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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November 17

 November 17, 2012 -- Young ballerinas pose as they prepare to go on stage
 in Alexandra Township, South Africa. (Denis Farrell/Associated Press)

William Henry Hastie, Jr. (November 17, 1904 – April 14, 1976) broke ground as the first African American federal judge (appointed by President Roosevelt to the Virgin Islands, 1937) and the first federal appeals court judge (appointed by President Truman to the Third Circuit, 1949). He was also considered for a seat on the U.S. Supreme Court in 1962 but President Kennedy felt Southern opposition would be too high at that time. During his career Hastie also served as assistant solicitor for the Department of the Interior, dean of the Howard Law School, as a civilian civilian aide to Secretary of War Henry Stimson during World War II (resigning in protest over lack of efforts to end segregation in the military), and as Governor of the Virgin Islands. He held an undergraduate degree from Amherst College and L.L.B. and S.J.D. degrees from Harvard Law School.

Birthdays

Nancy Green  (November 17, 1834 - September 23, 1923) was hired in 1890 by the R.T. Davis Milling Company in St. Joseph, Missouri, to represent "Aunt Jemima", an advertising character named after a song from a minstrel show, to promote a new line of self-rising pancake mix.She was introduced as Aunt Jemima at the World's Columbian Exposition held in Chicago, where it was her job to operate a pancake-cooking display. After the fair she was given a lifetime contract to promote the pancake mix, which involved thousands of personal appearances around the country.  With the income from her work she was able to assist the needy in Chicago and was a founder of Mount Oliver Baptist Church.

Samuel (Sammy) Leamon Younge Jr. (November 17, 1944 - January 3, 1966) enrolled in Tuskegee Institute after being discharged from the Navy in 1964. He was active in the Tuskegee Institute for Advancement League (TIAL), which was affililated with SNCC, and worked to integrate public businesses in Tuskegee and for voting rights throughout the south. He was murdered during an altercation over using a whites-only restroom by Tuskegee gas station attendant Marvin Segrest. An all-white jury, in an overwhelmingly black county, deliberated for an hour and ten minutes before finding Segrest not guilty.

Yolanda Denise King (November 17, 1955 – May 15, 2007)  was the oldest child of Dr. Martin Luther King and Coretta Scott King, born two weeks before the end of the Birmingham Bus Boycott. She was a prolific public speaker, continuing the vision of her father.  King graduated from Smith College in 1976 and later earned a a master's degree in theater from New York University.She appeared in a number of films, including playing Rosa Parks in  in the TV miniseries King, based on her father's life, and co-wrote a play, Stepping into Tomorrow, with Attallah Shabazz, daughter of Malcolm X.

Denise McNair (November 17, 1951 - September 15, 1963) was murdered in the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church bombing. About Denise: Held tea parties, was in the Brownies, and liked to play baseball. Organized a neighborhood talent show in her garage every year to raise money for Muscular Dystrophy. Always smiled in pictures even when she lost her baby teeth. Klansman Robert Chambliss was identified as having placed a box under the steps of the church earlier that morning. A month later he was found not guilty of murder, and fined $100 for having dynamite in his possession. The case was reopened in the 1970s and 3 men were found guilty of murder.

Susan Elizabeth Rice (born November 17, 1964) was sworn in as U.S. National Security Advisor on July 1, 2013. She has previously served in government positions as Ambassador to the U.N., Assistant Secretary of State, and a staff member of the National Security Council. She has been a foreign policy advisor for Democratic Presidential candidates and transition teams since Michael Dukakis in 1988. She has been managing director at Intellibridge and a senior fellow in the foreign policy program at the Brookings Institution. She holds a BA in history from Stanford University and was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford where she earned a MPhil in 1988 and DPhil in 1990.

Rebecca Walker (born November 17, 1969) is a feminist author and lecturer, best known for her first book, To Be Real: Telling the Truth and Changing the Face of Feminism, in which she outlines the concept of  third-wave feminism. She has also written on her mixed-race identity and motherhood. Her work has appeared in a number of publications and she has been a contributing editor to Ms. magazine. She is the daughter of Alice Walker, the African American author of The Color Purple, and Mel Leventhal, a Jewish attorney.



Events

On November 17, 1911, undergraduate students at Howard University Edgar A. Love, Oscar J. Cooper and Frank Coleman founded Omega Psi Phi Fraternity with their faculty adviser Ernest Everett Just. It was the first Greek-letter fraternity to be formed at a Black school. Since its founding, the fraternity's stated purpose has been to attract and build a strong and effective force of men dedicated to manhood, scholarship, perseverance, and uplift.

Formed on November 17, 1961, the Albany Movement was a desegregation coalition organized in Albany, Georgia, by local activists, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). The coalition was led by William G. Anderson, a local African American Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine.

November 17, 1978, two FBI agents, Charles D. Brennan and George C. Moore, testify before the House Select Committee on Assassinations that the bureau’s long-term surveillance of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was based solely on J. Edgar Hoover’s “hatred of the civil rights leader” and not on the civil rights leader’s alleged communist influences or linkages with radical groups.

Photo Gallery

November 17, 1956 Fullback Jim Brown of Syracuse University scored
43 points against Colgate, establishing a NCAA record.

A Myanmar police officer looks at a graffiti portrait of US president Barack Obama
with the words ''Welcome Obama'' in Yangon, on November 17, 2012.

Publications

During the Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Dance at Berkeley - Prize Flappers
 Jet Magazine, November 17, 1955

Florida Rules Platt Children Can't Be Denied - Jet Magazine, November 17, 1955

President-Elect Barack Obama -- People Magazine, November 17, 2008

The Hanging of Thomas Jeremiah: A Free Black Man's Encounter
with Liberty by J. William Harris. $14.13. Author: J. William
Harris. Publisher: Yale University Press (November 17, 2009).

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