Black History Month:
New Yorkers Who Made a Difference
- Shirley Chisholm
- David Dinkins
- Hon. Thomas R. Jones
- Queen Mother Moore
- Constance Baker Motley
- Adam Clayton Powell, Jr.
- Charles B. Rangel
- Alvin Ailey
- Reverend Calvin O. Butts, III
- C. Virginia Fields
- Reverend Dr. Floyd H. Flake
- Reverend Dr. James A. Forbes
- Earl Graves
- Arthur Mitchell
- Basil A. Paterson
- Jackie Robinson
- Percy Sutton
Shirley Chisholm
Shirley Chisholm (November 30, 1924 - January 1, 2005) was a politician, educator, and author. In 1968, she became the first African American woman elected to Congress, representing New York's 12th District for seven terms. In 1972, she became the first African American to make a bid to be President of the United States.
Born in Brooklyn, of a Barbadian mother and a Guyanese father, she spent part of her childhood in Barbados with her grandmother, and received an education in the British-run school system. She later attended Brooklyn College and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1946. While working as a teacher, Chisholm earned a master's degree in elementary education from Teachers College, Columbia University.
In 1964, Chisholm was elected to the New York State Legislature. Four years later, she was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. Chisholm joined the Congressional Black Caucus in 1969 as one of its founding members. In 1972, Chisholm made a bid for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination, receiving 152 delegate votes at the national nominating convention.
Throughout her tenure in Congress, Chisholm worked to improve opportunities for inner-city residents. She supported spending increases for education, health care and other social services, and reductions in military spending. After leaving Congress, Chisholm was named to the Purington Chair at Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, Massachusetts, where she taught for four years.
Chisholm authored two books, Unbought and Unbossed (1970) and The Good Fight (1973). In 1993, she was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame.
Chisholm died on January 1, 2005. In February 2005, Shirley Chisholm '72: Unbought and Unbossed, a documentary film chronicling Chisholm's 1972 bid for the Democratic presidential nomination, was aired on U.S. public television. In 2006, the film won the Peabody Award.
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Shirley Chisholm."
David N. Dinkins
David N. Dinkins (born July 10, 1927, in Trenton, New Jersey) was the mayor of New York City from 1989 through 1993, the first (and, to date, only) African American to hold that office. During World War II he served in the United States Marine Corps. Dinkins is a graduate of Howard University, with a degree in Mathematics, and Brooklyn Law School.
Dinkins served briefly in the New York State Legislature and for many years as New York City Clerk. He was elected Manhattan Borough President in 1985.
He was elected the city's mayor on November 7, 1989, having defeated three-term incumbent Mayor Ed Koch and two others to win the Democratic nomination and going on to narrowly defeat Rudy Giuliani, the Republican candidate. In 1993, Mayor Dinkins again faced Giuliani in a bitter contest with the candidates' vote totals changing only marginally from the 1989 result. This time, however, Giuliani emerged victorious.
Dinkins is now a professor at Columbia University. His radio program, "Dialogue with Dinkins," can be heard Saturday mornings on WLIB.
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "David Dinkins."
Hon. Thomas R. Jones
Hon. Thomas R. Jones (August 5, 1913 - October 28, 2006) was born in Brooklyn, the son of immigrants from Barbados. He received his undergraduate and law degrees from St John's University and was admitted to the bar in 1938.
He joined the Army in 1941 and, as a first lieutenant, took part in the Normandy invasion on D-Day. He was appointed as a Judge of the U.S. Army General Court Martial Board in Belgium in 1944, the first Black officer assigned to adjudicate cases in the European theater of operations.
After the war, Jones became counsel to the Brooklyn branch of the NAACP and an advocate against police brutality. In 1955, during the McCarthy era, he defended three Chinese workers in the United States who were convicted on charges of helping communism by sending money to their families in China.
Jones was elected to the State Assembly in 1962. In 1964, he was elected a Civil Court judge and, in 1967, he was elected to the State Supreme Court.
In 1967, with the encouragement of Senator Robert F. Kennedy, Judge Jones founded the Bedford Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation, which served as a prototype for the rehabilitation of urban communities. The group received grants for job training, health clinics, recreation, and other programs. After the assassination of Senator Kennedy, he focused most of his time on his judicial work. He retired in 1985.
After his retirement from the bench, Judge Jones and his wife organized the Children Times Corporation, a nonprofit that advocated on behalf of poor children. He remained an advocate on such issues as education, lead poisoning, and the expansion of public library hours, testifying before the State Legislature and New York's City Council.
Judge Jones was the father of David R. Jones, President and CEO of the Community Service Society and Chair of the NationalCommittee for Responsive Philanthropy.
Queen Mother Moore
Queen Mother Moore (July 27, 1898 - May 2, 1996) was an African-American civil rights leader and a black nationalist who was friends with such civil rights leaders as Marcus Garvey, Nelson Mandela, and Jesse Jackson. She was an important figure in the civil rights movement. She was born Audley Moore in New Iberia, Louisiana, and both parents died before she completed the fourth grade.
She became part of the civil rights movement after viewing a speech by Marcus Garvey, who founded a back-to-Africa movement. Inspired by Garvey's views on African culture and pride, she moved to Harlem and became a leader of his Universal Negro Improvement Association.
She was arrested three times: first for defending the rights of children to use a public pool without bringing along their birth certificates; another time for defending a peddler from arrest for selling tomatoes to support his seven children; the third time for trying to register people to vote in Greene County, New York.
Moore remained a leader of the civil right movement, working for a variety of causes over a public life lasting more than 60 years. She made her last public appearance at the million man march alongside Jesse Jackson during October 1995.
Taking the first of many trips to Africa in 1972, she was given the honorary title "Queen Mother" of an Ashanti tribe in Ghana, which became her informal name in the United States. She attended the release of Nelson Mandela from prison in South Africa, according to her family.
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Queen Mother Moore ."
Constance Baker Motley
Constance Baker Motley (September 14, 1921 - September 28, 2005) was an African American civil rights activist, lawyer, judge, and state senator.
She was born in New Haven, Connecticut, the ninth of twelve children. Her parents had emigrated from Nevis, in the Caribbean; her mother was the founder of the New Haven chapter of the NAACP. She graduated from New York University in 1943 and Columbia Law School in 1946. Her legal career began as a law clerk in the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, where she worked with Thurgood Marshall.
In 1950 she wrote the original complaint in the case of Brown v. Board of Education. The first African-American woman ever to argue a case before the U.S. Supreme Court, in Meredith v. Fair she successfully won James Meredith's effort to be the first black student to attend the University of Mississippi. She was a key legal strategist in the civil rights movement, helping to desegregate Southern schools, buses, and lunch counters.
In 1964, Motley became the first African American woman elected to the New York State Senate. In 1965, she was chosen Manhattan Borough President -- the first woman in that position. In 1966, President Lyndon Johnson named her a federal court judge -- the first African American woman so named. She served until her death as a judge on the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York.
In 1993, she was inducted into National Women's Hall of Fame. In 2001, President Bill Clinton awarded her the Presidential Citizens Medal. The NAACP awarded her the Spingarn Medal, the organization's highest honor, in 2003.
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Constance Baker Motley ."
Adam Clayton Powell, Jr.
Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. (November 29, 1908 - April 4, 1972) was the first African American to become a powerful figure in Congress. He was elected to the United States House of Representatives from Harlem in 1944, and became chair of the Education and Labor Committee in 1961. His tenure as committee chairman saw the passage of important social legislation.
Powell was born in New Haven, Conn. His father, Adam Clayton Powell, Sr. was a Baptist minister and headed the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem. He was educated at City College of New York and Colgate University. He received an MA degree in religious education from Columbia University in 1931.
During the Depression years, Powell became a prominent civil rights leader and developed a formidable public following in the Harlem community through his crusades for jobs and housing. In 1937 he succeeded his father as pastor of Abyssinian Baptist Church.
In 1941 he was elected to the New York City Council as the city's first Black council representative. Three years later, he was elected to Congress. As one of only two Black Congressmen, Powell challenged the informal ban on Black representatives using Capitol facilities reserved for members only. He took Black constituents to dine with him in the "whites only" House restaurant. He clashed with the many segregationists in his own party.
He would become instrumental in the passage of President Lyndon B. Johnson's "Great Society" social programs. He passed legislation that made lynching a federal crime and bills that desegregated public schools and the U.S. military.
In June of 1970 he was defeated in the Democratic primary by Charles B. Rangel.
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Adam Clayton Powell, Jr."
Charles B. Rangel
Charles B. Rangel (born June 11, 1930) has been a Democratic member of the United States House of Representatives since 1971, representing the 15th Congressional District of New York. In January 2007 he became Chairman of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee. Rangel is a decorated war veteran, earning a Purple Heart and a Bronze Star for his service in the Korean War.
Charles Rangel was born in Harlem. His father left the family when he was six years old; his mother worked as a maid and as a seamstress in a factory. He attended DeWitt Clinton High School but dropped out at age 16. He enlisted in the United States Army, and served in it from 1948 to 1952. After an honorable discharge from the Army, Rangel returned to finish high school, en received a B.S. from New York University in 1957 and, on full scholarship, obtained a degree in law from St. John's University in 1960. He was appointed U.S. Attorney in the Southern District of New York by U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy.
Rangel served in the New York State Assembly from 1966 to 1970, representing Central Harlem. In 1970 he ran for election to the U.S. House of Representatives, defeating long-time Congressman Adam Clayton Powell in the Democratic primary and then winning the general election. He has won reelection every two years since, often with over 90% of the vote.
In Congress, Rangel's first committee assignment was on the House Judiciary Committee where he participated in the impeachment hearings against President Richard Nixon. Rangel co-founded the Congressional Black Caucus, where he has also served as chairman, and of which he continues to be a member.
Rangel is noteworthy for his willingness to risk arrest for participating in political protests. In the 1980s, he was arrested for participating in an anti-apartheid rally in front of the South African Embassy in Washington. On March 15, 1999, Congressman Rangel was arrested for protesting the fatal shooting of Amadou Diallo, an African-American, by four white New York City police officers. On July 13, 2004, he was arrested on trespassing charges, for protesting alleged human rights abuses in Sudan in front of the Sudanese Embassy in Washington.
Rangel is generally thought of as an ideologically committed liberal, but also as someone who can be a pragmatic deal-maker. It was Congressman Rangel who persuaded New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg to create the Commission on Construction Opportunity. Among the results of the commission's work: a new High School for Construction Trades, Engineering, and Architecture that opened last fall; and 40 percent of construction industry apprenticeships earmarked for formerly excluded groups and individuals - an unprecedented agreement with the city's trade unions.
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Charles B. Rangel."
Alvin Ailey
Alvin Ailey (January 5, 1931 - December 1, 1989) was an African American modern dancer and choreographer who founded the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. Ailey was born in Rogers, Texas. In 1943 he and his mother moved to Los Angeles.
Initially, he took dance classes from choreographer Katherine Dunham, and later studied under Los Angeles dance teacher Lester Horton. When Horton died in 1953, the 22-year-old Ailey was chosen the director and resident choreographer for the Lester Horton Dance Theater.
Ailey started his own dance company in 1958 featuring primarily African American dancers. He integrated his dance company in 1963. He also directed; one notable production was Langston Hughes's Jericho-Jim Crow (1964).
The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater popularized modern dance throughout the world with his international tours sponsored by the U.S. State Department. As a result of these tours, Ailey's masterpiece, Revelations, based on Ailey's experience growing up as an African American in the South, is among the best-known and most frequently seen of modern dance performances.
Ailey has been memorialized by the renaming of West 61st Street between Amsterdam and Columbus Avenues in New York City as "Alvin Ailey Way"; the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater was located on that block from 1989 until 2005, when it moved to a new, bigger facility at the corner of West 55th Street and Ninth Avenue. Ailey was awarded a Kennedy Center Honor in 1988.
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Alvin Ailey."
Reverend Calvin O. Butts III
Reverend Calvin O. Butts III was born in Bridgeport, Connecticut in 1949 and moved to New York City with his family as a young child. Since 1989, Dr. Butts has been pastor of the nationally-renowned Abyssinian Baptist Church in New York City. In 1999, he became president of the State University of New York College at Old Westbury.
Dr. Butts was one of the founders of Abyssinian Development Corporation (ADC), a comprehensive community-based organization that is responsible for over $300 million in housing and commercial development in Harlem. Dr. Butts was also instrumental in the establishment of Thurgood Marshall Academy for Learning and Social Change, a public intermediate and high school under the direction of ADC.
Dr. Butts earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in Philosophy from Morehouse College in Atlanta, a Master of Divinity degree in Church History from Union Theological Seminary, and a Doctor of Ministry degree in Church and Public Policy from Drew University in New Jersey. He taught Urban Affairs and served as an Adjunct Professor in the African Studies Department at City College of New York and Black Church History at Fordham University.
In addition to his professional and religious avocations, Dr. Butts is president of the Council of Churches of the City of New York; a vice chair of the board of directors of United Way of New York City; a member of the board of directors of the September 11th Fund; and chairman of the National Affiliate Development Initiative of the National Black Leadership Commission on AIDS. Dr. Butts previously served as president of Africare, a non-profit organization dedicated to the improvement of the quality of life in Africa, and chairman of the board for the Harlem YMCA.
Dr. Butts has spearheaded boycotts against several New York institutions for their racist policies and employment discrimination, including a successful campaign to eliminate negative billboard advertising in Central Harlem and many communities around New York City. As a result, the campaign was replicated by other prominent individuals across the country, bringing a national sensitivity to the evils of drug abuse and exploitive advertising.
C. Virginia Fields
C. Virginia Fields was born in Birmingham, Alabama, circa 1946, and received her B.A. from Knoxville College in Tennessee and her Masters in Social Work from Indiana University. Fields is well known for her activism during the height of the Civil Rights Movement in which she participated in a number of protests and marches, thus beginning her foray into social and political advocacy.
In 1971, she moved to New York and became a social worker. During the late 1970s and 1980s she worked in a variety of administrative positions in the social services field, while also becoming involved in community politics.
In 1989, Fields was elected to the New York City Council. In 1997, Fields was elected Manhattan Borough President. Fields received acclaim for her support of cultural organizations such as the New York Shakespeare Festival and the West Side Arts Coalition. She was in office during the September 11, 2001 attacks.
In 2005, Fields was a Democratic candidate for mayor of New York City. She eventually finished behind former Bronx Borough President Fernando Ferrer and Congressman Anthony Weiner in the Democratic primary. Her term as borough president expired in January 2006.
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "C. Virginia Fields."
Reverend Dr. Floyd H. Flake
The Reverend Dr. Floyd Flake (born January 30, 1945 in Los Angeles) is the senior pastor of the Allen African Methodist Episcopal Church in Jamaica, Queens, and president of Wilberforce University. He is a former member of the United States House of Representatives.
Flake grew up in Houston, Texas as one of thirteen children. After high school, he obtained his BA from Wilberforce University in Wilberforce, Ohio, in 1970, becoming the first member of his family to graduate from college. He earned a doctor of ministry degree from the United Theological Seminary in Dayton, Ohio, in 1994.
Flake worked as a social worker and a marketing analyst. He was Director of Student Affairs at Lincoln University in Pennsylvania, and subsequently dean of students and director of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Afro-American Center at Boston University. In 1976, he was asked to head the Allen African Methodist Episcopal Church (now The Greater Allen Cathedral of New York). Under Flake's leadership, the church grew from having about 1,400 members to over 23,000 parishioners.
In 1986, he was elected to the 100th United States Congress from the 6th Congressional District of New York. He served in the House of Representatives until 1997, when he resigned in the middle of a term in order to return to work at his church full time. In Congress, he was known for his bipartisanship.
Flake has published several books, including The Way of the Bootstrapper: Nine Action Steps for Achieving Your Dreams. He is a fellow at the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research and a columnist for the New York Post.
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Floyd H. Flake."
Reverend Dr. James A. Forbes
Rev. Dr. James A. Forbes was born 1935 in Burgaw, North Carolina. Dr. Forbes is the Senior Minister of Riverside Church, an interdenominational (American Baptist and United Church of Christ) church on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. He is an ordained minister in the American Baptist Churches and the Original United Holy Church of America.
He earned a Bachelor of Science in Chemistry from Howard University in 1957, a Master of Divinity Degree from Union Theological Seminary in New York City in 1962, and a Doctor of Ministry Degree from Colgate-Rochester Divinity School in Rochester, NY, in 1975. He earned his Clinical Pastoral Education Certificate from the Medical College of Virginia in Richmond, VA, in 1968.
On June 1, 1989, Forbes was installed as the fifth Senior Minister of The Riverside Church, succeeding the Rev. William Sloane Coffin. Forbes is the first African American to serve as Senior Minister of one of the largest multicultural congregations in the nation.
Before being called to Riverside's pulpit, Dr. Forbes served from 1976-1985 as the Brown and Sockman Associate Professor of Preaching at Union Theological Seminary in New York City. From 1985-1989 he was Union's first Joe R. Engle Professor of Preaching. Union named him the first Harry Emerson Fosdick Adjunct Professor of Preaching in 1989, when he accepted the pastorate at Riverside. Dr. Forbes also serves on the Core Teaching Staff at Auburn Theological Seminary in New York.
In 1998 he completed a semester as the inaugural Luce Lecturer at the Harvard Divinity School, devoting his lectures to the theme of urban ministry. Also in 1998, in addition to participating in the Department of Justice Round Table on Youth Violence at the White House, Dr. Forbes delivered the keynote address at the President's Initiative on Race meeting in New Orleans.
Dr. Forbes announced on September 17, 2006, that he planned to retire in June 2007 after 18 years as senior minister.
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "James A. Forbes."
Earl Graves
Earl Graves (born January 9, 1935) is an African-American businessman, entrepreneur and activist.
Graves was born in Brooklyn; his parents were long-time West Indian residents of the Bedford-Stuyvesant area. His father was the only Black in his graduating class at Erasmus High School; Earl Graves would be one of only two Blacks when he graduated years later.
In high school he was a track star. Graves used his athletic skills to help with tuition by working as a lifeguard while attending Morgan State University as a scholarship student. Graves graduated in 1958 with a B.A. degree in economics and as a ROTC member. He was commissioned a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army, completed the Airborne Ranger's School and was a captain with the Green Berets.
In 1966 he was hired as an administrative assistant on the staff of Senator Robert F. Kennedy. His job was to plan and supervise events. After the death of Senator Kennedy in 1968, he formed Earl G. Graves Associates, a management-consulting firm to advise corporations on urban affairs and economic development.
He also wanted to contribute to the economic development of Black America. The momentum for addressing this need was Grave's journey to Fayette, Mississippi, to work on the mayoral campaign for Charles Evers, brother of slain NAACP leader Medgar Evers. After Evers was elected as the city's first Black mayor in 1969, he used his money and influences to improve the lot of the town's Black community. Graves knew that the time was right to plan, develop, and produce a monthly periodical devoted to news, commentary, and articles for Blacks interested in business.
Graves founded Black Enterprise magazine in 1970, a business-service publication targeted to black professionals, executives, entrepreneurs, and policy makers in the public and private sectors. Today, Black Enterprise has a paid circulation of 500,000 with a readership of approximately 3.4 million. In 1997, the magazine was honored with the FOLIO: 1996 Editorial Excellence Award for Business/Finance.
In 1999, Earl Graves received the NAACP Spingarn Medal, the highest achievement award for African Americans. He was named one of the Top 100 Business News Luminaries of the Century and his book How to Succeed in Business Without Being White was listed as a business bestseller. A staunch advocate of higher education, Graves is committed to advancing business education and opportunities for our nation's youth. Morgan State University renamed its business school in his honor at the 25th anniversary party for Black Enterprise.
Arthur Mitchell
Arthur Mitchell (born March 27, 1934) is an African-American dancer and choreographer. He was born in New York City and attended the High School of the Performing Arts, where he was the first male student to win the annual dance award.
Mitchell went on to the School of American Ballet and, in 1955, joined the New York City Ballet, becoming the first African-American male dancer to become a permanent member of a major ballet company. He became a principal dancer the following year.
After 15 years with the New York City Ballet, Mitchell left in 1969 to co-found with Karel Shook the Dance Theatre of Harlem, the first black classical ballet company.
The Dance Theatre of Harlem began with 30 kids in a church basement in a community where resources of talent and creative energy were virtually untapped. Two months later, there were 400 youngsters attending classes.
And with this success, the Dance Theatre of Harlem challenged the dance world to review its stereotypes and revise its boundaries. The myth was that Blacks could not do classical dance. By destroying that myth, Arthur Mitchell changed the way in which our country and the world look at an art form.
Over the years, Mitchell and his dancers have taken over the roles of cultural emissaries. In 1988, the Dance Theatre of Harlem was the first ballet company invited by the U.S. Information Agency to perform in the Soviet Union. The company, therefore, was a natural choice to become the first major performing arts troupe to visit South Africa as a statement of that country's increasing racial openness.
In 1993 Arthur Mitchell received the Kennedy Center Honors Award. He received the National Medal of Arts in 1995. In 1998 he was inducted into the National Museum of Dance's Hall of Fame. In 2005, in recognition of his contributions to African American culture, he won a Fletcher Foundation fellowship.
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Arthur Mitchell (dancer)."
Basil A. Paterson
Basil A. Paterson (born 1926) graduated from DeWitt Clinton High School. His bachelor's and law degrees are from St. John's University. He has been a Visiting Professor at State University of New Paltz, an Adjunct Professor at Fordham University School of Education, and a Visiting Professor at Hunter College.
During the 1960s, Paterson served as a state senator representing Harlem. He gave up his Senate seat in 1970 to run for lieutenant governor, as the running mate of former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Arthur Goldberg. He was the second African American to be the nominee of a major party for statewide office in New York. The Goldberg/Paterson ticket lost to the Republican ticket of Gov. Nelson Rockefeller and Lt. Gov. Malcolm Wilson.
In 1978, Paterson was appointed as a deputy mayor of New York City by Mayor Ed Koch. He was appointed by Gov. Hugh Carey as New York Secretary of State the following year, the first African American to serve as secretary of state in New York history. He served as secretary of state until 1983.
Basil Paterson is the father of New York Lieutenant Governor David Paterson, who was elected in 2006 on a ticket with Gov. Eliot Spitzer. Lieutenant Governor Paterson held his father's Senate seat for two decades and served as minority leader of the Senate.
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Basil Paterson."
Jackie Robinson
Jackie Robinson (January 31, 1919 - October 24, 1972) became the first Black Major League Baseball player of the modern era in 1947. Breaking the baseball color barrier was a major step forward for Blacks in the struggle for civil rights in America.
Jackie Robinson was inducted onto baseball's Hall of Fame in 1962 and he was a member of six World Series teams. Jackie was elected to the National League All-Star team for six consecutive years. In 1947, Robinson won The Sporting News Rookie of the Year Award and the first Major League Baseball Rookie of the Year Award. Two years later, Jackie won the National League Most Valuable Player Award. In addition to his accomplishments on the field, Jackie Robinson was also a forerunner of the Civil Rights Movement. He was a key figure in the establishment and growth of the Freedom Bank, an African-American owned and controlled entity, in the 1960s. He also wrote a syndicated newspaper column for a number of years, in which he was an outspoken supporter of Martin Luther King Jr.
In recognition of his accomplishments, Jackie Robinson posthumously received a Congressional Gold Medal and the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
On April 15, 1997, Major League Baseball retired the number 42, the number Robinson wore, in recognition of his accomplishments both on the field and off the field. In 1950, he was the subject of a film biography, The Jackie Robinson Story, in which he played himself. He became a political activist in his post-playing days.
In 1973, the Jackie Robinson Foundation was founded by his wife, Rachel Robinson. The foundation assists increasing numbers of minority youths through the granting of four-year scholarships for higher education.
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Jacke Robinson."
Percy Sutton
Percy Sutton (born November 24, 1920) is a civil rights activist, lawyer and entrepreneur. Born in San Antonio, Texas, Percy Sutton was the last of fifteen children. Sutton attended Prairie View A&M University, Tuskegee Institute, and Hampton Institute.
A skilled pilot, during World War II he served with the Tuskegee Airmen. Sutton won combat stars as an intelligence officer with the 332nd Fighter Group's Black 99th Pursuit Squadron in the Italian and Mediterranean Theater. After receiving an honorable discharge with the rank of Captain, Sutton enrolled in the Brooklyn College Law School, and received his law degree in 1950. During the 1950's and 1960's, Percy Sutton became one of American's best known lawyers, representing many controversial figures such as Malcolm X.
Sutton has been a longtime leader in Harlem politics. He was elected borough president of the Borough of Manhattan in 1966 served in that post until 1977.
In 1971, Sutton co-founded the Inner City Broadcasting Corporation. His company purchased New York's WLIB-AM, which became the first Black owned in the city. He initiated the revitalizing of the legendary Apollo Theater in Harlem. He also produced the successful It's Showtime at the Apollo. He was awarded the Spingarn Medal by the NAACP in 1987.
In 1995, Sutton became a member of the delegation of leading American business people selected by U.S. Secretary of Commerce Ron Brown to represent the United States at the G-7 roundtable meeting on Telecommunications and High Technology.
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Percy Sutton."
Community Service Society of New York • 105 East
22nd Street New York, NY 10010 • 212-254-8900 • info@cssny.org