* Today in Black History - January 20 *
1788 - The First African Baptist Church is organized in Savannah,
Georgia, with Andrew Bryan ordained as its pastor. It is
the first African American Baptist church in the United
States, as well as the first Baptist church, Black or white,
in Savannah.
1847 - William Reuben (W.R.) Pettiford is born. He will become the
pastor of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham,
Alabama. As a leader in the community, he will also become
a businessman, founding the Alabama Penny Savings Bank on
October 15, 1890. The Alabama Penny Savings Bank will be
Alabama's first African American-owned bank and the first
of three banks in the nation, owned and operated by African
Americans in the early 1900s. (Note: The Sixteenth Street
Baptist Church is also known for the bombing during the
Civil Rights movement, on September 15, 1963, that killed
four little girls.)
1868 - The Florida constitutional convention with eighteen African
Americans and twenty-seven whites meet in Tallahassee.
1870 - Hiram R. Revels is chosen by the Mississippi legislature to
fill the vacant U.S. Senate seat of Confederate president
Jefferson Davis. Although he will be challenged by the
Senate, Revels will take his seat one month later, becoming
the first African American U.S. Senator.
1895 - Eva Jessye is born in Coffeyville, Kansas. She will become
an influential choral director, working in King Vidor's
"Hallelujah" and the original production of George
Gershwin's "Porgy and Bess."
1954 - The National Negro Network is formed by W. Leonard Evans.
Some 40 radio stations are charter members of the network.
1973 - Guinea-Bissau nationalist leader Amilcar Cabral joins the
ancestors after being assassinated in Conakry, Guinea, by
Portuguese agents. He had founded the PAIGC (African Party
for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde), the
organization that fought Portuguese colonial rule and
eventually led to the independence of Guinea-Bissau and
Cape Verde. Cabral is considered one of Africa's most
important independentist leaders.
1977 - Clifford Alexander, Jr. is sworn in as the first African
American Secretary of the Army.
1986 - The inaugural issue of "American Visions" magazine hits the
newsstands nationwide. The magazine is dedicated to
exposing its readers to African American contributions to
history, literature, music, and the arts.
1986 - The United States observes the first federal holiday in
honor of slain civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King,
Jr.
2009 - Barack Hussein Obama II is inaugurated as the 44th (and first
African American) president of the United States of America.
His inauguration is the largest, most secure and most
expensive to date. In frigid temperatures, an exuberant crowd
of more than a million pack the National Mall and parade
route to celebrate his inauguration in a high-noon ceremony.
They will fill the National Mall, stretching from the
inaugural platform at the U.S. Capitol to the Lincoln Memorial
in the distance. He will tell the country that the nation must
choose "hope over fear, unity of purpose over conflict and
discord" to overcome the worst economic crisis since the Great
Depression.
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