* Today in Black History – December 6 *
1806 – The African Meeting House is established in Boston,
Massachusetts and will become the oldest African
American house of worship still standing in the United
States. This house of worship will be constructed
almost entirely by African American laborers and
craftsmen, but funds will be contributed by the white
community. Because of the leadership role its
congregation takes in the early struggle for civil
rights, the African Meeting House will become known as
the Abolition Church and Black Faneuil Hall. Frederick
Douglass and William Lloyd Garrison will be speakers
there.
1849 – Harriet Tubman escapes from slavery in Maryland. She
will return to the South nineteen times and bring out
more than three hundred slaves.
1865 – Ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S.
Constitution, abolishing slavery is completed. The
proclamation of its acceptance will take place on
December 18, 1865.
1869 – The National Black labor convention meets in Washington,
DC.
1870 – Joseph H Rainey becomes the first African American in
the House of Representatives. He is a congressman from
the state of South Carolina.
1871 – P.B.S. Pinchback is elected president pro tem of the
Louisiana Senate and acting lieutenant governor. He is
the first African American to serve in these positions
in state government.
1875 – The Forty-Fourth Congress of 1875-1877 convenes with a
high of eight African Americans taking office. They are
Senator Blanche K. Bruce of Mississippi and congressmen
Jeremiah Haralson of Alabama, Josiah T. Walls of Florida,
John Roy Lynch of Mississippi, John A. Hyman of North
Carolina, Charles E. Nash of Louisiana,; and Joseph H.
Rainey and Robert Smalls of South Carolina.
1892 – Theodore K. Lawless is born in Thibodeaux, Louisiana. He
will receive his medical degree from Northwestern
University, hold a fellowship at Massachusetts General
Hospital and receive further training at the University
of Paris’s premier Dermatology program. He will become a
dermatologist, medical researcher, and philanthropist.
He will known for his work related to leprosy and
syphilis. He will also be involved in various charitable
causes including Jewish causes. He will create the
Lawless Department of Dermatology in Beilison Hospital,
Tel-Aviv, Israel, the T. K. Lawless Student Summer
Program at the Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot,
Israel; the Lawless Clinical and Research Laboratory in
Dermatology of the Hebrew Medical School, Jerusalem;
Roosevelt University’s Chemical Laboratory and Lecture
Auditorium, Chicago; and Lawless Memorial Chapel,
Dillard University, New Orleans. His philantrophy in
Israel was in gratitude for the support received from
Jewish doctors in obtaining his appointment to his
position at the University of Paris. A shrewd investor
and businessman, he will have a remarkable business
career. He will be director of both the Supreme Life
Insurance Company and Marina City Bank. He will also be
a charter member, associate founder, and president of
Service Federal Savings and Loan in Chicago. He will
become a self-made millionaire. He will join the
ancestors in Chicago, Illinois on May 1, 1971.
1949 – Blues legend Huddie “Leadbelly” Ledbetter joins the
ancestors in New York City.
1956 – Nelson Mandela and 156 others are jailed for political
activities in South Africa.
1960 – 500 store owners sign pledges of nondiscrimination in
Tucson, Arizona.
1961 – Dr. Frantz O. Fanon, noted author of “Black Skins, White
Masks” and “Wretched of the Earth”, joins the ancestors
in Washington, DC. He succumbs to leukemia at the
National Institutes of Health.
1977 – South Africa grants Bophuthatswana its independence.
The constitution, in effect after South Africa’s first
all-race elections in April 1994, will abolish this
black homeland, which will be reabsorbed into South
Africa.
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Munirah Chronicle is edited by Mr. Rene’ A. Perry
“The TRUTH shall make you free”
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