The NorthStar's Week in Black History

August 2 through August 8


August 2

1924 ------ James Baldwin, who flew to Paris in 1948 with $100 and a duffel bag for his belongings to become a writer, was born on this day in Harlem.

When his first novel, Go Tell It on the Mountain, was published in 1953, Baldwin had to borrow a friend’s suit to attend a book party in his honor because he couldn’t afford to get his own suit out of the cleaners.

Baldwin was a prolific writer of novels, essays and plays. His novels include Giovanni's Room, a groundbreaking 1956 novel about a gay love affair, Another Country (1962), Tell Me How Long the Train’s Been Gone (1968) and Just Above My Head (1979).

His plays include The Amen Corner (1950) and Blues for Mister Charlie (1964). His book-length essays include The Fire Next Time (1963) and No Name Street (1972). His nonfiction work, Price of the Ticket, was published in 1985.

Baldwin died in 1987. Black history scholar Molefi Kete Asante included James Baldwin on his list 100 Greatest African Americans.


1957

August 3 ----- President Dwight D. Eisenhower named Archibald J. Carey, Jr., a Chicago alderman, attorney and minister to chair the President’s Committee on Government Employment Policy.

In that role, Carey, who was the first black person to hold the position, helped to reduce employment discrimination. At the 1952 Republican National Convention, which met in Chicago, Carey spoke to convention delegates, calling for equal rights for all minorities.



August 4

1936 ---- Then a 21-year-old freshman at the University of Pittsburgh, “Long” John Woodruff won a gold medal in the 800-meter run in Berlin in one of the most exciting races in Olympic history.

Woodruff, finding that he was boxed in during the Olympic event, stopped running in order to avoid fouling a fellow runner but then resumed the race. Coming from behind, he ran around everyone else, winning the 800-meter run in 1:52.9 and bringing home the gold.

The University of Pittsburgh had a hall of fame, but Woodruff was not admitted despite his having won a gold medal that brought the school international recognition (hear Woodruff being interviewed in The NorthStar's video of the week).

The Berlin games are widely remembered as the Olympics in which American track and field star athlete Jesse Owens won four gold medals. Ten African-American athletes---nine in track and field events and one in boxing---were awarded medals at the 1936 games.

Black track athletes swept every running event, as well as the high jump and the long jump.

Following his Olympic triumph, Woodruff joined the Army in 1941, served in both World War II and the Korean War and retired in 1957 as a lieutenant colonel.  He earned a master’s degree in sociology and later worked as a public school teacher, a coach and a parole officer.

Woodruff died in 2007 of kidney failure, secondary to diabetes. Both of his legs had been amputated some years before his death.  He was 92.

Each year a five-K run is held in Woodruff’s honor in his hometown of Connellsville, Pa.


August 5


1984 ----- Evelyn Ashford, 19, a native of Shreveport, La., and a UCLA sprinter, won the gold medal in the 100-meter run on this date in the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles. She set a new Olympic record, clocking in at 10.97 seconds.

As the anchor runner in the 4 x 100-meter relay race, Ashford won another gold medal during the Los Angeles games.

Beaten in the 100-meter run by U. S. teammate Florence Griffin Joyner, Ashford captured a silver medal in the race at the 1988 Olympics in Seoul, South Korea.  She was once again the anchor runner for the 400-meter relay team, which won the gold medal that year.

In 1992, Ashford, then 35, competed for the third and final time in the Olympics.  The games were held in Barcelona where she won her third consecutive Olympic gold medal in the 4 x 100-meter relay race. In this race, she was the frontrunner.

Ashford is one of only four women in Olympic track-and-field history to win four gold medals.

In 1981 and 1984, Track and Field News named Evelyn Ashford “Athlete of the Year.”  In 1997, she was inducted into the National Track and Field Hall of Fame.

1984 ----- A largely self-coached Morehouse College graduate, Edwin Moses, dubbed the “Bionic Man” by his fellow students, won an Olympic gold medal in the 400-meter hurdles on this date at the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles.

It  was the second gold medal Moses won in the event, having captured the gold in 1976 at the Olympic games in Montreal, Canada.  That year, Moses set both Olympic and world records with a time of 47.63 seconds.

Moses was the second man in Olympic history to win two gold medals in the 400-meter hurdles. The first athlete to do so was Glenn Davis of the United States, who pulled down the gold at the games held in 1956 and 1960.

In the 1988 Olympic games in Seoul, South Korea, Moses gave his best-ever performance in the 400-meter hurdles, but came in third, taking home a bronze medal.

Moses retired from track following his win in Seoul, but, surprisingly, he turned to bobsledding, winning a bronze medal in 1990 for the two-man team event at the World Cup championships held in Winterberg, Germany.

When he was no longer competing athletically, Moses was nonetheless committed to athletics. He became a member in 1983 of the Athletic Congress and spoke out against anabolic steroid use among athletes. He supported stringent standards for drug testing.  He later served on the International Olympic Committee Medical Commission and was named president in 1997 of the International Amateur Athletic Association.

Edwin Moses worked for the Special Olympics and has lent his efforts to the United Negro College Fund, as well as to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF).

In 1984, Moses penned his autobiography, Astonishment of Heart (Macmillan). In 1994, Moses was named to the National Track and Field Hall of Fame.  Since 2000, Moses has served as chairman of the Laureus World Sports Academy, which promotes athletics for social change.


August 6

1965 ----- President Lyndon B. Johnson signed into law on this date the 1965 Voting Rights Act. The act guarantees the right to vote for racial, ethnic and language-minority citizens of the United States.  The act also prevents states from establishing discriminatory tactics aimed at preventing fair opportunities for minorities to vote.

The passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act had resulted in violent outbreaks throughout the South, and white racists engaged in all-out efforts to undermine the effective civil-rights gains made by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and those following his example. King and other civil rights activists promoted voting rights and worked tirelessly to register black voters in the South. It became clear that further federal safeguards were needed to protect the constitutional rights of African Americans and other minorities.

President Johnson introduced to Congress the Voting Rights Act, saying in a speech before the body, “….Rarely are we met with a challenge to the values and the purposes and the meaning of our beloved nation.  The issue of equal rights for Negroes is such an issue….the command of the Constitution is plain. It is wrong---deadly wrong---to deny any of our fellow Americans the right to vote in this country.”

The Voting Rights Act outlawed literacy tests and poll taxes as a way of determining an individual’s fitness to vote.  All that was required of voters was U. S. citizenship and registration on an official electoral list.

By late 1966, only four of the 13 Southern states had less than 50 percent of African Americans registered to vote.  By 1968, 59 percent of African Americans living in Mississippi were registered to vote.  Previously, Mississippi had the fewest registered African American voters of any state in the country. Gradually, a greater number of African Americans were elected to public office in the South and elsewhere in the country.


August 7

1948 ----- Alice Coachman, a 23-year-old sprinter, high jumper and Tuskegee Institute graduate, became the first African-American woman to win an Olympic gold medal when she won the high jump at the games in London on this date.

The only American woman athlete to win a gold medal in 1948, Coachman leaped 5 feet 6 1/8 inches in the high jump, setting an Olympic record.  England’s King George VI presented Coachman with her medal.

Following her Olympic victory, Coachman retired from athletics, returned to her hometown of Albany, Ga., and earned a second bachelor’s degree, one in economics, from Albany State College.

Coachman was also the first African-American woman athlete to benefit from product endorsements. In 1952, she signed an endorsement contract with Coca Cola.

Though she earned income through these and other endorsements, Coachman became a teacher and a track coach at both the high school and college level and was later involved in the Job Corps.  She established the Alice Coachman Track and Field Foundation in 1994 in Akron, Ohio. The foundation is dedicated to providing financial assistance to young, promising athletes. Coachman’s son currently runs the foundation. Alice Coachman is now retired.

One of the 12 torchbearers for the opening ceremonies at the 1996 Olympic games in Atlanta, Alice Coachman was honored as one of the 100 greatest Olympians of all time. Coachman was inducted into the Alabama Sports Hall of Fame in 1997 and to the Olympic Hall of Fame in 2004.


August 8

1989 ----- U. S. Representative George Thomas “Mickey” Leland, D-Tex., members of his congressional staff and U.S. State Department officials, died in a plane crash near Gambela, Ethiopia.

Leland, who represented Texas’ 18th Congressional District, had been studying Ethiopia’s famine conditions when the crash occurred. Leland was sworn into office on Jan. 3, 1979.


The NorthStar's Week in Black History is compiled and written
by Frederick H. Lowe and Susan M. Miller.