On THIS date in black history...

February 4

1794 - Slavery is abolished by France. Under Napoleon slavery was reestablished in 1802, along with the reinstitution of the "Code Noir," prohibiting blacks, mulattos and other people of color from entering French colonial territory or intermarrying with whites.

1822 - The American Colonization Society founds the African colony for free African Americans that will become the country of Liberia, West Africa.

1913 - Rosa Louise McCauley is born in Tuskegee, Alabama. In 1932, she will marry Raymond Parks and change her name to Rosa Parks.

1947 - Sanford Bishop is born in Mobile, Alabama. He graduated from Morehouse College and Emory University Law School. He specialized in civil rights law and will become a member of the Georgia Legislature from 1977 to 1993 (House and Senate). In 1993, he was elected a member of the United States House of Representatives from Georgia.

1952 - Jackie Robinson is named Director of Communication for WNBC in New York City, becoming the first African American executive of a major radio-TV network.

1965 - Joseph Danquah, a Ghanaian scholar, lawyer and nationalist who led the opposition against Kwame Nkrumah, passed away in Nsawam Prison in Ghana at the age of 69.

1969 - The Popular Liberation Movement Of Angola begins an armed struggle against Portugal.

1971 - The National Guard is mobilized to quell civil disobedience events in Wilmington, North Carolina. Two persons are killed.

1971 - Major League Baseball announces a special Hall of Fame wing for special displays about the Negro Leagues. These exhibits will provide information on these most deserving but rarely recognized contributors to Baseball.

1974 - The Symbionese Liberation Army kidnaps nineteen-year-old newspaper heiress Patricia Hearst from her apartment in Berkeley, California.

1980 - Camara Laye, a Guinean novelist considered a pioneer of West African Literature, dies in Senegal at the age of 52.

1986 - A stamp of Sojourner Truth is issued by the United States Postal Service as part of its Black Heritage USA commemorative series. Truth was an abolitionist, woman's rights activist and a famous "conductor" on the Underground Railroad.

1996 - Congressman J.C. Watts (R-Oklahoma) becomes the first African American selected to respond to a State of the Union address.

1997 - Sixteen months after O.J. Simpson was cleared of murder charges, a civil trial jury found him liable for the killings of his ex-wife and her friend and ordered him to pay millions in compensatory damages.

2003 - Charlie Biddle, a leader of Montreal's jazz scene in the 1950s and '60s who played bass with Thelonious Monk and Charlie Parker, lost his battle with cancer at the age of 76. Biddle was a native of Philadelphia who moved to Canada in 1948. Over the next five decades, the World War II veteran and former car salesman became synonymous with jazz in Montreal. Biddle opened his own club, Uncle Charlie's Jazz Joint, in suburban Ste-Therese in 1958. He later performed in such legendary Montreal nightspots as The Black Bottom and the Penthouse, where he worked with the likes of Oscar Peterson, Art Tatum, Charlie Parker and Lionel Hampton. In 1979, he organized the three-day festival that some say paved the way for the renowned Montreal International Jazz Festival. Until the time of his passing, he played four nights a week at Biddle's Jazz and Ribs, a Montreal landmark for nearly 25 years.

2005 - Ossie Davis, renowned actor and civil rights advocate, dies in Miami, FL, while on location for an acting project at the age of 87.

2007 - For the first time in Super Bowl history, two African American coaches will lead their teams in the NFL Championship game. Coach Lovie Lee Smith of the Chicago Bears and Tony Dungee of the Indianapolis Colts share this honor. The two teams face off in South Florida during Super Bowl XLI in an epic battle for the coveted Vince Lombardi Trophy. As the winner, Tony Dungee became the first African American coach to win the Super Bowl.