Today in Black History

1794 - Slavery is abolished by France. France will have a very lukewarm
   commitment to abolition and will, under Napoleon, reestablish
   slavery in 1802, along with the reinstitution of the "Code
   Noir," prohibiting blacks, mulattos and other people of color
   from entering French colonial territory or intermarrying with
   whites.

1822 - The American Colonization Society founds the African colony for
   free African Americans that will become the country of Liberia,
   West Africa.

1913 - Rosa Louise McCauley is born in Tuskegee, Alabama. In 1932,
   she will marry Raymond Parks. She will work at a number of
   jobs, ranging from domestic worker to hospital aide. At her
   husband's urging, she will finish high school studies in 1933,
   at a time when less than 7% of African Americans had a high
   school diploma. Despite the Jim Crow laws that made political
   participation by Black people difficult, she will succeed in
   registering to vote on her third try. In December 1943, she
   will become active in the Civil Rights Movement, joining the
   Montgomery chapter of the NAACP. When the seamstress and
   NAACP member refuses to yield her seat to a white man on a
   Montgomery, Alabama bus on December 1, 1955, her actions will
   spark a 382-day boycott of the buses in Montgomery, halting
   business and services in the city and become the initial act
   of non-violent disobedience of the American Civil Rights
   movement. She will be honored with the NAACP's Spingarn Medal
   for her heroism and later work with Detroit youth(1979) and
   be called the "Mother of the Civil Rights Movement." She will
   join the ancestors on October 24, 2005. The United States
   Senate will pass a resolution on October 27, 2005 to honor
   Mother Parks by allowing her body to lie in honor in the U.S.
   Capitol Rotunda. The House of Representatives approved the
   resolution on October 28. Since the founding of the practice
   of lying in state in the Rotunda in 1852, She will be the
   31st person, the first woman, the first American who had not
   been a U.S. government official, and the second non-
   government official (after Frenchman Pierre L'Enfant). On
   October 30, 2005 President George W. Bush will issue a
   Proclamation ordering that all flags on U.S. public areas
   both within the country and abroad be flown at half-staff on
   the day of her funeral. On February 5, 2006, at Super Bowl XL,
   played at Detroit's Ford Field, the late Coretta Scott King
   and Mother Parks, who had been a long-time resident of "The
   Motor City", will be remembered and honored by a moment of
   silence.

1947 - Sanford Bishop is born in Mobile, Alabama. He will graduate
   from Morehouse College and Emory University Law School. He
   will specialize in civil rights law and will become a member
   of the Georgia Legislature from 1977 to 1993 (House and
   Senate). In 1993, he will be elected a member of the United
   States House of Representatives from Georgia.

1952 - Jackie Robinson is named Director of Communication for WNBC in
   New York City, becoming the first African American executive
   of a major radio-TV network.

1965 - Joseph Danquah joins the ancestors in Nsawam Prison in Ghana at
   the age of 69. He had been a Ghanaian scholar, lawyer and
   nationalist. He had led the opposition against Kwame Nkrumah
   who had him imprisoned.

1969 - The Popular Liberation Movement Of Angola begins an armed
   struggle against Portugal.

1971 - The National Guard is mobilized to quell civil disobedience
   events in Wilmington, North Carolina. Two persons are killed.

1971 - Major League Baseball announces a special Hall of Fame wing for
   special displays about the Negro Leagues. These exhibits will
   provide information on these most deserving but rarely
   recognized contributors to Baseball.

1974 - The Symbionese Liberation Army kidnaps nineteen-year-old
   newspaper heiress Patricia Hearst from her apartment in
   Berkeley, California.

1980 - Camara Laye joins the ancestors in Senegal at the age of 52.
   He was a Guinean novelist considered a pioneer of West African
   literature.

1986 - A stamp of Sojourner Truth is issued by the United States
   Postal Service as part of its Black Heritage USA commemorative
   series. Truth was an abolitionist, woman's rights activist and
   a famous "conductor" on the Underground Railroad.

1996 - Congressman J.C. Watts (R-Oklahoma) becomes the first African
   American selected to respond to a State of the Union address.

1997 - Sixteen months after O.J. Simpson was cleared of murder charges,
   a civil trial jury blames him for the killings of his ex-wife
   and her friend and orders him to pay millions in compensatory
   damages.

2003 - Charlie Biddle, a leader of Montreal's jazz scene in the 1950s
   and '60s who played bass with Thelonious Monk and Charlie
   Parker, joins the ancestors after a battle with cancer at the
   age of 76. Biddle was a native of Philadelphia who moved to
   Canada in 1948. Over the next five decades, the World War II
   veteran and former car salesman became synonymous with jazz in
   Montreal. Biddle opened his own club, Uncle Charlie's Jazz
   Joint, in suburban Ste-Therese in 1958. He later performed in
   such legendary Montreal nightspots as The Black Bottom and the
   Penthouse, where he worked with the likes of Oscar Peterson,
   Art Tatum, Charlie Parker and Lionel Hampton. When there were
   no jobs in Montreal, he played smaller Quebec cities with a
   group called Three Jacks and a Jill. Until the time of his
   passing, he played four nights a week at Biddle's Jazz and
   Ribs, a Montreal landmark for nearly 25 years. In 1979, he
   organized the three-day festival that some say paved the way
   for the renowned Montreal International Jazz Festival.

2005 - Ossie Davis, renown actor and civil rights advocate, joins the
   ancestors in Miami, FL, while on location for yet another
   acting project at the age of 87.

2007 - For the first time in Super Bowl history, two African American
   coaches will lead their teams in the NFL Championship game.
   The Chicago Bears will be coached by Lovie Lee Smith and the
   Indianapolis Colts will be coached by Tony Dungee. The
   Indianapolis Colts and the Chicago Bears will be set to face
   off in South Florida during Super Bowl XLI in a historic
   meeting where both African American coaches will vie for the
   Vince Lombardi Trophy. The winner will be the first African
   American coach to win the Super Bowl.