Today in Black History - June 30         *

1881 - Henry Highland Garnet, former abolitionist leader and
        Presbyterian minister, is named Minister to Liberia.
        He will join the ancestors in Monrovia shortly after
        his arrival.

1906 - John Hope becomes the first African American president
        of Morehouse College.

1917 - Lena Horne is born in Brooklyn, New York.  She will
        begin her career at 16 as a chorus girl at the Cotton
        Club in Harlem, appear in the movies "Cabin in the Sky"
        and "Stormy Weather" and have a successful Broadway
        career culminating in her one-woman show.  Horne will
        also be a strong civil rights advocate, refusing to
        perform in clubs where African Americans are not
        admitted and marching during the civil rights movement
        in the 1960s. She will join the ancestors on May 9, 2010.

1921 - Charles S. Gilpin becomes the first actor to receive the
        NAACP's Spingarn Medal for his portrayal of Emperor
        Jones in the Eugene O'Neill play of the same name.

1940 - John T. Scott is born in New Orleans, Louisiana.  He will
        become a professor of art and a sculptor whose works will
        be exhibited widely in the U.S. and at the exhibit of
        "Art of Black America in Japan, Afro-American Modernism:
        1937-1987."

1958 - Alabama courts fined the NAACP $ 100,000 for contempt, for
        refusing to divulge membership.  The U.S. Supreme Court
        will reverse the decision.

1960 - Zaire proclaims its independence from Belgium.

1966 - Michael Gerard "Mike" Tyson, former heavyweight champion of
        the world and youngest (at age 19) to win that title (WBC
        in 1986), is born in Brooklyn, New York.

1967 - Maj. Robert H. Lawrence Jr. becomes the first African
        American astronaut.  He will join the ancestors after
        being killed during a training flight accident on December
        8, 1967.

1969 - Jacob Lawrence receives the NAACP's Spingarn Medal "in
        testimony to his eminence among American painters."

1978 - Larry Doby becomes the manager of the Chicago White Sox
        baseball team.  He will have a win-loss record of 37-50 and
        will be fired at the end of the season (October 19).

1980 - Coleman A. Young is awarded the Spingarn Medal for his
        "singular accomplishment as Mayor of the City of Detroit,"a
        position he had held since 1973.

           Munirah Chronicle is edited by Rene' A. Perry