* 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.
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