February 7

On February 7, 1926, historian Carter G. Woodson first introduced “Negro History Week” during the second week of February, chosen because it coincided with Frederick Douglass’s February birthday as well as Abraham Lincoln’s (February 12). From the event's initial phase, primary emphasis was placed on encouraging the coordinated teaching of the history of American blacks in the nation's public schools. The first Negro History Week was met with a lukewarm response, gaining the cooperation of the Departments of Education of the states of North Carolina, Delaware, and West Virginia as well as the city school administrations of Baltimore and Washington, D.C. Despite this far from universal acceptance, the event was regarded by Woodson as "one of the most fortunate steps ever taken by the Association," and plans for a repeat of the event on an annual basis continued.  In 1976, the Federal government expanded the week to “Black History Month.” (Image: “Carter G. Woodson - Teacher, Historian, Publisher, 1943” by Charles Henry Alston. National Archives, Record Group 208, ARC 535622.)

Birthdays

James Monroe Trotter (February 7, 1842 - February 26, 1892) taught in Ohio before traveling to Boston in 1863 to join the 55th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry USCT, Company K. He was one of the few African American soldiers to be a commissioned officer. After the war he was hired by the U.S. Postal Service and He was appointed in 1887 by President Grover Cleveland as the second African American to be Recorder of Deeds for the District of Columbia, one of the highest federal offices to be held by a man of color at that time. He was preceded in that position by Fredrick Douglass (1881–1886) and followed by U.S. Senator Blanche Kelso Bruce was appointed to the office, serving 1891–1893. He also wrote a book entitled Music and Some Highly Musical People, published in 1878, perhaps the first comprehensive study of music ever written in the United States. His son, William Monroe Trotter, attended Harvard University and founded the progressive newspaper The Guardian.

Emma Rochelle Wheeler (February 7, 1882 - September 12, 1957) was a physician in Chattanooga who, with her husband, Dr. John N. Wheeler, opened the 30-bed Walden Hospital in 1915. The only previous hospital care for African American patients in the city had been in the basements of the whites-only hospitals. Walden Hospital also trained nurses and other caregivers, and offered a pre-paid health plan that covered a hospital stay and home nursing for members.

James Hubert (Eubie) Blake (February 7, 1887 - February 12, 1983) was an American composer, lyricist, and pianist of ragtime, jazz, and popular music. In 1921, he and his long-time collaborator Noble Sissle wrote Shuffle Along, one of the first Broadway musicals to be written and directed by African Americans. Blake's compositions included such hits as "Bandana Days", "Charleston Rag", "Love Will Find a Way", "Memories of You" and "I'm Just Wild About Harry". The musical Eubie!, which opened on Broadway in 1978, featured his works

William Andrew (Bill) White, III (February 7, 1915 – January 23, 1981) was a Canadian composer and social justice activist, who was the first Black Canadian to run for federal office in Canada. He was the son of Baptist minister William A. White and the brother of famed Canadian concert singer Portia White, labor union leader Jack White, and television performer Lorne White.

Oscar William Adams, Jr. (February 7, 1925 - February 15, 1997) was the first African American Alabama Supreme Court justice and the first African American elected to statewide office in Alabama (including the Reconstruction era). Adams earned a bachelor's degree in philosophy at Talladega College in 1944, and a law degree at Howard University in in 1947. He had a private law practice in Birmingham, where he specialized in civil rights cases, often on behalf of Fred Shuttlesworth's Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights. During the 1963 Birmingham Campaign he was a member of the Central Committee that met at the A. G. Gaston Motel to plan demonstrations.

Christopher Julius (Chris) Rock III (born February 7, 1965) is an American comedian, actor, screenwriter, television producer, film producer, and director. After working as a standup comic and appearing in small film roles, Rock came to wider prominence as a cast member of Saturday Night Live in the early 1990s. He went on to more prominent film roles, and a series of acclaimed comedy specials for HBO. He was voted as the fifth greatest stand-up comedian of all time by Comedy Central.



Events

On February 7, 1871, Alcorn University opened in Lorman, Mississippi as the first land-grant HBCU. The name was changed to Alcorn Agricultural and Mechanical College in 1878 and to Alcorn State College in 1974. U.S. Senator Hiram Revels resigned his seat in the Senate to become the school's first president. The university's most famous alumnus, Medgar Evers, a civil rights activist, graduated in 1948. Students at the college were part of the mid-twentieth century civil rights struggle, working to register residents for voting and struggling to end segregation.s in the nation's public schools. Other alumni include Horace R. Cayton, Sr., Alex Haley, and Michael Clarke Duncan.

Photo Gallery

Misty Copeland performing with Prince, Madison Square Garden on February 7, 2011

A wax likeness of the renowned abolitionist and conductor of the Underground Railroad Harriet Ross Tubman is unveiled at the Presidents Gallery by Madame Tussauds in Washington in celebration of Black History Month, Tuesday, February 7, 2012. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

President Obama reacts as Joey Hudy of Phoenix, Arizona, launches a marshmallow from his Extreme Marshmallow Cannon in the State Dining Room of the White House during the second White House Science Fair in Washington February 7, 2012.

Publications

Marian Anderson, Jet Magazine, February 7, 1952

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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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January 15

Martin Luther King, Jr. (January 15, 1929 - April 4, 1968) led the 1955 Montgomery bus boycott and helped found the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) in 1957, serving as its first president. With the SCLC, King led an unsuccessful 1962 struggle against segregation in Albany, Georgia, and helped organize the 1963 nonviolent protests in Birmingham, Alabama, during which he was jailed and wrote the "Letter from a Birmingham Jail". He also helped to organize the 1963 March on Washington, where he delivered his famous "I Have a Dream" speech. He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964, and was also outspoken on his opposition to the Vietnam War and economic injustice. He was assassinated in Memphis where he was taking part in a strike by sanitation workers. Dr. King was a graduate of Morehouse College and held a DDiv degree from Boston University, where he became aware of the tactics of nonviolent resistance first used by Gandhi.

Birthdays

Abby Kelley Foster (January 15, 1811 – January 14, 1887) was an American abolitionist and radical social reformer active from the 1830s to 1870s. She became a fundraiser, lecturer and committee organizer for the influential American Anti-Slavery Society, where she worked closely with William Lloyd Garrison and other radicals. Kelley's views became progressively more radical as she worked with abolitionists such as Angelina Grimké. She became an “ultra”, advocating not only the abolition of slavery, but also full civil equality for blacks. In addition, Garrison's influence led her to adopt the position of “non-resistance", which went beyond opposing war to opposing all forms of government coercion. She was married to fellow abolitionist and lecturer Stephen Symonds Foster.

Palmer C. Hayden (born Peyton Cole Hedgeman, January 15, 1890 – February 18, 1973) began sketching while working as a bellhop in Washington, D.C. at the age of 15, and later moved to New York City where he studied art at Cooper Union and Columbia while continuing to work at a variety of jobs. His later painting, The Janitor Who Paints, is a reflection of this time. In 1926 he won a prize from the Harmon Foundation that enabled him to paint in France for five years where his friendship with Alain Locke exposed him to the art of Africa. He is also known for a series depicting the legendary John Henry.

Palmer Hayden, The Janitor Who Paints, 1937

Palmer Hayden. Nous Quatre a Paris (We Four in Paris), 1930

Palmer Hayden, Hammer in his Hand, 1944

Thelma Carpenter (January 15, 1922 – May 14, 1997) was a jazz singer and actress, best known as "Miss One", the Good Witch of the North in the movie The Wiz. She began her career winning an amateur night at the Apollo Theatre in 1938, where she would be honored and perform nearly 60 years later on the 1993 all-star NBC-TV special "Apollo Theater Hall of Fame. She sang with the Coleman Hawkins and Count Basie orchestras, appeared in Broadway revues, and toured in Bob Fosse's production of Pippin. In film, she was cast as the mother of Maurice Hines and Gregory Hines in The Cotton Club.

Ernest J. Gaines (born January 15, 1933) is the author of A Lesson Before Dying, The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman, A Gathering of Old Men, and other acclaimed novels. He holds a bachelor's  degree in literature (1956) and after spending two years in the Army, he won a writing fellowship to Stanford University. From 1981 until retiring in 2004, Gaines was a Writer-in-Residence at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette.

Obo Addy (January 15, 1936 – September 13, 2012) was a Ghanaian drummer and dancer who was one of the first native African musicians to bring the fusion of traditional folk music and Western pop music known as worldbeat to Europe and then to the Pacific Northwest of the United States in the late 1970s. He taught music at Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Oregon

Mario Van Peebles (born January 15, 1957) is best known for directing New Jack City in 1991.  He directed several episodes of the show as well as episodes of 21 Jump Street. Van Peebles also directed Malcolm Takes a Shot, a CBS Schoolbreak Special. He is the son of actor and filmmaker Melvin Van Peebles, whom he portrayed in the 2003 biopic Baadasssss!,  which describes the making of his father's seminal film, Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song. that he also co-wrote and directed.



Events

On January 15, 1908 was founded on January 15, 1908, at Howard University in Washington, D.C., by a group of twenty students, led by Ethel Hedgeman Lyle. It is the first Greek-lettered sorority established and incorporated by African American college women. Membership is primarily for college educated women, but not all members have attended college. Forming a sorority broke barriers for African American women in areas where little power or authority existed.

On January 15, 1917, Gov. Stanley of Kentucky risked his life before a mob bent on lynching Circuit Judge Charles Bush for failure to release a negro prisoner to be lynched. He said he would give the mob "a chance to lynch the governor of Kentucky first," before he would let another negro in Kentucky be lynched. The district bar association supported Bush, saying “We, the bar of Hopkinsville, hereby reaffirm our confidence and respect in Hon. C. H. Bush, and commend him for saving the life of the negro defendant, and call attention to the fact that he is one circuit judge in this section of Kentucky, and in the south, who has placed his own life in danger for the protection of prisoners on trial before his court, and we hereby feel that the full credit for saving this negro’s life is due Judge Bush.”

Photo Gallery

Marian Anderson in Concert with pianist Kosti Vehanen January 15, 1935 Moscow, Russia

Miss Clara Camille Carroll, contributes her bit to the war effort in her daily work. She is one of the thousands of Negro girls now filling clerical positions in the Nation's Capital. January 15, 1943. Roger Smith. 208-NP-3F-3.

Demonstration on morning of VERNON DAHMER'S Funeral, January 15, 1966, Hattiesburg (Miss.). March commenced and ended at St. James Christian Methodist Episcopal Church on corner of East 7th and Atlanta streets.

Barack Obama - New Wax Figures Unveiled at Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum in New York on January 15, 2009 - Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum - New York City, NY, USA

Serena Williams of the United States celebrates a point in her second round match against Vesna Dolonc of Serbia during day three of the 2014 Australian Open at Melbourne Park on January 15, 2014

Publications

Louis Bellson Would Give Up Career For His Wife, Pearl Bailey - Jet Magazine, January 15, 1953

Atlanta Cub Scout Den Mother Mollie Myrick - Jet Magazine, January 15, 1959

Black College Bands Are Banned from Alabama Governor's Inaugural - Jet Magazine, January 15, 1959

Singer Freda Payne Lounging and Reading Jet Magazine - Jet Magazine January 15, 1970

The Life and Work of Oscar Micheaux: Pioneer Black Author and Filmmaker 1884-1951 by Earl James Young Jr.. $7.32. Publisher: KMT Publications; First Edition edition (January 15, 2003). 264 pages

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