This Week In Black History March 16th- 22nd

March 16th:
1827 – With the assistance of James Varick, Richard Allen, Alexander Crummel, and others, Samuel E. Cornish and John B. Russwurm publish “Freedom’s Journal” in New York City. Operating from space in Varick’s Zion Church, “Freedom’s Journal” is the first African American newspaper. Russwurm says of the establishment of the newspaper, “We wish to plead our own cause. Too long have others spoken for us.”

1870 – Senator Hiram R. Revels argues against Georgia’s re-admission to the Union without safeguards for African American citizens. It is the first official speech by an African American before Congress.

1960 – San Antonio, Texas becomes the first major southern city to integrate lunch counters.

1988 – President Ronald Reagan vetoes a civil rights bill that would restore protections invalidated by the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1984 ruling in Grove City College v. Bell. Reagan’s veto will be overridden by Congress less than a week later.

1995 – Mississippi ratifies the 13th Amendment, abolishing slavery, some 130 years after the rest of the country got around to it.

March 17th:
1865 – Aaron Anderson wins the Navy’s Medal of Honor for his heroic actions aboard the USS Wyandank during the Civil War.

1896 – C.B. Scott receives a patent for the street sweeper.

2008 – David Paterson is sworn in as New York’s 55th governor. He is New York’s first Black governor and the nation’s first legally blind governor.

March 18th:
1972 – The USS Jesse L. Brown, the first U.S. naval ship to be named after an African American naval officer, is launched at Westwego, Louisiana. Brown was the first African American pilot in the U.S. Naval Reserve and was the first African American pilot killed in the Korean War (1950). Editor’s Note: This was not the first naval vessel named after an African American. The USS Harmon was named after an enlisted man, Leonard Roy Harmon, during World War II (1944).

1991 – The Philadelphia ’76ers retire Wilt Chamberlain’s #13 jersey.

March 19th:
1870 – “O Guarani,” the most celebrated opera by Afro-Brazilian composer Antonio Carlos Gomes, premiers at the Scala Theater in Milan, Italy. His enormous musical talent opened the doors of the Milan Conservatory where he studied under the guidance of the greatest opera directors of the time. Among other operas, Gomes produces “Fosca,” “Condor,” and “O Escravo” (The Slave).

1872 – T.J. Boyd, inventor, awarded patent for apparatus for detaching horses from carriages.

March 20th:
1852 – Uncle Tom’s Cabin, by white abolitionist Harriet Beecher Stowe, is published. The controversial novel was credited by many, including Abraham Lincoln, with sparking the Civil War. Mr. Lincoln later told Mrs. Stowe, that she was “the little woman who wrote the book that started this great war”.

1883 – Jan Matzeliger receives patent #274,207 for his shoe lasting machine. His invention revolutionized the shoe industry, allowing for the first mass production of shoes.

1970 – Students strike at the University of Michigan and demand increased African American enrollment. The strike ends on April 2, after the administration agrees to meet their demands.

1973 – Roberto Clemente is elected to Baseball’s Hall of Fame, 11 weeks after he joins the ancestors. He becomes the first person of African descent to be elected to the Hall of Fame in a special election (before the five-year waiting period). He also is the first Hispanic to enter the Hall of Fame.

March 21st:
1965 – Thousands of marchers complete the first leg of a five-day freedom march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, dramatizing the denial of voting rights for African Americans. Led by Martin Luther King, Jr., thousands of marchers are protected by U.S. Army troops and federalized Alabama National Guardsmen because of violence encountered earlier, including the fatal beating of a white minister, Reverend James J. Reeb.

March 22nd:
1873 – Slavery is abolished in Puerto Rico. The Spanish Crown finally ends slavery in one of its last Latin American colonies. Slave owners are compensated with 35 million pesetas per slave. Despite the pronouncement of abolition, slaves are still required to keep working for three more years as indentured servants.

1986 – Debi Thomas becomes the first African American woman to win the world figure skating championship.