*                     Today in Black History - July 11                    *

1836 - Antônio Carlos Gomes is born in Campinas, Brazil. He will become
        the most distinguished nineteenth-century Brazilian opera composer,
        who will also achieve considerable success in Europe. Gomes will be
        the second son of Fabiana Maria J. Cardoso and Manuel José Gomes, a
        composer and bandleader born to a black freedwoman and an unknown
        father. Manuel José also taught piano and violin in Campinas and
        will introduce his two young sons to the rudiments of music.
        Antônio Carlos will debut publicly at the age of 11, playing the
        triangle in his father's orchestra in a ceremony honoring Emperor
        Pedro II. He will study clarinet, violin, and piano, for which he
        will compose his first pieces. His brother José Pedro de Santana
        Gomes will study violin and viola and later became Brazil's most
        important late-nineteenth-century violinist. In 1859 Antônio Carlos
        Gomes will enroll in the Rio de Janeiro Conservatory of Music. He
        had already composed his first mass (1854) and will soon be
        commissioned to write a cantata by the conservatory's director,
        Francisco Manuel da Silva.The reigning master of Brazilian opera,
        Antônio Carlos Gomes will achieve world renown in 1870 when his
        opera Il Guarany premiers at La Scala in Milan, Italy. Although he
        will adhere to the conventions of mid-nineteenth-century Italian
        opera, he will look to Afro-Brazilian themes for some of his operas
        and instrumental works. Following the premiere of his cantata The
        Last Hour at Calvary (1859), Gomes will be appointed conductor at
        the Imperial Academy of Music and National Opera. Gomes will write
        two operas Il Guarany (1870) and Lo Schiavo (1889) which drew on
        Brazilian subjects. In 1893 Gomes will tour the United States,
        where he will conduct some of his works at Chicago's Columbia
        Universal Exhibition. Appointed to head the Conservatory of Music
        in Belém, he will return to Brazil in 1895, but will join the
        ancestors after succumbing to cancer three months after assuming
        the directorship on September 16, 1896 in Belém, Brazil.

1905 - Niagara Movement meetings begin in Buffalo, New York.  Started by
        29 intellectuals including W.E.B. Du Bois, the Niagara Movement will
        renounce Booker T. Washington's accommodation policies set forth in
        his famed "Atlanta Compromise" speech ten years earlier.  The
        Niagara Movement's manifesto is, in the words of Du Bois, "We want
        full manhood suffrage and we want it now....We are men!  We want to
        be treated as men. And we shall win."  The movement will be a
        forerunner of the NAACP.

1915 - Mifflin Wistar Gibbs, a multitalented lawyer, politician, and
        entrepreneur, joins the ancestors in Little Rock, Arkansas.  Active
        in the Underground Railroad, he worked with Frederick Douglass and
        after success as a clothing retailer, became the publisher and
        editor of "Mirror of the Times," the first African American
        newspaper in California.  The first African American elected a
        municipal judge, Gibbs was also active in Republican politics,
        serving as a delegate to national conventions and as U.S. consul to
        Madagascar.

1925 - Mattiwilda Dobbs is born in Atlanta, Georgia.  She will become a
        coloratura (a soprano specializing in florid ornamental trills &
        runs) in the 1950's, making her operatic debut at La Scala in Milan
        in 1953 and her U.S. debut with the San Francisco Opera in 1955.
        She will become the first African American to sing at La Scala and
        the second African American woman to sing at the Metropolitan Opera
        House in New York.

1931 - Thurston Theodore Harris is born in Indianapolis, Indiana.  He will
        become a rhythm and blues vocalist.  He will be best known for his
        recordings of "Little Bitty Pretty One," and "Over and Over." He
        will join the ancestors in Pomona, California after succumbing to a
        heart attack on April 14, 1990.

1948 - Ernie Holmes is born.  He will become a professional football player
        and will be a defensive tackle for the Pittsburgh Steelers. He was
        part of the "Steel Curtain" front four and helped Pittsburgh in
        winning Super Bowls IX and X.

1951 - Bonnie Pointer is born in Oakland, California.  She will become a
        singer and member of the vocal group, The Pointer Sisters.  The
        four sisters will begin their career singing gospel music and will
        eventually debut in 1973 as a secular group recording for ABC/Blue
        Thumb Records. In 1974, the Pointer Sisters will perform at the
        Grand Ole Opry, becoming the first African American female group to
        do so. They also will become the first African American female
        group to be number one on Billboard's country and western chart.
        They will change to a trio in 1977 when sister Bonnie signs as a
        solo act with Motown Records. The group will be best known for
        their hits "Slow Hand" (1981), "What a Surprise" (1981), "Excited"
        (1982), "I Need You" (1983), and the Grammy Award-winning "Jump"
        (1983) and "Automatic" (1984).

1953 - Leon Spinks is born in St. Louis, Missouri.  He will win the Olympic
        Light Heavyweight Gold Medal in 1976 and go on to become a
        professional boxer. He will win his first nine professional bouts,
        becoming the World Heavyweight Champion, defeating Muhammad Ali.
        After losing to Ali in rematch, his career will decline and he will
        not be able to duplicate his earlier successes.

1954 - The first White Citizens Council organizes in Indianola,
        Mississippi.  Reminiscent of the end of Reconstruction, the Klan,
        the White Citizens' Council, and other White supremacist groups
        will try to prevent any further progress in the civil rights
        movement.

1958 - Daisy Bates and the Little Rock Nine, African-American youths who
        desegregated Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, receive
        the Spingarn Medal for their "heroism and pioneering roles in
        upholding the basic ideals of American democracy in the face of
        continuing harassment and constant threats of bodily injury."

1960 - Ivory Coast, Dahomey, Upper Volta & Niger declare independence from
        their European colonial rulers.

1977 - The Medal of Freedom is awarded posthumously to Rev. Martin Luther
        King, Jr. in a White House ceremony.

1987 - Bo Jackson signs a $7.4 million contract to play football for the
        Los Angeles Raiders for five years.  Jackson becomes a two-sport
        player as he continues to play baseball with the Kansas City
        Royals.

1992 - Undeclared presidential hopeful Ross Perot, addressing the NAACP
        convention in Nashville, Tennessee, startled and offended his
        listeners by referring to the predominantly African American
        audience as "you people."

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