November 17

 November 17, 2012 -- Young ballerinas pose as they prepare to go on stage
 in Alexandra Township, South Africa. (Denis Farrell/Associated Press)

William Henry Hastie, Jr. (November 17, 1904 – April 14, 1976) broke ground as the first African American federal judge (appointed by President Roosevelt to the Virgin Islands, 1937) and the first federal appeals court judge (appointed by President Truman to the Third Circuit, 1949). He was also considered for a seat on the U.S. Supreme Court in 1962 but President Kennedy felt Southern opposition would be too high at that time. During his career Hastie also served as assistant solicitor for the Department of the Interior, dean of the Howard Law School, as a civilian civilian aide to Secretary of War Henry Stimson during World War II (resigning in protest over lack of efforts to end segregation in the military), and as Governor of the Virgin Islands. He held an undergraduate degree from Amherst College and L.L.B. and S.J.D. degrees from Harvard Law School.

Birthdays

Nancy Green  (November 17, 1834 - September 23, 1923) was hired in 1890 by the R.T. Davis Milling Company in St. Joseph, Missouri, to represent "Aunt Jemima", an advertising character named after a song from a minstrel show, to promote a new line of self-rising pancake mix.She was introduced as Aunt Jemima at the World's Columbian Exposition held in Chicago, where it was her job to operate a pancake-cooking display. After the fair she was given a lifetime contract to promote the pancake mix, which involved thousands of personal appearances around the country.  With the income from her work she was able to assist the needy in Chicago and was a founder of Mount Oliver Baptist Church.

Samuel (Sammy) Leamon Younge Jr. (November 17, 1944 - January 3, 1966) enrolled in Tuskegee Institute after being discharged from the Navy in 1964. He was active in the Tuskegee Institute for Advancement League (TIAL), which was affililated with SNCC, and worked to integrate public businesses in Tuskegee and for voting rights throughout the south. He was murdered during an altercation over using a whites-only restroom by Tuskegee gas station attendant Marvin Segrest. An all-white jury, in an overwhelmingly black county, deliberated for an hour and ten minutes before finding Segrest not guilty.

Yolanda Denise King (November 17, 1955 – May 15, 2007)  was the oldest child of Dr. Martin Luther King and Coretta Scott King, born two weeks before the end of the Birmingham Bus Boycott. She was a prolific public speaker, continuing the vision of her father.  King graduated from Smith College in 1976 and later earned a a master's degree in theater from New York University.She appeared in a number of films, including playing Rosa Parks in  in the TV miniseries King, based on her father's life, and co-wrote a play, Stepping into Tomorrow, with Attallah Shabazz, daughter of Malcolm X.

Denise McNair (November 17, 1951 - September 15, 1963) was murdered in the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church bombing. About Denise: Held tea parties, was in the Brownies, and liked to play baseball. Organized a neighborhood talent show in her garage every year to raise money for Muscular Dystrophy. Always smiled in pictures even when she lost her baby teeth. Klansman Robert Chambliss was identified as having placed a box under the steps of the church earlier that morning. A month later he was found not guilty of murder, and fined $100 for having dynamite in his possession. The case was reopened in the 1970s and 3 men were found guilty of murder.

Susan Elizabeth Rice (born November 17, 1964) was sworn in as U.S. National Security Advisor on July 1, 2013. She has previously served in government positions as Ambassador to the U.N., Assistant Secretary of State, and a staff member of the National Security Council. She has been a foreign policy advisor for Democratic Presidential candidates and transition teams since Michael Dukakis in 1988. She has been managing director at Intellibridge and a senior fellow in the foreign policy program at the Brookings Institution. She holds a BA in history from Stanford University and was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford where she earned a MPhil in 1988 and DPhil in 1990.

Rebecca Walker (born November 17, 1969) is a feminist author and lecturer, best known for her first book, To Be Real: Telling the Truth and Changing the Face of Feminism, in which she outlines the concept of  third-wave feminism. She has also written on her mixed-race identity and motherhood. Her work has appeared in a number of publications and she has been a contributing editor to Ms. magazine. She is the daughter of Alice Walker, the African American author of The Color Purple, and Mel Leventhal, a Jewish attorney.



Events

On November 17, 1911, undergraduate students at Howard University Edgar A. Love, Oscar J. Cooper and Frank Coleman founded Omega Psi Phi Fraternity with their faculty adviser Ernest Everett Just. It was the first Greek-letter fraternity to be formed at a Black school. Since its founding, the fraternity's stated purpose has been to attract and build a strong and effective force of men dedicated to manhood, scholarship, perseverance, and uplift.

Formed on November 17, 1961, the Albany Movement was a desegregation coalition organized in Albany, Georgia, by local activists, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). The coalition was led by William G. Anderson, a local African American Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine.

November 17, 1978, two FBI agents, Charles D. Brennan and George C. Moore, testify before the House Select Committee on Assassinations that the bureau’s long-term surveillance of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was based solely on J. Edgar Hoover’s “hatred of the civil rights leader” and not on the civil rights leader’s alleged communist influences or linkages with radical groups.

Photo Gallery

November 17, 1956 Fullback Jim Brown of Syracuse University scored
43 points against Colgate, establishing a NCAA record.

A Myanmar police officer looks at a graffiti portrait of US president Barack Obama
with the words ''Welcome Obama'' in Yangon, on November 17, 2012.

Publications

During the Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Dance at Berkeley - Prize Flappers
 Jet Magazine, November 17, 1955

Florida Rules Platt Children Can't Be Denied - Jet Magazine, November 17, 1955

President-Elect Barack Obama -- People Magazine, November 17, 2008

The Hanging of Thomas Jeremiah: A Free Black Man's Encounter
with Liberty by J. William Harris. $14.13. Author: J. William
Harris. Publisher: Yale University Press (November 17, 2009).

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