January 14

On January 14, 2017, President-Elect Donald Trump tweeted that John Lewis was "talk, talk, talk -- no action and no results" in response to Rep. Lewis's statement that Trump was an "illegitimate president" because of purported Russian interference in last November's presidential election. During the 1963 Selma March, SNCC leader Lewis suffered a concussion when beaten by State Troopers, and was jailed 45 times during the civil rights movement. The remarks were made at the beginning of the MLK weekend observance. 

Julian Bond (January 14, 1940 – August 15, 2015) was a founder of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) while a student at Morehouse College, and later with Morris Dees worked to found the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) and served as its first  president. He was also chairman of the NAACP from 1998 to 2010. He served four terms in the Georgia House of Representatives (1967–1974) and 6 terms in the Georgia Senate (1975–1987). After leaving politics he taught the history of the civil rights movement at the University of Virginia from 1990 to 2012. He was the son of Horace Mann Bond, the first African American president of Lincoln University in Pennsylvania.



Birthdays

Dudley Randall (January 14, 1914 – August 5, 2000) founded Broadside Press in 1965, which published many leading African-American writers, among them Melvin Tolson, Sonia Sanchez, Audre Lorde, Gwendolyn Brooks, Etheridge Knight, Margaret Walker, and others. His most famous poem is "The Ballad of Birmingham," written in response to the 1963 bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church. Other well-known poems of his include "A Poet is not a Jukebox," "Booker T. and W.E.B.," and "The Profile on the Pillow." He earned a Bachelor of Arts in English from Wayne State University degree in English in 1949 and a master's degree in Library Science at the University of Michigan in 1951.

John O. Killens (January 14, 1916 – October 27, 1987) was a founder of the Harlem Writers Guild along with with John Henrik Clarke, Rosa Guy, and Walter Christmas. He taught writing at  Fisk University, Howard University, Columbia University and Medgar Evers College. where he founded the National Black Writers Conference. His novels Youngblood and And Then We Heard the Thunder were nominated for the Pulitzer Prize in fiction.

Vonetta Lawrence McGee (January 14, 1945 – July 9, 2010) was best known for her roles during the 1970s, which included blaxploitation films such as Hammer, Melinda, Blacula, Shaft in Africa and 1974's Thomasine & Bushrod alongside her then-boyfriend Max Julien. She was a regular on the 1987 Universal Television situation comedy Bustin' Loose, starring as Mimi Shaw for its first and only season (1987-1988).  In 1987, she married actor Carl Lumbly.

Carl Weathers (born January 14, 1948), is best known for playing Apollo Creed in the Rocky series of films. He also played Dillon in Predator, Chubbs Peterson in Happy Gilmore, and Little Nicky, and an exaggeratedly frugal fictionalized version of himself in the television series Arrested Development. He played football at San Diego State University and professionally with the Oakland Raiders for one season and three seasons with the  BC Lions of the Canadian Football League.




Events

On January 14, 1930, Ernest E. Just was elected Vice President of American Society of Zoologists. He was the first African American admitted to the organization, and the first to serve in a leadership position. Dr. Just had chaired the Department of Zoology since 1912 and was a researcher at the prestigious summer program of the  Marine Biological Laboratory at Woods Hole, Massachusetts, specializing in the study of cell permeability, cytology, and parthenogenesis. He was also a founder of Omega Psi Phi Fraternity and recipient of the first Spingarn Medal.

On January 14, 1972, the NBC sitcom Sanford and Son debuted, running until March 25, 1977. The series was adapted by Norman Lear and considered NBC's answer to CBS's All in the Family and has been hailed as the precursor to many other African American sitcoms. In 2007, Time magazine included the show on their list of the "100 Best TV Shows of All Time".



Photo Gallery

Mary Caldwell receipt for purchase of a slave, January 14, 1854

January 14 - ON THIS DAY in 1970, the curtain closed for good on Diana Ross and the Supremes as they performed their final concert in Las Vegas.

Idris Elba with his father Winston Elba during the opening of Elba House, a new social housing development in Andre St, Hackney on 14 January 2011.

President Obama with LeBron and Dwyane Wade before an event at the White House on January 14, 2014

Publications

New Glamour in Exotic Earrings Modeled by Yvonne Jones - Jet Magazine, January 14, 1954

Shake Dancer Jean Idelle Puts 3 Locks on Her Dressing Room Door - Jet Magazine, January 14, 1954

80-Year-Old W. C. Handy Takes A Bride, Irma Logan - Jet Magazine, January 14, 1954 

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December 30

Beauford Delaney (December 30, 1901 – March 26, 1979) began painting as a child in Knoxville where he was mentored by local artist Lloyd Branson and completed his first commissioned work at age 14....

On December 30, 1882, nineteen convicts drowned in the Tuckasegee River near Dillsboro, North Carolina when the ferry they were riding capsized in freezing water. The men, ranging in age from 15 to 55, had been leased from the state penitentiary to work on the Cowee tunnel and were buried in a mass, unmarked grave nearby. Eleven prisoners and one guard were pulled from the river and survived.

Birthdays

Inez Beverly Prosser (December 30, 1897 - September 1934) is often credited with being the first African American woman to earn a PhD in psychology. Although her degree was from the University of Cincinnati School of Education in 1933, her research was in the field of psychology and her advisors were psychologists. Dr. Prosser's dissertation, The Non-Academic Development of Negro Children in Mixed and Segregated Schools, was used over the next twenty years in research leading to the Brown v. Board of Education decision in 1954.She died in a car accident one year after she received her PhD.

Beauford Delaney (December 30, 1901 – March 26, 1979) began painting as a child in Knoxville where he was mentored by local artist Lloyd Branson and completed his first commissioned work at age 14. He studied art in Boston and New York, receiving critical acclaim and gallery exposure but little commercial success. One of his works from this period, Can Fire in the Park (1946), is described by the Smithsonian American Art Museum as a "disturbingly contemporary vignette [which] conveys a legacy of deprivation linked not only to the Depression years after 1929 but also to the longstanding disenfranchisement of black Americans, portrayed here as social outcasts. Delaney moved to Paris in 1952 where he spent the remainder of his life.

Can Fire in the Park, 1946

Rock innovator Bo Diddley (December 30, 1928 - June 2, 2008) was born Ellas Otha Bates in McComb, Mississippi, taking the surname McDaniel when he moved to Chicago with the family of his mother's cousin, Gussie McDaniel. He began recording with Chess Records in 1954 and was one of the first American male musicians to include women in his band. In 1987 he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Joseph F. Beam (December 30, 1954 – December 27, 1988, was an African-American gay rights activist and author who worked to foster greater acceptance of gay life in the black community by relating the gay experience with the struggle for civil rights in the United States. His books In the Life and Brother to Brother were featured in the 1991 television documentary, Tongues Untied.

Eldrick Tont "Tiger" Woods (born December 30, 1957)  was  PGA Player of the Year a record eleven times and the leading money winner ten times. He is the youngest player to achieve the career Grand Slam, and the youngest and fastest to win 50 tournaments on tour. He first reached the number one position in the world rankings in June 1997, and remained consistently at or near the top until 2010.

LeBron James (born December 30, 1964)  has won three NBA championships (2012, 2013, 2016), four NBA Most Valuable Player Awards (2009, 2010, 2012, 2013), three NBA Finals MVP Awards (2012, 2013, 2016), two Olympic gold medals (2008, 2012), an NBA scoring title (2008), and the NBA Rookie of the Year Award (2004). He has also been selected to 12 NBA All-Star teams, 12 All-NBA teams, and six All-Defensive teams.

Events

December 30 is the fifth day of Kwanzaa, symbolized by the principle of Nia or Purpose; to make our collective vocation the building and developing of our community in order to restore our people to their traditional greatness.

On December 30, 1929, a charter was granted to the Alpha chapter of Sigma Gamma Rho Sorority Inc. at Butler University. In spite of campus racism, the organization was organized on November 12, 1922, in Indianapolis, Indiana, by seven educators.



Photo Gallery

Thornhill Plantation, Greene County, Alabama, Old Slave Cabin - December 30, 1934. (Photographer Alex Bush)

Marian Anderson and Paul Robeson, December 30, 1945, New York City

Publications

Jet Magazine, December 30, 1954

Jet Magazine December 30, 1976 -- Marvin Gaye

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