*		    Today in Black History - July 9          *

1863 - Union troops enter Port Hudson, Louisiana.  With the fall of 
	Vicksburg (on July 4) and Port Hudson,  Union troops 
	control the Mississippi River and The Confederacy is 
	cut into two sections. Eight African American regiments
	play important roles in the siege of Port Hudson.

1868 - Francis L. Cardozo is installed as secretary of the 
	state of South Carolina and becomes the first African 
	American cabinet officer on the state level.

1893 - Dr. Daniel Hale Williams performs the world's first 
	open-heart surgery at Chicago's Provident Hospital 
	(which he founded in 1891) on James Cornish, who had 
	been stabbed in the chest and was dying from blood 
	accumulation around the heart.  Dr. Williams brought Mr.
	Cornish to surgery, where he proceeded to open his 
	chest, drain the blood and successfully sutured the 
	pericardium.

1901 - Jester Hairston is born in Belew's Creek, North Carolina, 
	and will move at a very early age to the Homestead 
	section of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where he will grow 
	up.  He will attend the Massachusetts Agriculture College
	(now University of Massachusetts), dropping out in the 
	1920s due to lack of money.  After impressing a 
	benefactor with his singing, he will be sponsored at 
	Tufts University, graduating in 1929. He will move to New
	York and will meet Hall Johnson, who will teach him to 
	respect Negro spirituals. He will begin his Hollywood 
	career in 1935 when Warner Brothers purchases the show, 
	"Green Pastures." His early acting roles, will include 
	long-running parts on the radio and television versions 
	of "Amos 'n' Andy" as well as bit parts in Tarzan films.
	Although many of his early acting jobs will portray less 
	than flattering images of Blacks, he will never apologize
	for playing racial stereotypes. "We had a hard time then 
	fighting for dignity," he will say years later. "We had 
	no power. We had to take it, and because we took it the 
	young people today have opportunities." In addition to 
	his roles in television's "Amos 'n' Andy" and "Amen," 
	Hairston will excel as a musician, first with the Eva 
	Jessye Choir and later as assistant conductor of the Hall
	Johnson Choir.  He will also arrange choral music for 
	more than 40 film soundtracks.  He will also become the 
	first African American to direct The Mormon Tabernacle 
	Choir. His film credits will include "The Alamo," "To 
	Kill a Mockingbird," "In the Heat of the Night," "Lady 
	Sings the Blues," "The Last Tycoon" and "Lilies of the 
	Field," for which he will compose the song "Amen." That 
	song, which he dubbed for Sidney Poitier in the movie, 
	will reflect Hairston's lifelong dedication to preserving
	old Negro spirituals. He will be a sought-after choral 
	director who will organize Hollywood's first integrated 
	choir and compose more than 300 spirituals. In his later 
	years, when working with students at college workshops, 
	Hairston will tell them, "You can't sing legato when the 
	master's beatin' you across your back."  He will join the
	ancestors in Los Angeles, California on January 18, 2000.

1927 - Attorney William T. Francis is named minister to Liberia.

1936 - June Millicent Jordan is born in the village of Harlem, New 
	York City. She will become a poet and author of books for 
	children and young adults and will be nominated for the 
	National Book Award in 1972 for "His Own Where." Her 
	teaching career will begin in 1967 at the City College of 
	New York. Between 1968 and 1978 she will teach at Yale 
	University, Sarah Lawrence College, and Connecticut College. 
	She then will become the director of The Poetry Center and 
	be an English professor at SUNY at Stony Brook from 1978 to 
	1989. From 1989 to 2002 she was a full professor in the 
	departments of English, Women Studies, and African American 
	Studies at the University of California Berkeley. At 
	Berkeley, she will found Poetry for the People in 1991. The 
	program inspires and empowers students to use poetry as a 
	means of artistic expression. Reflecting on how she began 
	with the concept of the program, she said: "I did not wake 
	up one morning ablaze with a coherent vision of Poetry for 
	the People! The natural intermingling of my ideas and my 
	observations as an educator, a poet, and the African 
	American daughter of poorly documented immigrants did not 
	lead me to any limiting ideological perspectives or resolve. 
	Poetry for the People is the arduous and happy outcome of 
	practical, day-by-day, classroom failure and success".
	She will compose three guideline points that embody the 
	program, which will be published with a set of her students'
	writings in 1995, entitled June Jordan's Poetry for the 
	People: A Revolutionary Blueprint. She will join the 
	ancestors on June 14, 2002 after succumbing to breast cancer.

1947 - O.J. (Orenthal James) Simpson is born in San Francisco, 
	California. He will become a professional football player
	after winning the Heisman Trophy - USC - in 1968.  He will
	be elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame after playing 
	for the Buffalo Bills and San Francisco 49ers. He will 
	then become an actor and be known for his roles in the 
	"Naked Gun" series, "The Towering Inferno," "Roots," and
	"Capricorn One."  He will be charged with, and acquitted 
	of the murder of ex-wife, Nicole and Ron Goldman in 1995.

1951 - Dave Parker is born in Cincinnati, Ohio. He will become a 
	professional baseball player and will replace Roberto 
	Clemente as the right fielder for the Pittsburgh Pirates 
	after Clemente's death. In 1978, he will become the first 
	Pirate to become Most Valuable Player since Clemente. He 
	will win three Gold Glove awards.  His career will diminish
	after he suffers from weight and knee problems, eventually
	leading to drug problems.  He will be traded to Cincinnati 
	and then to the Athletics, where he will contribute to their
	1988 and 1989 pennants as a Designated Hitter and team 
	leader. 

1955 - E. Frederick Morrow is appointed an administrative aide to
	President Dwight D. Eisenhower.  He is the first African 
	American to hold an executive position on a White House 
	staff.

1971 - Clergyman and activist Leon H. Sullivan is awarded the 
	NAACP's Spingarn Medal for his achievements in transmitting 
	"the social gospel into economic progress for his people."
 
1978 - Larry Holmes wins a decision over Ken Norton for the WBC 
	crown.
	
1979 - Dr. Walter Massey is named director of the Argonne National
	Laboratory.	

1987 - Percy E. Sutton, former New York State legislator, president
	of the Borough of Manhattan, founder of Inner City 
	Broadcasting and owner of the Apollo Theatre, receives the 
	NAACP's Spingarn Medal.

2006 - Milan B. Williams, one of the original members of the Rhythm &
	Blues group, The Commodores, joins the ancestors at the 
	University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, 
	Texas, after a long battle with cancer at the age of 58. 
	He was one of the founding members of the Commodores, which 
	formed in 1968 while all the members were in college at the
	Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. The group, whose best known 
	member was singer Lionel Richie, had a series of hits during 
	the 1970s and 1980s, including "Brick House," "Easy" and 
	"Three Times A Lady." He wrote the band's first hit, "Machine 
	Gun."

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