The NorthStar’s Week in Black History

October 12 through October 18


October 12

1932 ----- Richard Claxton “Dick” Gregory, comedian, author, social critic, civil rights activist and entrepreneur, born on this date in St. Louis, Mo., became one of America’s most influential entertainers. Gregory used stand-up comedy to forward the cause of civil rights.

A strong half-mile and mile runner, Gregory was awarded a track scholarship to Southern Illinois University at Carbondale. Mid-college, he was drafted into the Army, where he served from 1954 to 1956 and got his start in comedy. He entered and won several Army-sponsored talent shows, where he performed stand-up routines that were received enthusiastically.

Following his discharge from the Army, Gregory relocated to Chicago, where he quickly forged friendships with other young black comedians who based their routines on social commentary and who abandoned humor based on negative black stereotypes. The other young black comedians growing in popularity at the time were Nipsey Russell, Bill Cosby and Godfrey Cambridge.

Performing at small clubs patronized primarily by blacks, Gregory worked during the day for the United States Postal Service. In 1961, he was “discovered” by Hugh Hefner, who saw Gregory perform at Chicago’s black-owned Roberts Show Bar. Gregory’s meeting Hefner led to his performing at the renowned Chicago Playboy Club, though before largely white audiences.

His Playboy Club gigs led to Gregory appearing frequently on NBC’s The Tonight Show, then hosted by Jack Paar. Gregory was soon in demand, appearing in venues across the country and on national television. He also wrote his autobiography, Nigger: An Autobiography (Pocket Books, 1962) during this period. The book sold 10 million copies. Gregory has since written, co-authored or edited 13 more books. Many of his comedy routines were also recorded on LPs.

Apart from his work as a comedian, Gregory was a visible, committed participant in the Civil Rights movement, speaking at many protests, including at a voter-registration drive program in Selma, Ala., in 1963 and protesting actively against the war in Vietnam. He was also engaged in efforts to bring about economic reform. Gregory often staged long, well-publicized hunger strikes to lend his support to a cause.

In 1968, Dick Gregory ran unsuccessfully for president on the Peace and Freedom Party ticket.

A critic of the Warren Commission’s findings on the Kennedy assassination and a critic of the conclusion that James Earl Ray acted alone when he assassinated Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Gregory held fast to the belief that the U. S. government was likely involved in each of these deaths.

Gregory was a passionate feminist and a strong supporter of the anti-apartheid movement in the United States.

During the 1980s, Gregory, always health conscious, advocated for the improved health of Americans, particularly African Americans and most particularly, African Americans who were obese. He recommended a diet rich in fresh fruits and vegetables. He founded Health Enterprises, Inc., in 1984, and in 1985, he offered a diet product, the Slim-Safe Bahamian Diet, a liquid diet formulated to help overweight and obese individuals lose weight and gain control of their health.

Comedy Central listed Gregory as number 82 on their list of 100 Greatest Standups.

Gregory, who will turn 80 this year, still appears on radio and television talks shows and engages in political efforts for social and economic change. He lives in Plymouth, Mass., with his wife of 53 years, Lillian. The two reared 9 children.

Gregory maintains a website at www.dickgregory.com.


October 13

1876 ----- Meharry Medical College was founded as the Medical Department of Central Tennessee College of Nashville, under the auspices of the Freedman’s Aid Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church. The medical school is now the largest independent black medical college in the United States.

Meharry’s stated mission was to help in the effort to educate and train freed slaves in medicine and to provide health care services to the poor and the underserved.

The school is named for Samuel Meharry, a Scots-Irishman who, along with his four brothers, was the first to donate to the medical school. As a young man, Samuel Meharry had a road accident with his salt wagon, and a freed man and his family provided him with food and shelter and help pulling his wagon from a ditch. Meharry, a man of almost no means at the time, vowed to the freed man that he would repay his debt of gratitude by contributing in some way to the lives of African Americans as soon as he had the means to do so.

Meharry Medical College now has an endowment of more than $75 million and an enrollment of nearly 1000 students.

Meharry has graduated nearly 15 percent of all African-American physicians and dentists now practicing in the United States, and since 1970, Meharry has awarded more than 10 percent of Ph.D.s in biomedical sciences.


October 14

1834 ----- Henry Blair, the second known African American to be granted a patent, was awarded a patent on this date for The Seed Planter, which allowed farmers to plant corn in a faster, more efficient manner.


On August 31, 1836, Blair was awarded a patent for a cotton planter. This device, pulled by a horse, split the ground with two shovel-like blades. A wheel-driven cylinder followed, dropping seeds into the newly ploughed ruts in the ground.

Little is known of Blair or his life, save that he was born in 1807 in Glenn Ross, Md., was a farmer and was illiterate, signing patent documents with an “x.” He may have been a freed man and he may have been enslaved.

During the time Blair’s patents were granted, United States patent laws permitted individuals, free or enslaved, to be awarded patents. In 1858, however, those laws were changed after slave owners protested, contending that anything invented by an enslaved person was the property of the slave owner.


October 15

1890 ----- The Alabama Penny Savings Bank was founded in Birmingham by Reverend William Reuben Pettiford, a Baptist minister, becoming the first black-owned and operated financial institution in Alabama. The bank was one of the first three banks in the United States owned by African Americans and it was the second largest.

During its earliest years of operation, the bank’s officers worked without pay to help the bank to grow and to insure that the bank survived the financial crisis of 1893, when many banks and other institutions failed.

In 1913, the Alabama Penny Savings Bank moved from their first modest location to a new six-story structure, built by the black-owned Windham Construction Company. The bank merged with another black-owned bank, Prudential Savings, and became the Alabama Penny-Prudential Savings Bank. Despite the merger, the bank failed in 1915. Despite its relatively short history of service, Alabama Penny Savings contributed to black home ownership and supported the building of black businesses and churches.

The bank’s building was bought by the Grand Lodge of the Knights of Pythias and was renamed the Pythias Temple. The building is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.


October 16

1922 ----- Leon Sullivan, founder of the Opportunities Industrialization Centers of America and the first African American to serve on the board of directors of a major U.S. Corporation, was born on his day in Charleston, West Va.

A graduate of West Virginia State College and Columbia University, Sullivan became pastor Zion Baptist Church in Philadelphia. In 1958, he led a boycott of Philadelphia businesses with the slogan, “don’t buy where you don’t work.” The boycott resulted in many jobs for African-American residents.

As it turned out, Dr. Sullivan’s success in becoming one of the nation’s most-effective leaders was just beginning. In 1964, he founded Opportunities Industrialization Centers of America, which offered job training, such as typing, instruction in life skills and assistance in job placement. At one time, OIC had 60 affiliated programs in 30 states that helped more than 2 million individuals.

In 1971, Dr. Sullivan joined General Motors Corp.’s board of directors, where he developed a code of conduct, called the Sullivan Principles, for U.S.-based companies then operating in apartheid South Africa.

During his lifetime, Dr. Sullivan received many awards including the Spingarn Medal from the NAACP and Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, from President George W. Bush.

Dr. Sullivan died in 2001 and at his request, he was buried in Nigeria.


October 17

2008 ----- Levi Stubbs, lead singer for the Four Tops, one of Motown Record’s most-successful groups, died on this day after being diagnosed with cancer and suffering a stroke.

Stubbs was born Levi Stubbles on June 6,1936, in Detroit. He and three friends formed a group called the Four Aims and two years later, they changed the group’s name to the Four Tops.

In 1963, they signed with Motown. The group’s hit records included “Reach Out, I’ll Be There,” “Bernadette” and “Standing in the Shadow of Love.”

The Four Tops sold 50 million records. In 1990, they were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.


October 18

1966 ----- Cyril Valentine Briggs, an African-Caribbean writer and Communist political activist, died on this day in 1966 in Los Angeles.

Born on May 28, 1888, in Nevis, an island in the West Indies, Briggs moved to the United States and joined the staff of Amsterdam News in 1912. Briggs later founded the African Blood Brotherhood (ABB). The group’s goal was to stop lynching, racial discrimination and ensure voting and civil rights for blacks in the South.

Briggs also became a leading exponent of racial separation, calling for a government of Negro people. By the mid-1920’s the ABB’s influence waned, and he lived out his life in relative obscurity.


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