On This Day In Black History...

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  1898 ~ Hattie McDaniel, 1st Black person to win Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for her role in Gone With The Wind (1940) was born


• 1899 The Black Elks, the historic African-American fraternal organization, was formed


• 1794 ~ Richard Allen founded the AME Church in Philadelphia


• 1904 ~ Granville T. Woods received a patent for the automatic air brake


• 1910 ~ Howlin' Wolf (Chester Arthur Burnett), rhythm & blues singer, is born. Director Darnell Martin recently reminded us of his talent in his 2008 movie starring Beyonce, "Cadillac Records"


• 1940 ~ Marcus Garvey, Black Nationalist, Pan Africanist, and Founder of United Negro Improvement Association and the "Back To Africa" Movement, dies in London, England


• 1940 ~ The Cotton Club, famous night club in Harlem, NY that operated during prohibition and featured jazz music and many legendary Black entertainers (i.e. Duke Ellington, Nat King Cole, Dizzy Gillespie, Billie Holiday), officially closed its doors. Note that Jack Johnson (see below) was the original owner of the night club that would later become the Cotton Club. He sold it to Owney Madden who renamed the club.


• 1946 ~ Jack Johnson, 1st Black heavyweight champion, dies. Currently Senator John McCain and others are leading an effort to secure a Presidential pardon posthumously for Mr. Johnson. He was persecuted and sent to Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary for one year and one day because of his flagrant arrogance in and out of the ring (aka confidence, a very dangerous trait for a Black man in the early 1900s) and his very public flaunting of his affection for caucasian women, another dangerous stance during the 1920s. He married three. He was convicted for violating the Mann Act, which did not even exist at the time of his alleged crime. Some say he should be exonerated as he committed no crime for which to be pardoned. He died following a car crash in NC after angrily speeding off from a diner that refused to serve him. He was taken to the nearest hospital that would treat Blacks.


• 1964 ~ US Senate imposed cloture for the 1st time on a civil rights bill ending a southern filibuster by a vote of 71-29. On July 2 President Johnson signed the bill into law containing sections on public accommodation and fair employment


• 1997 ~ Geronimo Platt, former Black Panther and one of the MANY victims of the madness of j. edgar hoover and his COINTELPRO program, was released from prison when his murder conviction was overturned. Does anyone else resent that there is a federal building bearing the name of this horrible man? I sure do! Mr. Pratt, who lost 27 years of life for an unjust incarceration, died last Thursday, June 3, 2011, at the tender age of 63


• 2001 ~ Natasha "Sasha" Obama, the youngest of our beautiful First Daughters, was born