Today in Black History – March 8, 2008

[The Straight Story]

Mods - posted in full as this is public information.

******* Today in Black History – March 8, 2008 *******





1825 - Alexander Thomas Augusta is born free in Norfolk, Virginia. He

will graduate from Trinity Medical College in Toronto, Canada

in 1856, serve his medical apprenticeship in Philadelphia,

and join the Union Army in 1863 with the rank of major. In

1865 he becomes the first African American to head any

hospital in the United States, when the Freedmen Bureau

establishes Freedmen's Hospital at Howard University with

Augusta in charge. In 1868, Howard University opens its own

medical school, with Augusta as demonstrator of anatomy. He

will be the first African American to receive an honorary

degree from Howard University (1869). He will join the

ancestors on December 21, 1890.



1873 - The United States Senate refuses to seat P.B.S. Pinchback of

Louisiana because of alleged election irregularities.



1902 - Louise Beavers is born in Cincinnati, Ohio. She will become

an actress and will be cast as the Henderson's maid in "The

Beulah Show," the first network show on television to have an

African American female in the title role. She will join the

ancestors on October 26, 1962. She will be inducted

posthumously into the Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame in 1976.



1942 - Richard Anthony "Dick" Allen is born in Wampum, Pennsylvania.

He will become a professional baseball player with the

Philadelphia Phillies in 1963. He will play in the major

leagues for 14 years.



1945 - Phyllis Mae Daley, a graduate of Lincoln School for Nurses in

New York, receives her commission as an ensign in the Navy

Nurse Corps. She is the first of four African American Navy

nurses (including Helen Turner, Ella Lucille Stimley, and

Edith De Voe) to serve on active duty in World War II.



1971 - Joe Frazier defeats Muhammad Ali in a heavyweight boxing

championship match billed as the "fight of the century." Ali

was previously undefeated. Both Joe Frazier and Muhammad Ali

collect $2,500,000 for the fight.



1977 - Henry L. Marsh, III is elected the first African American

mayor of Richmond, Virginia.



1991 - "New Jack City," a film directed by Mario Van Peebles, actor

and son of director Melvin Van Peebles, premieres. Produced

by African Americans George Jackson and Doug McHenry, the

film, which tells the violent story of the rise and fall of a

drug lord played by Wesley Snipes, will suffer from

widespread violence among moviegoers.

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