*		  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. 
	He will join the ancestors on November 19, 1985.

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.

1910 - Ralph Harold Metcalfe is born in Atlanta, Georgia.  He will
	become a world record holder in the 100-yard and 200-yard 
	dashes and win a bronze medal in the 1932 Olympic Games 
	and gold and silver medals in the 1936 Games. He will also
	become a four-term congressman representing Illinois's 1st 
	District. He will join the ancestors on October 10, 1978.

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 on June 21, 1964, after being assassinated 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 in Salem, New Jersey.  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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