*               Today in Black History - May 1          *

1863 - Confederate congress passes resolution which brands African
        American troops and their officers criminals. The Resolution,
        in effect, dooms captured African American soldiers to death
        or slavery.

1866 - White Democrats and police attack freedmen and their white
        allies in Memphis, Tennessee.  Forty-six African Americans
        and two white liberals are killed.  More than seventy are
        wounded.  Ninety homes, twelve schools and four churches are
        burned.

1867 - Reconstruction of the South begins with the registering of
        African American and white voters in the South.  Gen. Philip
        H. Sheridan orders the registration to begin in Louisiana on
        May 1 and to continue until June 30.  Registration will begin
        in Arkansas in May.  Other states follow in June and July.
        By the end of October, 1,363,000 citizens had registered in
        the South, including 700,000 Blacks.  African American voters
        constitute a majority in five states: Alabama, Florida,
        Louisiana, Mississippi and South Carolina.

1901 - Sterling Brown is born in Washington, DC.  He will become a
        poet, literary critic, editor of "The Negro in American
        Fiction" and "Negro Poetry and Drama," and the coeditor of
        the anthology, "The Negro Caravan."

1941 - A. Philip Randolph issues a call for 100,000 African Americans
        to march on Washington, DC., to protest armed forces and
        defense industry discrimination.  In response, President
        Franklin D. Roosevelt, who attempted to persuade Randolph
        and others to cancel the demonstration, will issue Executive
        Order 8802, to ban federal discrimination, before Randolph
        finally yields.

1946 - Mrs. Emma Clarissa Clement is named "American Mother of the
        Year" by the Golden Rule Foundation.

1948 - Glenn H. Taylor, U.S. Senator from Idaho and Vice-presidential
        candidate of the Progressive party, is arrested in Birmingham,
        for trying to enter a meeting through a door marked "for
        Negroes."

1950 - Gwendolyn Brooks becomes the first African American to win a
        Pulitzer Prize for her book of poetry "Annie Allen."

1975 - A commemorative stamp of poet Paul Laurence Dunbar is issued
        by the U.S. Postal Service as part of its American Arts
        series.

1981 - Dr. Clarence A. Bacote, historian and political scientist, dies
        in Atlanta, Georgia at the age of 75.

1990 - Robert Guillaume, former star of the Benson TV series,
        premieres in the title role in "Phantom of the Opera" at the
        Music Center in Los Angeles.  Guillaume continues the role
        that had been played to critical acclaim by the English star
        Michael Crawford.

1991 - Rickey Henderson steals his 939th base in the Oakland A's
        game against the New York Yankees, breaking Lou Brock's
        record.

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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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