St James AME Church, Elgin, Illinois

February 14; Happy Valentines Day

Posted on Tue, Feb 14, 2006

Today in Black History

1760 - Richard Allen, is born into slavery in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
 He will purchase his freedom in 1786 and will become a preacher
 the same year.  He will become the first African American ordained
 in the Methodist Episcopal Church (1799), and founder of the
 African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church in 1816, and first bishop
 of the AME Church.  He will join the ancestors on March 26, 1831.

1818 - The birth of Frederick Douglass in Tuckahoe (Talbot County),
 Maryland, is attributed to this date.  He will state, "I have no
 accurate knowledge of my age, never having seen any authentic
 record containing it... and it is the wish of most masters within
 my knowledge to keep their slaves thus ignorant." He will be a
 great African American leader and "one of the giants of
 nineteenth century America.  He was born Frederick Bailey and
 will change his name to Douglass after he escapes slavery in
 1838. He will join the ancestors on February 20, 1895 in
 Washington, DC.

1867 - Morehouse College is organized in Augusta, Georgia.  The school
 will be moved later to Atlanta.

1867 - New registration law in Tennessee abolishes racial distinctions
 in voting.

1936 - The National Negro Congress is organized at a Chicago meeting
 attended by eight hundred seventeen delegates representing more
 than five hundred organizations.  Asa Phillip Randolph of the
 Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters is elected president of the
 new organization.

1946 - Gregory Hines is born in New York City.  A child tap-dancing star
 in the group Hines, Hines, and Dad, Hines will lead a new
 generation of tap dancers that will benefit from the advice and
 teaching of such tap legends as Henry Le Tang,  "Honi" Coles,
 Sandman Sims, the Nicholas Brothers, and Sammy Davis, Jr.  Hines
 will also become a successful actor in movies including "White
 Knights," "Tap," and "A Rage in Harlem." He will join the
 ancestors on August 9, 2003.

1951 - Sugar Ray Robinson defeats Jake LaMotta and wins the middleweight
 boxing title.

1957 - Lionel Hampton's only major musical work, "King David", makes its
 debut at New York's Town Hall.  The four-part symphony jazz
 suite was conducted by Dimitri Mitropoulos.

1966 - Wilt Chamberlain breaks the NBA career scoring record at 20,884
 points after only seven seasons as a pro basketball player.

1978 - Maxima Corporation, a computer systems and management company, is
 incorporated.  Headquartered in Lanham, Maryland, it will become
 one of the largest African American-owned companies and earn its
 founder, chairman and CEO, Joshua I. Smith,  chairmanship of the
 U.S. Commission on Minority Business Development.

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