January 31

Jack Roosevelt (Jackie) Robinson (January 31, 1919 - October 24, 1972) was the first African American to play in Major League Baseball since color lines were drawn in the 1880s. He had been an all-sport athlete at UCLA, an Army officer, athletic director at Huston College (now Huston-Tillotson University), and a member of the Negro League Kansas City Monarchs before being signed by Dodgers' General Manager Branch Rickey in 1945. He was with the the AAA affiliate Montreal Royals for two seasons before his major league debut on April 15, 1947. He was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1962. After his playing career, he was the first black television analyst in MLB, and the first black vice president of a major American corporation, Chock Full o'Nuts.

Birthdays

Jersey Joe Walcott (born Arnold Raymond Cream, January 31, 1914 - February 25, 1994) won the World Heavyweight Championship from Ezzard Charles, whom he knocked out in the 7th round of their 1951 title bout in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Walcott had 69 professional fights. He won 30 of them by knock-out and was elected to the Boxing Hall of Fame in 1969. He held the world heavyweight title from 1951 to 1952, and broke the record for the oldest man to win the title, at the age of 37. That record would eventually be broken in 1994 by 45-year-old George Foreman.

Carol Elaine Channing (born January 31, 1921) began her acting career as a Broadway musical actress, starring in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes in 1949, and Hello, Dolly! in 1964, when she won the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical. She revived both roles several times throughout her career, most recently playing Dolly in 1995. During her career, she had won or been nominated for a Tony Award for every Broadway show she ever played. She grew up in a German-American household in San Francisco and did not know until just before she left for college that her paternal grandmother was African American.

Benjamin Lawson Hooks (January 31, 1925 – April 15, 2010) was an American civil rights leader. A Baptist minister and practicing attorney, he served as executive director of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) from 1977 to 1992, and throughout his career was a vocal campaigner for civil rights in the United States.

Ernest "Ernie" Banks (January 31, 1931 – January 23, 2015), nicknamed "Mr. Cub" and "Mr. Sunshine", was an American professional baseball player who played in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a shortstop and first baseman for the Chicago Cubs between 1953 and 1971. He was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1977, and was named to the Major League Baseball All-Century Team in 1999. He began playing professional baseball in 1950 with the Kansas City Monarchs in the Negro leagues. He served in the U.S. military for two years, played for the Monarchs again, and began his major league career in September 1953. The following year, Banks was the National League Rookie of the Year runner-up.

Kerry Washington (born January 31, 1977) is an African American actress. She is known for her roles as Ray Charles's wife, Della Bea Robinson, in the film Ray (2004), as Idi Amin's wife Kay in The Last King of Scotland, and as Alicia Masters, love interest of Ben Grimm/The Thing in the live-action Fantastic Four films. She has also starred in the critically acclaimed independent film as the lead actress in the 2012 ABC drama Scandal playing Olivia Pope and as Broomhilda von Shaft in the movie Django Unchained.



Events

On January 31, 1865, Congress passed the 13th Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery in the United States. The amendment was ratified by the required number of states on December 6, 1865. On December 18, 1865, Secretary of State William H. Seward proclaimed its adoption. It was the first of the three Reconstruction Amendments adopted following the American Civil War.

On January 31, 1934, Etta Moten sang for President and Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt at a White House Dinner, the first time an African American actress performed at the White House.

On January 31, 1964, Herbert Lee was shot and killed by E.H. Hurst, a white member of the Mississippi Legislature. Lee worked with civil rights leader Bob Moses to help register black voters. Louis Allen, who witnessed the murder of civil rights worker Herbert Lee, endured years of threats, jailings and harassment. Allen was among a dozen witnesses of the murder of Herbert Lee by E.H. Hurst, a white state legislator, in September 1961. Civil rights activists had come to Liberty that summer to organize for voter registration; essentially no black had been allowed to vote since 1890, when the state disfranchising constitution was passed.

Photo Gallery

The Ashanti Golden Stool with its immediate caretaker January 31, 1935

Sammy Davis, Jr. laughing with Senator Robert F. Kennedy backstage at a benefit for the senator at Ford's Theater. Date Photographed:31 January 1968

Shirley Verrett (left), Marian Anderson, Grace Bumbry (right) January 31, 1982 Photographer: Henry Grossman

W.E.B. Du Bois Issued: January 31, 1992

Publications

An arrival in Camp–under the Proclamation of Emancipation. --- Alfred Waud worked up this sketch from a photograph, probably made in his presence by David B. Woodbury on January 1, 1863. It was published in Harper’s Weekly, January 31, 1863, p. 6. Library of Congress image. .. When compared with the photograph, it shows that the photo is actually an reversed stereograph.

Jet Magazine, January 31, 1952

Are Black Women Getting Sexier - The Full Story - Jet Magazine, January 31, 1952

The Black Panther (January 31, 1970)

Time magazine, January 31, 1973 — Flip Wilson

All-White Jury in Fred Hampton Murder Case? The Black Panther (January 31, 1976)

Black Exodus: The Great Migration from the American South by Alferdteen Harrison. $14.93. 128 pages. Publisher: University Press of Mississippi (January 31, 1991)

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November 5

Victoria Gray Adams (November 5, 1926 – August 12, 2006) led voter education classes for the black population of Hattiesburg, Mississippi in the early sixties and was a field secretary for SNCC (Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee). She was a founder of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, and along with Fannie Lou Hamer and Annie Devine led the 70-member contingent that attempted to be seated at the 1964 Democratic National Convention. She was also one of the chief organizers of COFO (Council of Federated Organizations), an umbrella group that enabled civil rights groups working in the south at that time to share resources and talents. She later taught at the Royal Thai Army Languages Academy in Bangkok, Thailand and at Virginia State University, where she was also Director of Campus Ministry.

Birthdays

Willis Richardson (November 5, 1889 - November 7, 1977) wrote "The Chip Woman’s Fortune", which in 1923 became the first non-musical written by an African American to appear on Broadway. Although he worked full-time at the Bureau of Printing and Engraving from his graduation from "M" Street High School in Washington, D.C. until his retirement in 1954, he was an award-winning playwright and a pivotal figure of the Harlem Renaissance. He won first prize in Crisis’ plays category for “Boot-Black Lover” and won the Edith Schwab Cup at Yale University for “The Broken Banjo.” Richardson also compiled the 1930 anthology Plays and Pageants from the Life of the Negro at the request of Carter G. Woodson and followed it five years later with. Negro History in Thirteen Plays.

James Herman Banning (November 5, 1900 – February 5, 1933), accompanied by mechanic Thomas C. Allen, became America's first African American aviator to fly coast-to-coast. They made the 3,300 mile trip from Los Angeles, California to Long Island, New York in 41 hours and 27 minutes aloft. However, the trip actually required 21 days to complete because the pilots had to raise money for the next leg of the trip each time they stopped. Four months later, Banning was fatally injured in a crash at an airshow in San Diego. He was pulled from the wreckage and died an hour later.

Etta Moten Barnett (November 5, 1901-January 1, 2004) sang at the birthday party for President Franklin D. Roosevelt on January 31, 1943, becoming the first African-American to perform at the White House. She performed “Remember My Forgotten Man,” which she also sang in the movie Gold Diggers of 1933, although she was not listed in the credits. A conaltro vocalist, she was best known for her starring role in the 1942 revival of Porgy and Bess on Broadway. After her performing career, Barnett was active in Chicago as a major philanthropist and civic activist, raising funds for and supporting cultural, social and church institutions. She was married to Claude Barnett, founder of the Associated Negro Press.

Theodore M. (Ted) Berry (November 5, 1905 – October 15, 2000) graduated from the University of Cincinnati law school and six years later was appointed the first African American assistant prosecuting attorney for Hamilton County. During World War II, he served in the Office of War Information as a morale officer. In 1965 President Lyndon Johnson appointed him to head the Office of Economic Opportunity's Community Action Programs that included Head Start, the Job Corps and Legal Services. Berry was active in the NAACP throughout  his life, serving as president of the Cincinnati branch and on the Ohio Committee for Civil Rights Legislation. He was first elected to the Cincinnati city council in 1949 and elected mayor in 1972.

Chauncey E. Spencer (November 5, 1906 - August 21, 2002) was a founder of the National Airmen Association of America, a member of the Tuskegee Airmen, and after World War II served as Civilian Personnel Employment Relations Officer at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio. Because of his work for integration he was accused of being a Communist in 1953. He was suspended for five months but was cleared of all charges, and later transferred from Wright-Patterson AFB to Norton AFB in California. After leaving the Air Force in 1960, he served as police commissioner of San Bernardino, California and deputy administrator of Highland Park, Michigan.

Izear Luster "Ike" Turner, Jr. (November 5, 1931 - December 12, 2007)  was a musician, bandleader, songwriter, arranger, talent scout, and record producer. In a career that lasted more than half a century, his repertoire included blues, soul, rock, and funk. He is most popularly known for his 1960s work with his then wife Tina Turner in the Ike & Tina Turner revue. Throughout his career he won two Grammy Awards and was nominated for three others. With his former wife, Turner was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1991 and in 2001 was inducted into the St. Louis Walk of Fame.

Events

On November 5, 1917, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Buchanan v. Warley that a Louisville, Kentucky, city ordinance prohibiting the sale of real property to African Americans violated the 14th Amendment, reversing the ruling of the Kentucky Court of Appeals. Unlike prior state court rulings that had overturned racial zoning ordinances due to those ordinances' failures to grandfather land owned prior to enactment, the Court in Buchanan ruled that the motive for the Louisville ordinance, race, was an insufficient purpose to make the prohibition constitutional.

On November 5, 1956 The Nat King Cole Show debuted on NBC. The variety program was the first of its kind hosted by an African American, which created controversy at the time. Beginning as a 15-minute pops show on Monday night, it expanded to a half hour in July 1957. Despite the efforts of NBC, as well as many of Cole's industry colleagues who worked for industry scale (or even for no pay) in order to help the show save money, it was ultimately cancelled due to the lack of a national sponsor.

On November 5, 1968, Shirley Chisholm was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, the first African American woman to serve there. She represented New York's 12th Congressional District for seven terms from 1969 to 1983, and was a founding member of the Congressional Black Caucus in 1971.

On November 5, 981, Charles Fuller's A Soldier's Play premiered at Theatre Four, New York City by the Negro Ensemble Company under the direction of Douglas Turner Ward, and won a Pulitzer price from drama the following year. It was produced as the 1984 film A Soldier's Story, with Fuller also writing the screenplay, which was nominated for an Academy Award, a Golden Globe Award, and a Writers Guild of America Award, and it won an Edgar Award. The play is set in Louisiana near the end of World War II where a black officer is sent to investigate the murder of a black sergeant.


Photo Gallery

“Flora is full of vim, with remarkably retentive memory.” | Portrait of FLORA STEWART, a 117-year-old FORMER SLAVE, November 5, 1867. A.W. Kimball, New Hampshire, photographer Randolph Linsly Simpson African-American collection Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Manuscript Library

An African American infantry unit marching near Verdun, France, November 5, 1918. U.S. Army Signal Corps photograph.

Obama embraces Michelle Obama with a hug the day before the
2012 Elections on November 5, 2012. [Photo: Getty Images]

Publications

Jet Magazine -- November 5, 1953

Cookie Cole Celebrates Ninth Birthday with Natalie Cole - Jet Magazine, November 5, 1953

Chicago Sun-Times, November 5, 2008

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