will become a classic.  He will go on to become the
        best-known jazz master of the vibraphone.

1920 - Mary J. Reynolds invents the hoisting/loading mechanism.

1926 - Harriet Elizabeth Byrd is born in Cheyenne, Wyoming.  She will
        become a teacher and, in 1981, the first African American
        legislator in Wyoming's state history.

1951 - Luther Vandross is born in New York City.  An early backup singer
        and commercial jingle writer, his big break as a solo artist
        will come in 1981 when his album "Never Too Much" will reveal
        his talents to both R & B and pop audiences.  He will make a
        string of hit albums, earning seven consecutive platinum and
        double-platinum albums and achieve his greatest crossover
        success with the albums "The Best of Luther Vandross" and "Power
        of Love," which will earn him three Grammy awards.

1964 - Cleveland school officials report that 86 per cent of the African
        American students in the school system participated in one-day
        boycott.

1965 - President Lyndon Johnson awards the Medal of Freedom to Leontyne
        Price, for "Her singing has brought light to her land."

1969 - James Earl Jones wins a Tony for his portrayal of controversial
        heavyweight champion Jack Johnson in "The Great White Hope."

1971 - The U.S. Supreme Court rules unanimously that busing is a
        constitutionally acceptable method of integrating public
        schools.

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        The source for these facts are "Encyclopedia Britannica,
        "InfoBeat," "I, Too, Sing America - The African American
        Book of Days," and independent research by the
        Information Man.
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