* Today in Black History - April 12 *
1787 - Richard Allen and Absalom Jones organize Philadelphia's Free
African Society which W.E.B. Du Bois refers to, over a century
later, "the first wavering step of a people toward a more
organized social life."
1825 - Richard Harvey Cain is born in Greenbrier, Virginia. He will
become an AME minister, an AME bishop, publisher, member of the
House of Representatives, and a founder of Paul Quinn College in
Waco, Texas.
1861 - The Civil War begins as Confederate troops attack Fort Sumter,
South Carolina.
1864 - Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest captures Fort Pillow,
Tennessee, and massacres the inhabitants, sparing, the official
report says, neither soldier nor civilian, African American nor
white, male or female. Fort is defended by a predominantly
African American force.
1869 - The North Carolina legislature passes anti-Klan legislation.
1898 - Sir Grantley H. Adams, political leader and former president of
Barbados, is born.
1940 - Herbie Hancock is born in Chicago, Illinois. After graduating
from college at age 20, he will go to New York with Donald Byrd,
who had heard him perform in Chicago. While in New York, Byrd
will introduce Hancock to Blue Note Records executives. This
will lead to work with various established jazz artists and
later Hancock's first solo album, "Taking Off," which includes
appearances by Freddie Hubbard and Dexter Gordan. Contained on
this album is Hancock's first top 10 hit, "Watermelon Man." It
will not be long before Hancock gets the attention of the
legendary Miles Davis, who will extend an invitation to Hancock
to join his new group. After working with Davis for several
years Herbie will decide to form his own band, a sextet which
will include Julian Priester, Buster Williams, and Eddie
Henderson. He will become one of the most popular jazz artists,
known for his compositions "Watermelon Man" and "Chameleon," as
well as his musical score for the movie "'Round Midnight," for
which he will win an Oscar in 1986.
1960 - Martin Luther King, Jr. denounces the Vietnam War which he says
is "rapidly degenerating into a sordid military adventure."
1968 - African American students occupy the administration building at
Boston University and demand Afro-American history courses and
additional African American students.
1980 - Liberian President William R. Tolbert Jr. and twenty-seven others
are killed in a coup d'etat by army enlisted men led by Master
Sergeant Samuel K. Doe.
1983 - The people of Chicago, Illinois elect Harold Washington as the
city's first African American mayor.
1990 - August Wilson's "The Piano Lesson" wins the Pulitzer Prize for
drama. It is the second Pulitzer Prize for Wilson, who also won
one for "Fences" in 1987 and was awarded the New York Drama
Critics' Award for "Fences," "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom," and
"Joe Turner's Come and Gone."
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The source for these facts are "Encyclopedia Britannica,
"InfoBeat," "I, Too, Sing America - The African American
Book of Days," and independent research by the
Information Man.
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