NorthStar’s Week in Black History

January 26 through February 2

January 26

1863 ----- The United States War Department authorized on this date the Governor of Massachusetts, John A. Andrew, to recruit black troops to serve in the Union Army in the American Civil War. The regiment was named the 54th Regiment Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry.

The regiment, which was active from March 13, 1863 to August 4, 1865, was one of the first official black units to serve during the Civil War.  In keeping with Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton’s order that only white officers would command “colored” units, Colonel Robert Gould Shaw led the regiment. The unit, which trained at Camp Meigs in Readville, Mass., near Boston, was comprised of 1,100 black soldiers.

The 54th Regiment was only permitted to perform manual labor jobs for the first months of its existence.  On July 16, 1863, the regiment entered a conflict with Confederate soldiers on James Island, S.C., and stopped an assault.  Two days later, on July 18, the 54th Regiment fought with distinction, joining an attack on Fort Wagner, near Charleston, SC.  In this bloody battle, there were many losses, and while the Union troops were unable to hold the fort, the 54th Regiment was recognized for valor.  The unit’s bravery reinforced efforts to recruit blacks for military service.

A monument to the 54th Regiment, designed and installed from 1884-1898 by Augustus Saint-Gaudens, stands on the Boston Common and is a part of the Boston Black Heritage Trail.  The film Glory, released in 1989 and starring Matthew Broderick, Denzel Washington and Morgan Freeman, depicts the soldiers and battles of the 54th Regiment during the Civil War.

The very first all-black unit to serve in the Civil War was the 1st South Carolina Volunteers, comprised entirely of freed men.  Many black soldiers also served earlier on both sides of the conflict in the American Revolutionary War (1775-1783) and the War of 1812.

1892 ----- Elizabeth “Bessie” Coleman, the first African-American woman aviator and stunt-flier, was born in Atlanta, Texas.  She was the tenth of thirteen children born to sharecroppers.

Educated during her earliest years in a one-room schoolhouse for black children, Coleman attended Oklahoma Colored Agricultural and Normal University—it has since become Langston University—in Langston, Okla., for one semester before running out of money. She left school of necessity in 1915, relocated to Chicago with two of her brothers and sought employment there.  While in Chicago, she worked as a manicurist in a barbershop and heard tales there that led her to become interested in aviation. Though she applied to many schools to gain training as a pilot, she was rejected because she was both black and a woman.

Robert S. Abbott, founder and publisher of The Chicago Defender, encouraged her to study abroad, wanting to help her realize her dream of becoming a pilot and also wanting to get her story into the press, expanding the visibility and reach of his newspaper.  Chicago’s Binga State Bank provided her with needed financial support.

In 1920, Coleman trained as a pilot in Paris.  In 1921, Coleman earned an international aviation license from the Federation Aeronautitque Internationale, becoming the first African-American woman to earn a license from the school and the first African-American woman in the world to earn a pilot’s license.

Since there was no chance she could become a civil aviator in the United States, Coleman trained further in the Netherlands and in Germany to become a stunt flier.  She returned to the United States in 1921, determined to become an exhibition pilot.  Once she began flying in air shows, usually seated in the cockpit of a Curtiss JN-4 “Jenny” biplane, she became an immediate media sensation and was dubbed “Brave Bess” and “Queen Bess” by an adoring press and public.  Enjoying top-billing, she flew in air shows for five years.

Though Coleman had hoped to open an aviation school to train black pilots, she never realized this dream.  Coleman died on April 30, 1926 in an in-flight accident over Jacksonville, Fla.  She was 34.

Five thousand mourners attended Coleman’s funeral in Jacksonville on May 2.  Another funeral, held just days later in Orlando, Fla., was also attended by thousands of people.  And on May 5, a final funeral was held to honor her at Pilgrim Baptist Church in Chicago, where her coffin was displayed overnight.  An estimated 10,000 people filed past her coffin that night.

Bessie Coleman is honored every Memorial Day by African-American pilots who fly in formation above Chicago’s Lincoln Cemetery, where she was buried, dropping wreaths on her grave site.

January 27

1894 ----- Frederick Douglas “Fritz” Pollard, the first African-American coach in the National Football League (NFL), was born in Chicago.

Though he attended Northwestern, Harvard and Dartmouth and played football for all three schools, Pollard was eventually granted a scholarship by the Rockefeller family to attend Brown University.  He played for Brown, and in 1915, led his team to the Rose Bowl and became the first African American to play in a Rose Bowl game.

Pollard and Bobby Marshall were the first two African-American players in the NFL in 1920.  Pollard made his football debut with the Akron Pros, an American Professional Football League (APFL) team, later known as the National Football League (NFL), that won the APFL/NFL championship that year.  In 1921, Pollard both played running back for the team and acted as co-head coach for the club.  

Pollard also played for the Milwaukee Badgers (1922), the Hammond Pros (1923-1925), the Akron Indians (1925), the Providence Steam Roller (1925) and again with the Akron Indians (1926).  He assumed coaching duties with some of these teams and was working primarily as a coach in 1926.

In 1926, Pollard and the nine black men who were playing with the NFL were removed from the league.  None of them returned. Pollard organized African-American barnstorming teams, including the Chicago Black Hawks in 1926 and the Harlem Brown Brothers during the 1930s.

Pollard retired from football in 1937 and became a businessman.  Pollard was the only black man until 1990 to coach an NFL team. In 1990, the Los Angeles Raiders hired Art Shell as their head coach.  In 2005, Pollard was inducted into the Pro-Football Hall of Fame.

Fritz Pollard died in 1986 in Silver Spring, Md.  He was 92.

1953 ----- Ralph Ellison’s novel, Invisible Man, won the National Book Award.  The novel names and addresses in its narrative the major social, political and psychological challenges African  Americans faced in twentieth century America.  

In 1998, Modern Library ranked Invisible Man nineteenth on its list of the 100 best English-language novels of the twentieth century.  Time magazine listed Ellison’s novel on it 100 best English-language novels from 1923 to 2005, the year the list was published.

Invisible Man was the only novel published during Ralph Ellison’s lifetime. Ellison died in 1994, and his second novel, Juneteenth, was published five years after his death, under the editorship of John Callahan, Ellis’ literary executor, who was a professor at Lewis and Clark College in Portland, Ore.  The novel was a 368-page work, edited from a 2,000-page manuscript, written by Ellison over a forty-year period.

1961 ----- Soprano Leontyne Price debuted at the Metropolitan Opera House.

Having heard Price sing Verdi’s ll trovatore in Verona with tenor Franco Corelli, Rudolf Bing, then the general manager of the Metropolitan Opera House, offered Price an opportunity to sing in multiple roles in the 1961 season at the Met.  Price accepted, and on this date, she made an historic double-debut with Correlli in Il trovatore before a packed house.  The final ovation following the debut performance lasted 35 minutes (some reported it lasted 42 minutes), the longest ovation in the history of the Met.

Though she sang both nationally and internationally, always receiving public and critical acclaim, Price sang frequently at the Met and with the San Francisco Opera.  Her long association with the Met, however, was central to her career.  Price sang 201 performances in 16 different roles both at the Met and on tour with the Met.  She sang at the state funeral of President Lyndon B. Johnson and at the White House, having been invited on more than one occasion by President Jimmy Carter.

Leontyne Price retired from opera performance in 1985 at the age of 57, though she continued to perform at concerts and in recitals for many years.  In 2001, at 74, she was persuaded to emerge from retirement to sing at Carnegie Hall in a memorial concert for the victims of the September 11th terrorist attacks.  She sang what she declared was her mother’s favorite spiritual, “This Little Light of Mine,” followed by an a cappella rendition of “God Bless America.”

January 28

Richmond Barthé

1901 ----- Richmond Barthé, renowned sculptor, was born in Bay St. Louis, Miss.

An artistic protégé, Barthé first exhibited his paintings at 12 at a country fair in Mississippi.  At 18, he moved to New Orleans, where his sketches won first prize in a Parrish competition.  His dream to enter an art school there was not realized, because no art school in New Orleans admitted black students.

A priest of his acquaintance assisted Barthé in gaining admission in 1924 to the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where he studied painting for four years until he was introduced to sculpture and chose it as his artistic path.

In 1928, Barthé, who had relocated to New York, established a studio in Harlem.  In 1934, Barthé exhibited his sculptures in a solo show in New York City, where his work was received enthusiastically, easily winning him a serious following and an influential place among the artists of the Harlem Renaissance.  He was also active in Harlem’s established gay community.

A frequent traveler, Barthé, concerned about the level of violence in urban American cities, decided in 1947 to leave the United States and live in Jamaica.  He lived there until the mid-1960s.  He found it, too, a volatile environment and moved to Europe, where he lived for five years in Switzerland, Spain and Italy respectively. He returned to the United States and settled in Pasadena, where he lived for the remainder of his life.

Barthe’s major public works, for which he is known primarily, include the Toussaint L’Ouverture Monument (1950), installed at the Haitian National Palace, the General Jean-Jacques Dessalines Monument (1952), in place in Port-au-Prince, Haiti; Green Pastures:  Walls of Jericho, created for the Harlem River Housing Project and a sculpture of African-American actress Rose McClendon (1932), commissioned for Frank Lloyd Wright’s home, Fallingwater House in Mill Run, Pa.

Pieces of Barthé's work have been collected by the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and other major American museums.  Barthé died in 1989 at age 88. A street in Pasadena has been named in his honor.

Matthew Henson

1944 ----- Matthew Henson received a joint medal by Congress, honoring the Peary Expedition to the North Pole. Henson had served as the expedition’s indispensable navigator, scout and translator of the Inuit language.  

 Admiral Robert Peary, who had hired Henson as his valet years earlier and who organized and led the expedition to the Pole, is credited with being the first man ever to reach the North Pole on April 6, 1909. It is more likely, however, that Henson, who broke trail while pushing a sled, reached the Pole nearly an hour ahead of Peary.

Although Henson was at least a co-discoverer of the North Pole, he and his role in the expedition were largely ignored. He worked in Washington for thirty years as a clerk in a customs house while Peary was lauded and celebrated.  That changed when Congress awarded Henson a duplicate of the silver medal given to Peary following the expedition.

Other honors followed.  Both President Dwight D. Eisenhower and President Harry S. Truman honored Henson before he died in 1955.  In 1961, an honorary plaque was installed to mark Henson’s Nanjemoy, Md., birthplace. In 1988, Henson’s and his wife Lucy’s graves were exhumed, and their remains were reburied in Arlington National Cemetery,near the double grave for Admiral Peary and his wife.

In 1912, Henson wrote a book about his North Pole adventure, titled A Negro Explorer at the North Pole. In 1947, he collaborated with Bradley Robinson and wrote his autobiography, Dark Companion.

1989 ----- The packaging for “Darkie” Toothpaste, sold in Asia, boasting a logo offensive to blacks, was finally redesigned by Colgate-Palmolive after 62 years.

The “Darkie” brand of toothpaste was a product manufactured and distributed by Hawley & Hazel Chemical Company, first in Shanghai in 1933 and then later in Hong Kong and Taiwan.  In 1985, Hawley & Hazel was acquired by the Colgate-Palmolive corporation of the United States, though the toothpaste was never marketed by the company.
As a result of protests over the racist packaging and branding, the Colgate-Palmolive changed the name of the toothpaste from “Darkie” to “Darlie.”  Images on the package were altered so that they appeared racially neutral.  The Chinese name for this brand of toothpaste, however, is “Black Person Toothpaste,” and it sells widely in China, Malaysia and Thailand.  

The product was named with the idea that the teeth of black-skinned people are exceptionally white.

January 29

1913 ----- The 50th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation (1863-1913) was celebrated throughout the nation for an entire year, beginning January 1, the date of the actual anniversary of the signing of the document.  

On this date, major celebrations were held in Jackson, Miss., New Orleans and Nashville.  Three states—Pennsylvania, New York and New Jersey appropriated funds to mount elaborate public ceremonies and celebrations.

African-American historian, poet and composer, known for his song, “Lift Every Voice and Sing,”wrote a poem, “Fifty Years,” to commemorate the proclamation’s jubilee anniversary.  The poem’s opening stanza reads:

O brothers mine, to-day we stand
Where half a century sweeps our ken,
Since God, through Lincoln’s ready hand,
Struck off our bonds and made us men.

1926 ----- On this date, Violette Neatley Anderson, a British émigré, was the first African-American woman to argue a case before the United States Supreme Court.

Born in London to a German mother and a West Indian father, Anderson moved with her family during childhood to Chicago, where she was educated and eventually earned law degree.  In 1920, Anderson became the first African-
American woman admitted to the Illinois Bar.

This was not the only first she was to achieve.  She was the first African-American woman to practice law in the U. S. District Court—Eastern Division and the first woman of any race to serve as a city prosecutor in Chicago.

Anderson was instrumental in facilitating the passage of the 1936 Bankhead-Jones Bill, legislation forwarded to assist tenant farmers receive long-term, low-interest loans, which assured them a greater degree of economic stability.  Congress passed the bill in 1937.

Anderson died in Chicago not long after the bill was passed.  She was 55.

1954 ----- History-making syndicated talk show host, actress, film producer, philanthropist and founder of  OWN, the cable television network, Oprah Winfrey was born in Kosciusko, Miss.

Winfrey rose from economically impoverished and psychologically depriving beginnings to win the Miss Black Tennessee beauty pageant at 17. She also won an oratory contest that secured her a full scholarship to Tennessee State University, where she majored in communications.

After stints as a news anchor and talk show host first in Nashville and then in Baltimore, Winfrey moved to Chicago in 1983 and joined WLS-TV to host AM Chicago, a show with very low ratings.  Within months, the show gained high ratings and was soon outpacing Donahue as the most popular Chicago talk show.  At Roger Ebert’s urging, Winfrey signed a deal with King World and syndicated her show, renamed The Oprah Winfrey Show.  The show aired nationally for the first time on September 8, 1976.

Winfrey built her show from a tabloid talk show to a more positive, issue-oriented, self-help show that also featured lively celebrity interviews.  The show made history and ran for 25 years, signing off the air on May 25, 2011.

Beyond the offerings of her talk show, Winfrey co-starred in the blockbuster film, The Color Purple in 1985 and was nominated for an Oscar for her performance.  In 1986, she founded Harpo Studios, her own multi-media production company in Chicago.  

Winfrey also produced and starred in a television mini-series in 1989, The Women of Brewster Place, and she founded Oxygen, a women’s cable television channel. In 1998, Winfrey produced and starred in the film Beloved, based on Toni Morrison’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of the same title.

One of media’s most influential figures, Winfrey has also donated considerable time and money to causes and enterprises in which she believes, including the 2008 presidential campaign of President Barack Obama.  She also founded a school for girls, The Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls in Meyerton (near Johannesburg), South Africa in 2007.

Winfrey is currently developing programming for her OWN cable network.

January 30

1944 ----- Sharon Pratt Kelley, formerly Sharon Pratt Dixon, and now known as Sharon Pratt, was born in Washington, DC.

A Howard University Law School graduate and an attorney with legal and public service experience but little political experience, Pratt was elected the third mayor of Washington, DC in 1990, following Mayor Marion S. Barry, Jr., who dropped out of the race after he was arrested on drug charges.

Pratt captured 80 percent of the vote and became the first African-American woman to serve as mayor of a major American city.  While mayor, Pratt worked to increase business ownership among blacks and Hispanics.  She also worked to have Washington, DC, classified as a state and not merely a city.  These efforts were unsuccessful.

Pratt ran for re-election in 1994 but was defeated by Barry, who recaptured his former mayoral post in a startling comeback.

1965 ----- Leroy Robert “Satchel” Paige, legendary pitcher, who played in both the Negro Leagues and in Major League Baseball, was named “all-time outstanding player” by the National Baseball Congress.

Born in 1906 in Mobile, Ala. and nicknamed for the suitcases and satchels he carried for passengers at the railway station as a boy, Paige began his long and astonishing career in baseball when he debuted in 1924 with the semi-pro Mobile Tigers.  He left the Tigers for the Pittsburgh Crawfords, playing with them on and off from 1932 to 1937.  When not pitching for the Crawfords, Paige free-lanced or barnstormed, playing for teams who wanted him and charging a per-game fee. He then lent his talents to the Kansas City Monarchs.  The Monarchs won six pennants from 1939 to 1948.

A star of the Negro Leagues, whose name always led to packed bleachers, Paige earned what was at the time a considerable salary --- $40,000 a year.

Off-season, Paige played with teams in Mexico, South America, the Caribbean and the Dominican Republic.

In 1948, at the age of 42, Paige signed with the Cleveland Indians, becoming the American League’s first African-American pitcher.  Jackie Robinson, primarily a second baseman, had become the first African-American Major League Baseball player the year before when he signed with the Brooklyn Dodgers.

Paige pitched for the Indians for two years and then pitched for three years for the St. Louis Browns (1951 to 1953). Later he played for the Kansas City Athletics.  In 1965, at 59, he was the oldest player pitching in the major leagues.  Ever playful, Paige sat in a rocking chair in the bullpen at games, while a uniformed nurse, hired for the purpose, applied liniment to his pitching arm.

Paige coached for the Atlanta Braves in 1969, ending his career in professional baseball.  In 1971, he was the first Negro League baseball star to be elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Satchel Paige died of emphysema in 1982.  He was 75.

January 31

1961 --- Lt. Commander Samuel L. Gravely Jr. becomes the first African-American Navy officer to command a U. S. warship.

Gravely became temporary skipper of the USS Theodore E. Chandler. A few months later, he was assigned to the USS Falgout, the first fighting ship to be commanded by an African-American officer. As a full commander, he again made naval history in 1966 as the first black commander to lead a ship—the USS Taussig—into direct offensive action during the Vietnam War. The crew of the Taussig was skeptical at first. "I think," Gravely told Ebony magazine, that "initially they [were] interested in two things: can the Old Man take the ship out, and can he get it back in port." After proving himself, he was accepted by his staff.

Doug Williams

1988 ----- Doug Williams of the Washington Redskins becomes the first African-American quarterback to play in the Super Bowl.

Williams led the Redskins to victory by defeating the Denver Broncos 42-10 in XXII at Jack Murphy Stadium in San Diego. Williams was named the Super Bowl MVP, completing 18 of 29 passes for a Super Bowl record 340 yards and four touchdowns, with one interception. Williams became the first player in Super Bowl history to pass for four touchdowns in a single quarter, and throw four touchdowns during a half.

February 1

1871 --- U.S. Rep. Jefferson Franklin Long of Georgia became the first African to give an official speech in the U. S. House of Representatives.

Long gave a speech opposing leniency for former members of the Confederacy. An amnesty bill that would modify the oath required of former Confederates who sought public office had passed the Senate and was to be voted on by the House. Opposed to the measure, Long asked the assembly, "Do we, then, really propose here to-day, when the country is not ready for it, . . . when loyal men dare not carry the 'stars and stripes' through our streets, for if they do they will be turned out of employment, to relieve from political disability the very men who have committed these outrages?" Nonetheless, the bill passed later that day by a vote of 118 to 90.

Long was elected as a Republican to the Forty-first Congress to fill the vacancy caused when the U.S. House declared Samuel F. Gove not entitled to the seat and served from December 22, 1870, to March 3, 1871. Long was not a candidate for re-nomination.

February 2

1897 --- Alfred L. Cralle invented and patented the ice cream scooper, a practical design that is widely used 100 years later.

While working in Pittsburgh as a porter Cralle noticed that ice cream, which had become a popular confection, was difficult to dispense. It tended to stick to spoons and ladles, usually requiring use of two hands and at least two implements to serve. To overcome this, he invented a mechanical device now known as the ice cream scoop and applied for a patent. On February 2, 1897, the 30-year old was granted U.S. Patent #576395.

Cralle’s invention, originally called an “Ice Cream Mold and Disher” was designed to be able to keep ice cream and other foods from sticking, and easy to operate with one hand. Strong and durable, effective, inexpensive, it could be constructed in almost any desired shape, such as a cone or a mound, with no delicate parts that could break or malfunction.

1939 --- Edmond Berger invented the spark plug, but failed to obtain a patent for the device. 

Spark plugs are used in internal combustion engines, according to E3 Spark Plug News.



NorthStar's Week in Black History is compiled by Susan M. Miller.