August 18 African American Historical Events

Today in Black History – August 18 *

1791 – Benjamin Banneker publishes his first Almanac.

1909 – Howard Swanson is born in Atlanta, Georgia. He will become
a classical composer who will study in the United States
and Paris, France, and will write music for orchestra,
solo voice, piano, and chamber ensembles. His initial
training will be at the Cleveland Institute of Music. After
studying with Nadia Boulanger in Paris, France (1938), He
will spend two intensive periods studying and traveling in
New York. He will finally settle in New York City in 1966.
Thanks to Marian Anderson’s 1949 performance of his song
“The Negro Speaks of Rivers,” his music will begin to gain
national attention. He will win several awards, including
the Guggenheim Fellowship and a National Academy of Arts
and Letters grant. His neo-classical compositional method
will be appealing to a wide range of listeners, with
graceful melodies and a touch of jazz and idioms of black
American folk music. He will join the ancestors on November
12, 1978.

1934 – Roberto Clemente is born in Carolina, Puerto Rico. He will
win the Gold Glove award TWELVE consecutive years and play
in twelve All-Star games. He will be the National League’s
Most Valuable Player (MVP) in 1966, the MVP in the 1971
World Series, win four separate National League batting
titles, post a .317 career batting average, and play
eighteen seasons, amassing 3,000 hits and hammering 240
home runs. He will join the ancestors at the age of 38, on
a mercy mission to deliver relief supplies to the victims
of a Nicaraguan earthquake. Tragically, his plane,
carrying food, clothing and medical supplies, will crash
moments after takeoff from San Juan, Puerto Rico on
December 31, 1972.

1935 – Rafer Lewis Johnson is born in Hillsboro, Texas. He will
become a decathlete, winning gold in the 1955 Pan-American
Games, a silver medal in the 1956 Olympics and a gold medal
in the in the 1960 Summer Games in Rome. He will light the
torch in the 1984 Games in Los Angeles.

1941 – Matt Snell is born in Garfield, Georgia. He will become a
professional football player (running back for the New York
Jets). He will be one of the key players in the Jets
victory in Super Bowl III over the Baltimore Colts.

1954 – James E. Wilkins becomes the first African American to
attend a U.S. presidential cabinet meeting. He is
Assistant Secretary of Labor and attends because the
Secretary and Under-Secretary are away.

1963 – James Meredith becomes the first African American to
graduate from the University of Mississippi.

1964 – South Africa is banned from the Olympic Games because of
its apartheid policies.

1970 – Malcolm-Jamal Warner is born in Jersey City, New Jersey.
He will become an child actor and will star on the “The
Cosby Show” as Theodore “Theo” Huxtable. He will also star
as “Here and Now’s” Alexander James and “Malcolm and
Eddie’s” Malcolm.

1976 – Vice Admiral Samuel L. Gravely Jr. assumes command of the
U.S. Third Fleet.

1977 – Stephen Biko, one of the most influential Black student
leaders in South Africa, is arrested in Port Elizabeth
on charges of fomenting unrest among blacks in the city
through his writings. Biko will join the ancestors in
police detention less than a month later, as a result of
a beating by the police.

1981 – Football running back, Herschel Walker, of the University
of Georgia, takes out an insurance policy with Lloyd’s of
London. The All-American is insured for one million
dollars.

1986 – Earl Campbell, the ‘Tyler Rose’, announces his retirement
from professional football. Campbell, the 1977 Heisman
Trophy winner, played eight seasons in the National
Football League — and was a star for the Houston Oilers.
He will be inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame on
July 27, 1991.

______________________________________________________________
Munirah Chronicle is edited by Rene’ A. Perry

August 12 African American Historical Events

Today in Black History – August 12 *

1890 – The Mississippi Constitutional Convention begins systematic
exclusion of African Americans from political life of the
South, August 12-November 1. The Mississippi Plan
(Literacy and “understanding tests”) is later adopted with
embellishments by other states: South Carolina (1895),
Louisiana (1898), North Carolina (1900), Alabama (1901),
Virginia (1901), Georgia (1908), Oklahoma (1910).
Southern states will later use “white primaries” and other
devices to exclude African American voters.

1891 – Annie Wilson Lillian Evans (later Tibbs) is born in Washington,
DC. As Damme Lillian Evanti (a contraction of her maiden name
and that of her husband, Roy W. Tibbs), she will become a
world-famous opera star who debuts in France with the Paris
Opera and performs in the United States and 11 countries on
three continents. She will also become one of the founders of
the National Negro Opera Company. She will join the ancestors
on December 6, 1967.

1922 – Frederick Douglass’ home in Washington, DC is dedicated as
a National Historic Site. The effort is led by Nannie
Burroughs, Hallie Q. Brown, and other members of the
National Association of Colored Women’s Clubs.

1923 – Emma Ophelia DeVore (later Mitchell) is born in Edgefield,
South Carolina. She will be a pioneering force in opening the
modeling field to African Americans through her founding
of the Grace Del Marco Model Agency and the Ophelia
DeVore School of Self-Development and Modeling. In 1989, she
will be featured in Brian Lanker’s “I Dream a World,” a
collection of portraits and biographies of black women who
helped change America. In 2004, she will be honored by the
Fashion Institute of Technology and the Fashion Arts Xchange,
Inc. for her contributions to fashion and entertainment. She
will also be the CEO and publisher of The Columbus Times
Newspaper in Columbus, Georgia.

1933 – Camille Billops is born in Los Angeles, California. She
will become a painter, archivist, sculptor, ceramist, and
filmmaker and have solo exhibitions in the United States,
Russia, Europe, Africa, and the Far East. Her primary medium
will be sculpture and later will turn her eye to filmmaking.
She will direct and produce “Suzanne, Suzanne, ” “Older
Women and Love,” “Finding Christa” and “The KKK Boutique
Ain’t Just Rednecks.” Her awards will include: a Fellowship
from The Huntington Hartford Foundation in 1963, a MacDowell
Colony Fellowship in 1975, The International Women’s Year
Award for 1975-6, and The James Van Der Zee Award,
Brandywine Graphic Workshop, in 1994. Her works will be in
the permanent collections of the Studio Museum of Harlem,
Photographers Gallery, London, and The Museum of Drawers,
Bern, Switzerland. She will exhibit in one-woman and group
exhibitions worldwide since 1965 including: Gallerie
Akhenaton, Cairo, Egypt, Hamburg, Germany; Kaohsiung, Taiwan;
Gimpel and Weitzenhoffer Gallery and The New Museum of
Contemporary Art, N.Y.; and El Museo de Arte Moderno La
Tertulia, Cali, Columbia. She and her husband James Hatch,
Professor of English at CCNY, will co-found the Hatch-Billops
Archives of Black American Cultural History. The archives,
housed in New York City, is a collection of visual materials,
oral histories, and thousands of books chronicling black
artists in the visual and performing arts.

1960 – Ralph Boston of the United States, sets the long jump
record at 26′ 11″.

1964 – A racially motivated disturbance occurs in Elizabeth, New
Jersey and lasts for two days.

1965 – A racially motivated disturbance occurs on the west side
of Chicago, Illinois and will last three days.

1965 – Jonathan M. Daniels, a white Episcopal seminary student
from Massachusetts, is killed and Richard F. Morrisroe, a
white Roman Catholic priest from Chicago, is seriously
wounded by shotgun blasts fired by white special deputy
sheriffs in Hayneville, Alabama. They were participating
in civil rights demonstrations in Lowndes County,
Alabama.

1977 – Stephen Biko, leader of the Black Consciousness Movement
in South Africa, is arrested. He will join the ancestors
after succumbing to injuries from beatings after his
arrest in police custody.

Information retrieved from the Munirah Chronicle and is edited by Rene’ A. Perry.

August 12 African American Historical Events

Today in Black History – August 12 *

1890 – The Mississippi Constitutional Convention begins systematic
exclusion of African Americans from political life of the
South, August 12-November 1. The Mississippi Plan
(Literacy and “understanding tests”) is later adopted with
embellishments by other states: South Carolina (1895),
Louisiana (1898), North Carolina (1900), Alabama (1901),
Virginia (1901), Georgia (1908), Oklahoma (1910).
Southern states will later use “white primaries” and other
devices to exclude African American voters.

1891 – Annie Wilson Lillian Evans (later Tibbs) is born in Washington,
DC. As Damme Lillian Evanti (a contraction of her maiden name
and that of her husband, Roy W. Tibbs), she will become a
world-famous opera star who debuts in France with the Paris
Opera and performs in the United States and 11 countries on
three continents. She will also become one of the founders of
the National Negro Opera Company. She will join the ancestors
on December 6, 1967.

1922 – Frederick Douglass’ home in Washington, DC is dedicated as
a National Historic Site. The effort is led by Nannie
Burroughs, Hallie Q. Brown, and other members of the
National Association of Colored Women’s Clubs.

1923 – Emma Ophelia DeVore (later Mitchell) is born in Edgefield,
South Carolina. She will be a pioneering force in opening the
modeling field to African Americans through her founding
of the Grace Del Marco Model Agency and the Ophelia
DeVore School of Self-Development and Modeling. In 1989, she
will be featured in Brian Lanker’s “I Dream a World,” a
collection of portraits and biographies of black women who
helped change America. In 2004, she will be honored by the
Fashion Institute of Technology and the Fashion Arts Xchange,
Inc. for her contributions to fashion and entertainment. She
will also be the CEO and publisher of The Columbus Times
Newspaper in Columbus, Georgia.

1933 – Camille Billops is born in Los Angeles, California. She
will become a painter, archivist, sculptor, ceramist, and
filmmaker and have solo exhibitions in the United States,
Russia, Europe, Africa, and the Far East. Her primary medium
will be sculpture and later will turn her eye to filmmaking.
She will direct and produce “Suzanne, Suzanne, ” “Older
Women and Love,” “Finding Christa” and “The KKK Boutique
Ain’t Just Rednecks.” Her awards will include: a Fellowship
from The Huntington Hartford Foundation in 1963, a MacDowell
Colony Fellowship in 1975, The International Women’s Year
Award for 1975-6, and The James Van Der Zee Award,
Brandywine Graphic Workshop, in 1994. Her works will be in
the permanent collections of the Studio Museum of Harlem,
Photographers Gallery, London, and The Museum of Drawers,
Bern, Switzerland. She will exhibit in one-woman and group
exhibitions worldwide since 1965 including: Gallerie
Akhenaton, Cairo, Egypt, Hamburg, Germany; Kaohsiung, Taiwan;
Gimpel and Weitzenhoffer Gallery and The New Museum of
Contemporary Art, N.Y.; and El Museo de Arte Moderno La
Tertulia, Cali, Columbia. She and her husband James Hatch,
Professor of English at CCNY, will co-found the Hatch-Billops
Archives of Black American Cultural History. The archives,
housed in New York City, is a collection of visual materials,
oral histories, and thousands of books chronicling black
artists in the visual and performing arts.
1960 – Ralph Boston of the United States, sets the long jump
record at 26′ 11″.

1964 – A racially motivated disturbance occurs in Elizabeth, New
Jersey and lasts for two days.

1965 – A racially motivated disturbance occurs on the west side
of Chicago, Illinois and will last three days.

1965 – Jonathan M. Daniels, a white Episcopal seminary student
from Massachusetts, is killed and Richard F. Morrisroe, a
white Roman Catholic priest from Chicago, is seriously
wounded by shotgun blasts fired by white special deputy
sheriffs in Hayneville, Alabama. They were participating
in civil rights demonstrations in Lowndes County,
Alabama.

1977 – Stephen Biko, leader of the Black Consciousness Movement
in South Africa, is arrested. He will join the ancestors
after succumbing to injuries from beatings after his
arrest in police custody.

Information retrieved from the Munirah Chronicle and is edited by Rene’ A. Perry.