On THIS date in Black History

1810 - The Argentine national hero from Buenos Aires, Argentina, Antonio Ruiz (El Negro Falucho), joins the ancestors, fighting for his country.

1855 - The Wisconsin Supreme Court declares that the United States Fugitive Slave Law is unconstitutional.

1870- Congress ratifies the 15^th Amendment. The amendment granted black men the RIGHT TO VOTE.

1874 - Blanche Kelso Bruce is elected to the United States Senate from Mississippi. He will be the first African American senator to serve a full term and the first to preside over the Senate during a debate.

1879 - Charles Follis is born in Wooster, Ohio. He is the first African American professional football player in the United States reported by the press. He played for a professional team known as the Shelby Blues, in Shelby, Ohio. He played from 1904-1906 and retired due to injuries.

Editor's note: In 1972, the Pro Football Hall of Fame will discover proof that William (Pudge) Heffelfinger, a Yale All-American, played one game for $ 500, for the Allegheny Athletic Association in 1892, making him the actual 'first' to play football for pay. Follis will join the ancestors in 1910 after succumbing to pneumonia.

1935 - Johnny "Guitar" Watson is born in Houston. Texas. He will become a guitarist and singer known for his wild style of guitar playing and the sound which merged Blues Music with touches of Rhythm & Blues and Funk. He died of a heart attack on May 17, 1996.

1938 - Emile Griffith is born in St. Thomas, Virgin Islands. He won the Golden Gloves title and turned professional in 1958. In his career, he met 10 world champions and box 339 title-fight rounds, more than any other fighter in history. He was elected to the International Boxing Hall of Fame with the distinction of being the third fighter in history to hold both the welterweight and middleweight titles.

1938 - Elijah Pitts is born in Mayflower, Arkansas. He will become a professional football player with the Green Bay Packers. A major contributor as a running back, he will help his team win Super Bowl I. He will spend nine years with the Green Bay Packers during their championship years under Hall of Fame coach Vince Lombardi. The Packers will win four NFL championships and two Super Bowls during his career. He returned to the Super Bowl thirty years later as a running back coach with the Buffalo Bills. He died on July 10, 1998 after succumbing to abdominal cancer.

1939 - The Baltimore Museum of Art exhibit, "Contemporary Negro Art," opens. The exhibit, which ran for 16 days, featured works by Richmond Barthe, Aaron Douglas, Archibald Motley, Jr., and Jacob Lawrence's Toussaint L'Ouverture series.

1947 - Percival Prattis of "Our World" in New York City, becomes the first African American news correspondent admitted to the House and Senate press galleries in Washington, DC.

1948 - Laura Wheeler Waring, portrait painter and illustrator, died. Trained at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, she received the Harmon Award in 1927 for achievement in the fine arts and, with Betsey Graves Reyneau, completed a set of 24 renderings of their works entitled "Portraits of Outstanding Americans of Negro Origins" for the Harmon Foundation in the 1940's.

1948 - Rosa Ingram and her fourteen and sixteen-year-old sons are condemned to death for the alleged murder of a white Georgian. Mrs. Ingram asserted that she acted in self-defense.

1964 - School officials report that 464,000 Black and Puerto Rican students boycotted New York City public schools.

1965- Geraldine McCullough wins Widener Gold Medal for Sculpture

1980 - Muhammad Ali starts tour of Africa as President Jimmy Carter's envoy.

1981 - The Air Force Academy drops its ban on applicants with sickle-cell trait. The ban was considered by many a means of discriminating against African Americans.

1984 - A sellout crowd of 18,210 at Madison Square Garden in New York City sees Carl Lewis best his own world record in the long jump by 9-1/4 inches.

1989 - Former St. Louis Cardinals' first baseman, Bill White becomes the first African American to head an American professional sports league when he was named to succeed A. Bartlett Giamatti as National League president.

1993 - The federal trial of four police officers charged with civil rights violations in the videotaped beating of Rodney King, began in Los Angeles.

1993 - Marge Schott is suspended as Cincinnati Reds owner for one year for her repeated use of racial and ethnic slurs.

As always, I know this list is not exhaustive, feel free to share your knowledge about what happened on THIS day in black history.