January 28

Indigo Rhythm by LaShun Beal (born January 28, 1962), a native of Detroit who now resides in the Houston area. He has no formal art training and considers himself to be a self-taught artist.

Richmond Barthé (January 28, 1901 – March 5, 1989) had his debut as a professional sculptor at The Negro in Art Week exhibition in 1927, while still a student of painting at the Art Institute of Chicago, which led to commissions such as busts of Henry O. Tanner (1928) and Toussaint L’Ouverture (1928). After leaving the Institute he relocated in New York City where he became one of the leading sculptors of the Harlem Renaissance, although he worked from a studio in Greenwich Village. He was the first African American artist to be represented, together with the painter Jacob Lawrence, in the Metropolitan Museum of Art's permanent collection and in 1945 was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In his later years, Barthé lived in Haiti and Europe before settling in Pasadena, California, where he worked on his memoirs and most importantly, editioned many of his works with the financial assistance of the actor James Garner until his death in 1989. Garner copyrighted Barthé's artwork, hired a biographer to organize and document his work, and established the Richmond Barthé Trust.

Birthdays

Louise Cecelia (Lulu) Fleming (January 28, 1862 - June 20, 1899) was a graduate of Shaw University and taught near St. Augustine, Florida until she was sent by the Women’s Baptist Foreign Missionary Society as a missionary-teacher to the Congo in 1886. Illness forced her return to the United States in 1991, and because of the limited health care available in the Congo she enrolled at The Women’s Medical College in Philadelphia, becoming its first African American graduate in 1995. She returned to the Congo where she was the provided medical care and training for women until hear death from sleeping sickness at the age of 37.

Sam McDaniel (January 28, 1886 – September 24, 1962) appeared in over 210 television shows and films between 1929 and 1950. He was the only African American to ever appear in I Love Lucy playing "Sam the Porter" in a 1955 episode called "The Great Train Robbery", and he played Doc in the 1937 film Captains Courageous. He was the older brother of actresses Hattie McDaniel and Etta McDaniel. Their father, Henry McDaniel, fought in the Civil War with the 122nd USCT and their mother, Susan Holbert, was a singer of religious music.

William Walker (January 28, 1917 - January 4, 1992) appeared in over 100 films and television shows, and is best known for his role as Rev. Sikes in To Kill a Mockingbird (1962), He was elected to the Screen Actors Guild Board of Directors in 1952, and used his position to lobby studio executives for more and better roles for African American actors. He also worked with the NAACP to negotiate for the SAG’s Theatrical Agreement to include a non-discrimination clause.

LaShun Beal (born January 28, 1962) is a native of Detroit and now resides in the Houston area. He has no formal art training and considers himself to be a self-taught artist. LaShun's subject matter mostly revolves around female characters and his style depicts the many differences of African American women. Over the last few years he  has developed his signature Universal Women character which has come to be associated with his name.

Events

On January 28, 1856, Margaret Garner and her family escaped across the frozen Ohio River from Kentucy to Cincinnati. When they were captured by slave catchers she killed her daughter rather than to return her to slavery. Her story is the basis of Toni Morrison's novel Beloved. (Painting by Thomas Satterwhite Noble.)

On January 28, 1958,  Roy Campanella was involved in an automobile accident that ended his  baseball career and left him paralyzed. After a year's rehabilitation, the Brooklyn Dodgers named him assistant supervisor of scouting for the eastern part of the United States and special coach at the team's annual spring training camp in Vero Beach, Florida, serving each year as a mentor and coach to young catchers.  He was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1969.

On January 28, 1963  Harvey Gantt enrolled in Clemson University, making him the first African-American student to attend a formerly all-white school (of any grade level) in South Carolina. His application had been turned down three times. He was finally admitted as the result of a suit he filed against the college with the help of NAACP lawyer Matthew J. Perry.

On January 28, 1986, Ron McNair was killed when the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded after launch from the Kennedy Space Center, Florida. Dr. McNair held a PhD in physics from M.I.T. and had flown one mission before losing his life in the Challenger disaster. He was an amateur saxophonist and had worked with the composer Jean Michel Jarre on a piece of music for Jarre's then-upcoming album Rendez-Vous. It was intended that he would record his saxophone solo on board the Challenger, which would have made McNair's solo the first original piece of music to have been recorded in space (although the song "Jingle Bells" had been played on a harmonica during an earlier Gemini 6 spaceflight).

Photo Gallery

Frederick Douglass addressing a crowd of about 200 Samaná Americans in Samaná, January 28, 1871. Most of the Samaná Americans are descendants of African American who, beginning in 1824, immigrated to Hispaniola—then under Haitian administration—benefiting from the favorable pro-Black immigration policy of president Jean Pierre Boyer.

Charles P. Bailey in the cockpit of his P-40. Bailey was one of the 99th's "Top Guns" scoring his first victory in a battle over the Anzio beachhead on January 28, 1944.

Muhammad Ali vs Joe Frazier, Philadelphia January 28, 1971

January 28, 1996 – Diana Ross performs as the featured halftime performer at Super Bowl XX in Tempe, Arizona

Benjamin O. Davis Sr. Issued: January 28, 1997 Benjamin O. Davis was the first African-American general in the U.S. Army and a driving force in the eventual integration of the U.S. armed forces.

President Barack Obama kisses First Lady Michelle Obama following his State of the Union address at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., January 28, 2014. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

Publications

Alligator Bait. While actual incidents likely were rare, images and objects showing caricatured African American children as alligator bait were widespread. A January 28, 1900 Washington Times reflected on the "Phenomenal success of a photograph styled 'Alligator Bait'." It told how the photograph got its name, its popularity from "coast to coast", and reported that "sales from this one negative have reached nearly $5,000" 

Jet Magazine, January 28, 1954

The Death of Sweet Daddy Grace - Jet Magazine, January 28, 1960

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October 21

George Stinney Jr. (October 21, 1929 - June 16, 1944) was the youngest person legally executed in 20th century America. He was convicted of the rape and murder of Betty June Binnicker, age 11, and Mary Emma Thames, age 8, in Alcolu, South Carolina, during a trial that lasted less than three hours, with jury deliberation of 10 minutes. There was no written record of his confession apart from notes provided by an investigating deputy, and no transcript of the brief trial. He was denied appeal and executed by electric chair. The 14-year-old Stinney, who stood 5'1" tall and weighed 90 pounds, was too small for the chair to be effective, so a Bible was used as a booster seat. In 2014, circuit court judge Carmen Mullen vacated the conviction, writing, "No one can justify a 14-year-old child charged, tried, convicted and executed in some 80 days," and concluding that "In essence, not much was done for this child when his life lay in the balance."

Birthdays

Carlos Wesley "Don" Byas (October 21, 1912 – August 24, 1972) founded and led his own college band, Don Carlos and His Collegiate Ramblers, during 1931 and 1932 at Langston College. After college, he played in Los Angeles jazz clubs, working in Lionel Hampton's band at the Paradise Club in 1935. He then joined the Eddie Mallory band, accompanying Mallory's wife, the singer Ethel Waters, on tour, and at the Cotton Club. In 1941 Count Basie chose him to succeed the post of Lester Young in his big band. He went on tour with Don Redmon's band in Europe in 1946, and remained there, settling in The Netherlands.

John Birks "Dizzy" Gillespie (October 21, 1917 – January 6, 1993) was an American jazz trumpeter, bandleader, composer and occasional singer. Gillespie was a trumpet virtuoso and improviser, building on the virtuoso style of Roy Eldridge but adding layers of harmonic complexity previously unknown in jazz. His beret and horn-rimmed spectacles, his scat singing, his bent horn, pouched cheeks and his light-hearted personality were essential in popularizing bebop.

Ronald Ervin McNair (October 21, 1950 - January 28, 1986) was a physicist and NASA astronaut. In 1971, he received a bachelor's degree in engineering physics, magna cum laude, from North Carolina A & T State University in Greensboro, North Carolina.  In 1976, he received his Ph.D. in physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and became a staff physicist at the Hughes Research Lab. He was chosen for the space program in 1978 and had flown one mission before losing his life in the Challenger disaster.



Events

On October 21, 1835, a mob of pro-slavery businessmen stormed a meeting of the Boston Female Anti-Slavery Association held at the office of William Lloyd Garrison's The Liberator where British abolitionist George Thompson (left) was a speaker. The rioters were unable to find Thompson but destroyed the sign announcing the meeting and captured Garrison, who was rescued and taken to the Leverett Street Jail for his own safety. Thompson later remarked, "Such a mob--30 ladies routed and a 6x2 board demolished by 4,000 men."

On October 21, 1955, 18-year-old Mary Louise Smith was arrested for not giving up her seat to a white passenger on a Montgomery bus, about six weeks before Rosa Parks was arrested on the same charge. Her father bailed her out of jail and paid the $9 fine. Smith was one of five women named as plaintiffs in the federal civil suit, Browder v. Gayle, challenging the constitutionality of the state and local bus segregation laws.




Photo Gallery

Dr Martin Luther King at the Ritz Hotel, in London on a one-day visit to launch
 the British publication of his book 'Why We Can't Wait' - 21 October 1964

Coretta Scott King gives a speech in Washington, D.C. in hopes of having the government agree to a moratorium
 on peace in Vietman on October 21, 1969. (Photo by Keystone-France/Gamma-Keystone via Getty Images)

Sylvester Magee - reported to be the Last Union Veteran died on 21 October 1971 in Marion County, Mississippi at the
age of 130 (born 29 May 1841). He was present at the fall of Vicksburg and pressed into service in the Union Army.

Maya Angelou at a visit to Wheelock College on October 21, 1988

October 21, 2012     Pete Souza/The White House Mr. Obama and Ruby Bridges Hall, the first black child to integrate an elementary school in the South, admiring the Norman Rockwell painting of her marching into school, which he hung outside the Oval Office. Copyright 2012 The New York Times Company

Publications

Charleston Courier, October 21, 1820

Jeanna Limyou on the cover of Jet Magazine October 21, 1954

Dr Mary McLeod Bethune Named Mother of the Century - Jet Magazine, October 21, 1954.

Bound for Glory: Celebrating the Gift of African American Spirituals through Expressive Calligraphy by Timothy R. Botts. $16.00. Publication: October 21, 2011. Author: Timothy R. Botts. 128 pages. Publisher: Tyndale House 

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