Some Black History Facts

Sat, 21 Feb 2009 02:02:03 GMT

By Raya Tobler, News Editor

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The banjo originated in Africa and up until the 1800s was considered an instrument only played by Blacks Jesse Ernest Wilkins Jr., a physicist, mathematician and an engineer, earned a PhD. In mathematics at age 19 from the University of Chicago. Jack Johnson, the first African-American heavyweight champion, patented a wrench in 1922. “Strange Fruit” the song about black lynching in the south made famous by blues singer Billie Holiday was originally a poem written by Abel Meeropol, a Jewish schoolteacher from the Bronx According to the American Community Survey, in 2005 there were 2.4 million black military veterans in the United States- the highest of any minority group. Booker t. Washington was the first African-American to be honored on a U.S. stamp Music composer and producer, Quincy Jones is the most Grammy- nominated artist in the history of the awards, with 76 nominations and 26 awards Invented electronic control devices for guided missiles, IBM computers, and the control unit for a pacemaker. Jazz, an African-American musical form born out of the Blues, Ragtime, and marching bands originated in Louisiana during the turn of the 19th century. The word Jazz is a slang term that at one point referred to a sexual act. Alexia Irene Canada became the first female African-American neurosurgeon in the United States in 1984. Nathaniel Adams Cole “Nat King Cole”, a singer, songwriter, and pianist, was the first African-American to host a national television program, The Nat King Cole Show, in 1956 Lewis and Clark were accompanied by York, a black slave, when they made their 1804 expedition from Missouri to Oregon. York’s presence aided in their interactions with the Native Americans they encountered. John Love invented the pencil sharpener in 1897 Wilt Chamberlain was the first basketball player to score 100 points in a single game during the 1961 season and the first player in the NBA to score 30,000 points.

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Some Black History Facts