* Today in Black History - July 17 *
1794 - Richard Allen organizes Philadelphia's Bethel African
Methodist Episcopal Church.
1794 - Absalom Jones and his followers dedicate The African Church
of St. Thomas in Philadelphia. On August 12, 1794, the St.
Thomas parishioners will affiliate with the Protestant
Episcopal Church.
1862 - Congress approves the rights of African Americans to bear
arms to fight in the Civil War and enlist in the Union Army
by passing two laws, the Confiscation and Militia acts.
Over 208,000 African Americans and their white officers
will serve in the Union Army, with 38,000 losing their
lives.
1863 - Unions troops, with First Kansas volunteers playing a
leading role, route rebels at Honey Springs, Indian
Territory. African American troops capture the colors of a
Texas regiment.
1911 - Frank Snowden is born in York County, Virginia. He will
become the foremost scholar on Blacks in ancient history,
notably for his books "Blacks in Antiquity: Ethiopians in
the Greco-Roman Experience" and "Before Color Prejudice:
The Ancient View of Blacks". He will document that in ancient
Rome and Greece, racial prejudice was not an issue. Much of
this, according to his research, is because most of the
Blacks they encountered were not slaves. Most slaves in the
Roman Empire were white. Most of the Blacks they met were
warriors, statesmen, and mercenaries. Therefore, Blacks were
not subjected to the racism of modern civilization. He will
study ancient art and literature, and find evidence that
Blacks were able to co-exist with the Greeks and Romans. He
will join the ancestors on February 18, 2007.
1935 - Carol Diann Johnson is born in the Bronx, New York. She will
be better known as Diahann Carroll, star of Broadway ("House
of Flowers"), television ("Julia"), and films including
"Carmen Jones" and "Claudine", the latter earning her an
Academy Award nomination as Best Actress. Beginning her music
career at an early age, she will be the recipient of a
Metropolitan Opera scholarship for studies at New York's High
School of Music and Art at a mere ten years of age. While
still a teenager, she will begin working part-time as a model,
a TV actress, and as a nightclub singer, leading to her
Broadway debut (the Harold Arlen/Truman Capote production
"House of Flowers") and her film debut (the modern version of
Bizet's opera "Carmen" with an all-black cast "Carmen Jones")
both in 1954. More movie work will come her way (including
the 1959 film version of "Porgy & Bess"), as well as a Tony
Award in 1962 for her work on the Broadway production "No
Strings." Beginning in the late '50s, she will launch a
successful recording career, issuing albums on a regular basis
throughout the next two decades (including such titles as
1957's "Diahann Carroll Sings Harold Arlen," 1960's "Diahann
Carroll and Andre Previn," and 1962's "The Fabulous "Diahann
Carroll," among many others). In the late '60s, she will star
in the TV sitcom "Julia," for which she will be nominated for
an Emmy Award and the recipient of a Golden Globe Award for
Best Actress. The '70s will see her give arguably the finest
acting performance of her career in 1974's "Claudine," for
which she was nominated for an Academy Award. She will return
to TV work in the mid-'80s with her portrayal of businesswoman
Dominique Devereaux on the hit nighttime soap opera "Dynasty,"
while she earns her second Emmy nomination for a guest
appearance on the comedy series "A Different World" (also
during the same decade, she will publish an autobiography,
1986's "Diahann"). In the '90s, she will star in a production
of Andrew Lloyd Webber's "Sunset Boulevard" and tour the U.S.
performing classic Broadway standards in "Almost Like Being in
Love: The Lerner and Loewe Songbook." 2001 will see the
release of the 16-track compilation "Nobody Sees Me Cry: The
Best of the Columbia Years."
1944 - An ammunitions depot at Port Chicago, California explodes
killing 320 men including 202 African Americans assigned by
the Navy to handle explosives. The resulting refusal of 258
African Americans to return to the dangerous work formed the
basis of the trial and conviction of 50 of the men in what
will become known as the Port Chicago Mutiny.
1959 - Billie Holiday, blues singer, joins the ancestors after
succumbing to liver failure at the age of 44 in Metropolitan
Hospital, New York City.
1967 - A racially motivated disturbance occurs in Cairo, Illinois
(within 100 miles of the Mississippi border. The Illinois
National Guard is mobilized during the three day civil
disturbance.
1967 - Innovative and famed jazz musician, John Coltrane joins the
ancestors after succumbing to cirrhosis of the liver at the
age of 40 in Huntington Hospital, Long Island, New York.
1981 - The Fulton County (Atlanta) grand jury indicts Wayne B.
Williams, a twenty-three-year-old photographer, for the
murder of two of the twenty-eight Black youths killed in a
series of slayings and disappearances in Atlanta. He will
deny the charges and be convicted in February, 1982.
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