NorthStar's Week In Black History

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May 31 through June 6

May 31

1909 ----- The NAACP, the nation's oldest civil rights organization, then known as the National Negro Committee, held its first conference in New York City.  More than 300 African Americans and whites attended.

One of the fledgling organization's founders, journalist and activist Ida B. Wells, was the keynote speaker for the conference, taking the platform to condemn lynching.  The New York Times covered the event in its June 2, 1909 issue in a lengthy article, headlined "Whites and Blacks Confer as Equals."

A year later, the group held its second conference and adopted its name, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the NAACP. It incorporated the following year and issued its mission statement:

"To promote equality of rights and to eradicate caste or race prejudice among the citizens of the United States, to advance the interest of colored citizens; to secure for them impartial suffrage and to increase their opportunities for employment according to their ability and complete equality before the law."  

The NAACP now boasts more than 500,000 members and supports more than 2,000 chapters, including branches for adolescents in many communities as well as chapters for young adults on college and university campuses.

June 1

1977 ----- The American Heritage magazine published on this date the oldest identifiable photographs of Southern slaves, sharing a startling historical find with the public. The daguerreotypes were commissioned to support a specious theory of African inferiority.

Found in a drawer of a storage cabinet in the basement of Harvard's Museum of Archeology and Ethnology, the six previously unpublished photographs were part of a larger collection of about 15 daguerreotypes produced in 1850 by J.T. Zealy, a respected Columbia, S. C., photographer.

At the behest of Harvard professor Louis Agassiz, a Swiss-born paleontologist, glaciologist and geologist, who intended to establish "scientifically" the inferiority of the slave and of the African race, Zealy was commissioned to visit plantations near Columbia and photograph men and women in slavery, documenting their tribal origins, if possible. Agassiz needed the photographs as visual evidence for his theory of African inferiority.

A creationist who resisted Darwin's theories of evolution, Agassiz was also a polygenist.  He asserted that Africans were not direct descendants of Adam and Eve but were instead the result of a "second" creation.  His theory of a separate creation was used by him and others to justify racism and slavery.

Agassiz's theories were eventually widely disputed and eventually dismissed.  His admirable reputation as a natural scientist was marred significantly by his racist views.  Some natural sites and public institutions that had been named in his honor were later renamed as a way of dissociating those spaces and places from his heinous theories regarding racial differences.

Zealy's photographs of slaves, some of them naked, some of them partially clothed, some of them baring scars from severe beatings, stand as stark, disturbing and damning testimonies of the brutal realities of slavery.

June 2

1810 ----- An African-American home design, referred to as the "shotgun" house, is celebrated on this date. In the United States, this architectural form originated in the South, was common in the region and eventually flourished elsewhere, wherever housing was needed for lower-income workers.

Typically, shotgun houses are narrow, rectangular structures, consisting of three, four or five rooms, arranged in a row without an interior hallway. The earliest examples of this home design were built without indoor bathrooms.

Some historians and folklorists suggest the building style may have originated in Haiti or in Africa during the 18th century or possibly earlier.

When free blacks left plantations and rural areas for urban environments and the opportunities associated with more well-populated locations, they needed homes. Shotgun houses, easy to build, represented a practical solution.

In New Orleans in 1810, for example, blacks outnumbered whites 10,500 to 4,500.  A housing boom ensued, and shotgun houses were built quickly and in great numbers, providing homes for the influx to the city of black workers.  The homes were largely designed and built by black workmen.

Later, during the migration of blacks from the South to the North, shotgun houses were built as rental units in the burgeoning manufacturing centers in urban areas of the country.

June 3

1871 ----- Miles Vandehurst Lynk, a physician and founder of the nation's first black medical journal, was born on this day near Brownsville, Tenn. Dr. Lynk, who received his medical degree from Meharry Medical College in Nashville, Tenn., in 1891, was interested in a forum where black physicians could discuss their medical discoveries and findings. 

In 1892, he founded The Medical and Surgical Observer, according to the Encyclopedia of Black America. The Observer connected widely scattered and isolated health professionals, especially in the South. The publication suggested ways physicians, dentists and pharmacists could organize themselves, wrote Todd L. Savitt, professor of medical humanities at East Carolina University,  in an article titled, "A Journal of Our Own: The Medical and Surgical Beginnings of an African-American Medical Profession in Late 19th Century America."

Lynk was 21 and had graduated from medical school a year and half earlier when he founded his journal. He published it monthly from December 1892 to January 1894. Not only was Lynk the publication's founder, but he also wrote most of the articles, edited all of the stories and sold advertising to support it.

In addition, he also supervised the mailing of the publication. Seventeen of the 24 original articles published by the journal were written by African-American physicians. Topics included hysteria, gynecological problems and amputation. If that wasn't enough, Lynk was co-founder of the National Medical Association, an organization for black doctors, and in 1900, he founded the Medical School of West Tennessee.

June 4

1973-----Arna Wendell Bontemps, a leading figure in the Harlem Renaissance, died on this day in Nashville, Tenn., of a heart attack.

Bontemps was known for his novels, Black Thunder: Gabriel's Revolt: Virginia 1800 (1936), Sad-faced Boy (1937) and Drums at Dusk: A Novel (1939) . He also wrote children's books, edited anthologies of African-American poetry and folklore and recorded stories and poems on Folkways Records, according to the Schomburg Center African American Desk Reference.

June 5

1894 ----- George Washington Murray patents the fertilizer distributor on this date on this date.  Altogether, Murray of Rempert, S.C., was awarded 14 patents during his lifetime, mostly for farm equipment. Inventing things was just one of the many things he did. 

He was elected as a Republican representing South Carolina's 7th congressional district in the Fifty-third Congress. He from March 4, 1893 to March 5, 1895.

Due to redistricting, he ran in South Carolina's 1st congressional district in 1894. Although he lost the popular vote to William Elliott, he successfully contested the election and served in the Fifty-fourth Congress from June 4, 1896 to March 3, 1897. 

Murray would be the last black Republican to serve in Congress from South Carolina until Tim Scott was elected in 2010. South Carolina congressman and Assistant Democratic Leader James Clyburn is one of Murray's relatives.

June 6

1950 ----- Lt. Gen. Frank E. Petersen, who became the first African American named an aviator in the U.S. Marines, enlisted in the U.S. Navy on this day as a seaman apprentice, serving as an electronics technician.

In 1951, he entered the Naval Aviation Cadet Program.  A year later, he completed flight training, and he was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the U.S. Marine Corps. Lt. Gen. Petersen also became the first African American to command a fighter squadron, a fight air group, an air wing and a major base.


NorthStar's Week in Black History is compiled and written

by Frederick H. Lowe and Susan M. Miller.