On THIS date in black history

February 12

1793 - Congress makes it a crime to hide or protect a runaway slave by passing the first fugitive slave law.


1809-Abraham Lincoln was born.


1865 - Henry Highland Garnet, preacher and abolitionist, became the first African American to preach in the rotunda of the Capitol to the House of Representatives. It is on the occasion of a Lincoln birthday memorial.


1896 - Isaac Burns Murphy, considered the greatest American jockey of all time, passed away. He was the first jockey to win the Kentucky Derby two years in a row and became the first jockey to win the Kentucky Derby three times. In 1955, Isaac Murphy was the first jockey voted into the Jockey Hall of Fame at the National Museum of Racing, in Saratoga Springs, New York.


1900 - For a Lincoln birthday celebration, James Weldon Johnson wrote the lyrics for "Lift Every Voice and Sing." With music by his brother, J. Rosamond, the song was first sung by 500 children in Jacksonville, Florida. It has since become known as the "Negro National Anthem." Here is a rendition performed by Ray Charles;

1909 - After six African Americans were killed and 200 others driven out of town in race riots in Springfield, Illinois in the summer of 1908, three people Mary Ovington, William E. Walling, and Dr. Henry Moskowitz, decided to open a campaign to oppose the pervasive discrimination against racial minorities. They issue a call for a national conference on "the Negro question", which was held on the centennial of the birth of Abraham Lincoln, February 12, 1909, in New York City. The conference attendees formulated plans for a permanent organization devoted to fighting all forms of racial discrimination. That organization is the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). The NAACP is the oldest and largest civil rights organization in the U.S. With more than 2,200 branches across the country, it was at the forefront of the struggle for voting rights, and an end to discrimination in housing, employment, and education.


1934 - William Felton "Bill" Russell is born in Monroe, Louisiana. He was a star basketball player and high jumper at the University of San Francisco. After college, he won a gold medal in the 1956 Olympics, as a member of the United States basketball team. He went on to play professional basketball for the Boston Celtics for thirteen seasons, winning eight straight NBA titles and eleven championships. At the end of the 1965-66 season, he will become the coach of the Boston Celtics.


1983 - Eubie Blake joins the ancestors at the age of 100 in Brooklyn, New York. Blake was one of the last ragtime pianists and composers whose most famous songs included "I'm Just Wild About Harry." With Noble Sissle, Blake was the composer of the first all-African American Broadway musical, "Shuffle Along," which opened on Broadway in 1921.


Sidenote: Happy birthday Ms. Singletary!