On this Day in Black History

1704 - Elias Neau opened school for Blacks in New York City.
1708 - Slave revolt, Newton, Long Island (N.Y.). Seven whites killed. Two Black male slaves and an Indian slave were hanged, and a Black woman was burned alive.
1776 - George Washington writes to Phillis Wheatley, the first African American to publish a book, thanking her for a poem written in his honor, and inviting her to visit him at his Cambridge, MA military headquarters.
1778 - Rhode Island General Assembly authorized the enlistment of slaves.
1854 - The Republican Party was organized in Ripon, WI. About 50 slavery opponents began the new political group.
1859 - Arkansas legislature required free Blacks to choose between exile and enslavement.
1871 - Second Enforcement Act gave federal officers and courts control of registration and voting in congressional elections in order to protect the freedpeople's enfranchisement..
1879 - Southern Blacks fled political and economic exploitation in "Exodus of 1879."
1922 - Egypt becomes independent of Great Britain.
1932 - Richard Spikes invented/patented automatic gear shift.
1940 - Native Son by Richard Wright published
1942 - Race riot in Detroit.
1943 - Porgy and Bess opened on Broadway with Anne Brown and Todd Duncan in starring roles.
1945 - Bubba Smith born
1948 - Sgt. Cornelius F. Adjetey became the first martyr for national independence of Ghana.
1961 - Rae Dawn Chong born
1968 - Frankie Lymon died
1968 - Frank M. Adams, Jr. born (actually the 29th but what do you do)
1976 - The Western Sahara achieves independence from Spain.
1977 - Eddie "Rochester" Anderson died
1984 - Michael Jackson won eight Grammy Awards for "Thriller" which broke all sales records to-date
1985 - FeFe Dobson born
1990 - Philip Emeagwali awarded the Gordon Bell Prize (computing's Nobel Prize) for solving one of the twenty most difficult problems in the computing field.
1990 - Cornelius Gunter (The Coasters) was shot to death
1990 - Shelby Steele wins the National Book Critics Circle award for his The Content of Our Character.
2003 - Ernest Avants convicted for killing a Black man in 1966.

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