The NorthStar’s Week in Black History

August 23 through August 29

August 23


1861 ----- James Stone, a fugitive slave, enlisted in the Union Army on this date, becoming the first African American to fight in the Civil War (1861-1865). He fought with the First Fight Artillery of Ohio.

Because Stone was light-skinned and married to a white woman, it was assumed that he was white. His racial identity was not revealed until his death in 1862.

Though black men had served in both the Revolutionary War (1775-1783) and the War of 1812, they were barred from military service, secondary to a federal law of 1792.

The Lincoln administration considered lifting the ban on blacks bearing arms for the U. S. Army, but it was feared that such an action would cause border states to secede from the Union.

By 1862, there were a significant number of former slaves in need of work and there were fewer whites volunteering for military service.  The Union Army was signaling the government that they urgently needed more soldiers.

On July 17, 1862, Congress passed the Second Confiscation and Militia Act, freeing all slaves whose masters were serving in the Confederate Army.  On July 19, slavery was abolished in all U. S. territories, and on July 22, President Lincoln presented to his cabinet a draft of his Emancipation Proclamation.  The response to the proclamation was positive, and the proclamation gained strong support.

Once the Emancipation Proclamation was announced Jan. 1, 1863, black soldiers were recruited in earnest.  The U. S. government established in May 1963 the Bureau of Colored Troops to manage the growing number of African-American soldiers in armed service to the Union.

When the Civil War ended in 1865, approximately 179,000 black men (and an unknown number of black women, disguised as men) had served in the U. S. Army. That number represented about 10 percent of the Union Army.  An additional 19,000 African-American men served in the U. S. Navy during the Civil War.


August 24

1854 ----- The National Emigration Convention, a three-day event, opened in Cleveland on this date and was led by Martin R. Delany, an African American of considerable accomplishment who was America’s first black nationalist.

The purpose of the convention was to envision and develop a plan for African Americans living in the United States to emigrate to the West Indies and to Central and South America.

The conference was attended by 105 delegates, 29 of which were women. Convention delegates drafted and passed resolutions that spoke to the social and political injustices suffered by blacks in America.

Though criticized by some black leaders, most particularly perhaps, Frederick Douglass, the group espoused emigration as a way for blacks to experience finally and justly “the enjoyment of civil and religious liberty.”  The delegates also established a Board of Commissioners to be based in Pittsburgh, the city that had the largest number of delegates in attendance at the convention.

Convention leader Delany presented to those assembled his manifesto, “Political Destiny of the Colored Race on the American Continent.”  The convention passed a resolution, stating, “As men and equals, we demand every political right, privilege and position to which the whites are eligible in the United States, and we will either attain to these, or accept nothing.”

Delany was a journalist, abolitionist and, later, a physician. He was one of the first three African Americans to be admitted to Harvard University Medical School.  He was also the first African-American field officer in the Civil War.  Black history scholar Molefi Kete Asante named Delany on his list, 100 Greatest African Americans.


August 25

1925 ----- The Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters (BSCP), a labor union founded by six African-American men who were employees of the Pullman Company, held its first large meeting on this date.  The founding group was led by A. Philip Randolph, who had never worked as a Pullman porter, and Milton P. Webster, who had.  The labor union was the first black-sponsored union to be chartered in the United States.

Once founded, a 12-year battle ensued as the fledgling labor union fought with the Pullman Company, the American Federation of Labor and the black community, many members of which were anti-union and pro-Pullman because the company had created needed jobs for black men, paying them what was considered a decent wage at the time.

Gradually, Pullman porters joined the union, though it was not until 1937 that a majority of Pullman porters were union members.  The union was instrumental in improving both wages and working conditions for porters.

The number of Pullman porters, however, began to decline in the 1940s as transportation options for Americans expanded and train ridership started to decline.  In 1925, the Pullman Company employed 12,000 porters.  By 1939, the company employed only 7,500 porters, and by 1960, there were only 2,852 porters.  That number dropped to 1,151 in 1968.

The Pullman Company ended its sleeping-car service on Jan.1, 1969, after 103 years of continuous service.

With fewer than 1,000 members in 1970, the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters merged with the Brotherhood of Railway and Airline Clerks, a union that no longer excluded black workers.


August 26

1968 ----- The Rev. Channing E. Phillips, a civil-rights leader, had the distinction of being the first African American nominated for the Presidency of the United States by a major political party. He was nominated on this date at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.

A founding member of Coalition for Conscience, Phillips headed Robert F. Kennedy’s campaign for president in Washington, D.C.  Phillips also led the 23-member delegation from the District of Columbia to the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago.

Robert Kennedy has been assassinated on June 5, and Phillips was nominated by the District’s delegation as a favorite-son candidate, lending him the votes that had previously been committed to Kennedy. John Conyers, Jr., congressman from Detroit, delivered Phillips’ seconding speech at the convention.

Phillips received 68 votes at the convention.  Democratic candidates Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota, Eugene McCarthy of Minnesota and George McGovern of South Dakota were the frontrunners. They received the vast majority of the delegates’ votes at the convention.  The convention nominated Hubert Humphrey as their presidential candidate and Edmund Muskie of Maine as their choice for vice-president.

At the time of his nomination for the presidency, Phillips, then 44, was serving as president of the Housing Development Corporation, a Washington, D.C.-based, government-sponsored housing venture. He was also the pastor of Lincoln Temple of the United Church of Christ in Washington, D.C.

In 1971, Phillips lost his bid for Congress.  He continued to work for the Housing Development Corporation, leaving in 1982 to relocate to Manhattan, where he became the minister of planning and coordination at Riverside Church.

Rev. Phillips died of cancer in 1987.  He was 59.


August 27

1963 ----- W. E. B. Du Bois, scholar, protest leader and a co-founder of the NAACP, died on this day in Accra, Ghana. He was 95.

Du Bois was born in Great Barrington, Mass., on Feb. 23, 1868. Dubois moved to Ghana in 1961, joining the U.S. Communist party before he left in the United States. Dubois renounced his U.S. citizenship in 1963 and became a citizen of Ghana. In 1958, he received the Lenin Peace Prize.

After he arrived in Ghana, he began work on the Encyclopedia Africana, a work completed by Harvard professors Kwame Anthony Appiah and Henry Louis Gates, Jr., as Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience (Basic Civitas Books, 1999).


August 28

1921 ----- Wendell Scott, an African-American race car driver, was born on this day in Danville, Va.

Scott was the only black driver to win a race in what is now the Sprint Cup Series. According to a 2008 biography of Scott, he broke the color barrier in Southern stock car racing on May 23, 1952, at the Danville Fairgrounds Speedway.

The book, Brian Donovan's Hard Driving: The American Odyssey of NASCAR's First Black Driver (Steerforth Press, 2008), says that after gaining experience and winning some local races at various Virginia tracks, Scott became the first African-American to obtain a NASCAR racing license, apparently in 1953, although NASCAR did not record the exact date.

The book reports that Scott's career was repeatedly affected by racial prejudice and problems with top-level NASCAR officials.

In April, a NASCAR committee selected Scott as one of five new nominees for induction into the NASCAR Hall of Fame.


August 29

1979 ----- Mutual Black Network, the first radio network owned entirely by blacks, was purchased on this day by Sheridan Broadcasting Co. Sheridan was a minority partner of Mutual Black Network.

MBN, which was founded by the Mutual Broadcasting System in 1972, was the first national full-service radio network aimed at African Americans. It broadcast a five-minute newscast at 50 minutes past the hour. It also aired sports and feature programs, and for one year beginning in the spring of 1974, a 15-minute daily soap opera called Sounds of the
City.

Some of its special programing focused on African-American history, much of which was researched, written and narrated by MBN news anchor Ben Frazier. Programming is what separated the Mutual Black Network from the rest of the pack. But its highest mark was made in the coverage of hard news.



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