January 24

January 24, 2012 "One of the most memorable moments of the year was when the President hugged Rep. Gabrielle Giffords as he walked onto the floor of the House Chamber at the U.S. Capitol to deliver his annual State of the Union address."

Arturo Schomburg (January 24, 1874 –June 8, 1938) was born in Puerto Rico to a black midwife from St. Croix and a white merchant from Germany. He came to the U.S. as a young man and taught Spanish in New York City while researching and writing about about Caribbean and African American history, becoming one of the intellectual leaders of what would become the Harlem Renaissance. In 1911 he co-founded with John Edward Bruce the Negro Society for Historical Research and later became president of the American Negro Academy. The New York Public Library purchased his extensive collection of literature, art and other materials in 1926 and he was appointed curator of the collection, which was housed at Harlem's 135th Street Branch of the library. It was later renamed the Arthur Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture and continues to be one of the nation's leading collections of African American history.

Birthdays

Jimmy Forrest (January 24, 1920 – August 26, 1980) was an African American jazz musician who played tenor saxophone throughout his career. He is best known for his first solo recording of "Night Train" which reached No. 1 on the Billboard R&B chart in March 1952, and stayed at the top for seven weeks. "Hey Mrs. Jones" (#3 R&B) and "Bolo Blues" were his other major hits. All were made for United Records, which recorded Forrest between 1951 and 1953

Aaron Neville (born January 24, 1941) is best known for his 1966 hit "Tell It Like It Is", which topped the soul charts for five weeks and sold over a million copies. His later releases led the Adult Contemporary charts, where "Don't Know Much," "All My Life," and "Everybody Plays the Fool" all reached number one. In 1989, he teamed up with Linda Ronstadt on the album Cry Like a Rainstorm, Howl Like the Wind. Among the duets recorded for the disc were the #1 Grammy-winning hits "Don't Know Much" and "All My Life". He has also recorded with his brothers Art, Charles and Cyril as The Neville Brothers and is the father of singer/keyboards player Ivan Neville.

Ayanna MacCalla Howard (born January 24, 1972) is an American roboticist and an Associate Professor at the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology.In 2003, she was named to the MIT Technology Review TR100 as one of the top 100 innovators in the world under the age of 35 She was featured in TIME magazine’s "Rise of the Machines" article in 2004. In 2008, Howard received worldwide attention for her SnoMote robots, designed to study the impact of global warming on the Antarctic ice shelfs.



Events

On January 24, 1938, Jack and Jill of America was founded by Marion Stubbs Thomas and a group of twenty-one mothers in Philadelphia with the idea of bringing together children in a social and cultural environment. Chapters formed in other cities in succeeding years, and in 1946 it became a national organization currently headquartered in Washington, D.C. As of 2015 there are more than 230 Jack and Jill chapters in 35 states across the U.S., with more than 40,000 parents and children.

On January 24, 1956, J.W. Milam and Roy Bryant's confession to the murder of Emmett Till was published by Look Magazine. Milam admitted to shooting Till and neither of them thought of themselves as guilty or that they had done anything wrong. Both men had been acquitted of murder in 1955.



Photo Gallery

On a tour of the State Floor of the White House, President Obama looks at a portrait of John F. Kennedy by Aaron Shikler, January 24, 2009 (photo by Pete Souza).

Earl Hood, who passed away on January 24, 2013 at the age of 90, was one of the first African American Marines. He, along with 20,000 others, were trained away from white Marines on Montford Point in North Carolina. Just over 400 of the "Montford Pointers" still survive. They were awarded the Congressional Gold Medal in June 2012. 

Publications

An optimistic printed cartoon by Thomas Nast from the January 24, 1863 issue of Harper's Weekly, on a centerfold sheet measuring 16 x 22". Published soon after Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation went into effect.

Jet Magazine, January 24, 1952

Hollywood Black Movie Children - Natalie Cole, Lena Horne's Children - Jet Magazine, January 24, 1952

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