*                  Today in Black History - June 7        *

1863 - Three African American regiments and small detachment
	of white troops repulse a division of Texans in a 
	hand-to-hand battle at Milliken's Bend, Louisiana.

1917 - Gwendolyn Brooks is born in Topeka, Kansas.  She will
	become the first African American to win the Pulitzer 
	Prize (1950).  She will win this award for "Annie 
	Allen," which is about the coming of age of a young 
	African American and her feelings of loneliness, loss,
	death and poverty.  In 1963-1969 she will teach poetry 
	and fiction workshops and also freshman English and 
	20th century literature.  In 1967, she will organize a
	poetry writing workshop for a gang, and her home soon 
	became a meeting place for young people interested in 
	arts and politics.  In 1985, she will become the first
	African American woman to take the position of Poetry 
	Consultant to the Library of Congress.  Her job will 
	be to give a lecture in autumn and a poetry reading in
	the spring.  She will be the 29th and last Poetry 
	Consultant.  In 1988, she will become the second Poet 
	Laureate of Illinois.  She also will be inducted into 
	the National Women's Hall of Fame. 

1931 - David C. Driskell is born in Eatonton, Georgia.  An 
	artist and professor of art at several universities, 
	Driskell will be acclaimed as one of the foremost art 
	historians and curators of African American art 
	exhibits.

1943 - Yolande Cornelia Giovanni, Jr. is born in Knoxville, 
	Tennessee.  She will become a poet and author that will
	be known for her books "Black Feeling", "Black Talk", 
	and "Black Judgment," and the name "Nikki." In 1973, 
	she will establish NikTom, Ltd., a communications 
	company that will edit and publish "Night Comes Softly,"
	an anthology of poetry by black women, "Re: Creation," 
	"Poem of Angela Yvonne Davis," and her other prominent 
	works. In the mid 1980's, her opposition to the boycott 
	of South Africa will lead to her being blacklisted by 
	TransAfrica and subsequently to bomb and death threats.
	She will receive at least six honorary doctorate degrees
	and a myriad of literary awards.

1946 - U.S. Supreme Court bans discrimination in interstate 
	travel.

1950 - U.S. Supreme Court avoids a general ruling on "separate 
	but equal" doctrine.

1958 - Prince Rogers Nelson is born in Minneapolis, Minnesota.  
	He will become a singer and prolific songwriter and 
	producer known to the public as "Prince."  An incurable 
	movie fan, he will have a passion for drama (and comedy).
	His own films will include "Purple Rain," "Under the 
	Cherry Moon," and "Grafitti Bridge."  "Purple Rain" (
	1984) will be hailed by some critics as the best rock 
	movie ever made and earn Prince an Oscar for best 
	original song score and soundtrack album.  Because of his
	desire to have complete artistic control over his music, 
	he will endure several years of a contract dispute with 
	his label, Warner Brothers, which results in him appearing
	in public with the word SLAVE written on his face. In 1993,
	he will change his name to "The Artist Formerly Known As 
	Prince" (TAFKAP or The Artist).  He will come out of the 
	Warner Brothers conflict happily.  He will establish a new 
	relationship with EMI Records that will allow him to record 
	and produce whatever he wants to release.

1966 - The voter registration march from Memphis, Tennessee to 
	Jackson, Mississippi is continued by Martin Luther King, Jr. 
	and other civil rights groups and will register almost 4,000
	African Americans. The march had been interrupted the 
	previous day by the shooting of James Meredith, by a white 
	sniper.

1987 - Mae Jemison, becomes the first African American woman 
	astronaut. Jemison entered Stanford University as a 
	16-year-old National Achievement Scholarship student. She 
	majored in Chemical Engineering and Afro-American Studies, 
	graduating in 1977. She then went on to Cornell University 
	to get a M.D. in 1981. She worked as a medical intern in Los
	Angeles, California in 1981. Later, she served as a staff 
	doctor with Peace Corps in West Africa 1983-1985.  Then she 
	worked as a general practitioner for CIGNA Health Plans of 
	California in Los Angeles from 1985 to 1987.  After her 
	internship, she joined the Peace Corps for two years in West
	Africa giving medical attention to Peace Corps volunteers 
	and State Department employees in Sierra Leone and Liberia.
	Finally, she became an astronaut for the National 
	Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in Houston, 
	Texas in 1987.

1987 - Lloyd Richards wins a Tony as best director for the August
	Wilson play "Fences".  The play wins three other Tony awards,
	for best play, best performance by an actor (James Earl 
	Jones), and best performance by a featured actress (Mary 
	Alice).

1998 - In a crime that shocks the nation, James Byrd Jr., a 
	49-year-old African American man, joins the ancestors after 
	being chained to a pickup truck and dragged to his death in 
	Jasper, Texas.  Three men, white supremacists, are arrested 
	in the case. The atrocity will prompt President Clinton to 
	issue a press release condemning the act. Two of the 
	killers will be sentenced to death for the crime, a third 
	to life in prison.

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