* Today in Black History - April 25 *
1905 - Doxey Alphonso Wilkerson is born in Excelsior Springs,
Missouri. He will become an educator at Howard University
in Washington, DC and Yeshiva University in New York City.
In 1944, he will publish an essay in the anthology, "What
The Negro Wants," which will illustrate comparisons between
the Allied struggle in Europe during World War II and the
civil rights struggle of African Americans in the United
States. As a member of the American Communist Party, he
will work as a civil rights activist. This affiliation will
cause him to be repeatedly investigated by the U.S. House
Committee on Un-American Activities. After resigning from
the Communist Party in 1957, he will continue to be active
in civil right activities and educational pursuits until
his retirement in 1984. He will join the ancestors on June
17, 1993 in Norwalk, Connecticut.
1916 - Madeline M. Turner receives a patent for the fruit press.
1918 - Ella Fitzgerald is born in Newport News, Virginia.
Discovered at an amateur contest at the Apollo Theatre in
1934, she will be a leading jazz vocalist of the swing era.
Known for her renditions of such songs as "A Tisket, A
Tasket" (her first million-seller), her unique scat styling
and series of recordings of great American songwriters will
make her an enduring favorite of jazz lovers. She will join
the ancestors on June 15, 1996 in Beverly Hills, California.
1942 - Ruby Doris Smith Robinson is born in Atlanta, Georgia. She
will become a civil rights activist and a founding member
of The Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC).
She will be one of the original "Freedom Riders," and will
assist in creating the policy of "jail, no bail," employed
by activists to fill southern jails and bring national
attention to the civil rights struggle. After becoming
SNCC's first and only female executive secretary, she will
become ill with leukemia and joins the ancestors on October
7, 1967 in Atlanta, Georgia.
1944 - The United Negro College Fund (UNCF) is founded by Dr.
Frederick Douglass Patterson, then president of Tuskegee
Institute, with 27 charter colleges and universities and a
combined enrollment of 14,000 students.
1944 - George Herriman joins the ancestors in Los Angeles,
California at the age of 63. He had been a successful
cartoonist who was the author of the comic strip "Krazy
Kat." The comic strip ran successfully from 1913 until
Herriman's death.
1945 - The United Nations is founded at a San Francisco meeting
attended by African American consultants, most notably
W.E.B. Du Bois, Mary McLeod Bethune, Ralph J. Bunche and
Walter White.
1950 - At the NBA's annual players draft, the Boston Celtics select
Charles "Chuck" Cooper. He is the first African American
ever drafted by an NBA team.
1960 - A consent judgment in a Memphis federal court ended
restrictions barring voters in Fayette County, Tennessee.
This was the first voting rights case under the Civil
Rights Act.
1972 - Major General Frederick E. Davidson becomes the first
African American to lead an Army division when he is
assigned command of the 8th Infantry Division in Europe.
1979 - Olodum, an internationally recognized Afro-Brazilian
Carnival association, is founded in Bahia, Brazil. The
music of this group celebrates Black history and protests
racial discrimination. The name Olodum is derived from the
name of the supreme Yoruba deity, Olodumare'.
1990 - Tenor saxophonist Dexter Gordon joins the ancestors in
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania at the age of 67. A leading
influence in the bop movement along with Billy Eckstine
and Dizzy Gillespie, Gordon played in London in the early
1960's and stayed until the mid-1970's. Elected to the
Jazz Hall of Fame in 1980, his role in the 1986 movie "
'Round Midnight" will revive interest in his music and earn
him an Academy Award nomination for best actor.
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