* Today in Black History - March 9 *
1841 - Sengbe Pieh, known as Joseph Cinque, and the surviving African
slaves who revolted on the ship Amistad are ordered freed by the
United States Supreme Court and return to Africa after successfully
appealing their mutiny conviction on grounds that they were
kidnapped by outlawed slave traders. Their defense attorney is
John Quincy Adams, former President of the United States and a
Massachusetts senator. Before reaching the Supreme Court, U.S.
President Martin Van Buren appeals twice the decision of lower
courts to free the slaves. View the original documents of the U.S.
Supreme Court at:
http://www.nara.gov/education/teaching/amistad/circuit.html
1871 - Oscar De Priest is born in Florence, Alabama. He will be the
first congressman elected from a northern state. He will
represent Illinois and be an active advocate for pensions for
African American ex-slaves, lynching prevention, and civil rights
improvements.
1891 - The North Carolina Agricultural & Technical State University is
founded in Greensboro.
1892 - Three friends of Ida B. Wells-Barnett, prominent African American
businessmen, are lynched in Memphis, Tennessee after an incident
that stemmed from their opening a grocery store across the street
from a white-owned grocery store.
1911 - White firemen of the Cincinnati, New Orleans and Texas Pacific
Railroad struck to protest the hiring of African American
firemen. (For those who don't remember steam engines, firemen
worked in the engine stoking the fire, which kept the steam
generator going)
1914 - The "New" Southern University campus opens in Scotlandville,
Louisiana near Baton Rouge with nine teachers and 47 students.
1930 - Ornette Coleman is born in Fort Worth, Texas. He will become a
self-taught musician, beginning on alto saxophone when he is
fourteen and moving on to the tenor saxophone when he is sixteen.
He will be influenced by Charlie Parker, Illinois Jacquet and Big
Jay McNeely. A born improvisionalist, he found it difficult to
fit into his school band as well as the mainstream groups that
he will later join. It wasn't until the late 1950's that he will
be recognized for his jazz innovations. He will name his musical
method "harmolodics." Many musicians and critics and jazz
listeners will reject his new jazz as formless and abstract.
However, critics of his method will recognize his importance as a
composer. Critics will praise his compositions, including "Peace,"
"Lonely Woman," and "Beauty Is a Rare Thing." In 1967 he will win
a Guggenheim fellowship, the first granted to a jazz musician. He
will compose and perform film scores, including "Chappaqua"
(1965), "Box Office" (1981), and "Naked Lunch" (1991). In 1997
the New York Philharmonic will perform his "Skies of America," a
large-scale work that was first recorded by the London Symphony
Orchestra in 1972.
1931 - Walter F. White is named NAACP executive secretary.
1933 - Lloyd Price is born. He will become a successful Rhythm & Blues
artist and will record "Lawdy Miss Clawdy" ('52 #1 R&B), "Oooh,
Oooh, Oooh" ('52 #4 R&B), "Ain't It A Shame" ('53 #4 R&B), "Just
Because" ('57 #3 R&B, #29 Pop), "Stagger Lee" ('58 #1 R&B, #1
Pop), "Where Were You (On Our Wedding Day)" ('59 #4 R&B, #23
Pop), Personality" ('59 #1 R&B, #2 Pop), and fifteen other hits.
1948 - Jeffrey Osborne is born. He will become an accomplished rhythm
and blues singer performing as lead singer for the group LTD.
He will later become a successful solo artist.
1964 - Miriam Zenzi Makeba speaks before the United Nations about the
apartheid system in South Africa.
1965 - Three white Unitarian ministers, including the Rev. James J. Reeb,
are attacked with clubs on the streets of Selma, Alabama, while
participating in a civil rights demonstration. Reeb will later
die in a Birmingham, Alabama hospital.
1966 - Andrew F. Brimmer becomes the first African American governor on
the Federal Reserve Board.
1971 - Emmanuel Lewis is born in Brooklyn, New York. He will become a
child actor and will be best known for his television role as
"Webster."
1997 - The popular "gangsta rapper" Notorious B.I.G., whose real name is
Christopher Wallace, joins the ancestors after being killed in a
drive-by shooting in Los Angeles, California at the age of 24.
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