Monday, April 12, 2010

Today in Black History 04/10/2010

*               Today in Black History - April 10               *

1816 - Richard Allen is elected Bishop of the A.M.E. Church, one day
    after the church is organized at its first general convention.

1872 - The first National Black Convention meets in New Orleans,
    Louisiana.  Frederick Douglass will be elected president.

1877 - Federal troops withdraw from Columbia, South Carolina.  This
    action will allow the white South Carolina Democrats to take
    over the state government.

1926 - Johnnie Tillmon (later Blackston) is born in Scott, Arkansas. A
    welfare rights champion, Tillmon will become the founding
    chairperson and director of the National Welfare Rights
    Organization.

1932 - The James Weldon Johnson Literary Guild announces the winners of
    its first annual nationwide poetry contest for children. The
    judges - Jessie Fauset and Countee Cullen, among others - select
    in the teen category a 16-year-old Liberian youth and Margaret
    Walker of New Orleans, who receives an honorable mention for her
    poem "When Night Comes."

1938 - Nana Annor Adjaye, Pan-Africanist, joins the ancestors in West
    Nzima, Ghana.

1943 - Arthur Robert Ashe, Jr. is born in Richmond, Virginia.  He will
    become a professional tennis player and will be one of the first
    African American male tennis stars. He will be the first African
    American to win a spot on the American Davis Cup tennis team,
    the first to win the U.S. Open and the men's singles title at
    Wimbledon, in 1975.  Over his 11-year career he will play in 304
    tournaments, winning 51, including the 1970 Australian Open and
    Wimbledon in 1975. He will be the number one ranked player in the
    world in 1975.  A life-threatening heart condition will force him
    to retire in 1980 and he will continue to serve as the non-playing
    captain of that year's U.S. Davis Cup team. In 1985 he will become
    the second African American inducted into the International Tennis
    Hall of Fame. The first was Althea Gibson in 1971. After his career
    in tennis, he will become an eloquent spokesperson against racial
    intolerance and a critic of South Africa's racist system of
    apartheid.  In the United States, he will create tennis programs to
    benefit inner-city youth. He will write a three-volume history of
    the African American athlete entitled "A Hard Road To Glory" (1988).
    Suffering complications from AIDS, contracted from a blood
    transfusion during a heart bypass operation, he will join the
    ancestors in New York on February 6, 1993.

1958 - W.C. Handy, composer and musician, joins the ancestors at the
    age of 84 in New York City.

1959 - Kenneth Edmonds is born in Indianapolis, Indiana.  He will
    become a professional musician and will begin work in the business
    producing music, with his friend Antonio Reid, for Carrie Lucas,
    The Whispers, and Dynasty. Since then, they've produced hits for
    many others. During the 1990s, his dominance will extend beyond
    the production arena and into the performing circle. His hit
    "Tender Lover" crossed him over into pop territory and eventually
    sold more than two million copies. The singles "Whip Appeal" and
    "It's No Crime" were Top Ten R&B and pop hits. He will hit his
    peak in 1995, producing hits for artists like Boyz II Men, Madonna
    and Whitney Houston and coordinated the "Waiting to Exhale"
    soundtrack. In the fall of 1996, he will released "Day," his first
    solo album since 1993 to strong reviews. He will successfully
    produce the film "Soul Food" in 1997.

1968 - U.S. Congress passes a Civil Rights Bill banning racial
    discrimination in the sale or rental of approximately 80 per cent
    of the nation's housing.  The bill also made it a crime to
    interfere with civil rights workers and to cross state lines to
    incite a riot.

1975 - Lee Elder becomes the first African American to tee off as an
    entrant in the Masters' Tournament in Augusta, Georgia.

2003 - Eva "Little Eva" Boyd, singer, joins the ancestors at age 59
    after succumbing to cancer.  She recorded the 1960s pop hit "The
    Locomotion."

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