* Today in Black History - December 22 *
1873 - Abolitionist Charles Lenox Remond joins the ancestors.
He was the first African American lecturer employed by
the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society.
1883 - Arthur Wergs Mitchell is born near Lafayette, Alabama.
He will become the first African American Democrat
elected to Congress, representing Illinois for four
terms. In 1937, after being forced from first-class
train accommodations in Arkansas to ride in a shabby
Jim Crow car, Mitchell will sue the railroad and
eventually argue unsuccessfully before the Supreme Court
that interstate trains be exempt from Arkansas'
"separate but equal" laws. He will join the ancestors
on May 9, 1968.
1893 - Chancellor Williams is born in Bennettsville, South Carolina.
He will earn an undergraduate degree in Education from
Howard University in 1930, followed by a Master's in
History in 1935. After completing a doctoral dissertation
on the socioeconomic significance of the storefront church
movement in the United States since 1920, he will be
awarded a Ph.D. in sociology by American University in 1949.
In 1946, he will return to his alma mater, Howard University
as a social science instructor, teaching until 1952. He will
transfer to the history department. He will begin his studies
abroad in England as a visiting professor to the universities
of Oxford and London in 1953 and 1954. In 1956, he will
perform field research in African history at Ghana's
University College. At that time, his focus will be on African
achievements and the many self-ruling civilizations which had
arisen and operated on the continent long before the coming of
Europeans or East Asians. His last study, completed in 1964,
will cover 26 countries and more than 100 language groupings.
By the 1960s, he will be lecturing and writing about African
history from a position of Afrocentrism. He will concentrate
on African civilizations before the European encounter, and
will be one of a group of scholars who assert that Egypt had
been a black civilization. He will be a professor at Howard
until his retirement in 1966. Afterward he will continue his
studies and writing. In 1974, he will publish his major work,
"The Destruction of Black Civilization: Great Issues of a Race
Between 4500 B.C. and 2000 A.D.," placing it with a white
publisher. The following year, the book will receive an award
from the Black Academy of Arts and Letters, founded in New York
in 1969. He will work for years to expand and revise the book
before publishing a second edition. He will have it published
by Chicago's noted Third World Press, a black-owned firm. When
published in 1987, the second edition of the book will receive
wide critical acclaim from the African American community. In
1979, the Twenty-first Century Foundation, based in New York,
will honor him with its first Clarence L. Holte International
Biennial Prize. He will join the ancestors on December 7, 1992.
1905 - James Amos Porter is born in Baltimore, Maryland. He will have
a long career in the visual arts as an artist and historian.
Under the direction of James V. Herring, head of the Art
Department at Howard University, he will study painting, drawing,
and art history. Upon graduating with a bachelor of science in
1927, he will accept a position as instructor of painting and
drawing at Howard. Throughout his academic and professional
career, he will also paint, and continue to exhibit nationally
and internationally. After completing undergraduate work, he will
attend the Art Institute in New York City. He will also study in
Paris at the Institute of Art and Archeology at the Sorbonne,
where he will receive a Certificat de Presence in 1935. When he
returns to the United States, he will pursue an M.A. in art
history at New York University, completing it in 1937. His thesis,
later the foundation for his book, "Modern Negro Art," will focus
on African American artists and artisans. His interest in nearly
forgotten and often ignored artists of African descent will be
sparked by reading a brief article on African American landscape
artist Robert Scott Duncanson. Due to the account's brevity, he
will follow his curiosity to research Duncanson and other artists
of African descent. He will publish "Modern Negro Art" in 1943,
the first comprehensive study in the United States of African
American art. He will decisively place African American artists
within the framework of American art. He will be the first to
recognize and document the significant contributions these artists
make to the history of American art. With his systematic approach,
"Modern Negro Art" will become the foundation of African American
art history and for later texts. He will include art of Cuba,
Haiti, and Africa in his investigations of artists of the African
diaspora. He will visit Haiti and Cuba on a Rockefeller Foundation
grant in 1945/46. His thorough research on these countries and
West Africa will stimulate his creation of courses at Howard in
"Latin American Art" and "African Art and Architecture". He will
teach at Howard for more than forty years, together with artists
such as James Lesesne Wells and Lois Mailou Jones. He will head the
Art Department, and serve as Director of the Art Gallery from 1953
until 1970. He will join the ancestors on February 28, 1970.
1938 - Mateo Rojas (Matty) Alou is born in Haina, Dominican Republic.
He will spend fifteen seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB)
with the San Francisco Giants (1960-1965), Pittsburgh Pirates
(1966-1970), St. Louis Cardinals (1971-1972, 1973), Oakland
Athletics (1972), New York Yankees (1973) and San Diego
Padres (1974). He will also play in Nippon Professional
Baseball (NPB) with the Taiheiyo Club Lions from 1974 through
1976. He will be the middle of a trio of baseball-playing
brothers that include the older Felipe and Jesus. They will
be the first set of three siblings to play together in the
same outfield (on September 15), and all bat in the same half-
inning in the majors (September 10), accomplishing both with
the Giants in 1963. Matty will be teammates with Felipe during
the prior three campaigns, and will be likewise with Jesus for
the following two. Matty and Felipe will later reunite with
the Yankees in 1973. His best years as a player will be spent
with the Pittsburgh Pirates, where he will win the National
League (NL) batting title in 1966 and be a two-time All-Star
in 1968 and 1969. He will be a member of the World Series
Champion Oakland Athletics in 1972 and a NL pennant winner
with the New York Giants in 1962. On June 23, 2007, the
Hispanic Heritage Baseball Museum Hall of Fame will induct him.
He will join the ancestors in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic
on November 3, 2011 after succumbing to complications of
diabetes.
1939 - Jerry Pinckney is born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He
will become an award-winning illustrator of children's
books and numerous U.S. postage stamps featuring notable
African Americans. He will win the 2010 Caldecott Medal
for U.S. picture book illustration, recognizing "The Lion
& the Mouse," a version of Aesop's fable that he will
also write. He will also receive five Caldecott Honors,
five Coretta Scott King Awards, four New York Times Best
Illustrated Awards (most recently in 2006 for Little Red
Hen), four Gold and four Silver medals from the Society
of Illustrators, and the Boston Globe-Horn Book Award
(John Henry, 1994). In 2000 he will be given the Virginia
Hamilton Literary award from Kent State University and in
2004 the University of Southern Mississippi Medallion for
outstanding contributions in the field of children's
literature. For his contribution as a children's
illustrator, he will be the U.S. nominee in 1998 for the
biennial, international Hans Christian Andersen Award,
the highest international recognition for creators of
children's books.
1943 - W.E.B. Du Bois is elected as the first African American
member of the National Institute of Arts & Letters.
1980 - Samuel R. Pierce, Jr., a New York City lawyer and former
judge, is named to President Ronald Reagan's Cabinet as
Secretary of Housing and Urban Development.
1984 - Four African American youths on a New York City subway
train, are shot by Bernhard Goetz. The white man shoots
because he thought they were going to rob him. He claims
he was seconds from becoming a mugging victim when he
opened fire, and will be acquitted of attempted murder in
1987 but will serve 8 months on a weapons charge. In
1996, he will lose a civil case brought against him by
one of the youths that he shot and paralyzed. The civil
judgment brought against him will be $ 43 million.
1988 - South Africa signs an accord granting independence to South
-West Africa.
1989 - The art exhibit "Afro-American Artists in Paris: 1919-1939"
closes at the Bertha and Karl Leubsdorf Gallery on the
Hunter College campus in New York City. The exhibit of
eight artists including William Harper, Lois Mailou Jones,
Archibald Motley, Jr., Henry O. Tanner, and Hale Woodruff,
among others, powerfully illustrates the results achieved
by African American artists when they were able to leave
the confines and restrictions imposed upon them by race in
the United States.
1996 - Kordell Stewart of the Pittsburgh Steelers runs 80 yards
for a touchdown in the first half of an 18-14 loss to the
Carolina Panthers, the longest scoring run to date by a
quarterback in NFL history.
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