*                   Today in Black History - May 30                   *

1822 - Denmark Vesey's conspiracy to free the slaves of Charleston, South
        Carolina, and surrounding areas is thwarted when a house slave
        betrays the plot to whites.  Vesey's bold plan had attracted over
        9,000 slaves and freemen of the area including Peter Poyas, a
        ship's carpenter, Gullah Jack, Blind Phillip, Ned Bennett and Mingo
        Harth.  Later it will be considered one of the most complex and
        elaborate slave liberation plans ever undertaken.

1831 - James Walker Hood is born in Kennett Township, Chester County,
        Pennsylvania. He will become a minister in New York City in the
        A.M.E. Zion Church. He will become the first African American to
        publish a collection of sermons when he publishes "The Negro in the
        Christian Pulpit." His other works will include "One Hundred Years
        of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church," and "The Plan of
        The Apocalypse." He will join the ancestors on October 30, 1918.

1854 - The Kansas-Nebraska Act repeals the Missouri Compromise and opens
        the Northern territory to slavery.

1902 - Lincoln Theodore Monroe Andrew Perry is born in Key West, Florida.
        He will become the first real African American film star known as
        "Stepin Fetchit."  Many sources will cite 1892, 1896, or 1898 as
        his birth date, but he will maintain his birth date as 1902.  He
        will star in many films, among which are "Amazing Grace," "The Sun
        Shines Bright," "Miracle in Harlem," and "Judge Priest."  His
        humbling, ingratiating style of acting will appeal to the movie-
        going public of his day, but unfortunately becomes a stereotype for
        African American actors in the early years of cinema.

1903 - Countee Cullen is born in Louisville, Kentucky.  Many sources will
        state that his birthplace is New York City, but Cullen will be
        reared in New York City by his paternal grandmother until 1918, when
        he is adopted by the Reverend Frederick Asbury Cullen, minister of
        Salem M.E. Church, one of the largest congregations in Harlem.  This
        will be a turning point in his life, for he will be introduced into
        the very center of black activism and achievement.  He will win a
        citywide poetry contest as a schoolboy and see his winning stanzas
        widely reprinted.  He will attend New York University (B.A., 1925),
        win the Witter Bynner Poetry Prize, and be elected to Phi Beta Kappa.
        Major American literary magazines will accept his poems regularly,
        and his first collection of poems, "Color" (1925), will be published
        to critical acclaim before he finishes college.  His several volumes
        of poetry will include "Copper Sun" (1927); "The Black Christ" (1929);
        and "On These I Stand" (published posthumously, 1947), his selection
        of poems by which he wished to be remembered.  Cullen will also write
        a novel dealing with life in Harlem, "One Way to Heaven" (1931), and a
        children's book, "The Lost Zoo" (1940). He will join the ancestors on
        January 9, 1946.

1915 - Henry Aaron Hill is born in St. Joseph, North Carolina. He will become
        a trained chemist and will receive his Ph.D. in Chemistry from the
        Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1942. He will become founder
        and president of the Riverside Research Laboratory in 1961. In 1977,
        he will become the first African American president of the American
        Chemical Society. He will join the ancestors on March 17, 1979.

1943 - James Earl Chaney is born in Meridian, Mississippi. He will become a
        civil rights activist and joins the Congress For Racial Equality.
        During Freedom Summer (1964 - when civil rights organizations begin
        an extensive voter registration and desegregation campaign in
        Mississippi), he will join the ancestors after being killed by the
        Ku Klux Klan in Greenwood along with two white civil rights activists.

1943 - Gale Sayers is born in Wichita, Kansas.  He will become an outstanding
        running back and a first-round draft pick of the Chicago Bears in 1965.
        He will set the individual game record for touchdowns scored (six).
        He will be elected to the Football Hall of Fame in 1977, the youngest
        player ever to receive the honor.

1949 - Lydell Mitchell is born.  He will become a football player and All-
        American running back at Pennsylvania State University in 1971.  He
        will go on to play for the Baltimore Colts from 1972 to 1977.  While
        at Baltimore, he will set the Colts' record for rushing attempts
        (1391) and rushing yards (5487).

1953 - Eric Arthur "Dooley" Wilson joins the ancestors in Los Angeles,
        California at the age of 59. He was a popular jazz drummer in Europe
        and America. He also worked as an actor, his most notable part playing
        the pianist "Sam" in the movie "Casablanca." He also appeared in the
        movies "Stormy Monday" and "Night in New Orleans."

1956 - African Americans begin a bus boycott in Tallahassee, Florida with the
        goal of desegregating bus seating.

1965 - Vivian Malone becomes the first African American to graduate from the
        University of Alabama, a college that had been one of the last bastions
        of racial segregation in the South.

1967 - The state of Biafra secedes and declares its independence from Nigeria.
        Biafra is inhabited primarily by Igbos (also spelled Ibos) who live in
        southeastern Nigeria.  Two months after independence, Nigeria will
        attack Biafra and start a war that will last until 1970 with Biafra's
        surrender. Over a million people will die due to war and famine.

1971 - Willie Mays scores his 1,950th run.

1993 - Herman "Sonny" Blount joins the ancestors in Birmingham, Alabama at the
        age of 79. He had been a prominent jazz bandleader, arranger and
        pianist. He was better known as "Sun Ra," and was the founder of
        Saturn Records. Three documentaries produced about Sun Ra were "The
        Cry of Jazz" (1959), "Space is the Place" (1971) and "Sun Ra: A Joyful
        Noise" (1980).

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