* Today in Black History - April 12 *
1787 - Richard Allen and Absalom Jones organize Philadelphia's Free
African Society which W.E.B. Du Bois refers to, over a century
later, "the first wavering step of a people toward a more
organized social life."
1825 - Richard Harvey Cain is born in Greenbrier, Virginia. He will
become an AME minister, an AME bishop, publisher, member of the
House of Representatives, and a founder of Paul Quinn College in
Waco, Texas.
1861 - The Civil War begins as Confederate troops attack Fort Sumter,
South Carolina.
1864 - Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest captures Fort Pillow,
Tennessee, and massacres the inhabitants, sparing, the official
report says, neither soldier nor civilian, African American nor
white, male or female. The fort is defended by a predominantly
African American force.
1869 - The North Carolina legislature passes anti-Klan legislation.
1898 - Sir Grantley H. Adams is born in Barbados. He will become a
political leader and will found the Barbados Progressive League.
The league will later become the Barbados Labour Party. The B.L.P.
will win the general election of 1947 and Adams will be elected
the first premier of Barbados.
1940 - Herbert Jeffrey "Herbie" Hancock is born in Chicago, Illinois.
After graduating from college at age 20, he will go to New York
with Donald Byrd, who had heard him perform in Chicago. While in
New York, Byrd will introduce Hancock to Blue Note Records
executives. This will lead to work with various established jazz
artists and later Hancock's first solo album, "Taking Off," which
includes appearances by Freddie Hubbard and Dexter Gordon.
Contained on this album is Hancock's first top 10 hit, "Watermelon
Man." It will not be long before Hancock gets the attention of the
legendary Miles Davis, who will extend an invitation to Hancock
to join his new group. After working with Davis for several
years Herbie will decide to form his own band, a sextet which
will include Julian Priester, Buster Williams, and Eddie
Henderson. He will become one of the most popular jazz artists,
known for his compositions "Watermelon Man" and "Chameleon," as
well as his musical score for the movie "'Round Midnight," for
which he will win an Oscar in 1986.
1960 - Martin Luther King, Jr. denounces the Vietnam War which he says
is "rapidly degenerating into a sordid military adventure."
1968 - African American students occupy the administration building at
Boston University and demand Afro-American history courses and
additional African American students.
1980 - Liberian President William R. Tolbert Jr. and twenty-seven others
join the ancestors after being killed in a coup d'etat by army
enlisted men led by Master Sergeant Samuel K. Doe.
1983 - The people of Chicago, Illinois elect Harold Washington as the
city's first African American mayor.
1989 - Former middleweight boxing champion Sugar Ray Robinson joins the
ancestors in Culver City, California, at age 67.
1990 - August Wilson's "The Piano Lesson" wins the Pulitzer Prize for
drama. It is the second Pulitzer Prize for Wilson, who also won
one for "Fences" in 1987 and was awarded the New York Drama
Critics' Award for "Fences," "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom," and
"Joe Turner's Come and Gone."
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