*  Today in Black History - February 5  *

1866 - The distribution of public land and confiscated land to freedmen
        and loyal refugees in forty acre lots is offered in an amendment
        to the Freedmen's Bureau bill by Congressman Thaddeus Stevens.
        The measure is defeated in the House by a vote of 126 to 37.  An
        African American delegation, led by Frederick Douglass calls on
        President Johnson and urges ballots for former slaves. The meeting
        ends in disagreement and controversy after Johnson reiterates his
        opposition to African American suffrage.

1934 - Henry (Hank) Aaron is born in Mobile, Alabama.  After starting
        his major league baseball career with the Milwaukee Braves in
        1954, he will distinguish himself as a home-run specialist.
        Aaron will be considered by some, the best baseball player in
        history. Over his 23-year Major League Baseball career, he will
        compile more batting records than any other player in baseball
        history. He will hold the record for runs batted in with 2297,
        and will be a Gold Glove Winner in 1958, 1959, and 1960. His
        most famous accomplishment will come on April 8, 1974, when at
        the age of 40, he will hit a 385-foot home run against the Los
        Angeles Dodgers, surpassing Babe Ruth's record of 714 career
        home runs. He will end his career with 755 home runs. In 1982,
        he will be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. After his
        retirement, he will return to the Atlanta Braves as a vice-
        president for player development, and will be promoted to senior
        vice-president in 1989.

1941 - Barrett Strong is born.  He will become a singer best known for
        his recording of "Money (That's What I Want)."  He will also be
        a prolific songwriter, responsibile for hits such as "Just My
        Imagination," "Papa Was A Rolling Stone," and "Ball of
        Confusion."

1956 - L.R. Lautier becomes the first African American to be admitted
        to the National Press Club.

1958 - Clifton W. Wharton, Sr. becomes the first African American to
        head an American Embassy in Europe when he is confirmed as
        ambassador to Romania.

1962 - A suit seeking to bar Englewood, New Jersey, from maintaining
        "racial segregated" elementary schools, is filed in United
        States District Court.

1968 - Students in Orangeburg, South Carolina try to end the
        discriminatory practices of a local bowling alley.  Their
        confrontation with police and the National Guard, and the
        subsequent death of three students, creates widespread
        outrage among students on campuses across the South.

1969 - Cinque Gallery is incorporated by African American artists
        Romare Bearden, Ernest Crichlow, and Norman Lewis.  Located
        in the SoHo district of New York City, the nonprofit gallery's
        mission is to assist in the growth and development of minority
        artists and to end the cycle of exclusion of their work from
        the mainstream artistic community.

1972 - Robert Lewis Douglas, founder, owner and coach of the New York
        Renaissance is the first African American inducted into the
        Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Massachusetts.  The
        New York Renaissance was an African American team that won 88
        consecutive games in 1933.

1977 - Sugar Ray Leonard beats Luis Vega in 6 rounds in his first
        professional fight.

1989 - Kareem Abdul-Jabar becomes the first NBA player to score 38,000
        points.

1994 - Avowed White supremacist Byron de la Beckwith is convicted of
        Medger Evers' murder, more than thirty years after Evers was shot
        in the back from ambush. After deliberating for seven hours, a
        jury of eight African Americans and four whites convicted 73-year-
        old De La Beckwith of Medgar Evers's murder, sentencing him to
        life in prison.  He died there seven years later.  As a
        Mississippi State Supreme Court justice wrote about the retrial:
        "Miscreants brought before the bar of justice in this state must,
        sooner or later, face the cold realization that justice, slow
        and plodding though she may be, is certain in the state of
        Mississippi."

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