*               Today in Black History - April 9                *

1816 - The African Methodist Episcopal Church is organized at a general
        convention in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

1865 - Nine African American regiments of Gen. John Hawkins's division
        help to smash the Confederate defenses at Fort Blakely, Alabama.
        Capture of the fort will lead to the fall of Mobile. The 68th
        U.S. Colored Troops will have the highest number of casualties
        in the engagement.

1866 - The Civil Rights Bill of 1866 is passed over the president's
        veto. The bill will confer citizenship on African Americans and
        give them "the same right, in every State and Territory... as is
        enjoyed by white citizens."

1870 - The American Anti-Slavery Society is dissolved.

1898 - Paul Bustill Robeson is born in Princeton, New Jersey. The son of
        an ex-slave turned Methodist minister, Robeson will attend
        Rutgers University on a full scholarship, where he will excel in
        four sports, be a member of the debate team, and earn a Phi Beta
        Kappa key.  An attorney, he will later become one of America's
        foremost actors and singers.  He will make 14 films including
        "The Emperor Jones," "King Solomon's Mines," and "Showboat."  An
        advocate of African American equality, his public support of
        Communism will cause the cancellation of concert dates and the
        revocation of his passport.

1929 - Paule Marshall is born in Brooklyn, New York.  She will be the
        author of the novels "Browngirl," "Brownstones," "Praisesong for
        the Widow, and Daughters."

1939 - When she is refused admission to the Daughters of the American
        Revolution's Constitution Hall to give a planned concert,
        Marian Anderson performs for 75,000 on the steps of the Lincoln
        Memorial. Two months later, she will be honored with the NAACP's
        Spingarn Medal for her talents as "one of the greatest singers
        of our time" and for "her magnificent dignity as a human being."

1950 - Juanita Hall becomes the first African American to win a Tony
        award for her role as Bloody Mary in the musical South Pacific.

1968 - Martin Luther King Jr. is buried, after funeral services at
        Ebenezer Baptist Church and memorial services at Morehouse
        College, in Atlanta, Georgia.  More than 300,000 persons march
        behind the coffin of the slain leader which is carried through
        the streets of Atlanta on a farm wagon pulled by two Georgia
        mules. Scores of national dignitaries, including Vice-President
        Hubert Humphrey, attend the funeral. CORE and the Fellowship of
        Reconciliation send twenty-three dignitaries.  Ralph David
        Abernathy is elected to succeed King as head of the Southern
        Christian Leadership Conference.

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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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