*               Today in Black History - April 10               *

1816 - Richard Allen is elected Bishop of the A.M.E. Church, one day
        after the church is organized at its first general convention.

1872 - The first National Black Convention meets in New Orleans,
        Louisiana.  Frederick Douglass will be elected president.

1877 - Federal troops withdraw from Columbia, South Carolina.  This
        action will allow the white South Carolina Democrats to take
        over the state government.

1926 - Johnnie Tillmon (later Blackston) is born in Scott, Arkansas. A
        welfare rights champion, Tillmon will become the founding
        chairperson and director of the National Welfare Rights
        Organization.

1932 - The James Weldon Johnson Literary Guild announces the winners of
        its first annual nationwide poetry contest for children. The
        judges - Jessie Fauset and Countee Cullen, among others - select
        in the teen category a 16-year-old Liberian youth and Margaret
        Walker of New Orleans, who receives an honorable mention for her
        poem "When Night Comes."

1938 - Nana Annor Adjaye, Pan-Africanist, joins the ancestors in W. Nzima,
        Ghana.

1943 - Arthur Robert Ashe, Jr. is born in Richmond, Virginia.  He will
        become a professional tennis player and will be one of the first
        African American male tennis stars. He will be the first African
        American to win a spot on the American Davis Cup tennis team,
        the first to win the U.S. Open and the men's singles title at
        Wimbledon, in 1975.  Over his 11-year career he will play in 304
        tournaments, winning 51, including the 1970 Australian Open and
        Wimbledon in 1975. He will be the number one ranked player in the
        world in 1975.  A life-threatening heart condition will force him
        to retire in 1980 and he will continue to serve as the non-playing
        captain of that year's U.S. Davis Cup team. In 1985 he will become
        the second African American inducted into the International Tennis
        Hall of Fame. The first was Althea Gibson in 1971. After his career
        in tennis, he will become an eloquent spokesperson against racial
        intolerance and a critic of South Africa's racist system of
        apartheid.  In the United States, he will create tennis programs to
        benefit inner-city youth. He will write a three-volume history of
        the African American athlete entitled "A Hard Road To Glory" (1988).
        Suffering complications from AIDS, contracted from a blood
        transfusion during a heart bypass operation, he will join the
        ancestors in New York on February 6, 1993.

1958 - W.C. Handy, composer and musician, joins the ancestors at the age of
        84 in New York City.

1959 - Kenneth Edmonds is born in Indianapolis, Indiana.  He will become a
        professional musician and will begin work in the business producing
        music, with his friend Antonio Reid, for Carrie Lucas, the Whispers,
        and Dynasty. Since then, they've produced hits for many others.
        During the 1990s, his dominance will extend beyond the production
        arena and into the performing circle. His hit "Tender Lover" crossed
        him over into pop territory and eventually sold more than two million
        copies. The singles "Whip Appeal" and "It's No Crime" were Top Ten
        R&B and pop hits. He will hit his peak in 1995, producing hits for
        artists like Boyz II Men, Madonna and Whitney Houston and coordinated
        the "Waiting to Exhale" soundtrack. In the fall of 1996, he will
        released "Day," his first solo album since 1993 to strong reviews.
        He will successfully produce the film "Soul Food" in 1997.

1968 - U.S. Congress passes a Civil Rights Bill banning racial
        discrimination in the sale or rental of approximately 80 per cent
        of the nation's housing.  The bill also made it a crime to
        interfere with civil rights workers and to cross state lines to
        incite a riot.

1975 - Lee Elder becomes the first African American to tee off as an entrant
        in the Masters' Tournament in Atlanta, Georgia.

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