January 17

Michelle Obama (born January 17, 1964) is the wife of the 44th President of the United States, Barack Obama, and is the first African American First Lady of the United States.

Muhammad Ali (born Cassius Marcellus Clay, Jr.; January 17, 1942 - June 3, 2016) was one of the most significant and celebrated sports figures of the 20th century. He began training as an amateur boxer when he was 12 years old. At age 18, he won a gold medal in the light heavyweight division at the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome, and as a professional won the title in 1964, 1974 and 1978. He is the only boxer to be named The Ring magazine Fighter of the Year six times. In 1964 he converted to Islam and changed his name from Cassius Clay, which he called his "slave name", to Muhammad Ali. He set an example of racial pride for African Americans and resistance to white domination during the 1960s Civil Rights Movement. In 1966 he refused to be drafted, citing his religious beliefs and opposition to American involvement in the Vietnam War. He was eventually arrested, found guilty of draft evasion charges and stripped of his boxing titles. He successfully appealed in the U.S. Supreme Court, which overturned his conviction in 1971, by which time he had not fought for nearly four years—losing a period of peak performance as an athlete. In 1984 he was diagnosed with Parkinson's syndrome, which his doctors attributed to boxing-related brain injuries.

Birthdays

Paul Cuffee (January 17, 1759 – September 9, 1817) was a Quaker businessman, sea captain, patriot, and abolitionist. He was of Aquinnah Wampanoag and West African Ashanti descent and helped colonize Sierra Leone. Cuffe built a lucrative shipping empire and established the first racially integrated school in Westport, Massachusetts. He became involved in the British effort to resettle freed slaves, many of whom had moved from the US to Nova Scotia after the American Revolution, to the fledgling colony of Sierra Leone and helped establish The Friendly Society of Sierra Leone, which provided financial support for the colony.

Abram Lincoln Harris, Jr. (January 17, 1899 – November 6, 1963) was an economist, academic, anthropologist and a social critic of blacks in the United States. Considered by many as the first African American to achieve prominence in the field of economics, he was also known for his heavy influence on black radical and neo-conservative thought in the United States. As an economist, he is most famous for his 1931 collaboration with political scientist Sterling Spero to produce a study on African-American labor history titled The Black Worker and his 1936 work The Negro as Capitalist, in which he criticized black businessmen for not promoting interracial trade.

Jewel Plummer Cobb (born January 17, 1924) was president of California State University, Fullerton from 1981 to 1990. She received her M.S. degree from NYU in 1947 and her Ph.D. degree in cell physiology in 1950. Her dissertation “Mechanisms of Pigment Formation” examined the way melanin pigment granules could be formed in vitro using the enzyme tyrosinase. In 1949 she was appointed an independent investigator at Woods Hole Marine Biological Laboratory. She also held post-doctoral positions at the Harlem Hospital Cancer Research Foundation, Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, and the National Cancer Institute.

Eartha Mae Kitt (January 17, 1927 – December 25, 2008) was best known for her highly distinctive singing style and her 1953 recordings of "C'est si bon" and the enduring Christmas novelty smash "Santa Baby", which were both US Top 10 hits. She starred in 1967 as Catwoman, in the third and final season of the television series Batman. began her career in 1943 and appeared in the 1945 original Broadway theatre production of the musical Carib Song. She later received Tony Award nominations for Timbuktu! (1978) and The Wild Party (2000).

James Earl Jones (born January 17, 1931) is known for being the voice of Darth Vader in Star Wars and of Mufasa in The Lion King as well as for over fifty years as a stage and film actor. He won Tony awards in 1969 for The Great White Hope and in 1987 for Fences, and has also portrayed Lennie in Of Mice and Men and the title roles in Othello and King Lear. His  first film role was as Lt. Lothar Zogg, the B-52 bombardier in Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb in 1964, and his first starring film role was as boxer Jack Jefferson in 1970's The Great White Hope.

Lawrence Douglas Wilder (born January 17, 1931) was the first African American to be elected as governor of Virginia and first African American governor of any state since Reconstruction, serving as the 66th Governor of Virginia from 1990 to 1994. When earlier elected as Lieutenant Governor, he was the first African American elected to statewide office in Virginia. His most recent political office was Mayor of Richmond, Virginia, which he held from 2005 to 2009. He served in Korea, winning the Bronze Star during the battle of Pork Chop Hill, and is a 1959 graduate of Howard Law School.

Michelle Obama (January 17, 1964) is the wife of the 44th President of the United States, Barack Obama, and was the first African American First Lady of the United States. She graduated from Princeton University and Harvard Law School before returning to Chicago to work at the law firm Sidley Austin where she met her future husband when he was an intern at the firm, and they were married on October 3, 1992. She also worked for the City of Chicago, as as associate dean of student services for the University of Chicago, and as vice president for community and external affairs at the University of Chicago Medical Center before taking a leave of absence to campaign for her husband. As First Lady she was known for her commitment to education and childrens' fitness.

Events

On January 17, 1961, Congolese Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba was executed by Katangan secessionists. Belgium, the United Kingdom, and the United States have all been accused of involvement in Lumumba's death, the latter due to American commercial interests in the Congo and as part of Cold War rivalry with the Soviet Union, a country the Americans were determined should not gain access to Congo's uranium riches used to make nuclear bombs.

On January 17, 1969, "Bunchy" Carter and fellow Panther John Huggins were shot to death in UCLA’s Campbell Hall by members of the rival black radical group Us. Their deaths were actual set up by the FBI and its COINTELPRO program. Both were founders of the Los Angeles chapter of the BPP the previous year.

On January 17, 1991, Wilhelmina Delco became the first woman to serve as Speaker Pro Tempore of the Texas House. Delco was also the first African American elected to the board of the Austin Independent School District and the first African American elected to represent Travis County in the Texas House of Representatives.

On January 17, 1996, U.S. Representative Barbara Jordan passed away from Multiple Sclerosis at the age of 60. She was the first African American elected to the Texas Senate after Reconstruction and the first southern black female elected to the United States House of Representatives. She received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, among numerous other honors. On her death she became the first African-American woman to be buried in the Texas State Cemetery.




Photo Gallery

Gen. Thomas-Alexandre Dumas, fighting off the Austrian army, at the bridge of Clausen in Tyrol, on 17 January 1797.

Huey Newton: “The racist dog policemen must withdraw immediately from our communities, cease their wanton murder and brutality and torture of black people, or face the wrath of the armed people.” January 17, 1969

Publications

Jet Magazine, January 17, 1952

SOUL — America's Most Soulful Newspaper, January 17, 1977 — George Clinton of Parliament, Gil Scott-Heron & LaBelle

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December 12

On December 12, 1910, W. E. B. DuBois was made a Prince Hall Freemason when initiated into Widow Son Lodge #1                                                                                                                                                                                                                            

Cleveland Robinson (December 12, 1914 - August 23, 1995)was the administrative chairman of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, and served as a labor advisor to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. He was born in Jamaica and had been a constable and elementary teacher before emigrating to New York City in 1944 where he worked in in a dry good store and became active in the local union, which was affiliated with the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Workers Union until it broke off as the National Council of Distributive Workers of America, with Robinson as founding president,  In September 1972, he helped to found the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists (CBTU), successor organization to the Negro American Labor Council (NALC), and served as its first vice-president. (Robinson is shown here with fellow organizer Bayard Rustin.)

Birthdays

Lillian Smith (December 12, 1897 – September 28, 1966) was one of the first prominent southern authors to speak out against racism, calling the 1954 Brown decision "every child's Magna Carta". She is best known for the 1944 novel Strange Fruit, addressing interracial romance, and her collection of autobiographical essays Killers of the Dream, which analyzes the feudal and patriarchal beginnings of racism and its unintended impact on white women and children.

Henry Armstrong (born Henry Jackson Jr., December 12, 1912 - October 22, 1988) was one of the few bpxerss to win in three or more different divisions: featherweight, lightweight and welterweight. He defended his welterweight title a total of nineteen times. In 2007, The Ring ranked him as the second-greatest fighter of the last 80 years. Bert Sugar also ranked him as the second-greatest fighter of all time. After retiring from boxing in 1946, Armstrong briefly opened a Harlem nightclub, the Melody Room and coached young fighters.

Joe Williams (born Joseph Goreed; December 12, 1918 – March 29, 1999) began singing professionally as a soloist in 1937, primarily in bands such as those of Coleman Hawkins and Lionel Hampton.
From 1954 to 1961 he was the singer for the Count Basie Orchestra and rose to national prominence with Basie, who nicknamed him "The Number One Son" "Every Day I Have the Blues", recorded in 1955, was one of his many hit recordings. After leaving the Basie band, Williams had a successful career as a soloist at festivals, in clubs and on television.

Amos Lee Parker (Born December 12, 1936. Died August, 20 2013) was an American aikido teacher. He is ranked 9th dan in Yoshinkan Aikido. Amos Parker received his Shihan in 1986, making him the first non-Japanese instructor to receive such an honor. In 1995, he received the rank of hachidan (8th dan) and in January 2010 he was awarded the rank of 9th dan by the Aikido Yoshinkai Foundation making him the highest ranking non-Japanese Yoshinkan Aikido instructor in the world.

Dionne Warwick (born Marie Dionne Warrick; December 12, 1940) ranks among the 40 biggest hit makers of the entire rock era, based on the Billboard Hot 100 Pop Singles Charts. She is second only to Aretha Franklin as the most-charted female vocalist of all time, with 69 of Warwick's singles making the Billboard Hot 100 between 1962 and 1998.





Events

On December 12, 1870, Joseph Hayne Rainey of Charleston was seated as the first African American to serve in the United States House of Representatives. (Hiram Revels had preceded him in the U.S. Senate in February of that year, with U.S. Senators being chosen at that time by the state legislature instead of popular vote.) He served a total of  four terms, the most of any African American congressman until William Dawson of Chicago in the 1950s. In May 1874, he became the first African American to preside over the House of Representatives as Speaker pro tempore.

On December 12, 1938 the U.S. Supreme Court decided 6-2 in favor of Lloyd Gaines (shown above) in Gaines v. Canada, in which Gaines was suing for admittance to the University of Missouri Law School. However, he disappeared the following spring before the case could be retried in state court. Opinion was divided whether he was murdered or wished to avoid the publicity the case had received. In 2006 the school awarded him an honorary law degree.




Photo Gallery

Ethel Ayler, Leslie Scott (left) and LeVern Hutcherson (right) arrive in Berlin for a second tour of concert performances of music from “Porgy and Bess” on December 12, 1955.

From left to right: Barbara Jordan, Vernon Jordan, and President Lyndon B. Johnson, December 12, 1972. LBJ Library photo by Frank Wolfe.

Michelle Obama chose a custom-made forest green dress by Cushnie et Ochs for the taping of "Christmas in Washington" at the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C. December 12, 2011.

Publications

Jet magazine, December 12, 1957 — Florette Townsend, Teen-age Fashion Designer

“If You Had Any Initiative, You’d Go Out and Inherit a Department Store”, by Herb Block, Washington Post, December 12, 1961. - The cartoon shows Barry Goldwater (1909–1998), heir of a chain of department stores and Rep. senator from Arizona. Herb Block mocks Goldwater’s hard-line conservatism, which he felt was unrelenting toward the poor, particularly the African American community.

Al Green on the cover of Jet Magazine, December 12, 1974

Brown v. Board of Education: A Civil Rights Milestone and Its Troubled Legacy (Pivotal Moments in American History) by James T. Patterson. $12.67. Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA (December 12, 2002). 

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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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