* Today in Black History - November 18 * 1797 - Abolitionist and orator, Sojourner Truth, is born a New York slave on the plantation of Johannes Hardenberghn in Swartekill, New York. Her given name is Isabella VanWagener (some references use the name Isabella Baumfree). She will walk away from her last owner one year prior to being freed by a New York law in 1827, which proclaimed that all slaves twenty-eight years of age and over were to be freed. Several years later, in response to what she describes as a command from God, she becomes an itinerant preacher and takes the name Sojourner Truth. Among her most memorable appearances will be at an 1851 women's rights conference in Akron, Ohio. In her famous "Ain't I a woman?" speech she forcefully attacks the hypocrisies of organized religion, white privilege and everything in between. She will join the ancestors on November 26, 1883. 1899 - Howard Thurman is born in Daytona Beach, Florida. A theologian who will study at Morehouse with Martin L. King, Sr., he will found the interracial Church of Fellowship of All Peoples. The first African American to hold a full-time faculty position at Boston University (in 1953), Dr. Thurman will write 22 books and become widely regarded as one of the greatest spiritual leaders of the 20th century. He will join the ancestors on April 10, 1981. 1907 - Máximo Francisco Repilado Muñoz Telles is born in Siboney, Cuba. Known professionally as "Compay Segundo", he will be a trova guitarist, singer and composer. Compay (meaning compadre) Segundo, so called because he will always be second voice in his musical partnerships. His first engagement will be in the Municipal Band of Santiago de Cuba, directed by his teacher, Enrique Bueno. In 1934, after a spell in a quintet, he will move to Havana, where he will also play the clarinet in the Municipal Band. He will also learn to play the guitar and the tres, which will become his usual instruments. Compay Segundo will also invent the armónico, a seven-stringed guitar-like instrument, to fill the harmonic jump between the Spanish guitar and the tres. In the 1950s, he will become well known as the second voice and tres player in Los Compadres, a duo he will form with Lorenzo Hierrezuelo in 1947. Los Compadres will be one of the most successful Cuban duos of their time. Greater international fame will come later, in 1997, with the release of the "Buena Vista Social Club" album, a hugely successful recording which will win several Grammy awards. Compay Segundo will appear in the Wim Wenders film of the same title. Segundo's ` most famous composition is "Chan Chan", the opening track on the Buena Vista Social Club album, a four-chord son cubano. "Chan Chan" will be recorded by Segundo himself various times as well as by countless other Latin artists. Other compositions are "Sarandonga", "La calabaza", "Hey caramba", "Macusa", "Saludo Compay". These are all sones, and this differentiates him from the more usual trova musicians, with their devotion to the bolero. At a fiesta, he will sing to President Fidel Castro, who will take his pulse and joke about his vitality despite his 90-plus years. "Who could have imagined that?" he will ask when he finds himself at the Vatican City, performing "Chan Chan" before Pope John Paul II. He explained his longevity simply: mutton consommé and a drink of rum. He will join the ancestors on July 13, 2003 after succumbing to kidney failure. The tomb of Compay Segundo will be located at the Cementerio de Santa Ifigenia in Santiago de Cuba. In 2007, the 100th anniversary of Segundo's birth will be celebrated with a concert of his compositions performed by a symphony orchestra in Havana with some of his musicians and sons. 1927 - John Henry Kendricks is born in Detroit, Michigan. He will become a prolific songwriter as well as a major rhythm and blues singer better known as Hank Ballard. He will perform with his group, The Midnighters, and make the following songs popular: "There's A Thrill Upon The Hill" (Let's Go, Let's Go, Let's Go), "The Twist"(made famous later by Chubby Checker), "Finger Poppin' Time", "Work with Me Annie", "Sexy Ways", and "Annie Had a Baby". He will be enshrined in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1990. He will join the ancestors on March 2, 2003 after succumbing to throat cancer. 1936 - Donald Eugene Cherry is born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. He will become a jazz trumpeter. He will have a long association with saxophonist Ornette Coleman, which will begin in the late 1950s. He will also be a pioneer in world fusion music in the 1960s and 1970s. By the early 1950s he will be playing with jazz musicians in Los Angeles, sometimes acting as pianist in Art Farmer's group. He will also tour with saxophonist James Clay. He will become well known in 1958 when he performs and records with Ornette Coleman, first in a quintet with pianist Paul Bley and later in what will become the predominantly piano-less quartet which will record for Atlantic Records. During this period, he will co-lead The Avant- Garde session which will see John Coltrane replacing Coleman in the Quartet. He will record and tour with Sonny Rollins, will be a member of the New York Contemporary Five with Archie Shepp and John Tchicai, and will record and tour with both Albert Ayler and George Russell. His first recording as a leader will be "Complete Communion" for Blue Note Records in 1965. The band will include Coleman's drummer Ed Blackwell as well as saxophonist Gato Barbieri. After a departure from Coleman's quartet, he will often play in small groups and duets (many with ex-Coleman drummer Ed Blackwell) during a long sojourn in Scandinavia and other locations. He will appear on Coleman's 1971 LP Science Fiction, and from 1976 to 1987 will reunite with Coleman alumni Dewey Redman, Charlie Haden, and Blackwell in the band Old And New Dreams, recording four albums with them, two for ECM and two for Black Saint, where his "subtlety of rhythmic expansion and contraction" will be noted. In the 1970s he venture into the developing genre of world fusion music. He will incorporate influences of Middle Eastern, traditional African, and Indian music into his playing. He will study Indian music with Vasant Rai in the early seventies. From 1978 to 1982, he will record three albums for ECM with "world jazz" group Codona, consisting of himself, percussionist Nana Vasconcelos and sitar and tabla player Collin Walcott. He will also collaborate with classical composer Krzysztof Penderecki on the 1971 album Actions. In 1973, he will co-compose the score for Alejandro Jodorowsky's film "The Holy Mountain," together with Ronald Frangipane and Jodorowsky. During the 1980s, he will release the recording El Corazon, a 1982 duet album with Ed Blackwell. He will also make two albums as bandleader, "Home Boy" in 1985 and "Art Deco" in 1988. H will record again with the original Ornette Coleman Quartet on Coleman's 1987 album In All Languages. Other playing opportunities in his career will come with Carla Bley's Escalator Over The Hill project, and as a sideman on recordings by Lou Reed, Ian Dury, Rip Rig + Panic and Sun Ra. In 1994, he will appear on the Red Hot Organization's compilation CD, "Stolen Moments: Red Hot + Cool," on a track titled "Apprehension", alongside The Watts Prophets. The album, meant to raise awareness of the AIDS epidemic in African American society, will be named "Album of the Year" by Time Magazine. He will join the ancestors on October 19, 1995 after succumbing to liver cancer. He will be inducted into the Oklahoma Jazz Hall of Fame in 2011. 1949 - Jackie Robinson, of the Brooklyn Dodgers, is named the National League's Most Valuable Player. 1952 - Delroy George Lindo is born in Lewisham, London, England, U.K.. He will become an actor and theatre director. He will be nominated for Tony and Screen Actors Guild awards and will win a Satellite Award. He will perhaps be best known for his roles in three Spike Lee films, having portrayed West Indian Archie in Lee's "Malcolm X" (1992), Woody Carmichael in "Crooklyn" (1994), and Rodney Little in "Clockers" (1995). He will also play Catlett in "Get Shorty," Arthur Rose in "The Cider House Rules," and Detective Castlebeck in "Gone in 60 Seconds" (2000). He will star as Alderman Ronin Gibbons in the TV series "The Chicago Code" (2011) and as Winter on the series "Believe," which will premier in 2014. His film debut will come in 1976 with the British comedy "Find the Lady," followed by two other roles in films, including an Army Sergeant in "More American Graffiti" (1979). He will stop his film career for 10 years to concentrate on theatre acting. In 1982 he will debut on Broadway in "'Master Harold'...and the Boys," directed by the play's South African author Athol Fugard. By 1988 he will earn a Tony nomination for his portrayal of Herald Loomis in August Wilson's "Joe Turner's Come and Gone." He will return to film in the 1990s, acting alongside Rutger Hauer and Joan Chen in the science fiction film "Salute of the Jugger" (1990), which will become a cult classic. Other films in which he will have starring roles are Ron Howard's "Ransom" (1996) and "Soul of the Game" (1996), as the baseball player Satchel Paige. In 1998 he will co-star as African American explorer Matthew Henson, in the TV film "Glory & Honor," directed by Kevin Hooks. It will portray his nearly 20-year partnership with Commander Robert Peary in Arctic exploration and their effort to find the Geographic North Pole in 1909. He will receive a Satellite Award as best actor. He will continue to work in television and will be seen on the short-lived NBC drama "Kidnapped." He will play an angel in the comedy film, "A Life Less Ordinary" (1997). In the British film, "Wondrous Oblivion" (2003), directed by Paul Morrison, he will star as Dennis Samuels, the father of a Jamaican immigrant family in London in the 1950s; he coaches his children and the son of a neighbour Jewish family in cricket, earning their admiration in a time of strained social relations. He will say he made the film in honour of his parents, who had similarly moved to London in those years. In 2007, he will begin an association with Berkeley Repertory Theatre in Berkeley, California, when he directs Tanya Barfield's play "The Blue Door." In the autumn of 2008, he will revisit August Wilson's play, "Joe Turner's Come and Gone," directing a production at the Berkeley Rep. In 2010, he will play the role of elderly seer Bynum in David Lan's production of Joe Turner at the Young Vic Theatre in London. 1956 - Harold Warren Moon is born in Los Angeles, California. He will become a professional football player. He will spend the majority of his career with the Houston Oilers of the National Football League (NFL) and the Edmonton Eskimos of the Canadian Football League (CFL). He will also play for the Minnesota Vikings, Seattle Seahawks, and Kansas City Chiefs in the NFL. He will also serve as a broadcaster for the Seahawks. He will began his professional career with the Eskimos in 1978, after going unselected in the NFL Draft. His success during his six seasons in the CFL will lead him to the NFL in 1984 with the Oilers. Over his 17 NFL seasons, he will be named to nine Pro Bowls and make seven playoff appearances. Following ten seasons with the Oilers, he will have brief multiple- year stints with the Vikings, Seahawks, and Chiefs before retiring at age 44. At the time of his retirement, he will hold several all-time professional gridiron football passing records. He will be less successful in the NFL postseason, never advancing beyond the division round of the playoffs, although he will win five Grey Cups in the CFL. He will be inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2006, becoming the first African American quarterback and the first undrafted quarterback to receive the honor. 1957 - Julius Caesar Watts Jr. is born in Eufaula, Oklahoma. He will become a politician, clergyman, and athlete. He will be a college football quarterback for the Oklahoma Sooners and will later play professionally in the Canadian Football League. He will serve in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1995 to 2003 as a Republican, representing Oklahoma's 4th Congressional District. After being one of the first children to attend an integrated elementary school, he will become a high school quarterback and will gain a football scholarship to the University of Oklahoma. He will graduate from college in 1981 with a degree in journalism and will become a football player in the Canadian Football League until his retirement in 1986. He will become a Baptist minister and will be elected in 1990 to the Oklahoma Corporation Commission as the first African American in Oklahoma to win statewide office. He will successfully run for Congress in 1994 and will be re- elected to three additional terms with increasing vote margins. He will deliver the Republican response to Bill Clinton's 1997 State of the Union address and will be elected Chair of the House Republican Conference in 1998. He will retire in 2003 and turn to lobbying and business work, also occasionally serving as a political commentator. 1964 - The head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, J. Edgar Hoover, describes Martin Luther King as a "most notorious liar". This statement is indicative of the agency head's dislike of the civil rights leader. 1969 - The National Association of Health Services Executives is incorporated. NAHSE's goal is to elevate the quality of health-care services rendered to poor and disadvantaged communities. 1970 - Michael Elliot Epps is born in Indianapolis, Indiana. He will become a stand-up comedian, actor, film producer, writer, and rapper. He will be best known for playing Day-Day Jones in "Next Friday" and its sequel, "Friday After Next," and also appearing in "The Hangover" as "Black Doug". He will be the voice of Boog in "Open Season 2" (replacing Martin Lawrence). As of 2010, he will be the executive producer on a documentary about the life story of a former member of Tupac Shakur's Outlawz, Napoleon: Life of an Outlaw. He will also be known for playing Lloyd Jefferson "L.J." Wade in "Resident Evil: Apocalypse" (2004) and "Resident Evil: Extinction" (2007) respectively. He will reunite with Ice Cube in 2002 as the bumbling thief to Ice Cube's bounty hunter in "All About the Benjamins." He will serve as the "Super Bowl ambassador" in his native Indianapolis for the 2012 Super Bowl. He will be featured in commercials promoting the Super Bowl Village and he will make special appearances in the Village during the week of the Super Bowl. 1975 - Calvin Murphy of the Houston Rockets, ends the NBA free throw streak at 58 games. 1975 - David Américo Ortiz Arias is born in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. He will become a professional baseball (MLB) designated hitter (DH) and first baseman who will play 20 seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB). After beginning his career with the Minnesota Twins, he will play 14 seasons for the Boston Red Sox, with whom he will be a ten-time All-Star, a three-time World Series champion, and a seven-time Silver Slugger winner. He will also hold the Red Sox single-season record for home runs with 54, which he will set during the 2006 season. Originally signed by the Seattle Mariners in 1992, he will be traded to the Twins in 1996 and will play parts of six seasons with the team. He will be released by the Twins and will sign with the Red Sox in 2003, where he will spend the remainder of his career. In Boston, he will establish himself as "one of the greatest designated hitters the game has ever seen". He will be instrumental in the team ending its 86-year World Series championship drought in 2004, as well as during successful championship runs in 2007 and 2013; he will be named the World Series Most Valuable Player for the latter championship. He will finish his career with 541 home runs (which will rank 17th on MLB's all-time home run list), 1,768 runs batted in (RBIs, 22nd all-time), and a .286 batting average. Among designated hitters, he is the all-time leader in MLB history for home runs (485), RBIs (1,569), and hits (2,192). Regarded as one of the best clutch hitters of all time, he will have 11 career walk-off home runs during the regular season and two during the postseason. 1977 - Robert Edward Chambliss, a former KKK member, is convicted of first-degree murder in connection with the 1963 bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, that killed four African American teenage girls. 1978 - The NAACP's Spingarn Medal is presented to Ambassador Andrew J. Young "in recognition of the deftness with which he has handled relations between this nation and other countries" and "for his major role in raising the consciousness of American citizens to the significance in world affairs of the massive African continent." 1980 - Wally "Famous" Amos' signature Panama hat and embroidered shirt are donated to the National Museum of American History's Business Americana collection. It is the first memorabilia added to the collection by an African American entrepreneur and recognizes the achievement of Amos, who built his company from a mom-and-pop enterprise to a $250 million cookie manufacturing business. 1983 - "Sweet Honey in the Rock," a capella singers, perform their 10th anniversary reunion concert in Washington, DC. 1994 - Bandleader Cab Calloway joins the ancestors in Hockessin, Delaware, at age 86. ______________________________________________________________ Munirah Chronicle is edited by Mr. Rene' A. Perry "The TRUTH shall make you free" E-mail: <[log in to unmask]> Archives: http://listserv.icors.org/archives/Munirah.html http://blackagenda.com/cybercolonies/index.htm _____________________________________________________________ To SUBSCRIBE send E-mail to: <[log in to unmask]> In the E-mail body place: Subscribe Munirah Your FULL Name ______________________________________________________________ Munirah(TM) is a trademark of Information Man. 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