Week of October 23-29
October 23
1775—The Continental Congress approves a resolution barring free Blacks from the army fighting for American independence from England. The resolution came even though many free Blacks were already fighting in the war. The motive behind the resolution came from Southern slave colonies which feared that by fighting in the war for American independence, Blacks would also demand an end to slavery.
1911—The National Urban League is formed. Next only to the NAACP, it becomes the second oldest and second largest Black self-help organization in America. It grew out of the spontaneous 20th-Century Freedom Movement for freedom and opportunity that came to be called the Black Migrations. Central to the organization’s founding were two remarkable people: Mrs. Ruth Standish Baldwin and Dr. George Edmund Haynes, who would become the Committee’s first executive secretary.
1947—The NAACP files an “Appeal To The World” with the newly found United Nations concerning racial injustice in America. For its day, the filing was a bold move on the part of the NAACP and it angered many liberal and conservative Whites.
October 24
1892—More than 25,000 Black workers are said to have joined a workers strike in New Orleans to protest working conditions, lynching and other social ills.
1935—“Mulatto” opens on Broadway in New York City. The play written by famed Black poet Langston Hughes becomes the first long-run Black play on Broadway. Written during the summer of 1930, “Mulatto” is Hughes’ first full-length play. Opening on Oct. 24, at the Vanderbilt Theatre, “Mulatto” ran on Broadway for more than a year and toured for two seasons.
1948—Kweisi Mfume is born Frizzel Gray in Baltimore, Md. He became a congressman, head of the NAACP but later lost a bid for a seat in the U.S. Senate.
1964—The African nation of Zambia becomes independent from White colonial rule.
October 25
1940—Benjamin O. Davis Sr. becomes the first Black general in the U.S. Army.
1958—An estimated 10,000 students led by Jackie Robinson, Harry Belafonte, and labor leader A. Phillip Randolph, participate in a youth march for integrated schools in Washington, D.C.
1976—One-time racist Gov. George Wallace grants a full pardon to Clarence “Willie” Norris—the last known survivor of the nine “Scottsboro Boys.” The group had been framed in a 1931 conviction for allegedly raping two White women.
1994—Apparently believing it would be easy to frame a Black man for the crime, Susan Smith—a White woman from Union, S.C.- claims that a Black carjacker had driven off with her two sons. Her story became a national sensation, but it later fell apart. She eventually confessed to drowning the children and was convicted of murder.
1749—The British parliament legalizes slavery in the American colony, which would become known as Georgia.
1806—Benjamin Banneker dies at 74. He had become a recognized inventor and scientist. He also completed the design and layout of Washington, D.C., after L’Enfant returned to France.
1868—B.F. Randolph, a prominent Black politician in South Carolina after the Civil War, is assassinated. He was believed to have been killed by former Confederate soldiers seeking to re-establish White racist rule in the state via terrorist organizations such as the Ku Klux Klan.
1872—Inventor T. Marshal patents the fire extinguisher.
1911—Famed gospel singer Mahalia Jackson is born in New Orleans, La. She is generally considered the greatest gospel singer that ever lived.
October 27
1960—President John F. Kennedy intervenes to get Martin Luther King Jr. released from the Georgia State Prison in Reidsville, where he had been imprisoned because of his civil rights activities. The Kennedy action endeared him to Black voters.
1981—Former United Nations Ambassador Andrew Young is elected mayor of Atlanta, Ga., becoming the city’s second Black mayor.
October 28
1798—Levi Coffin, who is White, is born in the slave state of North Carolina but becomes a strong opponent of slavery. He and his wife, Catherine, are credited with being among the original founders of the “Underground Railroad”—the system of transports and safe houses that enabled Blacks to escape slavery in the South to freedom in the North.
October 29
1994—Famed dancer Pearl Primus dies. She blended African and Caribbean dance and music with Black American traditions of blues, jazz and the jitterbug to form a new vibrant dance form. She formed a dance troupe and she personally appeared in such early Broadway hits as “Showboat” and “Emperor Jones.” Primus was known for her amazingly high leaps. In 1991, the first President Bush awarded her the National Medal of Arts.
2009—A report is published suggesting that the old self-hate mantra of “I am Black enough; I don’t need any sunshine” could be shortening the lives of African-Americans. Dr. Jonathan Mansbach’s report found, among other things, that American Blacks are not getting enough sunshine or more specifically vitamin D—the sunshine vitamin. Mansbach discovered, for example, that an astonishing 90 percent of Black children were vitamin D deficient. Vitamin D deficiency can contribute to various cancers, diabetes and weak bones. Mansbach is with the Children’s Hospital of Boston.
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