* Today in Black History - January 23 * 1837 - Amanda Berry Smith is born into slavery in Long Green, Maryland. She will be widowed twice, after which she will attempt to minister to her people. Unable to preach in the AME Church, which did not ordain women ministers, Smith will become an independent missionary and travel throughout the United States and three continents. She will publish her autobiography, "Amanda Smith's Story - The Story of the Lord's Dealings with Mrs. Amanda Smith, The Colored Evangelist," in 1893. 1891 - Provident Hospital in Chicago, Illinois, the first African American hospital, is founded by Dr. Daniel Hale Williams. He also establishes the Provident Hospital School of Nursing around the same time, because Emma Reynolds, an African American, had been denied admission to every school of nursing in the city of Chicago. 1941 - Richard Wright is awarded the NAACP's Spingarn Medal for his book, "Native Son." 1943 - Duke Ellington's band plays for a black-tie crowd at Carnegie Hall in New York City. It is the first of what will become an annual series of concerts for 'The Duke'. 1945 - The Army Nurse Corps discontinues its color barrier and starts admitting nurses without regard to race. This is due primarily to the pressure applied by the National Association of Colored Nursing Graduates (NACGN) and other groups. 1962 - Demonstrations against discrimination in off-campus housing are staged by students at University of Chicago for fourteen days. The Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) charges that the university operates segregated apartment houses. 1964 - The 24th amendment to the United States' Constitution, abolishing the poll tax in federal elections, is ratified. The poll tax had been used extensively in the South as a means of preventing African Americans from voting. 1976 - Paul Robeson joins the ancestors, as the result of a stroke, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He had been a world-renown actor and singer. He was perhaps the best known and most widely respected African American of the 1930s and 1940s. Robeson was also a staunch supporter of the Soviet Union, and a man, later in his life, widely vilified and censored for his frankness and unyielding views on issues to which public opinion ran contrary. As a young man, Robeson was virile, charismatic, eloquent, and powerful. He learned to speak more than 20 languages in order to break down the barriers of race and ignorance throughout the world, and yet, as Sterling Stuckey pointed out in the "New York Times Book Review," for the last 25 years of his life his was "a great whisper and a greater silence in black America." 1977 - The first episode of "Roots," adapted from the "New York Times" bestseller by Alex Haley, is aired on ABC. Over the next several nights, 130 million Americans will be transfixed before their televisions as the story of Kunta Kinte is told. 1985 - O.J. Simpson becomes the first Heisman Trophy winner to be inducted into pro football's Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio. Roger Staubach of the Dallas Cowboys, another Heisman winner, is also elected, but is after O.J. in the sequence of induction. 1986 - The first annual induction ceremony for the Rock 'N' Roll Hall of Fame is held in New York City. Among those inducted were Chuck Berry, James Brown, Ray Charles, and Fats Domino. 1989 - In "City of Richmond vs. J.A. Croson Co.," the United States Supreme Court invalidates the city's minority set-aside program, a major setback for the concept's proponents. ______________________________________________________________ Munirah Chronicle is edited by Brother Mosi Hoj "The TRUTH shall make you free" E-mail: <[log in to unmask]> Archives: <http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/Munirah.html> _____________________________________________________________ To SUBSCRIBE send E-mail to: <[log in to unmask]> In the E-mail body place: Subscribe Munirah Your FULL Name ______________________________________________________________ Munirah(TM) is a trademark of Information Man. Copyright 2003, All Rights Reserved by the Information Man in association with CODE One Communications.