* Today in Black History - March 25 *
1807 - The British Parliament abolishes the African slave trade.
Although slavery was abolished within England in 1772, it
was still allowed in the British colonies, as was the slave
trade. The continued slave trade was not only accepted, but
considered essential to the power and prosperity of the
British Empire. English slave-merchants made fortunes
carrying slaves from Africa to the British colonies in
North America and the Caribbean, and many of England's
industries, notably textiles and sugar refining, depended
on raw materials produced by slave labor on colonial
plantations. Still, there were opponents, and in 1787, they
launched a nationwide campaign to seek the abolition of the
slave trade.
1843 - African American explorer Dodson sets out in search of the
Northwest Passage.
1910 - The Liberian Commission recommends financial aid to Liberia
and the establishment of a U.S. Navy coaling station in the
African country.
1931 - Ida B. Wells-Barnett, journalist, militant African American
rights and anti-lynching advocate, and a founder of the
NAACP, joins the ancestors in Chicago at the age of 78.
1931 - Nine African American youths are arrested in Scottsboro,
Alabama, for allegedly raping two white women. Although
they will be quickly convicted, in a trial that outraged
African Americans and much of the nation, the case will be
appealed and the "Scottsboro Boys" will be retried several
times.
1939 - Toni Cade Bambara is born in New York City. She will become
a noted writer of such fiction as "Gorilla, My Love," and
"The Salt Eaters."
1942 - Aretha Louise Franklin is born in Memphis, Tennessee. She
will be abandoned by her mother when she was 6, and raised
by her father, the Reverend C. L. Franklin, who is one of
the most famous Black ministers in the North, and her aunt,
the legendary gospel singer Clara Ward. She will grow up
singing in her father's New Bethel Baptist Church in
Detroit, Michigan. Family friends Mahalia Jackson and Sam
Cooke will encourage her recording career, and when Columbia
Records producer John Hammond first hears the 18-year-old,
he calls her "an untutored genius, the best natural singer
since Billie Holiday." It will not be until her move from
Columbia's pop/jazz orchestrations to Atlantic Records'
soulful, Rhythm and Blues style, in 1966, that her career
skyrockets. Under the auspices of Jerry Wexler, she will
sing fierce, frantic hits like "I Never Loved a Man,"
"Respect," "Natural Woman," and "Chain of Fools." In 1968,
she will make the cover of Time magazine. From her first
singing experiences in her father's church through a singing
career and 21 gold records, she will earn the title, "Queen
of Soul." She will be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of
Fame in 1987.
1965 - The Selma-to-Montgomery march ended with rally of some fifty
thousand at Alabama capitol. One of the marchers, a white
civil rights worker named Viola Liuzzo, is shot to death on
U.S. Highway 80 after the rally by white terrorists. Three
Klansmen are convicted of violating her civil rights and
sentenced to ten years in prison.
1967 - Debi Thomas is born. After being raised in San Jose,
California by her mother(who shuttled her back and forth
between home, school and practice at the rate of 3,000 miles
per month), she will become the first African American to
win the world figure skating championship (1986). She will
later become the first African American to win a medal in
the Winter Olympics (Bronze Medal in Figure Skating -
February 27, 1988).
1975 - Salem Poor, who fought alongside other colonists during the
Battle of Bunker Hill, is honored as one of four
"Contributors to the Cause," a commemorative issue of the
U.S. Postal Service.
1991 - Whoopi Goldberg wins the Academy Award for best actress in a
supporting role for "Ghost." Also winning an Oscar is
Russell Williams II, for best sound editing for the movie
"Dances with Wolves." It is Williams's second Oscar in a
row (the first was for "Glory"), a record for an African
American.
1994 - American troops complete their withdrawal from Somalia.
2000 - Character actress Helen Martin, who played the little old
lady next door in the mid-1980s television series "227" and
Halle Berry's matriarch in the political comedy "Bulworth,"
joins the ancestors at the age of 90. An original member
of Harlem's American Negro Theater, Martin was one of the
first African American actresses to appear on Broadway when
Orson Welles cast her in his production of "Native Son."
She worked primarily as a stage actress early in her career,
but was perhaps best known for appearing as grandmotherly
characters in television series about African American
families.
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