* Today in Black History - March 25 *
1807 - The British Parliament abolishes the African slave trade.
Although slavery was abolished within England in 1772, it was
still allowed in the British colonies, as was the slave trade.
The continued slave trade was not only accepted, but
considered essential to the power and prosperity of the
British Empire. English slave-merchants made fortunes
carrying slaves from Africa to the British colonies in North
America and the Caribbean, and many of England's industries,
notably textiles and sugar refining, depended on raw materials
produced by slave labor on colonial plantations. Still, there
were opponents, and in 1787, they launched a nationwide
campaign to seek the abolition of the slave trade.
1843 - African American explorer Dodson sets out in search of the
Northwest Passage.
1910 - The Liberian Commission recommends financial aid to Liberia and
the establishment of a U.S. Navy coaling station in the
African country.
1931 - Ida B. Wells-Barnett, journalist, militant African American
rights and anti-lynching advocate, and a founder of the NAACP,
joins the ancestors in Chicago at the age of 78.
1931 - Nine African American youths are arrested in Scottsboro,
Alabama, for allegedly raping two white women. Although they
will be quickly convicted, in a trial that outraged African
Americans and much of the nation, the case will be appealed
and the "Scottsboro Boys" will be retried several times.
1939 - Toni Cade Bambara is born in New York City. She will become a
noted writer of such fiction as "Gorilla, My Love," and "The
Salt Eaters."
1942 - Aretha Louise Franklin is born in Memphis, Tennessee. She will
be abandoned by her mother when she was 6, and raised by her
father, the Reverend C. L. Franklin, who is one of the most
famous black ministers in the North, and her aunt, the
legendary gospel singer Clara Ward. She will grow up singing
in her father's New Bethel Baptist Church in Detroit, Michigan.
Family friends Mahalia Jackson and Sam Cooke will encourage her
recording career, and when Columbia Records producer John
Hammond first hears the 18-year-old, he calls her "an untutored
genius, the best natural singer since Billie Holiday." It will
not be until her move from Columbia's pop/jazz orchestrations
to Atlantic Records' soulful, Rhythm and Blues style, in 1966,
that her career skyrockets. Under the auspices of Jerry Wexler,
she will sing fierce, frantic hits like "I Never Loved a Man,"
"Respect," "Natural Woman," and "Chain of Fools." In 1968, she
will make the cover of Time magazine. From her first singing
experiences in her father's church through a singing career and
21 gold records, she will earn the title, "Queen of Soul." She
will be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1987.
1965 - The Selma-to-Montgomery march ended with rally of some fifty
thousand at Alabama capitol. One of the marchers, a white
civil rights worker named Viola Liuzzo, is shot to death on
U.S. Highway 80 after the rally by white terrorists. Three
Klansmen are convicted of violating her civil rights and
sentenced to ten years in prison.
1967 - Debi Thomas is born. After being raised in San Jose, California
by her mother(who shuttled her back and forth between home,
school and practice at the rate of 3,000 miles per month), she
will become the first African American to win the world figure
skating championship (1986). She will later become the first
African American to win a medal in the Winter Olympics (Bronze
Medal in Figure Skating - February 27, 1988).
1975 - Salem Poor, who fought alongside other colonists during the
Battle of Bunker Hill, is honored as one of four "Contributors
to the Cause," a commemorative issue of the U.S. Postal
Service.
1991 - Whoopi Goldberg wins the Academy Award for best actress in a
supporting role for "Ghost." Also winning an Oscar is Russell
Williams II, for best sound editing for the movie "Dances with
Wolves." It is Williams's second Oscar in a row (the first
was for "Glory"), a record for an African American.
1994 - American troops complete their withdrawal from Somalia.
2000 - Character actress Helen Martin, who played the little old lady
next door in the mid-1980s television series "227" and Halle
Berry's matriarch in the political comedy "Bulworth," joins
the ancestors at the age of 90. An original member of
Harlem's American Negro Theater, Martin was one of the first
African American actresses to appear on Broadway when Orson
Welles cast her in his production of "Native Son." She worked
primarily as a stage actress early in her career, but was
perhaps best known for appearing as grandmotherly characters
in television series about African American families.
______________________________________________________________
Munirah Chronicle is edited by Brother Mosi Hoj
"The TRUTH shall make you free"
E-mail: <[log in to unmask]>
Archives: http://listserv.icors.org/archives/Munirah.html
http://blackagenda.com/cybercolonies/index.htm
_____________________________________________________________
To SUBSCRIBE send E-mail to: <[log in to unmask]>
In the E-mail body place: Subscribe Munirah Your FULL Name
______________________________________________________________
Munirah(TM) is a trademark of Information Man. Copyright 1998 - 2006,
All Rights Reserved by the Information Man in association with
The Black Agenda.
|