*               Today in Black History - January 20                 *

1788 - The First African Baptist Church is organized in Savannah, 
	Georgia, with Andrew Bryan ordained as its pastor, after
	being derived from the first Black congregation founded in
	1773. It is the first African American Baptist church in 
	North America, as well as the first Baptist church, Black or 
	white, in Savannah. Editor's Note: Its claim of "first" is 
	contested by First Baptist Church of Petersburg, Virginia, 
	whose congregation officially organized in 1774.

1847 - William Reuben (W.R.) Pettiford is born in Granville County,
	North Carolina. He will become the pastor of the Sixteenth 
	Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama. As a leader 
	in the community, he will also become a businessman, 
	founding the Alabama Penny Savings Bank on October 15, 1890. 
	The Alabama Penny Savings Bank will be Alabama's first 
	African American-owned bank and the first of three banks in 
	the nation, owned and operated by African Americans in the 
	early 1900s. He will join the ancestors on September 21, 
	1914. (Note: The Sixteenth Street Baptist Church is also 
	known for the bombing during the Civil Rights movement, 
	on September 15, 1963, that killed four little girls.) 

1868 - The Florida constitutional convention with eighteen African
	Americans and twenty-seven whites meet in Tallahassee.

1870 - Hiram R. Revels is chosen by the Mississippi legislature to
	fill the vacant U.S. Senate seat of Confederate president 
	Jefferson Davis. Although he will be challenged by the 
	Senate, Revels will take his seat one month later, becoming 
	the first African American U.S. Senator.

1895 - Eva Jessye is born in Coffeyville, Kansas. She will become the 
	first black woman to receive international distinction as a 
	professional choral conductor. She will be notable as a choral 
	conductor during the Harlem Renaissance, who creates her own 
	choral group featured widely in performance. Her professional 
	influence will extend for decades through her teaching as well. 
	Her accomplishments in this field will be historic for any woman. 
	She will collaborate in productions of groundbreaking works, 
	directing her choir and working with Virgil Thomson and Gertrude 
	Stein on "Four Saints in Three Acts" (1933), and serving as 
	musical director with George Gershwin on his innovative opera 
	"Porgy and Bess" (1935). An active supporter of the Civil Rights 
	Movement, she and her choir will participate in the 1963 March 
	on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. Active into her 80s, she will
	teach at the University of Michigan. She will donate her extensive 
	collection of books, scores, artwork, and other materials, which 
	will become the basis of the university's African American Music 
	Collection. She will join the ancestors on February 21, 1992.
	
1954 - The National Negro Network is formed by W. Leonard Evans. 
	Some 40 radio stations are charter members of the network. 

1973 - Guinea-Bissau nationalist leader Amilcar Cabral joins the 
	ancestors after being assassinated in Conakry, Guinea, by
	Portuguese agents. He had founded the PAIGC (African Party 
	for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde), the 
	organization that fought Portuguese colonial rule and 
	eventually led to the independence of Guinea-Bissau and 
	Cape Verde. Cabral is considered one of Africa's most 
	important independentist leaders.

1977 - Clifford Alexander, Jr. is sworn in as the first African 
	American Secretary of the Army.

1986 - The inaugural issue of "American Visions" magazine hits the
	newsstands nationwide. The magazine is dedicated to 
	exposing its readers to African American contributions to 
	history, literature, music, and the arts.

1986 - The United States observes the first federal holiday in 
	honor of slain civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King, 
	Jr.

2009 - Barack Hussein Obama, is inaugurated as the 44th President of 
	the United States of America, becoming the United States' 
	first African American president.

2012 - Etta James, whose assertive, earthy voice lit up such hits as 
	"The Wallflower," "Something's Got a Hold on Me" and the 
	wedding favorite "At Last," joins the ancestors at the age 
	of 73.

2021 - Kamala Devi Harris, the vice president-elect of the United States,
	is inaugurated as the first woman, first African American and 
	first Asian American vice president of the United States.

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