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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October 11

R. Nathaniel Dett (October 11, 1882 - October 2, 1943) composed and performed choral and piano works blending the style of the European Romantic composers with African-American spirituals. He held a  Bachelor of Music degree from Oberlin Conservatory of Music (1905) and taught at Lane College, Lincoln Institute, Hampton Institute, and Bennett College. In 1918 he wrote: We have this wonderful store of folk music—the melodies of an enslaved people ... But this store will be of no value unless we utilize it, unless we treat it in such manner that it can be presented in choral form, in lyric and operatic works, in concertos and suites and salon music—unless our musical architects take the rough timber of Negro themes and fashion from it music which will prove that we, too, have national feelings and characteristics, as have the European peoples whose forms we have zealously followed for so long. 

Birthdays

Eleanor Roosevelt (October 11, 1894 - November 7, 1962) became aware of the effects of systemic racism as First Lady during the depression, and worked with Walter White, Mary McLeod Bethune, and Pauli Murray to promote equality for African Americans. She  resigned from the DAR in 1939 when Marian Anderson was not allowed to sing at Constitution Hall. The two are shown here with Nasrollah Entezam, president of the fifth session of the U.N. General Assembly, on Human Rights Day in 1950.

Henrietta Bell Wells (October 11, 1912 - February 27, 2008) was the first female member of the Wiley College Debate Team. She was on the team only one year due to financial pressures but participated in the first interracial collegiate debate between Wiley and the University of Michigan Law School. Mrs. Wells later taught in Houston and other cities; was Dean of Women at Dillard University; and served as third president of the Houston alumnae chapter of Delta Sigma Theta.

Art Blakey (October 11, 1919 – October 16, 1990) was a Grammy Award-winning jazz drummer & bandleader born in Pittsburgh. Founder of "hard bop" school of jazz. He got his start with Billy Eckstine. For more than 30 years, Art Blakey & the Jazz Messengers included young musicians who went on to become prominent names in jazz, such as Hank Mobley, Freddie Hubbard, Horace Silver and Wynton Marsalis. Mr. Blakey was inducted into the American Jazz Hall of Fame in 1982 and Grammy Hall of Fame in 2001.

Malvin (Mal) Greston Whitfield (October 11, 1924 - November 19, 2015) was a gold medalist in the 800 meters at the 1948 and 1952 Olympics, as well as winning medals on the 4x400 relay team. He had been a member of the Tuskegee Airmen and also served in the Air Force during the Korean War. He then worked for the U.S. State Department leading sports clinics Africa, enabling many athletes to attend U.S. universities on track scholarships. He is the father of CNN anchor Fredricka Whitfield.

Roscoe Robinson, Jr. (October 11, 1928 – July 22, 1993), was the first African American to become a four-star general in the United States Army, serving as U.S. Military Representative, NATO Military Committee (USMILREP), 1982–1985. He graduated from the U.S. Military Academy in 1951 with a degree in military engineering and in 1964 received a master's degree from the University of Pittsburgh in international affairs. He had previously served as commander of the United States Army Garrison, Okinawa and of the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, North Carolina.

Events

On October 11, 1865 Jamaica's Morant Bay rebellion began when Paul Bogle (left) led 200 to 300 black men and women into the town of Morant Bay to protest  injustice and widespread poverty. Most freedmen were prevented from voting by high poll taxes, and their living conditions had worsened following crop damage by floods, cholera and smallpox epidemics. Governor Edward John Eyre declared martial law in the area, ordering in troops to hunt down the rebels. They killed many innocent blacks, including women and children, with an initial death toll of more than 400. Troops arrested more than 300 persons, including Bogle. Many were innocent but were quickly tried and executed under martial law; both men and women were punished by whipping and long sentences.

On October 11, 1930, the Houston Defender was established by Clifton Frederick Richardson, Sr. After his death in 1939, his son Clifton F. Richardson, Jr., continued as the owner, editor, and publisher until 1981 when Sonceria Messiah-Jiles purchased the Houston Defender and became its publisher. In 2008 the Defender had a readership of 60,000 with Messiah-Jiles as the owner publisher and Von Jiles as the editor.

Photo Gallery

Lewis W. Hine - Vera Hill, 5 years old picks 25 pounds of cotton a day,
Comanche County, Oklahoma, October 11, 1916

WASHINGTON - OCTOBER 11: ( AFP OUT) U.S. President Barack Obama looks at Francisco, a first grade student from Bronx, New York, one of the students from the movie "Waiting for Superman" who is making himself comfortable on a sofa in the Oval Office of the White House on October 11, 2010 in Washington, DC. The children toured the White House and met with Obama. (Photo by Ron Sach-Pool/Getty Images) 2009 Getty Images

 Publications

10 Month Old Yolanda King is Now Walking - Jet Magazine, October 11, 1956

The Black Panther (October 11, 1969)

October 11,1973 Jet Magazine

Cooking in Other Women's Kitchens: Domestic Workers in the South,1865-1960 (John Hope Franklin
Series in African American History and Culture) by Rebecca Sharpless. $26.64. Publisher:
The University of North Carolina Press; 1st edition (October 11, 2010). 304 pages.

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