* Today in Black History - July 9 * 1863 - Union troops enter Port Hudson, Louisiana. With the fall of Vicksburg (on July 4) and Port Hudson, Union troops control the Mississippi River and The Confederacy is cut into two sections. Eight African American regiments play important roles in the siege of Port Hudson. 1868 - Francis L. Cardozo is installed as secretary of the state of South Carolina and becomes the first African American cabinet officer on the state level. 1893 - Dr. Daniel Hale Williams performs the world's first open-heart surgery at Chicago's Provident Hospital (which he founded in 1891) on James Cornish, who had been stabbed in the chest and was dying from blood accumulation around the heart. Dr. Williams brought Mr. Cornish to surgery, where he proceeded to open his chest, drain the blood and successfully sutured the pericardium. 1901 - Jester Hairston is born in Belew's Creek, North Carolina, and will move at a very early age to the Homestead section of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where he will grow up. He will attend the Massachusetts Agriculture College (now University of Massachusetts), dropping out in the 1920s due to lack of money. After impressing a benefactor with his singing, he will be sponsored at Tufts University, graduating in 1929. He will move to New York and will meet Hall Johnson, who will teach him to respect Negro spirituals. He will begin his Hollywood career in 1935 when Warner Brothers purchases the show, "Green Pastures." His early acting roles, will include long-running parts on the radio and television versions of "Amos 'n' Andy" as well as bit parts in Tarzan films. Although many of his early acting jobs will portray less than flattering images of Blacks, he will never apologize for playing racial stereotypes. "We had a hard time then fighting for dignity," he will say years later. "We had no power. We had to take it, and because we took it the young people today have opportunities." In addition to his roles in television's "Amos 'n' Andy" and "Amen," Hairston will excel as a musician, first with the Eva Jessye Choir and later as assistant conductor of the Hall Johnson Choir. He will also arrange choral music for more than 40 film soundtracks. He will also become the first African American to direct The Mormon Tabernacle Choir. His film credits will include "The Alamo," "To Kill a Mockingbird," "In the Heat of the Night," "Lady Sings the Blues," "The Last Tycoon" and "Lilies of the Field," for which he will compose the song "Amen." That song, which he dubbed for Sidney Poitier in the movie, will reflect Hairston's lifelong dedication to preserving old Negro spirituals. He will be a sought-after choral director who will organize Hollywood's first integrated choir and compose more than 300 spirituals. In his later years, when working with students at college workshops, Hairston will tell them, "You can't sing legato when the master's beatin' you across your back." He will join the ancestors in Los Angeles, California on January 18, 2000. 1927 - Attorney William T. Francis is named minister to Liberia. 1936 - June Millicent Jordan is born in the village of Harlem, New York City. She will become a poet and author of books for children and young adults and will be nominated for the National Book Award in 1972 for "His Own Where." Her teaching career will begin in 1967 at the City College of New York. Between 1968 and 1978 she will teach at Yale University, Sarah Lawrence College, and Connecticut College. She then will become the director of The Poetry Center and be an English professor at SUNY at Stony Brook from 1978 to 1989. From 1989 to 2002 she was a full professor in the departments of English, Women Studies, and African American Studies at the University of California Berkeley. At Berkeley, she will found Poetry for the People in 1991. The program inspires and empowers students to use poetry as a means of artistic expression. Reflecting on how she began with the concept of the program, she said: "I did not wake up one morning ablaze with a coherent vision of Poetry for the People! The natural intermingling of my ideas and my observations as an educator, a poet, and the African American daughter of poorly documented immigrants did not lead me to any limiting ideological perspectives or resolve. Poetry for the People is the arduous and happy outcome of practical, day-by-day, classroom failure and success". She will compose three guideline points that embody the program, which will be published with a set of her students' writings in 1995, entitled June Jordan's Poetry for the People: A Revolutionary Blueprint. She will join the ancestors on June 14, 2002 after succumbing to breast cancer. 1947 - O.J. (Orenthal James) Simpson is born in San Francisco, California. He will become a professional football player after winning the Heisman Trophy - USC - in 1968. He will be elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame after playing for the Buffalo Bills and San Francisco 49ers. He will then become an actor and be known for his roles in the "Naked Gun" series, "The Towering Inferno," "Roots," and "Capricorn One." He will be charged with, and acquitted of the murder of ex-wife, Nicole and Ron Goldman in 1995. 1951 - Dave Parker is born in Cincinnati, Ohio. He will become a professional baseball player and will replace Roberto Clemente as the right fielder for the Pittsburgh Pirates after Clemente's death. In 1978, he will become the first Pirate to become Most Valuable Player since Clemente. He will win three Gold Glove awards. His career will diminish after he suffers from weight and knee problems, eventually leading to drug problems. He will be traded to Cincinnati and then to the Athletics, where he will contribute to their 1988 and 1989 pennants as a Designated Hitter and team leader. 1955 - E. Frederick Morrow is appointed an administrative aide to President Dwight D. Eisenhower. He is the first African American to hold an executive position on a White House staff. 1971 - Clergyman and activist Leon H. Sullivan is awarded the NAACP's Spingarn Medal for his achievements in transmitting "the social gospel into economic progress for his people." 1978 - Larry Holmes wins a decision over Ken Norton for the WBC crown. 1979 - Dr. Walter Massey is named director of the Argonne National Laboratory. 1987 - Percy E. Sutton, former New York State legislator, president of the Borough of Manhattan, founder of Inner City Broadcasting and owner of the Apollo Theatre, receives the NAACP's Spingarn Medal. 2006 - Milan B. Williams, one of the original members of the Rhythm & Blues group, The Commodores, joins the ancestors at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas, after a long battle with cancer at the age of 58. He was one of the founding members of the Commodores, which formed in 1968 while all the members were in college at the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. The group, whose best known member was singer Lionel Richie, had a series of hits during the 1970s and 1980s, including "Brick House," "Easy" and "Three Times A Lady." He wrote the band's first hit, "Machine Gun." ______________________________________________________________ Munirah Chronicle is edited by Rene' A. Perry "The TRUTH shall make you free" E-mail: <[log in to unmask]> Archives: http://listserv.icors.org/archives/Munirah.html http://blackagenda.com/cybercolonies/index.htm _____________________________________________________________ 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 1997 - 2010, All Rights Reserved by the Information Man in association with The Black Agenda.