Today In Black History

1794*

Eli Whitney patented cotton gin which made cotton king and increased demand for slave labor.

1838*

Blacks held a mass meeting in Philadelphia to protest the action of the Pennsylvania Reform

Convention of 1837 which denied them the right to vote.

1917*

First training camp for "colored" officers is established by the U.S. Army in Des Moines, Iowa

1933*

Quincy Jones, Music Impresario, Born March 14, 1933 in Chicago’s South Side. He first fell in love with music when he was in elementary school. He settled on the trumpet after trying nearly all the instruments in his school band. At the age of 18 he won a scholarship to Berkley College of Music in Boston. In his prosperous career he wrote charts for musicians such as Ray Charles and Duke Ellington, composed 33 film scores for major motion pictures and also wrote theme music for television. He is the most nominated Grammy artist with a total of 76 nominations and 26 awards. He also received an Emmy award, 7 Oscar nominations and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts an Sciences Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award. Throughout his career his ongoing concern was to foster appreciation of African-American music and culture.

1947*

William J. Jefferson, first congressman elected from Louisiana since Charles Edmund Nash left office in 1876, born