Stevie Wonder, born May 13, 1950 in Saginaw, Michigan, landed a #1 single, Fingertips, on the Billboard Hot 100 when he was only 13, making him the youngest solo artist ever to top the charts. Fingertips simultaneously reached #1 on the R&B charts, the first time for that to occur.
He is regarded as one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century, influencing musicians across all genres of music from R&B, pop, gospel, and jazz. He has won 25 Grammy Awards, and is only one of four artists and groups to have won the Grammy for Album of the Year three times. He is the only one to have one that award with three consecutive album releases: Innervisions, Fulfillingness' First Finale, and Songs in the Key of Life.
Alfred Hitchcock's Rebecca was nominated for eleven Academy Awards but took home only two at the annual celebration held February 27, 1941. Rebecca won Best Picture, the award going to producer David O. Selznick. It also won Best Cinematography (Black and White) for George Barnes. It was the only Alfred Hitchcock movie to win Best Picture.
Hitchcock was nominated for Best Directing. Laurence Olivier was nominated for Best Actor for his role as Maximilian de Winter. Joan Fontaine was nominated for Best Actress for her portrayal as Mrs.de Winter. Dame Judith Anderson was nominated for Best Actress in a Supporting Role as Mrs. Danvers. She should have won.
Rebecca was nominated for Best Writing (Screenplay), Best Art Direction (Black-and-White), Best Film Editing, Best Special Effects, and Best Music (Original Score).
Walt Disney's Pinocchio was nominated for two Academy Awards and won both: Best Music (Original Score) for Leigh Harline, Paul Smith, and Ned Washington; and Best Music (Song) for When You Wish Upon a Star, music by Leigh Harline, and lyrics Ned Washington.
On February 27, 1872, Charlotte Ray graduated from Howard University School of Law, becoming the first black woman to graduate from the school. Born January 13, 1850 in New York City, she attended the Institution for the Education of Colored Youth, now the University of the District of Columbia, one of the few places where a black woman could get an education.
She became a teacher at Howard University, and attended and graduated from the law school. She was the first female admitted to the District of Columbia Bar, and the first woman admitted to practice before the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia.
She opened her own law office in Washington, DC, but practiced only a few years since many people were not ready to trust a black female lawyer. She returned to teaching and working in the Brooklyn school system.
Ray was active in the National Woman Suffrage Association and the National Association of Colored Women. She passed away in January 1911, after a severe case of bronchitis.
Mirror Image, the twenty-first episode of the first season of The Twilight Zone aired February 26, 1960. It starred Vera Miles as Millicent Barnes, waiting at a bus stop for the bus to Cortland, but due to bad weather, it is half an hour late.
When she asks the station clerk about when it will arrive, he scolds her for constantly asking him, even though she thinks it's the first time she's asked him. When she goes into the ladies' room, the cleaning woman suggests she was just in there. She sees a bag that resembles hers behind the counter. The gripey clerk insists she just checked it, but when she turns around her back isn't there.
Creepy things continue to happen. Then a man, played by Martin Milner, tries to help her figure out what's going on. Until strange things start happening to him.
Donna Summer released her debut album Lady of the Night in the Netherlands, February 26, 1974. She had been "discovered" by Giorgio Moroder and Pete Bellotte while she was singing backing vocals for Three Dog Night. They approached her about recording her own album.
The Hostage was the first single released and entered the top three charts in Belgium and Spain. Lady of the Night hit the top ten in Austria. The album did not chart.
Wyatt Outlaw, born around 1820, was an African American community leader in Alamance County, North Carolina. As a leader of many African American activities, Outlaw was the first African American appointed to the Graham Town Council by Governor Holden, and became one of three black constables of the town.
The whites in the town weren't happy about being policed by African Americans. In 1869, they held a nighttime ride in Ku Klux Klan garb through the streets of Graham to frighten the constables. Outlaw and another constable opened fire but no injuries were reported.
This incident enraged the racists and on February 26, 1870, the Ku Klux Klan dragged Outlaw from his home and lunched him in the courthouse square in Graham.
In 1873, the Grand Jury of Alamance County brought charges against 63 Klansmen, including 18 counts of murder in connection with the lynching of Outlaw, but the charges were later dropped. No one has ever been tried for his murder.
The Inaugural Screen Actors Guild was held February 25, 1995, awarding the new statuette The Actor. Tom Hanks won Outstanding Performance by a Male in a Leading Role for his work in Forrest Gump. Angela Lansbury was the presenter and handed him the award.
Martin Landau won Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role for his portrayal of Bela Lugosi in Ed Wood, a well-deserved recognition.
Lansbury was nominated for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Drama Series for her work in Murder, She Wrote, but lost to Kathy Baker(?),
Patrick Stewart was nominated for his portrayal as Jean-Luc Picard in Star Trek: The Next Generation for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Drama Series, but lost to Dennis Franz (??).
John Earl Rudder, born October 4, 1924 in Paducah, Kentucky, became the first African American to be commissioned into the regular United States Marine Corps. Frederick C. Branch became an officer in the Marine Corps Reserve in 1946.
He enlisted into the Marines and served during WWII. After the war, he graduated from the Naval Reserve Officer's Training Corps. He received his commission as 2nd Lieutenant in the USMC, May 28, 1948. He entered the Marine Corps' Basic School at the Marine Corps Base in Quantico, Virginia in August, but resigned in 1949.
The FBI put him under long-term surveillance, suspecting him as being a communist. Rudder moved to Washington DC and became activists, protesting war and discrimination.
I had a lot of trouble finding any images or videos of Rudder, so I couldn't find any more information after 1967. He passed away in 2006 in Paducah, Kentucky.
Soyuz MS-23, launched February 24, 2023, was an uncrewed spaceflight to the International Space Station to replace the damaged Soyuz MS-22.
A micro-meteoroid impact resulted in a 0.8 mm hole in the radiator of Soyuz MS-22, and doubts about the safety of the spacecraft. It returned to Earth uncrewed, and Soyuz MS-23 was launched.
Soyuz MS-23 docked with the ISS February 26 and returned to Earth in September 2023, with Sergey Prokopyev, Dmitry Petelin, and Francisco Rubio.
The Grammy Awards held their 24th annual ceremony February 24, 1982, and showcased the best in music, and what a celebration. Of course, this was my decade of music (also the 70s), so many of my favorites took home awards. Some of the best music ever!
Kim Carnes won Record of the Year and Song of the Year for her cover of Bette Davis Eyes.
My girls, the Pointer Sisters presented Best New Artist to Sheena Easton.
John Williams won Best Album of Original Score Written for a Motion Picture or a Television Special for his composition of Raiders of the Lost Ark.
Dolly Parton's song 9 to 5 won Best Country Vocal Performance, Female and Best Country Song.
The Oak Ridge Boys won Best Country Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal for their song Elvira.
Ella Fitzgerald won Best Jazz Vocal Performance, Female for her Digital III at Montreux.
The Manhattan Transfer won Best Jazz Vocal Performance, Duo or Group for Until I Met You (Corner Pocket). They also won Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with vocal for their The Boy from New York City.
Bill Withers and Grover Washington, Jr. won Best Rhythm & Blues Song for Just the Two of Us.
Pat Benatar won Best Rock Vocal Performance, Female for Fire and Ice.
The Police won two Grammys: Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal for Don't Stand So Close To Me. Best Rock Instrumental Performance for Behind My Camel.
Quincy Jones won a total of five Grammys: Best Instrumental Arrangement; Best Instrumental Arrangement Accompanying Vocal(s) for Ai No Corrida; Best Cast Show Album; Producer of the Year; Best R&B Performance by a Due or Group with Vocal.
Superman, directed by Richard Donner and released in the US December 15, 1978, was nominated for eight Saturn Awards, at the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Films February 24, 1979. It won five awards:
Best Science Fiction Film
Margot Kidder for Best Actress for her performance as Lois Lane.
John Williams for Best Music
Colin Chilvers for Best Special Effects
A Special award: John Barry for Best Production Design.
Superman was nominated for Best Actor for Christopher Reeve, Valerie Perrine for Best Supporting Actress, Best Director for Richard Donner, and Best Costumes.
Sarah Rector, born March 3, 1902 in Indian Territory near what is now Taft, Oklahoma, was the granddaughter of Creek Indians who were born before the Civil War. Under the Treaty of 1866, she inherited land. However, the plot of land allotted to her was unsuitable for farming, and about 60 miles from where she and her family lived.
To help allay costs of property taxes, her father leased Sarah's land to the Standard Oil Company in February 1911. In 1913, oil was discovered, with a daily yield of 2500 barrels of oil, and $300, which would be equivalent to $9,800 in 2023. Sarah became a millionaire before she was 12, the richest little girl in Oklahoma.
Because of her wealth, the Oklahoma Legislature tried to have her declared white, since many white people could not handle the thought of a young, black girl being rich.
After an article about her appeared in The Chicago Defender, Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. DuBois became concerned for her welfare, and wanted to be sure she was not taken advantage of. DuBois established the Children's Department of the NAACP, which investigated claims of white guardians suspected of depriving black children of their land and wealth.
Rector enrolled in the Children's School, a boarding school at the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, and entered the institute upon graduation. She increased her wealth by owning stocks, bonds, businesses and a 2000-acre piece of land.
She moved her family to Kansas City, Missouri and lived a comfortable life, entertaining celebrities such as Count Basie and Duke Ellington. During the Great Depression she lost much of her wealth, but she became involved in the civil rights movement.
Edith Sampson, born in 1901 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, graduated from Peabody High School, and then studied at the New York School of Social Work. She got married to Rufus Sampson and moved to Chicago. She studied law at night, working as a social worker during the day, and graduated from the John Marshall Law School in 1925.
Later, she became the first woman to earn a Master of Laws from Loyola University's Graduate Law School in 1927, and passed the Illinois bar exam. In 1934 was admitted to practice before the Supreme Court.
In 1949, Sampson participated in the Round-The-World Town Meeting, as one of twenty-six prominent Americans traveled to foreign countries, meeting with their leaders. Sampson countered the Soviet Union's propaganda regarding the treatment of black people in the US. She also compared communism to slavery.
President Truman appointed her as an alternate US delegate to the United Nations, making her the first African American to officially represent the US to the UN. She served until 1953. During the Eisenhower Administration, she was a member of the US Commission for UNESCO. In 1961-1962, she became the first black US representative to NATO.
Sampson ran for associate judge of the Municipal Court of Chicago and became the first black woman elected judge in Illinois. She continued as a Circuit Court judge until retirement in 1978.
The television movie, Babylon 5: The Gathering, the episode that started it all, aired February 22, 1993. The series would start the following year in 1994, with some changes. Written by J. Michael Straczynski, it starred Michael O'Hare (Commander Jeffrey Sinclair), Jerry Doyle (Michael Garibaldi), Mira Furlan (Delenn), Peter Jurasik (Londo Mollari), Andreas Katsulas (G'Kar), and Patricia Tallman (Lyta Alexander). Tamlyn Tomita appeared as Lt. Cmdr. Laurel Takashima, but was replaced by Claudia Christian (Lt. Commander Ivanova) in the series. Andrea Thompson was a character added in the series as PsiCorps telepath Talia Winters.
It was a great look into a non-Roddenberry vision of space exploration and space travel. The series lasted 5 seasons, and spawned a few spin-offs and television movies.
Phyllis Mae Dailey, born March 12, 1919 in New York City, became the first African American woman to serve in the United States Navy and a commissioned Navy officer. She graduated from the Lincoln School for Nurses in Manhattan, and studied public health at Teachers College, Columbia University.
When the US entered WWII, she kept applying to the Army Nurse Corps, and the Navy Nurse Corps. The Navy desegrated its Nurse Corps in January 1945. On March 8, 1945 Dailey was sworn into the Navy Nurse Corps, becoming the first African American woman to become a commissioned Navy officer.
She served the Navy after the war until she was discharged May 9, 1951, having earned the rank of lieutenant (junior grade). She worked as a clinical nursing instructor for the New York City Board of Education. She died in October 1976 after a short illness.
Janet Jackson's multiple award-winning album Rhythm Nation 1814 continued to garner more honors at the 32nd annual Grammy ceremony held February 21, 1990. She took home the Grammy for Best Music Video, Long Form, with Aris McGarry (video producer), Johnathan Dayton and Valerie Faris (video producers and directors), and Dominic Sena (video director)
Young MC won Best Rap Performance for his Bust a Move. From this point on, the category was split into Best Rap Solo Performance and Best Rap Performance by a Duo or Group. These two were combined again in 2012 and reinstated as the Award for Best Rap Performance.
Peter Schickele won Best Comedy Recording for his P.D.Q. Bach: 1712 Overture and Other Musical Assaults.
Nat King Cole and Paul McCartney were each awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.
Billy Joel's We Didn't Start the Fire was nominated for Record of the Year, but lost to Bette Midler's Wind Beneath My Wings.
Buster Keaton's silent comedy The Haunted House was released February 21, 1921. Keaton plays a bank clerk that finds a house, reportedly haunted, that is actually a hideout for thieves, who disguise themselves as ghouls to keep people away.
How Scooby-doo!
It is full of Keaton's characteristic physical, slapstick humor, and very funny.
Composer Alan Menken and lyricist Howard Ashman took home two Grammy Awards for their music for Disney's The Little Mermaid at the 33rd annual ceremony, held February 20, 1991.
They won for Best Recording For Children for the soundtrack, and they won Best Song Written Specifically for a Motion Picture or Television for Under the Sea.
Lena Richard, born September 9, 1892 in New Roads, Louisiana, moved to New Orleans to help her mother and aunt working as domestic servants. She helped them prepare food, and the family who employed her, sent her to Fannie Farmer's School of Cookery in Boston. After graduating she returned to New Orleans.
She started a catering business, serving parties, weddings, and debutante balls. She started multiple businesses and worked as a cook at the Orleans Club, an elite organization for white women.
In 1937, Richard and her daughter Marie started a cooking school for black students, teaching them how to succeed as business owners. As interest in her recipes increased, Richard published Lean Richard's Cook Book in 1939, She travelled across the country to promote her book, and was featured in the New York Times and the New York Herald Tribune.
She returned to New Orleans, she opened Lena's Eatery in November 1941. In 1946, she started a frozen food business, fully cooked packaged meals flown all over the US.
In 1949, Richard opened her second restaurant, The Gumbo House. From 1949 to 1950, she hosted a 30-minute cooking show, Lena Richard's New Orleans Cook Book, on TV. It aired twice weekly, broadcast on New Orleans first television station, WDSU. She was the first African American to host a cooking show, in an era where not many households owned television sets.
Her cooking show continued until she passed away of a heart attack November 27, 1950.
The authorities of Spanish Florida in 1689 began offering asylum to escaped slaves fleeing from the British colonies. In 1693, King Charles of Spain issued a royal decree that granted asylum in Florida, if they converted to Catholicism and serving four years in the colonial militia.
In 1738, Manuel de Montiana, the governor of Spanish Florida, established Fort Mose at the Spanish fort near St. Augustine, Florida. It was the first free black settlement in the US. Any slave from the surrounding British colonies who made it to Fort Mose was granted asylum.
In 1739, slaves from the British colonies staged the Stono Rebellion, as they tried to reach Fort Mose. They burned plantations as they moved southward, and many slaves joined them. However, many were caught and publicly executed.
The people of Fort Mose made allies with the Spanish soldiers and fought against British forces who attacked St. Augustine in 1740. The fort was destroyed.
The Spanish returned and rebuilt Fort Mose by 1752, and black were allowed to resettle. When east Florida was ceded to England by the 1763 Treaty of Paris, most of the free blacks emigrated to Cuba with the Spanish settlers.
Fort Mose is consider a premiere site on the Florida Black Heritage Trail, and a precursor to the Underground Railroad. It is now a US National Historic Landmark.
Nelson Wesley Trout, born in 1921 in Columbus, Ohio, graduated from Capital University and Trinity Lutheran Seminary in Columbus. He received his Doctor of Divinity from Warburg College in Waverly, Iowa.
He served at Trinity Lutheran Church in Montgomery, Alabama, and held several positions on the staff of the American Lutheran Church in Dayton, Ohio. He returned to Trinity Lutheran Seminary as the professor and Director of Minority Ministry Studies.
In 1983, he was elected bishop of the ALC's South Pacific District, becoming the first African American bishop in US Lutheranism. After the 1987 merger which formed the ELCA, Dr. Trout became Bishop Emeritus of the new Southwest California Synod. He also served as Director for Mission Theology and Evangelism Training for the ELCA.
Considered one of the best episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation, Yesterday's Enterprise, the fifteenth episode of the third season, aired February 17, 1990. The Enterprise D encounters a rip in the space-time continuum. The Enterprise C, which had been lost years before, appears, and the present is changed. The Enterprise D becomes a war ship. Lt. Tasha Yar appears and Lt. Worf disappears. Guinan knows something is wrong and demands that Picard send the Enterprise C back, even though it means its imminent destruction.
The episode won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Sound Editing for a Series. It is the only episode in which Guinan and Tasha Yar have a scene together. Yar was killed in the first season, and Guinan appeared in the second season.
Earlier drafts of the episode had Worf being the Klingon commander who demands the Enterprise to surrender. Also, the writers decided to kill Tasha Yar off a second time to give her a more heroic send-off, since her first death was deemed a disappointment. It was the last time Tasha Yar and Wesley Crusher appeared in the same episode.
James "Jim" Brown, born February 17, 1936 in St. Simons, Georgia, was a record-setting football player, an action movie star, and a civil rights activist.
He played football while at Syracuse University from 1954-1956 and earned unanimous All-American honors, and was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1995.
In the 1957 NFL draft, he was the sixth pick of the first round, by the Cleveland Browns. He played for the Browns from 1957 to 1965. During his career, he carried the ball 2,359 times, for 12.312 rushing yards, and 106 touchdowns, which were all records when he retired. He is the only NFL player to average over 100 rushing yards per game for his career. He was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1971.
He became an actor shortly before he ended his career, and starred in leading roles throughout the 1970s. He has been described as Hollywood's first black action hero. In the 1969 film, 100 Rifles, he made history for featuring the first interracial love scenes with Raquel Welch. He won an Image Awards (NAACP) for Outstanding Actor in a Motion Picture for his work in El Condor. I liked him in Ice Station Zebra, although the critics panned the movie.
During the civil rights movement, he was one of the few athletes to speak out on racial issues. He launched a foundation for diverting at-risk youth from violence, teaching them life skills.
He passed away from natural causes at 87 in May 2023.
On August 19, 1958, Clara Luper, a high school teacher, and thirteen of her students entered the Katz Drug Store in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, and sat down at the lunch counter, refusing to leave until they were served.
Luper and her students had recently traveled to New York City where they experienced an integrated environment. Black people in New York City enjoyed freedoms such as integrated restaurants that Luper and her students were not accustomed to.
Back in Oklahoma City, Luper decided to conduct a non-violent protest by staging a sit-in. One of the students was Donda West, who would become the mother of Kanye West. On the first day, the protesters remained at the counter for hours. They were denied service, and white people kicked them, punched them, spat at them, poured things on them, and cursed at them.
They returned for two more days until the third day when one of the employees served them their food, which ended segregation in the restaurant. Katz Drug Store ended their segregation policies. Sit-ins occurred throughout Oklahoma City until 1964, when the city passed an ordinance forbidding restaurants from refusing service to anyone based on race, religion, color, sex, or national origin.
Harvey Korman, born February 15, 1927 in Chicago, Illinois, is best known for his performances on the Carol Burnett Show, in which he appeared in from 1967-1977. He tried his luck on Broadway and comedy but failed. He moved to Hollywood and found success. He provided the voice for recurring characters on The Flintstones, and made three guest appearances on The Munsters. He starred in Blazing Saddles and History of the World Part 1.
He was nominated for four Golden Globes and won for Best Supporting Actor-Television in 1975. He was nominated seven times for a Primetime Emmys and won four times.
Korman passed away in 2008 after complications from surgery on a non-cancerous brain tumor.
Percy Lavon Julian, born April 11, 1899 in Montgomery, Alabama, was a research chemist and a pioneer in synthesizing medicinal drugs from plants. His work paved the way for the steroid drug industry's production of cortisone, and artificial hormones that led to birth controls.
He attended DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana, which only accepted a few African-Americans. He was not allowed to live in the dormitory, and at first, stayed in a boarding home, which refused to serve him meals. He was allowed to live in a fraternity house, in their attic (or basement, according to which source), and do servant work. He graduated from DePauw in 1920 as valedictorian.
In 1929, he received a Rockefeller Foundation to continue his education at the University of Vienna, where he earned his PhD. In Europe, he didn't have the racial prejudices that had stifled his opportunities in the states. However, his freedoms and liberties in Europe would cause trouble in the future back in the US. He admitted in letters about his dalliances with Viennese women, wine, dances, and also made some derisive remarks about members of Howard University's faculty, where he had been an instructor before he left for Vienna. The scandals led to his dismissal.
A former mentor offered him an organic chemistry teaching position at DePauw University in 1932, but he was denied a professorship in 1936 because of racism.
W. J. O'Brien, a vice-president at Glidden Company, supplier of soybean oil products, offered him a position of director of research at Glidden's Soya Products Division in Chicago. He discovered a way of producing large quantities of soy sterols on a daily basis. The soy stigmasterol could be converted into commercial quantities of progesterone, the female hormone. The large production of these hormones, reduced the cost of treating hormonal deficiencies.
Julian left Glidden in December 1953 after Glidden decided to leave the steroid business. He founded his own research firm, Julian Laboratories, Inc. in Chicago, and hired his best chemists including African Americans and women from Glidden. He continued his research and synthesis of hormones throughout his life He sold his company in 1961 for $2.3M, making him one of the first black millionaires.
He passed away of liver cancer in April 1975 in Waukegan, Illinois.
Camp Cold Brook, a horror film directed by Andy Palmer, was released February 14, 2018. The movie is about a group of paranormal investigators who set out to check out Camp Cold Brook in Oklahoma, where a mass murder occurred a few decades prior. Joe Dante was its executive producer and it starred Chad Michael Murphy.
Camp Cold Brook won Best Horror Feature at the Shriekfest. Joe Dante won the Best Feature award at the Horrorhound Film Festival.
I enjoyed the movie but found it to be a little light on the horror. And the trope of an abandoned campground, haunted by a decades old crime is rather tired. To me, it was mainly a suspense thriller, because most of the paranormal activity was witnessed by the audience and not the characters. For example, when a girl escapes the shower imagining the room is filled with spiders, the ghost appears behind her. She never sees it. Another time, a character passes a wooden sign and fingers curl around the edge after the character walks past.
Livin' on a Prayer, the single from Slippery When Wet released by Bon Jovi in October 1986, reached #1 February 14, 1987 on the Billboard Hot 100. It became their second #1 and in 2013, it was certified triple platinum. To date it has sold over 13M copies, certified Diamond, making it one of the best selling singles of all time.
Andrew Robinson, born February 14, 1942 in New York City, is best known for his role as Garak in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. A versatile and talented actor, he has been nominated for awards for his work on Ryan's Hope (daytime soap), Child's Play 3, and Deep Space Nine. He's provided the voice for Garak in other Star Trek series and video games. He has also appeared in an episode of The X-Files, The Incredible Hulk, and two episodes of Murder, She Wrote.
Sarah Boone, born in 1832 in Craven County, North Carolina, was a slave, forbidden a formal education, so was home schooled by her grandfather. In November 1847, she married a free black man, James Boone, and was granted her own freedom.
She moved with her family to New Haven, Connecticut before the Civil War. She worked as a dressmaker during a time where people ironed their clothes by placing a wooden plank across two chairs. Boone created a narrower, curved board that could slip into sleeves and allow a garment to be shifted without getting wrinkled. Her invention was padded to prevent impressions from the wooden board, and she made it collapsible for easier storage.
She was awarded US Patent No. 473,653 on April 26, 1892, making her one of the first African American women to earn a US patent.
Boone passed away from Bright's disease in October 1904,
Henry Highland Garnet, born December 23, 1815 in New Market, Maryland, was a slave, who escaped from slavery in Maryland with his family, and grew up in New York. He attended African Free School until 1828, when he went to sea as a cabin boy, a cook, and a steward, for a year. He returned to New York City, but had to flee to Long Island when slave catchers tried to capture him.
He began attending Sunday school at the First Colored Presbyterian Church and was baptized. In 1842, he became pastor of the Liberty Street Presbyterian church in Troy, New York. Garnet and his friend William G. Allen, published the National Watchman, an abolitionist newspaper, and became an advocate for abolishing slavery.
He began speaking at abolitionist conferences, where he said that slaves should act for themselves to achieve emancipation. In 1861, he secured secured a US passport from Secretary of State William Seward, declaring him a citizen of the US.
During the Civil War, he helped the federal government with recruiting US Colored Troops. He moved his family to Washington, DC to support black soldiers and the war effort.
On February 12, 1865, he preached to the US House of Representatives about the end of slavery, on occasion of the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment. Although the House was not in session, he was the first black minister to preach to them.
He continued his advocacy throughout his life, until he passed away in February 1882 of malaria in Liberia.
Madonna took home the Grammy for the Best Electronic/Dance Album Grammy for her Confessions on a Dance Floor album at the 49th annual ceremony held February 11, 2007. She also received a nomination for Best Dance Recording for her single Get Together.
Gnarls Barkley won two Grammys. One for Best Alternative Music Album for his St. Elsewhere album. His single Crazy won Best Urban/Alternative Performance. St. Elsewhere was nominated for Album of the Year and Crazy was nominated for Record of the Year.
Bon Jovi won Best Country Collaboration with Vocals for their duet Who Says You Can't Go Home with Jennifer Nettles.
In the memoriam, June Pointer who passed away in April 2006 was one of the musicians remembered.
Samuel Gravely, born June 4, 1922 in Richmond, Virginia, joined the Naval Reserve in 1942. He graduated from UCLA, and completed Midshipmen's School at Columbia University and was commissioned as ensign in December 1944.
He was the only black officer aboard the USS PC-1264, a submarine chaser, during WWII. After the war, he was released from active duty, but remained in the Naval Reserve. He was recalled to active duty in 1949, as a recruiter in Washington, DC through the Korean War. In 1955, he transferred to the Reserve to the regular Navy and specialized in naval communications.
He was the first African American officer to command the USS Theodore E. Chandler, from February to October 1961. He commanded the destroyer USS Taussig, from January 1962 to June 1963 during the Vietnam War. He was the first African American to lead a ship into combat. In 1967 he was the first African American to be promoted to captain, and then 1971 the first to reach the rank of rear admiral.
He commanded the Third Fleet in Hawaii and then transferred to Virginia to direct the Defense Communications Agency until he retired in 1980.
He received the Legion of Merit, Bronze Star Medal, Meritorious Service, Navy Commendation Medal, WWII Victory Medal, the Korean Service Medal, and the United Nations Korea Medal.
Joe Adams, born April 11, 1924 in Los Angeles, California, worked his way up from being a truck driver to becoming general assistant for LA radio personality Al Jarvis. Later, Adams became Jarvis' assistant producer.
Adams became the first African American announcer on NBC's radio network and in 1948 he became a DJ and announcer on KOWL radio in Santa Monica. That same year, became the MC and stage director for the fourth Cavalcade of Jazz concert held in LA, in September. He continued to MC the event for 10 more years.
In June 1951, he began his own TV program on KTTV in LA with a 15-piece orchestra.
In 1954, Adams portrayed a boxer in Carmen Jones, featuring Dorothy Dandridge, for which he won the Golden Globe for New Star - Actor, becoming the first African American actor to win a Golden Globe.
Maroon 5, which had three Grammy nominations, won Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals for their single, Makes Me Wonder at the 50th annual ceremony held February 10, 2008. Their album It Won't Be Soon Before Long was nominated for Best Pop Vocal Album. The album's producer Mike Elizondo was nominated for Producer of the Year, Non Classical.
Pixar Animation's Ratatouille won Best Score Soundtrack Album for composer Michael Giacchino. It was his third nomination and first Grammy win.
Christina Aguilera's single Candyman was nominated for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance, but lost to Amy Winehouse.
La Maison ensorcelee (The House of Ghosts or The Witch House), released February 9, 1906 in Denmark, is one of the first haunted house movies. Directed by Segundo de Chomon, it uses stop-motion animation and superimposition photography to ramp up the spooky activity.
Two men and a woman take refuge in a small house in the woods and experience paranormal activity such as disappearing furniture, a knife cuts food by itself, and a ghost.
The Grammy Hall of Fame honors musical recordings of lasting qualitative or historical significance. Recordings must be over 25 years old for consideration. At the 57th annual Grammy Awards celebration February 8, 2015, twenty-seven new recordings were inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.
Among them were two recordings of the African American folk song Swing Low, Sweet Chariot: The Fisk Jubilee Singers for their 1909 recording; and Paul Robeson for his 1926 recording.
ABBA's Dancing Queen and Chic's Le Freak were inducted as well.
February 8, 1968 near the campus of South Carolina State College in Orangeburg, law enforcement personnel opened fire on a crowd of unarmed African Americans, killing three and injuring twenty-eight more.
Weeks of unrest centered on a the All-Star Bowling Lane, a whites-only bowling alley, where a number of student protests took place. On Thursday, February 8, 1968, police set up a command post near the college campus. At 7pm, fifty State College students gathered to start a bonfire, but police intervened. At 9:30p, more students had joined the protest and a second attempt at building a bonfire was successful.
Police called the fire department to put out the fire. When the fire truck arrived, the crowd began moving back toward Lowman Hall, throwing rocks and bottles. A patrolman David Shealy was injured when a banister post struck him in the mouth. The other patrolmen thought he had been shot.
A few minutes later, nine policemen opened fire on the retreating students, hitting thirty-one people, although the shooting lasted less than ten seconds. Samuel Hammond was shot in the back. Delano Middleton was shot seven times, three to his arm, one to each hip, thigh, and heart. Henry Smith was shot five times from both times.
None of the students were armed, but the law enforcement insisted they fired in self-defense.
All the nine policemen who fired on the students were prosecuted and none were convicted.
The only person arrested, convicted, and sent to prison was Cleveland Sellers, who was charged with inciting a riot, and spent about seven months in jail.
Jesse LeRoy Brown, born October 13, 1926 in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, graduated as salutatorian of his high school. Despite racism, he graduated from Ohio State University. In 1946, he enlisted in the US Navy, first becoming a midshipman, and then earned his pilot wings on October 21, 1948. He was the first African American to complete the US Navy's basic flight training program.
He was assigned to the aircraft carrier USS Leyte in January 1949. The Leyte was ordered to the Korean Peninsula in October 1950. On December 4, 1950, Brown's Corsair was shot down and he crash landed on a remote mountaintop. He survived the crash and his wingman Thomas Hudner intentionally crashed his plane to rescue Brown.
Unfortunately, Brown was trapped inside the cockpit, and despite the attempts by Hudner to rescue him failed. He passed away, He was the first African American US Navy officer killed in the Korean War.
For his actions, Brown was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross, the Purple Heart, and the Air Medal.
My girls the Pointer Sisters appeared on an episode The Love Boat, February 7, 1981. Isaac, the bartender, was trying to impress a talent scout and recruited three women from the crew to be his backup singers. June, Ruth, and Anita play housekeepers, whose singing ability gets Isaac's attention. However, at their debut, Isaac clammed up due to stage fright, and the Pointer Sisters carry on, singing He's So Shy.
Unfortunately, the talent scout was more impressed with the backup singers and took them away to sign them to a contact.
Ernest "Ernie" Davis, born December 14. 1939 in New Salem, Pennsylvania, was the first African American to win the Heisman Trophy. He grew up in Pennsylvania and moved to Elmira, New York to live with his mother and stepfather. In school, he excelled in baseball, basketball, and football, and earned All-American honors while at Elmira Free Academy. He was recruited by numerous colleges, but chose Syracuse University.
He played for Syracuse for three seasons and managed national fame in all of them. Twice, he won first-team All-American, and led Syracuse to a national championship in 1959. He was awarded the Heisman Trophy in 1961 during his senior year at Syracuse.
Davis was the first overall pick in the 1962 NFL draft in December 1961 by the Washington Redskins, and traded almost immediately by the Cleveland Browns.
In the summer of 1962 he was diagnosed with acute monocytic leukemia. He died in May 1963 without having played a professional game.
The incomparable Glenn Close won her first Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Femal Actor in a Miniseries or Television Movie, for her portrayal of Eleanor of Aquitaine in Showtime's presentation of The Lion in Winter, the annual ceremony held February 5, 2005. She had been nominated twice before. To date she was won two SAG awards out of ten nominations.
I've seen this version of The Lion in Winter and Close deserved every award for her work. I'm shocked that Patrick Stewart was not even nominated for his performance as Henry II. The movie didn't receive any other nominations. Tragic. This version is awesome with powerful performances from all cast and crew.
Isaac R. Johnson, born ca. 1812 in New York, did not invent the bicycle frame, but he did perfect it. He became the first African American man to patent a new frame, which is still in use today.
Not much is known about Johnson other than what information was included on the patent paperwork, which he filed in April 1899. He was granted the patent in October 1899.
Lucy Higgs Nichols, born April 10, 1838 in Hardeman County, Tennessee, was a slave, but escaped in late June 1862 with her daughter Mona and several other slaves. She eventually arrived at the Union lines near Bolivar, Tennessee. Major Shadrack Hooper of the 23rd Indian Infantry Regiment reported Lucy joining their regiment and described her as having integrity, honesty, intelligence, always smiling, cheerful and kind, a willing washer woman, seamstress, nurse, cook, and singer, as well as a "rattling good forager".
Her daughter Mona died at the Siege of Vicksburg. After which she followed the Indiana 23rd Infantry when they were deployed to the war in Mississippi. She was present at every siege. She followed the Union army east in General Sherman's March to the Sea.
After the war, she was a free citizen of New Albany, Indiana. She worked for officers and nursed veterans back to health. Five years after the war, she developed measles and soldiers nursed her back to health. When she had a stroke years later, soldiers cared for her again.
She passed away in January 1915 and is buried in an unmarked grave at West Haven Cemetery in New Albany, Indiana.
Janet Jackson released her third solo album Control, February 4, 1986, a collaboration with Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis. It was her first album to top the Billboard 200 charts and generated seven singles, five of which peaked within the top 5 of the Billboard Hot 100 singles.
Control won a Grammy for Producer of the Year, Non-Classical for Jam and Lewis in 1987. It was nominated for Album of the Year, as well. Jackson was nominated for Best Female R&B Vocal Performance. What Have you Done for Me Lately was nominated for Best R&B Song.
Control received twelve nominations from the American Music Awards, a record-breaking, and won four of them. She won three Soul Train Music Awards and six Billboard Music Awards.
The Recording Industry Association of America certified Control as gold in April 1986. In June, it was certified platinum. In 1989, it was certified 5x platinum in October. It has sol over 10M copies world wide.
Crystal Bird Fauset, born June 27, 1893 in Princess Anne, Maryland, was the first female African American to elected as state legislator in the US. She was elected to the Pennsylvania House of Representatives in 1938, based in Philadelphia, receiving 7000 votes in an area 66% white at the time.
She received her BS in education from Teachers College, Columbia University in 1931. She helped establish the Institute of Race Relations at Swarthmore College in 1933. In 1935, she became assistant to the director of Philadelphia's Works Progress Administration, and ended a racial quota system for sewing jobs which helped increase black women's access to employment.
Fauset resigned from the state legislature to begin a new position as the assistant director of the education and recreation of the WPA, as well as its race relations advisor in Pennsylvania.
Jehu Jones, born September 4, 1786 in Charleston, South Carolina, is the first African American to be ordained a a Lutheran pastor.
After being involved in the Episcopal Church, he became a member of St. John's Lutheran Church in Charleston. His pastor Reverend John Bachman encouraged him to go to New York to be ordained by the New York Synod. In 1832, he went to Liberia to help freed slaves transition.
After his return he moved to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and the Pennsylvania ministry appointed him "to labor as a Missionary...among the colored people in Philadelphia..."
Jones founded St. Paul's Lutheran Church and on February 16, 1834, the congregation decided to build a church. Jones laid the cornerstone later in 1834.
On February 1, 1960, Ezell Blair Jr., David Richmond, Franklin McCain, and Joseph MacNeil, entered the Woolworth's store on South Elm Street in Greensboro, North Carolina. They purchased items from a desegregated counter, with no issues, and each ordered a cup of coffee and a donut from the lunch counter. They were refused service. A white waitress said, "We don't serve Negroes here". The men were also harassed by the African-American employees.
The A&T Four or the Greensboro Four, as they became to be known as, stayed until closing. The next day, over twenty black students showed up to sit at the counter. Again they were refused service, but they stayed and worked on homework from 11am - 3pm. They were harassed by the white customers, however, the local news was now alerted.
On February 3, more than 60 black students showed up, with about one third being female. The lunch counter still refused service and members of the local KKK were there. Woolworth's stated it would abide by its segregation policy.
February 4, over 300 people took part, including students from across the Greensboro area. Organizers agreed to expand the sit-ins to include the lunch counter at the S.H Kress & Co. store that day as well.
On February 5, 50 white men sat at the counter to protest the sit-ins, which now included white students. Police arrested three white patrons for yelling and swearing.
Saturday, February 6, over 1000 protestors and counter-protesters filled the store, until a bomb threat was phoned in, forcing the store to close.
The sit-ins continued, and the students began a boycott of stores with segregated lunch counters. Those stores saw a drop in revenue by a third, which led to them dropping their segregation policies.
