*                   Today in Black History - May 25                   *

1878 - Tapdancing legend Bill "Bojangles" (Luther) Robinson is born in
        Richmond, Virginia.  He will star in vaudeville and in many movies
        such as "The Littliest Rebel," "In Old Kentucky," "Rebecca of
        Sunnybrook Farm," and "The Little Colonel".

1905 - Dorothy Burnett (later Wesley) is born in Warrenton, Virginia.  She
        will become a member of Phi Beta Kappa, the first African American
        woman to receive a Masters of Library Science degree from Columbia
        University, and will author several African American historical
        works. She will be a long-time librarian at the Howard University
        Moorland-Spingarn Research Center and will be responsible for
        developing it into one of the world's largest collections of material
        authored by and about people of African descent.

1919 - Millionaire Madame C.J. Walker joins the ancestors at the age of 52 at
        Irvington-on-the-Hudson, New York.  She was the founder of the Madame
        C.J. Walker Manufacturing Company, the largest African American
        haircare company of its time.  After her death, a substantial portion
        of her business's proceeds will be donated to African American
        organizations and scholarships.

1932 - K.C. Jones is born in San Francisco, California. He will become a member
        of the Olympic basketball team and help win the 1956 Olympic Gold Medal.
        He will then become a professional basketball player with the Boston
        Celtics, where he will help win eight NBA titles.  He will then win two
        championships as the coach of the Celtics. He will also be the head
        coach of the Washington Bullets and the Seattle Supersonics. He will
        have 522 wins as a NBA coach and in 1997 will become the coach of
        American Basketball League women's team, the New England Blizzard.
        After the league disbands, he will join the coaching staff of the
        women's basketball team at the University of Rhode Island, at the age of
        67.

1935 - This is "the greatest day in the history of track," according to "The
        New York Times."  Jesse Owens of Ohio State University breaks two
        world sprint records, ties a third, and breaks a long jump world
        record in a meet at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, all in
        one hour.

1936 - David Levering Lewis is born in Little Rock, Arkansas.  He will become
        a historian and biographer. Professor Lewis will receive his Ph.D. in
        modern European history from the London School of Economics and
        Political Science in 1962.  His research and publications will focus
        on African American history, conceptions of race and racism, and the
        dynamics of European colonialism, especially in Africa. He will author
        a biography of Du Bois entitled "W.E.B. Du Bois: Biography of a Race,"
        which will win a Pulitzer prize in 1994. His other works include "King:
        A Biography" (1970), "Prisoners of Honor: The Dreyfus Affair" (1975),
        "When Harlem Was in Vogue" (1982), "The Race to Fashoda: European
        Colonialism and the African Resistance to the Scramble for Africa"
        (1987), and "W.E.B. Du Bois: A Reader" (1995).

1943 - Leslie Uggams is born in Washington Heights, New York.  She will make
        her acting debut on television's "Beulah" and be a regular on The
        Mitch Miller Show before achieving acclaim in Broadway's "Hallelujah
        Baby" and TV's "Roots."

1943 - A riot, started by white workers, occurs in a Mobile, Alabama shipyard
        over the job upgrading of twelve African American workers.

1959 - The U.S. Supreme Court declares a Louisiana law enforcing a ban on
        bouts between African American and white boxers to be unconstitutional.

1963 - The first observance of African Liberation Day occurs.  It begins at
        the founding conference of the Organization of African Unity in Addis
        Ababa, Ethiopia.

1964 - The closing of schools to avoid desegregation is ruled unconstitutional
        by the U.S. Supreme Court.  Prince Edward County, Virginia will have to
        reopen and desegregate its schools.

1965 - A very short heavyweight title fight occurs in Lewiston, Maine. Cassius
        Clay (later Muhammad Ali) knocks out challenger, Sonny Liston,  in one
        minute and 56 seconds of the first round.  Liston never sees the punch
        coming.  Neither did an unbelieving crowd at ringside, nor those in
        theatres all over the world watching the fight on closed-circuit TV.

1971 - A young African American woman, Jo Etha Collier, joins the ancestors
        after being killed in Drew, Mississippi by a bullet fired from a passing
        car. Three whites are arrested on May 26 and charged with the unprovoked
        attack.

1994 - The United Nations Security Council lifts a 10-year-old ban on weapons
        exports from South Africa, ending the last of its apartheid-era
        embargos.

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