*                Today in Black History - December 6                   *

1806 - The African Meeting House is established in Boston, Massachusetts
        and will become the oldest African American house of worship
        still standing in the United States.  This house of worship will
        be constructed almost entirely by African American laborers and
        craftsmen, but funds will be contributed by the white community.
        Because of the leadership role its congregation takes in the
        early struggle for civil rights, the African Meeting House will
        become known as the Abolition Church and Black Faneuil Hall.
        Frederick Douglass and William Lloyd Garrison will be speakers
        there.

1849 - Harriet Tubman escapes from slavery in Maryland.  She will return
        to the South nineteen times and bring out more than three hundred
        slaves.

1865 - Ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution,
        abolishing slavery is completed.  The proclamation of its acceptance
        will take place on December 18, 1865.

1869 - The National Black labor convention meets in Washington, DC.

1870 - Joseph H Rainey becomes the first African American in the House
        of Representatives, from the state of South Carolina.

1871 - P.B.S. Pinchback is elected president pro tem of the Louisiana
        Senate and acting lieutenant governor.  He is the first African
        American to serve in these positions in state government.

1875 - The Forty-Fourth Congress of 1875-1877 convenes with a high of
        eight African Americans taking office.  They are Senator Blanche
        K. Bruce of Mississippi and congressmen Jeremiah Haralson of
        Alabama, Josiah T. Walls of Florida, John Roy Lynch of
        Mississippi, John A. Hyman of North Carolina, Charles E. Nash
        of Louisiana,; and Joseph H. Rainey and Robert Smalls of South
        Carolina.

1892 - Theodore Lawless is born.  He will become a medical pioneer.

1932 - Don King is born.  He will become the most controversial and
        best known boxing promoter in the history of the sport.

1949 - Blues legend Huddie "Leadbelly" Ledbetter joins the ancestors in
        New York City.

1956 - Nelson Mandela and 156 others are jailed for political activities
        in South Africa.

1960 - 500 store owners sign pledges of nondiscrimination in Tucson,
        Arizona.

1961 - Dr. Frantz O. Fanon, noted author of "Black Skins, White Masks"
        and "Wretched of the Earth", joins the ancestors in Washington, DC.
        He succumbs to leukemia at the National Institutes of Health.

1977 - South Africa grants Bophuthatswana its independence.  The
        constitution in effect after South Africa's first all-race
        elections in April 1994 will abolish this black homeland, which
        will be reabsorbed into South Africa.

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