*                  Today in Black History - May 1                     *

1863 - The Confederate congress passes a resolution which brands African
        American troops and their officers criminals. The resolution,
        in effect, dooms captured African American soldiers to death
        or slavery.

1866 - White Democrats and police attack freedmen and their white allies
        in Memphis, Tennessee.  Forty-six African Americans and two white
        liberals are killed.  More than seventy are wounded.  Ninety
        homes, twelve schools and four churches are burned.

1867 - Reconstruction of the South begins with the registering of African
        American and white voters in the South.  Gen. Philip H. Sheridan
        orders the registration to begin in Louisiana on May 1 and to
        continue until June 30.  Registration will begin in Arkansas in
        May.  Other states follow in June and July. By the end of October,
        1,363,000 citizens had registered in the South, including 700,000
        African Americans.  African American voters constitute a majority
        in five states: Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi and South
        Carolina.

1884 - Moses Fleetwood Walker becomes the first African American in the
        Major Leagues when he plays for the Toledo Blue Stockings in the
        American Association.  A catcher, he goes 0-for-3 in his debut,
        allowing 2 passed balls and committing 4 errors, as his team bows
        to Louisville 5-1. He will do better in 41 subsequent games before
        injuries force Toledo to release him in late September. In July he
        will be joined by his brother Welday, an outfielder. Racial
        bigotry will prevent his return to major league ball.  No other
        African American player will appear in a major league uniform
        until Jackie Robinson in 1947.

1901 - Sterling Allen Brown is born in Washington, DC.  He will become a
        poet, literary critic, editor of "The Negro in American Fiction"
        and "Negro Poetry and Drama," and the coeditor of the anthology,
        "The Negro Caravan."

1941 - A. Philip Randolph issues a call for 100,000 African Americans to
        march on Washington, DC, to protest armed forces and defense
        industry discrimination.  In response, President Franklin D.
        Roosevelt, who attempted to persuade Randolph and others to cancel
        the demonstration, will issue Executive Order 8802, to ban federal
        discrimination, before Randolph finally yields.

1946 - Mrs. Emma Clarissa Clement is named "American Mother of the Year"
        by the Golden Rule Foundation.

1948 - Glenn H. Taylor, U.S. Senator from Idaho and Vice-presidential
        candidate of the Progressive party, is arrested in Birmingham,
        Alabama, for trying to enter a meeting through a door marked "for
        Negroes."

1950 - Gwendolyn Brooks becomes the first African American to win a
        Pulitzer Prize for her book of poetry "Annie Allen."

1975 - A commemorative stamp of poet Paul Laurence Dunbar is issued by the
        U.S. Postal Service as part of its American Arts series.

1981 - Dr. Clarence A. Bacote, historian and political scientist, joins the
        ancestors in Atlanta, Georgia at the age of 75.

1990 - Robert Guillaume, former star of the Benson TV series, premieres in
        the title role in "Phantom of the Opera" at the Music Center in Los
        Angeles.  Guillaume continues the role that had been played to
        critical acclaim by the English star, Michael Crawford.

1991 - Rickey Henderson steals his 939th base in the Oakland A's game
        against the New York Yankees, breaking Lou Brock's major league
        record.

1995 - Charges that Qubilah Shabazz, the daughter of Malcolm X, had plotted
        to murder Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan are dropped as
        jury selection for her trial is about to begin in Minneapolis,
        Minnesota.

1998 - Eldridge Cleaver, the fiery Black Panther leader who later renounced
        his past and became a Republican, joins the ancestors in Pomona,
        California, at age 62.

1998 - Former Rwandan Prime Minister Jean Kambanda, pleads guilty to charges
        stemming from the 1994 genocide of more than 500,000 Tutsis.

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