February 10

Leontyne Price (born February 10, 1927) was a was a choir member and accompanist at St. Mark Methodist Church in Laurel, Mississippi as a child, and was inspired at the age of nine by seeing Marian Anderson perform. She prepared for a career in music at Wilberforce College and Julliard, and her first starring role was in an international tour of Porgy and Bess in 1952. She sang in the title role of NBC's presentation of Tosca (1955) and soon became the first internationally acclaimed African American opera performer, appearing in Aida at La Scala in Milan and as Cleopatra in Antony and Cleopatra at the dedication of the New York Metropolitan Opera's new building in 1961. She sang at both Lyndon Johnson's inauguration and at his funeral. During her career she earned over twenty Grammy Awards and was one of the most widely recorded opera singers. She retired from opera in 1985 but continued to sing in concerts and recitals until 1997.

Birthdays

Sylvia L. Hill Williams (February 10, 1936 - February 28, 1996), A.B. Oberlin 1957, was the first woman to hold the position of Director of the National Museum of African Art at the Smithsonian Institution, in Washington, D.C. She served as a member of the Allen Memorial Art Museum Visiting Committee (1989-96), and a member of the Board of Trustees, Oberlin College (1990-96).

Roberta Cleopatra Flack (born February 10, 1939) is best known for her classic #1 singles "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face", "Killing Me Softly with His Song" and "Feel Like Makin' Love", and for "Where Is the Love" and "The Closer I Get to You", two of her many duets with Donny Hathaway. She was the first, and remains the only, solo artist to win the Grammy Award for Record of the Year on two consecutive years: "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face" won at the 1973 Grammys as did "Killing Me Softly with His Song" at the 1974 Grammys.


Events

On February 10, 1881, the Alabama legislature established Tuskegee Institute as a "normal school for the education of colored teachers." The law stipulated that no tuition be charged and that graduates agree to teach for two years in Alabama schools. Booker T. Washington was chosen as the first superintendent and arrived in Alabama in June 1881.

On February 10, 1966, Andrew Brimmer was the first African American to be appointed to the Federal Reserve Board. Dr. Brimmer served in the Army during World War II and then completed a BA and MA in economics at the University of Washington. He studied at the University of Bombay for a year before earning his PhD at Harvard while working as an economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York helping the newly established Sudanese government establish a central bank.

On February 10, 2007, Sen. Barack Obama announced his presidential candidacy in Springfield, Illinois.





Photo Gallery

February 10, 1919 -- Officers of the 369th Infantry Regiment (Harlem Hellfighters)

Jennie Jacobs (l), 96, and Phyllis Pollitt, 99, prepare to celebrate the birthday of Abraham Lincoln at an old folks' home in Philadelphia.Both are former slaves. Mrs. Pollitt is a native of North Carolina, where she was born in slavery; Mrs. Jacobs was freed from the state of Delaware. Photo taken February 10, 1940. Photo Credit: Corbis Images.

"Capt. Ezekia Smith, 370th Inf. Regt., 92nd Div., receives treatment at the 317th Collecting Station, for shell fragments in face and shoulders suffered near Querceta, Italy. Here, surgeon stitches the wound. Fifth Army, Pietrasanta Area, Italy." February 10, 1945.

Photo from February 10, 1950 promoting Ruby Dee, who had just been signed to play Jackie Robinson's wife Rachel in the biopic 'The Jackie Robinson Story'. Photo by FPG/Archive Photos/Getty Images).

Dorothy I. Height (national president of National Council of Negro Women), Press conference, 10 February 1958. Photographer: Snow University of Southern California, Los Angeles Examiner Collection

Lunch counter protest Raleigh, North Carolina, February 10, 1960 Unidentified photographer From "Freedom Now! Forgotten Photographs of the Civil Rights Movement" by Martin A. Berger

Bob Marley married Alpharita Constantia Anderson, better known as Rita Marley on February 10, 1966.

Publications

Jet Magazine, February 10, 1955

The White Image in the Black Mind:African-American Ideas about White People, 1830-1925 by Mia Bay. $17.61. Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA (February 10, 2000)

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October 27

Ruby Dee (October 27, 1924 - June 11, 2014) is perhaps best know for her roles as Ruth Younger in the film A Raisin in the Sun (1961) and as Mahalee Lucas in American Gangster (2007), for which she was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. She has won a Grammy, Emmy, Obie, Drama Desk, Screen Actors Guild Award, Screen Actors Guild Lifetime Achievement Award, and is a recipient of the National Medal of Arts. She and her husband, Ossie Davis, whom she married in 1948, were long-time civil rights and political activists. After her death, she was cremated, and her ashes are held in the same urn as that of Davis, with the inscription "In this thing together".

Birthdays

Dr. Charles H. Garvin (October 27, 1890 - July 17, 1968) was a Howard Medical School graduate (1915) and the first African American physician commissioned during World War I, serving in France as commander of the 92nd Division. He spent his entire career in Cleveland where he founded the Dunbar Life Insurance Company and was active in NAACP and National Urban League. Dr. Garvin's interest in medicine extended beyond his practice to research and writing, especially tracing the history of Africans and African Americans in medicine, completed an unpublished manuscript on the topic. He was also the fourth National President of Alpha Phi Alpha.

Oliver Tambo (October 27, 1917 - April 24, 1993) was a South African anti-apartheid politician and a central figure in the African National Congress (ANC). Tambo, along with Mandela and Walter Sisulu, was a founding member of the ANC Youth League in 1943, becoming its first National Secretary. The Youth League advocated more confrontational tactics against apartheid, such as boycotts, civil disobedience, strikes and non-collaboration, than did the ANC's older membership. In 1955, Tambo became Secretary General of the ANC after Walter Sisulu was banned by the South African government under the Suppression of Communism Act. In 1967 he became Acting President of the ANC after the death of Albert Lutuli, and served as President until 1991.
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Anna Langford (October 27, 1917 – September 17, 2008) worked as a typist in several government offices for 18 years while attending John Marshall Law School part-time. She received her J.D. degree in February 1956 and began an extensive career as a civil rights and criminal lawyer. She practiced law throughout the State of Illinois, defended civil rights workers in the 1960s and joined Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Chicago civil rights marches.   Langford became the first African American woman elected to the Chicago City Council in 1971.  She ultimately served three nonconsecutive terms on the council.

Elijah "Pumpsie" Green (born October 27, 1933) was the first African American to play for the Boston Red Sox, the last major league team to integrate. He was used mostly as a pinch runner or day-off replacement for infielders Pete Runnels and Don Buddin and made his debut on July 21, 1959, pinch-running in a 2-1 loss against the White Sox. He was later traded to the Mets, and after retiring from baseball in 1965 he coached and taught math in Berkeley, California. Mr. Green now lives in El Cerrito, California.He is the older brother of Cornell Green, who was a defensive back for the Dallas Cowboys from 1962 to 1974.

Jayne Kennedy (October 27, 1951) won national acclaim as one of the first women to infiltrate the male-dominated world of sports announcing with a place on The NFL Today. She went on to be the only female to ever host the syndicated TV series Greatest Sports Legends. She received an Emmy Award for her coverage of the Rose Parade and was nominated for an Emmy for her coverage of the news feature on soldiers on the DMZ in South Korea for NBC’s Speak Up America in 1980. As an actress she won a 1982 NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Actress in a Motion Picture award for her performance as Julie Winters in the 1981 film Body and Soul co-starring alongside her then–husband Leon Isaac Kennedy.

Events

On October 27, 1951, The National Negro Labor Council was formed in Cincinnati, Ohio. Delegates from around the country gathered to denounce racial discrimination in the workplace, segregation, and the slow pace at which the labor movement as a whole addressed these problems. The NNLC was branded a communist front by the U.S. Attorney General, investigated by the House Un-American Activities Committee, and dissolved in 1956 under mounting legal defense costs.


Photo Gallery

On October 27, 1891, the street letter drop mailbox with a hinged door that
closed to protect the mail was patented by Philip B. Downing.  (US Patent # 462,096).

Group photograph of African American school teacher with her
 students in front of their school building, 27 October 1904.

Dr. Martin Luther King is given a welcome home kiss by his wife Coretta, upon his return to Atlanta
 following his release from Reidsville State Prison on bond, on October 27, 1960. King's children,
Yolanda, 5, and Martin Luther III, 3, join the welcome celebration. (AP Photo) / Beaumont

October 27, 2010 James Wall passed away at age 92. He was a former vaudevillian who played Captain
Kangaroo’s neighbor “Mr. Baxter” on the children’s show and was a longtime stage manager for CBS News.

On October 27, 2012, Dr. John Carlos was inducted in the Texas A&M-Commerce
 Hall of Fame (formerly East Texas State University)

U.S. President Barack Obama talks with his daughter Malia Obama (L) as they
 walk from St John's Church to the White House after service October 27, 2013.

Publications

Floyd Patterson - Say Magazine October 27, 1955

Emmett Till Case - Jackson Mississippi Paper "Reports" Emmett Till's
Father Was Executed for Rape - Jet Magazine, October 27, 1955

October 27, 1986 - Newsweek Magazine: "A Day in The Life of America" - KKK Grandmother in Georgia.

Malcolm X, African American Revolutionary by Dennis D. Wainstock.
$35.00. Publisher: McFarland (October 27, 2008).

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