*               Today in Black History - January 20                 *

1788 - The First African Baptist Church is organized in Savannah, 
	Georgia, with Andrew Bryan ordained as its pastor.  It is 
	the first African American Baptist church in the United 
	States, as well as the first Baptist church, Black or white, 
	in Savannah. 

1847 - William Reuben (W.R.) Pettiford is born in Granville County,
	North Carolina.  He will become the pastor of the Sixteenth 
	Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama. As a leader 
	in the community, he will also become a businessman, 
	founding the Alabama Penny Savings Bank on October 15, 1890. 
	The Alabama Penny Savings Bank will be Alabama's first 
	African American-owned bank and the first of three banks in 
	the nation, owned and operated by African Americans in the 
	early 1900s. He will join the ancestors on September 21, 
	1914. (Note: The Sixteenth Street Baptist Church is also 
	known for the bombing during the Civil Rights movement, 
	on September 15, 1963, that killed four little girls.) 

1868 - The Florida constitutional convention with eighteen African
	Americans and twenty-seven whites meet in Tallahassee.

1870 - Hiram R. Revels is chosen by the Mississippi legislature to
	fill the vacant U.S. Senate seat of Confederate president 
	Jefferson Davis.  Although he will be challenged by the 
	Senate, Revels will take his seat one month later, becoming 
	the first African American U.S. Senator.

1895 - Eva Jessye is born in Coffeyville, Kansas.  She will become 
	an influential choral director, working in King Vidor's 
	"Hallelujah" and the original production of George 
	Gershwin's "Porgy and Bess." She will join the ancestors on
	February 21, 1992.
	
1954 - The National Negro Network is formed by W. Leonard Evans. 
	Some 40 radio stations are charter members of the network. 

1973 - Guinea-Bissau nationalist leader Amilcar Cabral joins the 
	ancestors after being assassinated in Conakry, Guinea, by
	Portuguese agents. He had founded the PAIGC (African Party 
	for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde), the 
	organization that fought Portuguese colonial rule and 
	eventually led to the independence of Guinea-Bissau and 
	Cape Verde. Cabral is considered one of Africa's most 
	important independentist leaders.

1977 - Clifford Alexander, Jr. is sworn in as the first African 
	American Secretary of the Army.

1986 - The inaugural issue of "American Visions" magazine hits the
	newsstands nationwide.  The magazine is dedicated to 
	exposing its readers to African American contributions to 
	history, literature, music, and the arts.

1986 - The United States observes the first federal holiday in 
	honor of slain civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King, 
	Jr.

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