|
 |
 |
 |
Special Features: This Week in Black History
Friday, April 8, 2005; Page 7
Week 1 | Week 2 | Week 3 | Week 4 | Week 5 | Week 6 | Week 7 | Week 8 | Week 9 | Week 10
The Washington Informer is launching “This Week in Black History” to serve as a daily remembrance of how far we have come as well as how far we have to go. In the spirit of understanding and progress, we remember.
April 7
Blues singer Billie Holiday is born in 1917. She appeared beside performers such as Duke Ellington and Teddy Wilson. Holiday would do extensive touring during her career with many groups, including those led by Jimmie Lunceford and Fletcher Henderson. Some of her well-known songs are “God Bless the Child,” “Gloomy Sunday,” and “Strange Fruit.”
April 8
Henry “Hank” Aaron breaks Babe Ruth’s Major League Baseball record with 715 home runs in 1974. He would go on to hit 755 home runs in his 22-year career. When he retired after the 1976 season, his career statistics included records for 755 home runs, 2,297 RBIs, 6,856 total bases and 1,477 extra base hits. After retiring from baseball, Aaron would entertain many business ventures in the Atlanta area. In 2002, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President George W. Bush.
April 9
Actor, singer, athlete, and activist Paul Robeson is born in 1898. In 1915, Robeson would become the third Black student in Rutgers University to be awarded a full academic scholarship. He would finish a Phi Beta Kappa scholar and valedictorian of his class, also excelling in baseball, basketball, football and track. He later earned a law degree in 1923 from Columbia University. Robeson would go on to embrace his childhood loves of performing in plays and films and as a world-renowned singer. He was a true renaissance man.
April 10
Lee Elder tees off as the first Black entry into the PGA’s Master’s Tournament in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1975. Elder began to play golf at the age of 9. Turning pro in 1959, he has a combined 12 victories on the PGA and Senior Tours, and has earned more than $1 million on each tour. Elder was also the first African American to play on a Ryder Cup Team in 1979.
April 11
Spelman College is founded in 1881. This four-year, private, female liberal arts institution began as Atlanta Baptist Female Academy, undertaken by two women who were to provide educational opportunities for newly freed Black women. The academy first offered post-secondary education in 1897. It adopted its present name in 1924.
April 12
Lionel Hampton, vibraphonist and bandleader, is born in 1909. Hampton was born in Louisville, Kentucky, in 1908 and was raised by his mother in Birmingham. His first gig was in Chicago where he played drums in Major N. Clark Smith’s Chicago Defender Newsboy’s Band. He would work for various Chicago bands before finding a niche in Los Angeles. In 1936, his band was featured at the Paradise Cafe in Hollywood. Hampton was a featured star with Benny Goodman’s Quartet from 1936 through 1940 and occasionally played drums with the big band. He regularly led his own recording bands. In 1940, he moved back to Los Angeles and formed his own big band, which was successful up until his death in 2002.
April 13
Harlem Hospital opens in New York City in 1907.
Week 1 | Week 2 | Week 3 | Week 4 | Week 5 | Week 6 | Week 7 | Week 8 | Week 9 | Week 10
|
|
|
|
|