December 9

December 9, 2007 Talk-show queen Oprah Winfrey and Michelle Obama at a rally in Manchester, N.H
                                                                                                                                                                                                                     

St Martin de Porres (December 9, 1579 – November 3, 1639) was born in Lima, Peru, the illegitimate son of a Spanish nobleman and a formerly enslaved mother of African descent. He was apprenticed to a barber/surgeon from whom he learned healing and pharmacology. At the age of 15 he asked for admission to the Dominican Convent of the Rosary in Lima and was received first as a servant boy, and as his duties grew he was promoted to almoner. Descendants of Africans and Indians were not usually allowed to join a holy order, but the prior permitted him to take vows as a Dominican lay brother in 1603. He was later placed in charge of the infirmary where he worked until his death at the age of 59. In addition to caring for the members or the order, he treated the poor of Lima, and was reported to have been able to heal with only a drink of water. He was beatified in 1837 and canonized in 1962, and is depicted in iconography often depicted as a young mulatto friar wearing the old habit of the Dominican lay brother, a black scapular and capuce, along with a broom, since he considered all work to be sacred no matter how menial. He is sometimes shown with a dog, a cat and a mouse eating in peace from the same dish. He has been named as a patron saint of those of mixed race.

Birthdays

Tim Moore (born Harry Roscoe Moore,  December 9, 1887- December 1958) was widely known as "The Kingfish" in The Amos 'n Andy Show, but had been a vaudeville comedian for many years. He dropped out of grammar school and was a street busker, performing with his friend Romeo Washburn, and was 11 years old when the two were signed to tour with Cora Miskel. He continued in vaudeville until the 1920s, and also was a boxer fighting under the name of "Kid Klondike". He appeared in Broadway musical revues and in in Oscar Micheaux's first talking picture, The Darktown Revue.

Cleveland Leigh Abbott (December 9, 1892 - April 14, 1955) was hired as an agricultural chemist and athletic director at Tuskegee Institute in 1923, a job that had been personally offered to him by Booker T. Washington in 1913 on the condition that he successfully earn his B.A. degree. During Abbott’s 32-year career, the Tuskegee football team had a 202–95–27 record including six undefeated seasons. He also started the women’s track and field program at Tuskegee in 1937. The team was undefeated from 1937 to 1942. Six of his athletes competed on U.S. Olympic track teams, including gold medalists Alice Coachman and Mildred McDaniel. He also coached tennis stars Margaret “Pete” Peters and Roumania “Repeat” Peters during their college years at Tuskegee.

Donald Lee Hollowell (December 9, 1917 - December 27, 2004) was an Atlanta civil rights attorney. He sued the University of Georgia in 1961 to admit African American Students Charlayne Gault and Hamilton Holmes, freed Martin Luther King from the Georgia State Prison where he was being held on traffic charges, and defended members of the Albany Movement. In 1966 President Johnson appointed him regional director of EEOC, a post he held for 20 years.

Roy DeCarava (December 9, 1919 - October 27, 2009) was the first African American photographer to win a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1952. The photographs from that period were collected in his book The Sweet Flypaper of Life, which had text written by Langston Hughes.He taught at Cooper Union and Hunter College and is most noted for his portraits of jazz musicians.

Redd Foxx (born John Elroy Sanford, Dec. 9, 1922 – Oct. 11, 1991) was an American comedian amd actor, best remembered for his explicit comedy records and his starring role on the 1970s sitcom Sanford and Son. Foxx gained notoriety with his raunchy nightclub acts during the 1950s & 60s. Known as the "King of the Party Records", he performed on more than 50 records in his lifetime.

Donaldson Toussaint L'Ouverture  (Don) Byrd II (December 9, 1932 – February 4, 2013). A sideman for many other jazz musicians of his generation, Byrd is best known as one of the only bebop jazz musicians who successfully pioneered the funk and soul genres while simultaneously remaining a pop artist!

David D. "Deacon" Jones (December 9, 1938 – June 3, 2013) was an American football defensive end in the National Football League for the Los Angeles Rams, San Diego Chargers, and the Washington Redskins. He was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1980. Jones specialized in quarterback "sacks", a term which he coined.

Singer and songwriter Joan Armatrading, best known for her influential and eclectic music styles, ranging from soul, pop, and even reggae, was born on December 9, 1950 in Basseteree, Saint Kitts in Antigua. This mix of “black” to “white” did not work as well with American audiences as it had with British music lovers. Ironically when American artist Tracy Chapman became popular in the late 1980s, she was called the “new Joan Armatrading.”

Michael Dorn (born December 9, 1952) is an American actor and voice artist who is best known for his role as the Klingon Worf from the Star Trek franchise. Dorn's most famous role to date is that of the Klingon Starfleet officer Lieutenant J.G. (later Lieutenant and then Lt. Commander) Worf in Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Dorn has appeared on-screen in more Star Trek episodes and movies as the same character than anyone else:




Events

On December 9, 1872, P.B.S. Pinchback became the first African American governor of any state in the U.S. when the Louisiana legislature filed impeachment charges against the incumbent Republican governor, Henry Clay Warmoth. State law required that Warmoth step aside until his case was tried. Pinchback took the oath as acting governor  and served for 35 days until the end of Warmoth's term. Warmoth was not convicted, and the charges were eventually dropped.

In December 9, 1873: The Colored Normal School at Huntsville is created by legislative act. Founded by ex-slave William Hooper Councill, the school educated black teachers for the public schools. It became a land-grant institution in 1891, eventually evolving into Alabama A&M University.



Photo Gallery

December 9, 1992 Barbara Jordan, lawyer, educator, political leader, and stateswoman, received the 77th NAACP Spingarn Medal

December 9, 1993: Nelson Mandela and South African President Frederik de Klerk received the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo for the peaceful termination of the apartheid.

On  December 9, 1995 Kweisi Mfume was unanimously elected President and CEO of the NAACP.

Publications

Eartha Kitt Broadway Bound with a New Show - Say Magazine December 9, 1954

December 9, 1968: TV Guide listing for Diana Ross & The Supremes' first TV special, "T.C.B." 

Jet - December 9, 1985

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October 24

Marjorie Stewart Joyner (October 24, 1896 – December 27, 1994) graduated from A.B. Molar Beauty School in Chicago in 1916, the first African American to do so. She briefly operated her own salon on South State Street before joining Madame C. J. Walker's company, traveling in sales and training beauticians across the country. She eventually supervised 200 salons, and was a member of the board of directors. During this time she devised a multi-rod permanent wave device that could be used to either straighten or curl hair, becoming one of the first African American women to hold a patent. She was a founder of a professional association for beauty school owners and teachers now known as Alpha Chi Pi Omega and of the National Council of Negro Women. She was as an advisor to the Democratic National Committee in the 1940s, and advised several New Deal agencies trying to reach out to black women. In the Chicago area she chaired the Chicago Defender Charities as well as the Bud Billiken Parade. She fulfilled a lifelong goal in 1974 at the age of 77 by graduating from Bethune-Cookman University with a degree in psychology.

Birthdays

Saunders Terrell, better known as Sonny Terry (October 24, 1911 - March 11, 1986) was a blind Piedmont blues musician known for his energetic blues harmonica style, which frequently included vocal whoops and hollers, and imitations of trains and fox hunts, often working with Brownie MdGhee throughout his career. In 1938 Terry was invited to play at Carnegie Hall for the first From Spirituals to Swing concert, and later that year he recorded for the Library of Congress.  He was in the 1947 original cast of the Broadway musical comedy Finian's Rainbow and also appeared in the film The Color Purple, directed by Steven Spielberg. With McGhee, he appeared in the 1979 Steve Martin comedy The Jerk.

 Graham Brown (born Robert Elwood Brown, October 24, 1924 - December 13, 2011) attended Howard University where he earned a BA in theater, and studied method acting at the Actors Studio in New York. He began his career as a Shakespearean actor at the Guthrie Theater and was an original member of the Negro Ensemble Company (NEC), appearing in many NEC productions including Ceremonies in Dark Old Men and The River Niger. On television he played a judge and a minister on “Law and Order,” recurred on “Days of Our Lives” and a school principal on “Sanford and Son.” His film roles included Spike Lee’s “Malcolm X” and “Clockers” as well as “The Muppets Take Manhattan,” in which he played Mr. Wrightson, the irritable department store manager.

Kweisi Mfume (born Frizzell Gerald Gray; October 24, 1948) has served on the Baltimore City Council (1978-1986), in the U.S. House of Representatives (1987-1996) where he was chair of the Congressional Black Caucus for one term, and as President of the NAACP (1996-2004). Since 2013 he has been Board Chairman of his undergrad alma mater, Morgan State University. Mfume also holds a Master of Liberal Arts degree from Johns Hopkins. In the early 1970s, he legally changed his name to Kweisi Mfume, a name from Ghana that translates to "Conquering Son of Kings".


Events

On October 24, 1865 Paul Bogle was hanged for his role as leader of Jamaica's Morant Bay Protests earlier in the month. Over 400 protesters were killed during the uprising, and over 300 more arrested with many of these executed or sentenced to long prison terms. There was worldwide criticism of Governor John Edward Eyre's handing of the protests, and he was suspended and recalled to England with Jamaica being made a Crown Colony, governed directly from England. The Morant Bay rebellion turned out to be one of the defining points in Jamaica's struggle for both political and economical enhancement, and Bogle is a national hero commemorated on currency and in the Jamaican culture.

On October 24, 1935, the play Mulatto by Langston Hughes opened on Broadway at the Vanderbilt Theater, becoming the first play written by an African American to become a long-running Broadway hit.  Mulatto ran on Broadway for more than a year and toured for two seasons. The play was greatly altered by the producer, Martin Jones, who sensationalized an already shocking story. Many critics cite the autobiographical elements of the play, which detail the racial conflict between a white plantation owner, Colonel Thomas Norwood, and the mulatto son Robert, whom he refuses to recognize as his own.

The National Coalition of 100 Black Women (NCBW) was founded on October 24, 1981 by representatives from 14 states and DC. The purposes of the Coalition are to foster principles of equal rights and opportunities; promote the awareness of Black culture; develop the potential of the membership for effective leadership and participation in civic affairs; take action on specific issues of national & international importance, and cooperate with other persons and organizations to achieve mutual goals.

On October 24, 2005, Rosa Parks passed away at the age of 92. Front seats of city buses in Detroit and Montgomery were reserved with black ribbons in honor of Parks until her funeral. Her coffin was flown to Montgomery and taken in a horse-drawn hearse to the St. Paul African Methodist Episcopal (AME) church, where she lay in repose at the altar on October 29, 2005, dressed in the uniform of a church deaconess. In the evening the casket was transported to Washington, D.C. and transported by a bus similar to the one in which she made her protest, to lie in honor in the rotunda of the U.S. Capitol. She is the first woman and the first American who had not been a U.S. government official to receive this honor. Her funeral service was seven hours long and was held on November 2, 2005, at the Greater Grace Temple Church in Detroit.

On October 24, 2007, Negro League first baseman and coach Buck O'Neil was posthumously given the first Lifetime Achievement Award by the National Baseball Hall of Fame after having fallen short in the Hall of Fame vote in 2006, and the award was named in his honor. The Buck O'Neil Lifetime Achievement Award is presented every three years to honor an individual who enhances baseball's positive image on society, who broadens the game's appeal, and whose integrity and dignity are comparable to the namesake of the award, John Jordan "Buck" O'Neil.



Photo Gallery

Michael Jackson at the premiere of The Wiz on October 24, 1978 in New York City. Photo: Bettman/Corbis.

On October 24, 1996, Motown Records founder Berry Gordy received a star on the Hollywood Walk of
Fame. Gordy helped launch the careers Stevie Wonder, The Temptations, Diana Ross, Smokey Robinson,
 Michael Jackson and many others. Present for his celebration on the Walk of Fame were Smokey, Stevie and Diana.

Publications

Harper's Weekly cartoon (24 October, 1874) Worse than Slavery: portrays a black family
 between a lynched body hanging from a tree and the remains of a burning schoolhouse.

Model Betty Davillier -- Jet Magazine, October 24, 1963

The Black Panther (October 24, 1970)

SOUL, October 24, 1977 -- The Emotions

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