November 3

Lois Mailou Jones (November 3, 1905 - June 9, 1998) taught design and watercolor painting at Howard University while pursuing her own career as an artist. She held a BA from Howard and had also studied art at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, the Boston Normal Art School, Harvard University, and Columbia University. She studied for a year at the Académie Julian in Paris and in 1954 was a guest professor at Centre D'Art and Foyer des Artes Plastiques in Port-au-Prince, Haiti where the government invited her to paint Haitian people and landscapes. Both locations had a significant impact on her work and in 1962 she initiated Howard University's first art student tour of France, including study at Académie de la Grande Chaumière and guided several more tours over the years. Jones felt that her greatest contribution to the art world was "proof of the talent of black artists." The African-American artist is important in the history of art and I have demonstrated it by working and painting here and all over the world." But her fondest wish was to be known as an "artist"—without labels like black artist, or woman artist.

Peasant Girl, Haiti by Lois Mailou Jones,  1954

Birthdays

John Baxter Taylor Jr. (November 3, 1883 - December 2, 1908) was a member of the gold medal-winning men's medley relay team at the 1908 Summer Olympics in London, becoming the first African American to win a gold medal at the Olympic Games. He had been on the University of Pennsylvania track team, where he was the ICAAAA (Intercollegiate Association of Amateur Athletes of America) champion in the quarter mile. He was a graduate of the UPenn School of Veterinary Medicine, and a member of the Irish American Athletic Club. He died of typhoid fever at the age of 25.

Hal Jackson (November 3, 1915 – May 23, 2012) began his broadcasting career announcing Howard’s home baseball games and local Negro league baseball games. In 1939, he became the first African American host at WINX/Washington with The Bronze Review, a nightly interview program. He later hosted talk show, a program of jazz and blues on WOOK-TV. Jackson moved to New York City in 1954 and became the first radio personality to broadcast three daily shows on three different New York stations. Four million listeners tuned in nightly to hear Jackson’s mix of music and conversations with jazz and show business celebrities. In 1971, Jackson and Percy Sutton, a former Manhattan borough president, co-founded the Inner City Broadcasting Corporation (ICBC), which acquired WLIB — becoming the first African American owned-and-operated station in New York.

Louis Wade Sullivan (born November 3, 1933) decided to become a physician when he was five years old. He earned a pre-med degree from Morehouse College and an M.D from Boston University School of Medicine, graduating third in his class in 1958. He trained in internal medicine and hematology, and in 1966, he became co-director of hematology at Boston University Medical Center and, a year later, founded the Boston University Hematology Service at Boston City Hospital. He taught at BU until 1975 when he returned to Morehouse, founding its Medical School and becoming the first dean and president, a position he held until 2002. He served as the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services from 1989 to 1992.

Michael Jonas (Mike) Evans (November 3, 1949 - December 14, 2006) is best known for his role as Lionel Jefferson on All in the Family and The Jeffersons. He was also co-creator with with Eric Monte of the show Good Times. He studied acting at Los Angeles City College and died of throat cancer at the age of 57.




Events

On November 3, 1923 the Harlem Rens played their first basketball game, becoming one of the dominant teams during the 1920s and 1930s. "The Renaissance" became the first top level team to sign a four-year contract. The team was established by Bob Douglas in agreement with the Renaissance Casino and Ballroom, an entertainment complex where they played and a dance was held following each game. They disbanded after completing the 1948/49 season.

On November 3, 1955 Capt. August (Augie) Harvey Martin was hired by Seaboard World Airlines, becoming the first African American captain of a scheduled air carrier. During a thirteen-year period with Seaboard, he piloted the DC-3, DC-4, Lockheed Constellation and Canadair CL-44. Capt. Martin joined the Tuskegee Airmen in 1943 but World War II ended before he saw combat. He died on a mercy mission to Biafra while attempting to land his Lockheed L-1049G Super Constellation during a severe rainstorm. The plane was loaded with emergency relief supplies.

On November 3, 1957 the Atlanta Constitution published the "Ministers' Manifesto", a statement signed by 80 white protestant pastors in response to extreme attempts to avoid school desegregation which had begin in Little Rock that fall. Dr. McDowell Richards, president of Columbia Seminary, was the primary author of the statement. A revised manifesto was published a year later endorsed by 315 faith leaders including rabbis and Roman Catholic priests.

On November 3, 1979, five protest marchers were shot and killed by members of the Ku Klux Klan and the American Nazi Party in Greensboro, North Carolina, at a rally to demonstrate opposition to the Klan. The "Death to the Klan March" and protest was the culmination of attempts organize mostly black industrial workers in the area.

On November 3, 1983, Jesse Jackson announced his campaign for President of the United States in the 1984 election, becoming the second African American (after Shirley Chisholm in 1972) to mount a nationwide campaign for president. In the primary elections the following year he did better than predicted, taking third place behind Senator Gary Hart and former Vice President Walter Mondale, who eventually won the nomination. Jackson garnered 3,282,431 primary votes, or 18.2 percent of the total, winning primaries in Louisiana, the District of Columbia, South Carolina.

On November 3, 1992, Carol Moseley Braun became the first and to date the only African American woman ever elected to the United States Senate. She represented the State of Illinois from 1993 until 1999. Before the election she had served as an Assistant United States Attorney, a member of the Illinois House of Representatives, and as Cook County Recorder of Deeds.

November 3 is the Feast Day of St. Martin de Porres, the patron saint of social justice, mixed race, race relations, and the poor. He is known as the first black Saint of the Americas and was a monk of the Dominican order. St. Martin was born in Lima, the son of a Spanish conquistador and a freed slave from Panama so he himself was of mixed race. He was known for miracles in healing the sick and feeding the poor.

Photo Gallery

Major Musa Bhai, 3 November 1890. Musa Bhai travelled to England in 1888 as part of the
Booth family, who founded the Salvation Army. Photograph: Hulton Archive/Getty Images

Jennie the Assaulter This is an old mug shot photograph of a lady named Jennie McCleary that was taken in November 1893 at the Arizona Territorial Prison in the town of Yuma. She was sentenced to a term of 18 months in the territorial prison for the crime of aggravated assault on November 3, 1893 and was transported to the prison 16 days later.

Martin Luther King casting his vote on November 3, 1964

Tribute to Jackie Robinson, 1972. The Onyx 1.1 (November 3, 1972):
via African American Activism & Experience at Northeastern University

Diff'rent Strokes is an American television sitcom that aired on NBC from November 3, 1978, to
May 4, 1985, and on ABC from September 27, 1985, to March 7, 1986.

November 3, 2012 "I had noticed the possibility of a potential good photograph if the President were to pass by this flag as he departed an evening campaign rally in Dubuque, Iowa. So I planted myself backstage as he finished working a ropeline and managed to get one usable frame as he walked by." (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

Publications

Haile Selassie I ("King of Kings"); TIME Magazine November 3, 1930

Jet Magazine, November 3, 1955 - Anita Cipriani

White Man and Negro Wife Jailed for Living Together in South Carolina
Jet Magazine, November 3, 1955

Earle Hyman (Granddad on The Cosby Show) To Play Othello on CBS
Jet Magazine, November 3, 1955

Darwin's Athletes: How Sport Has Damaged Black America and Preserved the Myth of Race by
John Hoberman. $22.13. Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (November 3, 1997). 388 pages

.