December 22

Then Came the Rain, illustration from Black Cowboy, Wild Horses, Jerry Pinkney, 1998.  Pinckney,  born December 22, 1935 is a five-time Caldecott medal winner  for his illustrations of children's  books

Chancellor Williams (December 22, 1898 - December 7, 1992) was a sociologist, historian and writer. He held a master's degree in history from Howard University (1935) and a doctorate in sociology from American University (1949), and taught in the Washington D.C. public schools and at Howard. His research focused on pre-colonial Africa and he is best known as the author of The Destruction of Black Civilization (1971). "I was very sensitive about the position of Black people in the town... I wanted to know how you explain this great difference. How is it that we were in such low circumstances as compared to the whites? And when they answered 'slavery' as the explanation, then I wanted to know where we came from."



Birthdays

Edward Hatch (December 22, 1832 – April 11, 1889) served as a general in the Union Army during the American Civil War. He served under General Ulysses S. Grant in the South. After commanding the entire cavalry division in the Army of the Tennessee, he was made brigadier general in early 1864. After the war, he transferred from the volunteer to the Regular Army as colonel of the 9th U.S. Cavalry Regiment (1866). He succeeded General Gordon Granger as commander of the Department of Arizona (which included New Mexico Territory) in 1876, negotiated a treaty with the Ute Indians in 1880, and became widely known as an Indian fighter.

Arthur Wergs Mitchell (December 22, 1883 – May 9, 1968) was a U.S. Representative from Illinois. In 1934 he was the first African American to be elected to the United States Congress as a Democrat. He introduced bills banning lynching and against discrimination. He filed a lawsuit against the Illinois Central and Rock Island Railroads after he was forced into a segregated train car just before it passed into Arkansas. Mitchell's suit was advanced to the U.S. Supreme Court as case Mitchell v. United States, which ruled that the railroad violated the Interstate Commerce Act.

Saint Elmo Brady (December 22, 1884 - December 25, 1966) was the first African American to obtain a Ph.D. degree in chemistry in the United States, which he earned in 1916 from the University of Illinois. He taught at Tuskegee Institute and  Howard University before joining the faculty of Fisk Univeristy where he chaired the school's chemistry department from 1927 until his retirement in 1952. After his retirement from Fisk, he taught at Tougaloo College in Jackson, Mississippi.

James Amos Porter (December 22, 1905 - February 28, 1970) was on the faculty of Howard University for over 40 years and was a pioneer in establishing the field of African-American art history. Modern Negro Art, published in 1943, was the first comprehensive study in the United States of African-American art. It was an extension of his thesis for his M.A. in Art History from New York University in 1937. While doing research at the Harlem branch of the New York Public Library he met and married Dorothy Burnett, who worked with him throughout his career as well as serving as director of the Moorland Foundation, later known as the Moorland-Spingarn Research Center at Howard.

James Amos Porter - Fish Vendors at Bar Beach, Lagos

Lil Green (December 22, 1919 – April 14, 1954) was an American blues singer and songwriter. She was among the leading female rhythm and blues singers of the 1940s, possessed with an ability to bring power to ordinary material and compose superior songs of her own.  Her two biggest hits were her own composition, "Romance in the Dark", which was later covered by many artists, such as Dinah Washington and Nina Simone and her 1941 version of Kansas Joe McCoy's minor key blues and jazz influenced song, "Why Don't You Do Right?", which was covered by Peggy Lee in 1942.

Jerry Pinkney (born December 22, 1939) is an illustrator of children’s books. He has won the Caldecott Medal five times, most recently in 2010 for The Lion & the Mouse, a wordless version of Aesop's fable. For his contribution as a children's illustrator, Pinkney was U.S. nominee in 1998 for the biennial, international Hans Christian Andersen Award, the highest international recognition for creators of children's books.

Jean-Michel Basquiat (December 22, 1960 - August 12, 1988) first attracted attention for his graffiti in in the late 1970s, under the name "SAMO", and sold sweatshirts and postcards featuring his artwork on the streets of his native New York. He is credited with bringing the African American and Latino experience to the elite art world. Born in Brooklyn to a Haitian-American father and a Puerto Rican mother, he drew much of his inspiration from his diverse heritage. He collaborated with famed pop artist Andy Warhol, which resulted in a show of their work that featured a series of corporate logos and cartoon characters. Basquiat died of a drug overdose at the age of 27.

Self-Portrait 1982, Jean-Michel Basquiat

Events

On December 22, 1870, Jefferson Franklin Long became Georgia's first African American congressman. He is the first African American to speak on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives. Prior to beginning his political career, he was an entrepreneur and activist. Long also urged former slaves to register to vote and was active in the AME church.


Photo Gallery

Sasha Obama, daughter of US President Barack Obama, plays with the fsmily dog Bo prior to reading a book to children during a visit to the Children's National Medical Center in Washington, DC, on December 22, 2009. (SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images)

Publications

Jean Thompson is Crowned Queen of Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity Black and White Ball in Los Angeles, California - Jet Magazine, December 22, 1955

Gail Fisher (Later of the TV Show Mannix) Wins Press Photographer's Queen Contest - Jet Magazine, December 22, 1955

The Start of the Montgomery Bus Boycott - Jet Magazine, December 22, 1955

SOUL — America's Most Soulful Newspaper, December 22, 1975 — The O'Jays

This is a newspaper clipping from the New York Times announcing the death of Thelma 'Butterfly' McQueen on December 22, 1995.

Jet Magazine- December 22, 1997

Alpha Phi Alpha: A Legacy of Greatness, The Demands of Transcendence by Gregory S. S. Parks. $28.81. Author: Stefan M. Bradley. 416 pages. Publisher: The University Press of Kentucky (December 22, 2011)

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