March 4, 1983
The Voice
Page 5
This Month In Black History
Research by Marion Crowe
February 4, 1904
Thomas Mundy Peterson, the first
black to exercise his right to vote under
the 15th Amendment, died in Perth,
Amboy, New Jersey.
February 5, 1947
John L. Howard became the first black
man in almost a hundred years to
graduate form Princeton University.
Howard entered the Navy while taking
a pre-medical course at Columbia
University. He was transferred to
Princeton under an Armed Forces
program. After studying there for a
short time, he received a full scholarship
until graduation. Dr. Howard then
entered Cornell University Medical
School and interned at Great Lakes
Naval Hospital, Great Lakes, ILL.
Princeton graduated one other black in
the mid 1800's, John Chavis, a free man,
who was sponsored by a group of
students to settle a bet as to whether or
not a black could absorb a higher
education.
February 6, 1900
Melvin B. Tolson, educator, author.
and poet, was born in Moberly, MD.
Dr. Tolson's first poem was published
in 1914, his early books included
“Rendezvous with America” and “Dark
Symphony” which won the national
poetry prize at the Negro American
Exposition in Chicago. He was elected
Poet Laureate of Liberia for his
Libretto for the Republic of Liberia,
published in 1953.
February 8, 1944
Harry S. McAlysin became White
House Correspondent for the National
Negro Press Association and became
the first black newsman admitted to the
White House Press Conference.
February 9, 1906
Paul Laurence Dunbar, also known as
the “Poet of His People” died of
tuberculosis in Dayton, Ohio, his birth
place. Dunbar wrote his first poems as a
child. After graduation from high
school, he was unable to go to college
and began working as an elevator
operator. Dunbar continued to write
poems in Negro dialect, such as “When
Melindy Sings.” In 1893, the great poet
published his first volume of poems,
Oak and Ivy. With the publication of his
third volume. Lyrics of Lowly Life,
NEWS OF BEAUTY
Today's Woman Chooses Her Own Style
There are no strict edicts
of do’s and don’t’s for an
“in” look in today’s fas
hion. Rather, women are
now aware that physical
beauty is enhanced by their
own self-confidence and
awareness of individual
value.
More than ever, women
are choosing their clothes,
their makeup and their
coiffures to fit their own
tastes and lifestyles. That’s
the word from Renee
Jordan, cosmetic and beau
ty specialist for Johnson
Products, a leader in black
hair care and beauty prod
ucts for more than 30 years.
A desire to help black
women realize their full
beauty potential has led to
continued research resulting
in a wider range of products
geared to their special
beauty needs. For instance,
Johnson now offers 18
Moisture FormulaTM foun
dations to complement the
many skin tones of black
women.
Other new products such
as conditioning relaxers
allow black women to
create wardrobes of hair
styles, ranging from very
straight to a head full of
casual curls.
With relaxed hair, styling
possibilities become almost
endless. The span runs from
“wash and wear,” blown-
dry, roller-set for volume or
pin-curled for loose curls or
W3V6S«
Styles for ’83 will make
news with a “textured”
look—spikey bangs with
soft, straight hair framing
the face. Another popular
look will give relajced hair a
flnger wave off the face and
curl it under like a page boy
at the nape.
A preview of these new
styles was glimpsed by
d
Sarah Stavrou of Chicago, winner of the first annual
Great Model Search, receives congratulations from the
president of Johnson Products, sponsor of the search.
Beautiful Sarah Stavrou, whose face will be seen nation
wide this year In fashion and beauty photographs.
beauty professionals at a
recent New York City event
that culminated Johnson
Products’ Gentle Treat-
ment^M Great Model
Search, soon to become an
annual affair.
The winner, Sarah Stay-
rou, a student at Dlinois
State University, is expected
to be the face for ’83,
appearing in national ads for
Johnson Products and fea
tured in beauty/fashion
layouts for leading women’s
magazines.
More than 7,000 young
women competed in the
Great Model Search, devel
oped by Johnson Products
as a way to seek out new
talent and underscore the
spectacular growth of the
black beauty care industry.
Plans for next year’s Search
are already underway and
aspiring models should
watch for announcements in
the May, 1983 issues of
major black magazines. ;
Dunbar became a national literary
figure. In addition to his poems,
Dunbar published four collections of
short stories and four novels.
February 10, 1780
Blacks protested against taxation
without representation. Seven blacks in
Dartmouth, Mass., including Paul
Cuffee and his brother John, protested
in a petition to the Revolutionary
Legislation of their state, against the
fact that they were subjected to taxation
without the right to vote. In 1783, by
court decision, blacks subject to
taxation were declared to be entitled to
vote.
February 12, 1865
Rev. James Henry Highland Garnet,
pastor of the 15th Street Presbyterian
Church, Washington, D.C., became the
first black minister to deliver a sermon
in the House of Representatives. Dr.
Garnet's sermon was in memorial of the
triumph of the Union Army and the
deliverance of the country from slavery.
February 12, 1926
Black History Week was initiated by
Dr. Carter G. Woodson. Largely
through his efforts, the nation today
celebrates Black History Month every
February. He organized the campaign
to dramatize the achievement of black
people. Later he said, “The creation of
Black History Week exposed the bias in
textbooks, based the prejudice of
teachers and compelled treating black
people in history as other people are
treated.” Woodson taught many white
scholars to shed chauvinism and many
more black scholars to shed their
feelings of inferiority.
February 14, 1817
Fredrick Douglass, a slave, was born in
Tuckahoe, MD. In 1838 he escaped
from slavery, settled in New Bedford,
Mass., changing his name later from
Fredrick Augustus Washington Bailey
to Fredrick Douglass. In 1841 he
addressed the anti-slavery convention
in Nantucket, Mass. and became an
agent for the Massachusetts Anti-
Slavery Society. He published his
autobiography Narrative of The Life of
Fredreick Douglass in 1845. After
spending two years in Great Britain and
Ireland lecturing on the abolition of
slavery, he purchased his freedom and
settled in Rochester, N.Y. In 1847 he
founded and edited the “North Star” an
abolitionist paper. At the outbreak of
the Civil War he helped recruit black
regiments and was consultant for
President Abraham Lincoln. In 1877
President Rutherford Hayes appointed
Douglass as U.S. Marshall for the
District of Columbia; he was appointed
Recorder of Deeds for the District of
Columbia in 1881 and U.S. Minister to
‘ Haiti in 1889.
February 15, 1905
Ernest E. Just, brilliant investigator of
biological phenomena relating to the
structure of the cells, was awarded the
first Spingain Medal by the NAACP.
After graduating with high honors from
Dartmouth, Dr. Just earned his Ph.D.
from the University of Chicago. He was
author of two major books in his field:
Basic Methods for Experiments of
Marine Animals and The Biology of the
Cell Surface, both published in 1939.
Also during Dr. Just's career he had 60
papers published in several leading
scientific journals. Dr. Just served as
vice president of the American Society
of Zoologist and member of the
editorial board of The Biological
Bulletin and The Journal of
Morphology; was the first black man
ever to have a star placed beside his
name (denoted distinction) in the
authoritative American Men of
Science. Dr. Just was born in
Charleston, S.C. in 1883. He died in
1941.
February 17, 1865
The Ku Klux Klan was organized at
Pulaski, TN.
February 18, 1885
Jonathan Jasper Wright, the first black
to be elected to the State Supreme
Court of South Carolina, died in
Charleston, S.C. Wright was born in
Lancaster, PA., attended college in New
York, and was the first black admitted
to the bar in Pennsylvania. After the
Civil War he went to South Carolina as
a legal advisor to the Freedmen's
Bureau. He took an active role in the
Constitutional Convention of 1868 and
was elected state senator of South
Carolina, to fulfill the term of Solomon
L. Hoge who had resigned to run for
Congress. Later that year he was
re-elected for a full six year term where
he served until 1877 as an Associate
Justice.
February 19, 1919
The first Pan-African Congress,
organized by W.E.B. DuBois, met in the
Grand Hotel in Paris simultaneously
with the Peace Conference at Versailles.
The congress, attended by 57 delegates,
called attention to the fact that blacks in
various parts of the world had an
interest in the peace conference, and
they were seeking for themselves the
democracy for which they had fought.
February 23, 1868
Or. W.E.B. DuBois, one of the founders
of the National Association for the
• Advancement of Colored People,
founder of the Niagara Movement
(forerunner of the NAACP), the first
black elected to the National Institute of
Arts and Letters and a lifetime member
of the American Association for the
Advancement of Science, was born in
Great Barrinton, Mass. DuBois
founded Crisis Magazine and Phylon
Quarterly Review and authored
numerous books including The
Philadelphia Negro and The Souls of
Black Folks: Then and Now. He was
recognized as one of the most incisive
thinkers in the United States and among
the most profound scholars of his time
and generation. Dr. DuBois died in
Ghana in 1963.
February 23, 1870
Hiram Rhodes Revels, a Republican
legislator from Mississippi, became the
first black senator in the U.S. Congress.
After he retired from politics, he was
elected President of Alcorn University
near Lorman, Miss. He died in 1901.
February 24, 1811
Daniel A Payne, clergyman and
educator, was born a free black in
Charleston, S.C. He served as a bishop
of the A.M.E. Church and later was
elected President of Wilberforce (Ohio)
College (now university), thus
becoming the nation's first black college
president. Payne died in 1893.
February 24, 1949
The signing of the Israeli-Egyptian
armistice ended nine months of
alternating war and truce in Southern
Palestine. It was reached after six weeks
of direct negotiation which were guided,
and often saved from failure, by Dr.
Ralph J. Bunche, UN mediator, who
won a Nobel Peace Prize in 1950.
February 27,18S3
The first black YMCA Chapter was
organized in Washington, D.C.