*		   Today in Black History - May 11		*

1885 - Joseph Oliver is born in Donaldsville, Louisiana. He will 
	become a professional musician after learning his craft 
	playing with local street musicians in New Orleans. After 
	playing in the band of Edward "Kid" Ory, he will be dubbed 
	"King" Oliver. After being recruited to Chicago, Illinois 
	to play in the band of Bill Johnson, King Oliver will 
	assume leadership of the Creole Jazz Band. He will recruit 
	some of best available jazz talent of the time including
	Louis Armstrong. The Creole Jazz Band will disband after 
	the exit of Louis Armstrong. King Oliver will lead various
	other bands until 1937 when he retires from music. Due to 
	severe gum problems, he stopped playing the cornet in 1931.
	He will join the ancestors in 1938. King Oliver was one of 
	the pioneering musicians in New Orleans and Chicago style 
	jazz.

1895 - William Grant Still is born in Woodville, Mississippi. 
	Considered one of the nation's greatest composers, he will
	begin his career by writing arrangements for W.C. Handy and 
	as musical director for Harry Pace's Phonograph Corporation.
	One of his most famous compositions, Afro-American Symphony, 
	will be the first symphonic work by an African American to 
	be performed by a major symphony orchestra, the Rochester 
	Philharmonic Symphony, in 1931.  He will also be the first 
	African American to conduct a major U.S. symphony, the Los 
	Angeles Philharmonic, in 1936. He will create over 150 
	musical works including a series of five symphonies, four 
	ballets, and nine operas. Two of his best known compositions 
	will be "Afro-American Symphony" (1930) and "A Bayou Legend" 
	(1941). He will join the ancestors in 1978.

1899 - Clifton Reginald Wharton is born in Baltimore, Maryland. He 
	will receive his law degree in 1920 and his master's of laws
	degree both from the Boston University School of Law. He 
	will be the first African American to enter the Foreign 
	Service and the first African American to become the U.S. 
	ambassador to an European country. He will begin his career 
	in the Foreign Service in 1925.  He will become the first 
	African American to pass the foriegn service's written and
	oral examinations. He will serve in a variety of diplomatic 
	positions in Liberia, Spain, Madagascar, Portugal, and 
	France before becoming minister to Romania in 1958 and the 
	Ambassador to Norway in 1961. He will be the first African 
	American to attain the rank of minister and ambassador 
	before retiring from the State Department in 1964. He will 
	join the ancestors on April 23, 1990 after succumbing to a 
	heart attack.

1930 - Lawson Edward Brathwaite is born in Bridgetown, Barbados. He 
	will become a poet, critic, historian and editor better 
	known as Edward Kamau Brathwaite. He will be considered by 
	most literary critics in the English speaking Caribbean to 
	be the most important West Indian Poet.  He will be best 
	known for his works "Rights of Passage," "Masks," and 
	"Islands" which will later be combined in a trilogy "The
	Arrivants."  His other works will be "Other Exiles," 
	"Mother Poem, Sun Poem," "X/Self," "Middles Passages," and 
	"Roots."  He will be the recipient of a Guggenheim 
	Fellowship, a Fulbright Scholarship, the Casa de las 
	Americas prize, and the Neustadt International Prize for 
	Literature.  After teaching at the University of the West 
	Indies for twenty years, he will join the faculty of New 
	York University.

1933 - Louis Eugene Walcott is born in Roxbury, Massachusetts. In 
	1955 he will convert to Islam and join The Nation of Islam 
	after attending the Saviour's Day Convention in Chicago, 
	Illinois. He will be known as Louis X and will later adopt 
	the name Louis Farrakhan. Within three months of joining 
	the Nation, he will have to choose between his life in show 
	business or life in the Nation of Islam.  He chooses to 
	leave his life as an entertainer and dedicates his life to 
	the teachings of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad. After moving 
	to Boston at the request of Malcolm X, he will rise to the 
	rank of Minister and will head the Boston Temple from 1956 
	until 1965 when he was asked by	Elijah Muhammad to take over 
	Temple # 7 in New York City. After the death of Elijah 
	Muhammad and three years of subsequent changes in the Nation 
	from his teachings, Minister Farrakhan decided to return to
	the teachings of Elijah Muhammad and since then, has 
	continued programs to uplift and reform Blacks.  In 1995, he
	will exhibit his influence as a Black leader when he 
	successfully organizes and speaks at the Million Man March 
	in Washington, DC.

1963 - One day after Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth announces agreement 
	on a limited integration plan in Birmingham, Alabama, his 
	home is bombed and a civil disturbance ensues.

1965 - African Americans hold a mass meeting in Norfolk, Virginia 
	and demand equal rights and ballots. 

1968 - Nine Caravans of poor people arrive in Washington, DC for 
	first phase of Poor People's Campaign.  Caravans started 
	from different sections of the country on May 2 and picked 
	up demonstrators along the way.  In Washington, 
	demonstrators erect a camp called Resurrection City on a 
	sixteen-acre site near the Lincoln Monument.

1970 - Johnny Hodges joins the ancestors in New York City at the age 
	of 63. He had been a well known saxophone player and played 
	with the band of Duke Ellington for almost forty years. He 
	was Duke Ellington's favorite soloist. Over his career, he 
	will be chosen as the best reed player by DownBeat Magazine 
	ten times.

1972 - The San Francisco Giants announce that they are trading 
	Willie Mays to the New York Mets. 

1981 - Hoyt J. Fuller joins the ancestors in Atlanta at the age of 
	57. He was a literary critic and editor of "First World" 
	and "Black World" (formerly Negro Digest) magazines.

1981 - Robert Nesta 'Bob' Marley, Jamaican-born singer who 
	popularized reggae with his group The Wailers, joins the 
	ancestors after succumbing to cancer in a Miami hospital at 
	the age of 36. He will enshrined in the Rock and Roll Hall 
	of Fame in 1994.

1981 - Ken Norton, former heavyweight boxing champion, is left on 
	the ropes and unconscious after 54 seconds of the first 
	round at Madison Square Garden in New York City, by Gerry 
	Cooney. 

1986 - Frederick Douglass 'Fritz' Pollard joins the ancestors in 
	Silver Spring, Maryland at the age of 92. Pollard had been 
	the first African American to play in the Rose Bowl and the 
	second African American to be named All-American in college 
	football. After college he played professional football and 
	later became the coach of his team. When the league in 
	which he coached became the NFL in 1922, he became the 
	first African American coach in NFL history.  No other 
	African American will coach in the NFL until the 1990s.

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