January 22

On January 22, 1964, SNCC organizers held Freedom Day in Hattiesburg, Mississippi in an attempt to have hundreds of black residents register to vote in a county where not one black person was registered. 

William Warfield (January 22, 1920 - August 26, 2002) is best known for his performance as Joe in Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's 1951 remake of Show Boat. The next year he performed in Porgy and Bess during a tour of Europe sponsored by the U.S. State Department (he made six separate tours for the State Department, more than any other solo artist.) In the production he played opposite the opera star Leontyne Price, whom he later married. He was a graduate of the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York, and during World War II was the only African American member of the "Ritchie Boys", thousands of soldiers who were trained at Fort Ritchie, Maryland, an intelligence center where hundreds of Jewish recruits who fled Nazi Germany for the United States were trained to interrogate their one-time countrymen. He was chosen because of his fluency in German  as a result of his musical education.

Birthdays

Walter L. Cohen, Sr. (January 22, 1860 – December 29, 1930) was one of the few African American political appointees in the post-Reconstruction South, serving as a customs inspector in New Orleans under under President McKinley, registrar of the federal land office under President Teddy Roosevelt, and comptroller of customs by under President Warren G. Harding. He was a delegate to all Republican National Conventions between 1896 and 1924, and in 1928 President Coolidge offered him the position of minister to Liberia, but he declined the offer. He was also the founder and president of the People's Life Insurance Company in New Orleans.

Justina Laurena Ford (January 22, 1871 – October 14, 1952) was the first licensed African American female doctor in Denver, Colorado, and practiced gynecology, obstetrics, and pediatrics from her home for half a century. It wasn't until 1950 that she was allowed to join the Colorado and American Medical Associations, and she also became a member of the Denver Medical Society, working in the Denver General Hospital.

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"Blind" Willie Johnson (January 22, 1897 – September 18, 1945) was a blues singer and guitarist, whose music straddled the border between blues and spirituals. While the lyrics of his songs were often religious, his music drew from both sacred and blues traditions. His music is distinguished by his powerful bass thumb-picking and gravelly false-bass voice, with occasional use of a tenor voice.

Sam Cooke (born Samuel Cook, January 22, 1931 - December 11, 1964) had 30 U.S. top 40 hits between 1957 and 1964, plus three more posthumously. He is perhaps best remembered for "A Change Is Gonna Come", a classic protest song from the era of the Civil Rights Movement which was released shortly after his death. Other hits include "You Send Me", "A Change Is Gonna Come", "Cupid", "Chain Gang", "Wonderful World", "Another Saturday Night", and "Twistin' the Night Away". He died of a gunshot wound received in the lobby of the Hacienda Motel in Los Angeles, which the motel's manager, Bertha Franklin, claimed was in self-defense.

Private First Class James Anderson, Jr (January 22, 1947 - February 28, 1967) was a United States Marine who posthumously received the Medal of Honor for heroism while serving in Vietnam in February 1967. When his Medal of Honor was awarded on August 21, 1968, he became the first African-American U.S. Marine recipient of the Medal of Honor. The United States Navy prepositioning ship, USNS PFC James Anderson Jr. (T-AK 3002) is named in honor and there is also a public park named for him in his hometown of Carson, California.



Events

On January 22, 1964, SNCC organizers held Freedom Day in Hattiesburg, Mississippi in an attempt to have hundreds of black residents register to vote in a county where not one black person was registered. Participants included Fannie Lou Hamer, Ella Baker (both shown here), Bob Moses, John Lewis, James Forman, and Howard Zinn. Protesters marched in a heavy rain while one applicant was allowed into the court house every fifteen minutes to register. There were no mass arrests or beatings, although Moses was arrested for obstructing trafffic and NYU Law School graduate Oscar Chase was arrested after a minor traffic accident with no damage for leaving the scene  of the accident and was beaten while in police custody.

On January 22, 2009 Susan Rice confirmed as UN ambassador by the U.S. Senate by unanimous consent on January 22, 2009. She is the first African American woman to hold that office. She had previously served on the staff of the National Security Council and as Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs during President Bill Clinton's second term.






Photo Gallery

January 22, 1972 — The Persuaders perform "Thin Line Between Love & Hate" on Soul Train

Michelle Obama, January 22, 2013

Publications

Petty Officer First Class James McDaniel, USCGR "Coast Guardsman James McDaniel of Roselle, N.J., steward’s mate first class, who has filled his post as loader in a 20-millimeter gun crew aboard an attack transport during three invasions in the South Pacific." /22 January 1944 issue of Baltimore’s The Afro-American

Former Model Taffy Douglas Is On A Jazz Tour of European Cities - Jet Magazine, January 22, 1959

Dorothy Dandridge stretching in preparation for her Porgy and Bess role with Walter Saxer, in the January 22, 1959 issue of Jet Magazine

Dinah Washington and Laverne Baker Sing at Bistro While in Mink Coats - Jet Magazine, January 22, 1959

Black Wings: Courageous Stories of African Americans in Aviation and Space History by Von Hardesty. $17.10. 192 pages. Publisher: Smithsonian (January 22, 2008). Publication: January 22, 2008.

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December 13

Ella Baker (December 13, 1903 - December 13, 1986) graduated from Shaw University in Raleigh, North Carolina, and moved to New York City where she worked on various publications at the end of the Harlem Renaissance and taught through the Workers' Education Project of the WPA. She became involved in the local NAACP, later serving first as a field secretary recruiting members throughout the south and then as branch director overseeing local groups. Throughout her career as an activist she stressed the need for grassroots involvement and local decision-making. She was the first staff member to be hired by the Southern Christian Leadership  Conference (SCLC) after it was formed in 1957. At her urging the SCLC sponsored a gathering of college students who had participated in sit-ins, which led to the formation of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). Through SNCC she was able to mentor younger activists including Bob Moses, Diane Nash, Stokely Carmichael, and Julian Bond. She was also a founding member of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party and the Southern Conference Education Fund (SCEF), an interracial desegregation and human rights group which aimed to help black and white people work together for social justice.

Birthdays

Jane Edna Hunter (December 13, 1881 - January 13, 1971) founded the Phillis Wheatley Association of Cleveland in 1911, providing shelter, assistance, and education to African American women who were not eligible for programs offered through the whites-only local YWCA. By 1927 it had an eleven-story residence hall, beauty school, dining facilities, a nursery school, and the Booker T. Washington playground. Although trained as a nurse, she graduated from law school and was admitted to the Ohio bar. She served as executive director of the Phillis Wheatley Association of Cleveland until she retired in 1947.

Archie Moore (born Archibald Lee Wright, December 13, 1916 - December 9, 1998), was the longest reigning World Light Heavyweight Champion of all time (December 1952 - May 1962). He had one of the longest professional careers in the history of the sport. Nicknamed "The Mongoose", and then "The Old Mongoose" in the latter half of his career, Moore holds the record for the most career knockouts (131) in boxing history. Moore was a highly strategical and defensive boxer, with a great chin and bludgeoning power, he ranks #4 on The Ring's list of "100 greatest punchers of all time".

Larry Doby (December 13, 1923 – June 18, 2003) was signed by Cleveland Indians owner Bill Veeck in July 1947, entering Major League Baseball three months after Jackie Robinson and becoming the first African American player in the American League. He had previously played for the Newark Eagles in the Negro League and with the U. S. Navy. He was the first player to go directly to the majors from the Negro leagues. A seven-time All-Star center fielder, Doby and teammate Satchel Paige were the first African American players to win a World Series championship when the Indians won in 1948.  After his playing career, he managed the Chicago White Sox and was inducted into the Basehall Hall of Fame in 1998.

Larry Doby and teammate James Gromek after Game 4 of the World Series on October 9, 1948. Doby had homered and Gromek had pitched a complete game in the Indians' win over the Boston Braves.

Wiley A. Branton (December 13, 1923 - December 15, 1988) was the attorney for the Little Rock Nine. The third African American graduate of the University of Arkansas Law School (1953), he went on to serve as executive director of the Atlanta-based Voter Education Project and as executive director of the President’s Council on Equal Opportunity before being named Dean of the Howard University Law School in 1977.

Ferguson Arthur (Fergie) Jenkins, CM, (born December 13, 1942) is a Canadian former Major League Baseball right-handed pitcher. He was a three-time All-Star and the 1971 NL Cy Young Award winner. In 1991, Jenkins was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. During a 19-year career, he pitched for four different teams, spending the majority of his career with the Chicago Cubs. He also played basketball as a member of the Harlem Globetrotters.

Herman Cain (born December 13, 1945) was a candidate for the 2012 U.S. Republican Party presidential nomination. He is a graduate of Morehouse College and holds an MS in Computer Science from Purdue. He has been CEO of Godfather's Pizza and the National Restaurant Association and chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City.

Jamie Foxx (born Eric Marlon Bishop, December 13, 1967) won an Academy Award for Best Actor, BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role, and Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Musical or Comedy, for his portrayal of Ray Charles in the 2004 biographical film Ray. The same year, he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role in the crime film Collateral. (He and Al Pacino are the only two actors to have two Oscar nominations in the same year.) He starred in the 1990-1994 sketch comedy show In Living Color and his own television show from 1996 to 2001, the sitcom The Jamie Foxx Show. He is also a Grammy Award-winning musician, producing four albums which have charted in the top ten of the US Billboard 200.

Events

On December 13, 1913, Africa’s last great emperor died. King Menelik II ruled over the East African Empire of Ethiopia. During his reign, the empire included not only present day Ethiopia but parts of Kenya, Somalia and the Sudan. European colonialism would reduce the size of the empire. Menelik ruled from 1889 to 1913. He was able to trace his ancestry to King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba in the Christian Bible.

Beginning on December 13, 1944 black women were allowed to join the U.S. Navy’s office training program. The program, Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service (WAVES), employed women as nurses and secretaries in the beginning and aviation mechanics, photographers, control tower operators, and intelligence personnel as the program progressed.

Stanley Tookie Williams III (December 29, 1953 – December 13, 2005) was a leader of the Crips, a notorious American street gang which has its roots in South Central Los Angeles in 1969. In 1979 he was convicted of four murders committed in the course of robberies, sentenced to death, and eventually executed. Once incarcerated, he authored several books, including anti-gang and anti-violence literature and children's books.




Photo Gallery

Africa and the American Negro: Addresses and Proceedings of the Congress on Africa: Held under the Auspices of the Stewart Missionary Foundation for Africa of Gammon Theological Seminary in Connection with the Cotton States and International Exposition December 13-15, 1895.

December 13, 1961 - Over 200 people are shown as they were arrested in Albany, Ga. after staging a demonstration in front of City Hall

Muhammad Ali with his winnings, Los Angeles, California - December 13, 1963

Demonstrators fill Pennsylvania Avenue as they march towards the U.S. Capitol building during the national Justice For All march against police violence in Washington December 13, 2014.

Publications

Sarah Vaughan - Jet Magazine, December 13, 1951

"December 8, 1930 -- Elegant furnishings from the late Madame C. J. Walker's Villa Lewaro mansion in New York were sold at auction for $58,500...." Jet Magazine, December 13, 1951

Opera Singing Beauty Adele Addison - Jet Magazine, December 13, 1951

Why Dorothy Dandridge Can't Kiss Her White Film Lover - Jet Magazine, December 13, 1956

The Black Panther Newspaper, December 13, 1969

Budweiser ad, in Jet Magazine. December 13, 1979.

The New Yorker's December 13, 2013 cover to honor Nelson Mandela, who died December 5, 2013 at 95.

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