• May 17, 1864 John William “Blind” Boone, pianist and ragtime music composer, was born near Miami, Missouri. When he was six months old, doctors removed his eyes in an attempt to cure his brain fever. Boone’s musical talents were recognized early and in 1872 he was sent to the St. Louis School for the Blind to study piano. In 1880, his professional career was launched after he played in a concert with the famous pianist, Blind Tom. After that, Boone played thousands of concerts in the United States, Canada, and Mexico. During his lifetime, Boone was a committed philanthropist who supported local causes and opened his home to the community. He donated generously to several churches and gave his time and talent to local youth. Boone died October 4, 1927 and his home in Columbia, Missouri is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The John William Boone Heritage Foundation was founded to preserve the history of Blind Boone and Blind Boone Park in Warrensburg, Missouri is named in his honor. His biography, “Blind Boone: Missouri’s Ragtime Pioneer,” was published in 1998.

The Voices of the Civil War is a five-year film series dedicated to celebrating and commemorating the Civil War over the course of the sesquicentennial. Each month, new episodes will cover pertinent topics that follow the monthly events and issues as they unfolded for African Americans during the Civil War.  Within these episodes there are various primary sources – letters and diaries, newspaper reports, and more - to recount various experiences of blacks during this period. We encourage your feedback and commentary through our Voices of the Civil War web blog.

Click on the links below to view prior episodes:

• Episode 1 Part 1 click here

• Episode 1 Part 2 click here

• Episode 2 click here

• Episode 3 click here

In Episode 4, Resistance To Slavery, abolitionists like Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass use the Underground Railroad to help the enslaved find freedom in the North, while authors like Theodore Dwight Weld and Harriett Beecher Stowe fight slavery by publishing its horrors worldwide.  At the beginning of the Civil War the use of the Underground Railroad declines as those seeking freedom begin a much bigger fight.

Credits

Shot 1 Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, [LC-USZ62-59655]

Shot 2 Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, [LC-DIG-highsm-09900]

Shot 3 Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, [LC-D416-364]

Shot 4 Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, [LC-USZC4-2522]

Shot 5 Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, [LC-USZ62-28860]

Shot 6 ArtSmart: Indiana

Shot 7 Harriet Tubman's Underground Railroad by Paul Collins (Courtesy of Paul and Carol Collins)

Shot 8 Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, [LC-USZ62-7816]

Shot 9 Public Domain

Shot 10 Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, [LC-USZ62-15887]

Shot 11 Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, [LC-USZ62-49809]

Shot 12 Courtesy of Archives and Special Collections, Dickinson College, Carlisle, PA.

Shot 13 Courtesy of Google Books

Shot 14 Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, [LC-USZ62-28542]

Shot 15 Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs, [LC-USZ62-11212]

Shot 16 Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs, [LC-USZ62-13513]

Shot 17 Jewett Advertisement, Backpages of "Edition for the Million" Uncle Tom's Cabin (Boston: John P. Jewett & Company, 1853) The Clifton Waller Barrett Collection, Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia           

Shot 18 Library of Congress - Rare Book and Special Collections Division

Shot 19 Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, [LC-USZ62-13954]

Shot 20 Collection of the Maryland State Archives

Shot 21 Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, [LC-DIG-stereo-1s02762]

Shot 22 Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, Blanche Coggan Collection

Shot 23 Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, [LC-USZC4-10315]

Shot 24 Collection of the Maryland State Archives

Shot 25 Courtesy of Jon Euseary

Shot 26 Courtesy of Jon Euseary

• May 16, 1840 James Milton Turner, Consul to Liberia, was born enslaved in St. Louis, Missouri. Turner and his parents were freed when he was young, but he still had limited educational opportunities because Missouri laws restricted blacks from learning to read. Despite the legal obstacles, Turner learned to read and briefly attended Oberlin College. After the Civil War, he became a prominent politician known for his speaking ability. He worked for the Missouri Department of Education, establishing over 30 new schools in the state for African Americans and providing support for Lincoln Institute (now Lincoln University). In 1871, President Ulysses S. Grant appointed Turner United States Minister to Liberia, the first African American to hold that position. After returning from Liberia in 1878, Turner organized the Colored Emigration Aid Association to provide assistance to blacks migrating from the South. Turner died November 1, 1915. His biography, “James Milton Turner and the Promise of America: The Public Life of a Post-Civil War Leader,” was published in 1991.

• May 15, 1868 George Henry Wanton, Congressional Medal of Honor recipient, was born in Paterson, New Jersey. By June 30, 1898, he was serving as a private in the 10th Calvary Regiment (Buffalo Soldiers) in the Spanish-American War. On that day, American forces aboard the USS Florida near Tayacoba, Cuba dispatched a small landing party to provide reconnaissance on Spanish outposts in the area. The party was discovered and came under heavy fire. Their boats were sunk, leaving them stranded on shore. After four failed attempts, Wanton and three other members of the 10th Calvary successfully found and rescued the surviving members of the landing party. In recognition of his actions, on June 23, 1899 Wanton was awarded the medal, America’s highest military decoration. Wanton continued to serve in the military and reached the rank of master sergeant and served in the Quartermaster Corps before retiring. Wanton died November 27, 1940 and was buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

• May 14, 1890 Rosa Jinsey Young, “the mother of Black Lutheranism in Alabama,” was born in Rosebud, Alabama. Young earned her bachelor’s degree from Payne University and was the valedictorian of her class in 1909. After receiving her teaching certificate, she taught at various schools for African Americans across Alabama. In 1912, Young established the Rosebud Literary and Industrial School. However, by 1915 the school was on the brink of closure due to financial problems. The Lutheran Church provided financial support to keep the school open and added Lutheran based instruction to the school’s curriculum. Young went on to help found five other Lutheran based schools across Alabama, including Alabama Lutheran Academy and College (now Concordia College) which was founded in 1922 and where she served on the faculty from 1946 to 1961. In 1930, Young published her autobiography, “Light in the Dark Belt,” and in 1961 she received an honorary doctorate from Concordia Theological Seminary for her dedicated service. Young died June 30, 1971.

• May 13, 1913 William Richard Tolbert, Jr., former President of Liberia, was born in Bensonville, Liberia. Tolbert graduated summa cum laude from the University of Liberia in 1934 and entered government in 1935 as a civil servant. Tolbert was also an ordained minister and in 1965 became the first African to serve as president of the Baptist World Alliance. In 1951, Tolbert was elected Vice President of Liberia where he served until the death of President William Tubman in 1971. Tolbert succeeded Tubman as President of Liberia and served until April 12, 1980 when he was killed in a coup d’etat.

• May 12, 1906 William “Gorilla” Jones, hall of fame boxer, was born in Memphis, Tennessee. Jones started boxing professionally in 1923 and won the World Middleweight Championship in 1925. He retired in 1940 with a record of 101 wins, 24 losses, and 13 draws. After retiring, he served as a chauffeur and bodyguard for the movie star Mae West and from the late 1940s to the 1970s trained other boxers. Jones died January 4, 1982 and was posthumously inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 2009.

• May 11, 1895 William Grant Still, “the dean” of African American classical composers, was born in Woodville, Mississippi but raised in Little Rock, Arkansas. Still started taking violin lessons at the age of 15 and taught himself to play a number of other instruments. Still attended Wilberforce University where he conducted the university band and started to compose. He also studied at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music. After serving in the United States Navy during World War I, he worked as an arranger for W. C. Handy and later played in the pit orchestra for the musical “Shuffle Along.” In 1934, Still was the recipient of the first Guggenheim Fellowship. In 1936, he conducted the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, becoming the first African American to conduct a major American orchestra, and in 1949 his opera “Troubled Island” (1939) was performed by the New York City Opera, the first opera by an African American to be performed by a major opera company. Still eventually moved to Los Angeles, California where he arranged music for films, including “Pennies from Heaven” (1936) and “Lost Horizon” (1937). Still received honorary doctorates from a number of institutions, including Oberlin College, Howard University, the New England Conservatory of Music, and the University of Southern California. Still died December 3, 1978 and in 1981 his opera “Bayou Legend” became the first opera by an African American to be performed on national television when it premiered on PBS. His biography, “In Our Lifetime,” was published in 1984.

The New York Renaissance “Harlem Rens” basketball team and all-time NBA leading scorer Kareem Abdul-Jabbar will be honored for their talent, tenacity and teamwork in sports at the 14^th Annual Ford Freedom Award on May 17.

The Ford Freedom Award program includes a scholar’s lecture by Abdul-Jabbar to nearly 2,000 elementary and middle-school students from around the state, presentation of the 2012 Ford Freedom Award Scholarships and a black-tie gala at the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History.  

“The Ford Freedom Award has a legacy of honoring trailblazers who have changed the world through their actions,” said Ziad Ojakli, group vice president, Government and Community Relations, Ford Motor Company. “Ford is proud to recognize one of the greatest teams of all time that paved the way for many of today’s athletes, and a sports legend who demonstrated excellence not only through his play on the court but through his dedication to the education of youth.”

The 2012 Ford Freedom Award Honoree is the Harlem Rens basketball team, which was the first all-black, African American-owned pro basketball team. Known as one of the dominant basketball teams of the 1920s and ’30s, the Harlem Rens also was the first basketball team to win a world championship in 1939.

NBA hall-of-famer and newly selected U.S. Global Cultural Ambassador Abdul-Jabbar is this year’s Ford Freedom Awards Scholar. His career spanned six championships and a record six regular-season MVP awards. As an actor, coach and promoter of social justice and African American history, Abdul-Jabbar has authored a book and produced a documentary highlighting the career of the Harlem Rens, “On Shoulders of Giants.”

The Ford Freedom Awards program recognizes two recipients each year. The Ford Freedom Award Honoree is presented posthumously to a distinguished African American who dedicated his or her life to improving the African American community and the world at large through that individual’s chosen field (such as arts, humanities, religion, business, politics, sports, science or entertainment). The Ford Freedom Awards Scholar is an African American who has excelled on a national or international level in the same field as the Ford Freedom Award Honoree. The Scholar serves as a living legacy, carrying forth the ideals of the Honoree and furthering those achievements for a new generation.

“The history of African Americans in sports is a storied one,” says Juanita Moore, president and CEO, Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History. “But it’s easy to forget the talent, tenacity and teamwork it took for those early pioneers to demonstrate not only physical prowess, but also the courage and fortitude necessary to overcome prejudice and roadblocks to their ability to even compete. In the modern era, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar has earned his place as a basketball legend, but continues to build on that legacy with his achievements as a writer, filmmaker and Global Cultural Ambassador.”

The Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, in partnership with Ford Motor Company, launched the Ford Freedom Award program in 1999 to create a forum for celebrating and recognizing individuals whose achievements brought forth lasting and positive change for African Americans and the world. In addition to the evening gala, the Ford Freedom Award program includes a statewide essay contest for grades four through eight, which this year drew more than 1,900 submissions.

The Ford Freedom Award program is made possible by a grant from Ford Motor Company, and is an annual fundraiser for the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History.

Additional major sponsors of the Ford Freedom Award include McDonald’s Owners of Southeast Michigan, and MGM Grand Detroit. For additional event information regarding sponsorship opportunities and tickets, call (313) 494-5800 or visit www.fordfreedomaward.com.

About Ford Motor Company

Ford Motor Company, a global automotive industry leader based in Dearborn, Mich., manufactures or distributes automobiles across six continents. With about 166,000 employees and about 70 plants worldwide, the company’s automotive brands include Ford and Lincoln. The company provides financial services through Ford Motor Credit Company. For more information regarding Ford and its products worldwide, please visit http://corporate.ford.com.

About the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History

Founded in 1965 and located at 315 East Warren Avenue in Midtown Detroit’s Cultural Center, the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History is the world’s largest institution dedicated to the African-American experience. The Museum provides learning opportunities, exhibitions, programs and events based on collections and research that explore the diverse history and culture of African Americans and their African origins. For more information, please visit www.TheWright.org.

For media credentials or interviews

• May 10, 1837 Pickney Benton Stewart Pinchback, the first African American to become governor of a state in the United States, was born in Macon, Georgia. In 1862, he made his way to New Orleans where he raised several companies of the Corps d’Afrique for the Union Army during the Civil War and was one of the few officers of African ancestry. Pinchback resigned his commission because of racial prejudice against black officers. In 1868, he was elected to the Louisiana State Senate and in 1871 became the acting Lieutenant Governor of Louisiana. On December 9, 1872, the incumbent governor was removed from office and Pinchback became governor and served until January 13, 1873. During that brief 35 day period, he received vicious hate mail from around the country as well as threats on his life. After his brief governorship, Pinchback was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1874 and the U.S. Senate in 1876. Pinchback also served on the Louisiana State Board of Education and was instrumental in establishing Southern University and served on their board of trustees. In 1882, President Chester Arthur appointed Pinchback surveyor of customs in New Orleans. Pinchback later moved to Washington, D.C. where he practiced law until his death on December 21, 1921. His biography, “Pickney Benton Stewart Pinchback,” was published in 1973.

• May 9, 1919 James Reese Europe, ragtime and jazz bandleader, arranger, and composer, was stabbed to death by one of his musicians. Europe was born February 22, 1881 in Mobile, Alabama and moved to New York City in 1904. In 1910, Europe organized the Clef Club, a society for African Americans in the music industry. In 1912, they made history as the first band to play proto-jazz at Carnegie Hall when they played a concert for the benefit of the Colored Music Settlement School. The band played music written solely by black composers. In 1913 and 1914, Europe made a series of recordings that are some of the best examples of the pre-jazz ragtime style of the 1910s. During World War I, Europe saw combat as a lieutenant with the Harlem Hellfighters and went on to direct the regimental band to great acclaim. After his return to the United States in 1919, he stated “I have come from France more firmly convinced than ever that Negros should write Negro music. We have our own racial feelings and if we try to copy Whites we will make bad copies.” At the time of his death, Europe was the best known African American bandleader in the U.S. and he was granted the first ever public funeral for an African American in New York City. His biography, “A Lifetime in Ragtime: A Biography of James Reese Europe,” was published in 1995.

• May 8, 1901 Norman Thomas “Turkey” Stearnes, hall of fame baseball player, was born in Nashville, Tennessee. Stearnes began his professional career in 1921 and from 1923 to 1931 played for the Detroit Stars of the Negro League. Stearnes retired in 1942 and over his career batted over .400 three times and led the Negro League in home runs seven times. Despite his baseball success, Stearnes worked winters in Detroit’s auto plants to survive financially. Stearnes died September 4, 1979 and was posthumously inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2000. A plaque in Stearnes’ honor is on display outside the centerfield gate at Comerica Park in Detroit.

• May 7, 1890 George Jordan received the Congressional Medal of Honor, America’s highest military decoration for his actions during the Indian Wars. Jordan was born enslaved in Williamson County, Tennessee in 1847 and by 1880 was serving as a sergeant in the 9th Cavalry Regiment in New Mexico. His citation reads, “While commanding a detachment of 25 men at Fort Tularosa, New Mexico, repulsed a force of more than 100 Indians. At Carrizo Canyon, New Mexico, while commanding the right of a detachment of 19 men, on 12 August 1881, he stubbornly held his ground in an extremely exposed position and gallantly forced back a much superior number of the enemy, preventing them from surrounding the command.” Jordan reached the rank of first sergeant before retiring from the army in 1897. Not much is known of Jordan’s life before or after the army except that he died October 24, 1904.

• May 6, 1812 Martin Robinson Delany, abolitionist and the first African American field officer in the United States Army, was born in Charles Town, West Virginia. Because it was illegal to teach black people to read or write, he and his siblings taught themselves. In 1835, Delany became more actively involved in political matters and attended his first Negro Conference. In 1843, he began publishing “The Mystery,” a black-controlled newspaper, and in 1847 together with Frederick Douglass and William Lloyd Garrison began publishing the “North Star” newspaper. In the 1850s, Delany became convinced that whites would not allow deserving persons of color to become leaders in society and in his book, “The Condition, Elevation, Emigration, and Destiny of the Colored People of the United States, Politically Considered” (1852), he argued that blacks had no future in the United States and should leave and found a new nation elsewhere. In 1863, Delany began recruiting black men for the Union Army to fight in the Civil War, raising thousands of enlistees, and in 1865 he was commissioned as a major, becoming the first black field officer in the U.S. Army. Following the war and the demise of the Reconstruction Period, Delany helped form the Liberia Exodus Joint Stock Steamship Company with the intent to immigrate to Africa. However, he had to withdraw from the project due to family obligations. Delany died January 24, 1885 and his biography, “Martin R. Delany: The Beginnings of Black Nationalism,” was published in 1971.

• May 5, 1883 Josiah Henson, author, abolitionist, and minister, died. Henson was born enslaved on June 15, 1789 in Charles County, Maryland. In 1830, after trying to buy his freedom and being cheated out of his money, Henson escaped with his wife and children to Canada. After arriving in Ontario, he founded The Dawn Settlement and a laborer’s school for other previously enslaved fugitives. The settlement prospered, reaching a population of 500 and exporting lumber to the United States and Britain. Henson also became a Methodist preacher, abolitionist, and served in the Canadian army as an officer. Henson had three autobiographies published, “The Life of Josiah Henson, Formerly a Slave, Now an Inhabitant of Canada, as narrated by Him” (1849), “Truth Stranger Than Fiction, Father Henson’s Story of His Own Life” (1858), and “Uncle Tom’s Story of His Life: An Autobiography of the Rev. Josiah Henson” (1876). Henson was the first black man to be featured on a Canadian stamp and also was recognized by the Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada in 1999 as a National Historic Person. A federal plaque honoring him is located in the Henson family cemetery. Henson’s name is enshrined in the Ring of Genealogy at the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History in Detroit, Michigan.

• May 4, 1897 Joseph H. Smith of Washington, D.C. received patent number 581,785 for new and useful improvements to lawn sprinklers. His device was both simpler and less expensive to manufacture and more durable than previous devices. Not much else is known of Smith’s life.

The Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History will host a keynote program honoring famed human right leader, orator, organizer and freedom-fighter El Hajj Malik El-Shabazz, more widely known as Malcolm X, Saturday, May 19 from 3 - 5 pm at the Museum, located at 315 East Warren Avenue in Midtown Detroit.  Also on display will be special, one-day exhibit of Malcolm X’s archived writings, letters and artifacts from the Museum’s collections.
 
"Of all the cities that lay claim to Malcolm X, Detroit has a seminal place," said Herb Boyd, author, activist and former Detroiter.  "It was in Detroit where he began his liberated odyssey with the Nation of Islam.  No matter where he journeyed, Malcolm always had a deep and abiding love for this city and the city never failed to return that love and devotion.  And for a city-wide salute to Malcolm on his birthday, the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, with its collection of memorabilia on Malcolm, is the perfect venue for such an occasion."
 
The keynote program will feature presentations by Herb Boyd and Dr. Haki Madhubuti, both noted activists, educators, and editors of the recent book, “By Any Means Necessary – Malcolm X: Real, Not Reinvented” (Third World Press, 2012), as well as performances by the Amen Ra Drummers, saxophonist Tony Holland, and 5-time Amateur Night at the Apollo winner jessica Care moore.  The program will also include a Q & A session and book signing; a portion of the day’s book sales will be donated to The Wright Museum.  A one-day exhibition of Malcolm X’s original writings, letters and artifacts will be on display along with original works of art by Detroit artist Charles Ezra Ferrell and a work from the Robert Smith Collection to accompany this historic occasion.
 
The Malcolm X Day program is free and open to the public.  For more information, please call (313) 494-5800 or visit http://www.thewright.org/upcoming-events/details/446-malcolm-x-day-a-historic-homecoming.
 
About Herb Boyd
Herb Boyd was born, raised, and educated in Detroit. Today, in Harlem, he is a world-class journalist, activist, professor, and author or editor of 23 books, including his most recent one, “By Any Means Necessary – Malcolm X: Real, Not Reinvented,” edited by Haki Madhubuti, Ron Daniels, and Maulana Karenga (Third World Press, 2012).  Other publications are “Civil Rights: Yesterday & Today” and “Baldwin's Harlem,” a biography of James Baldwin, which was a finalist for a 2009 NAACP Image Award.  In 1995, with Robert Allen, he was a recipient of an American Book Award for “Brotherman-- The Odyssey of Black Men in America,” an anthology. “We Shall Overcome,” a media-fusion book with narration by the late Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee, is used in classrooms all over the world, as is his “Autobiography of a People” and “The Harlem Reader.”
 
About Dr. Haki R. Madhubuti
A leading poet and one of the architects of the Black Arts Movement, Haki R. Madhubuti - publisher, editor and educator - has been a pivotal figure in the development of a strong Black literary tradition. He has published more than 31 books (some under his former name, Don L. Lee) and is one of the world’s best-selling authors of poetry and non-fiction. His “Black Men: Obsolete, Single, Dangerous?: The African American Family in Transition” (1990) has sold more than 1 million copies. Selected titles include: “Don’t Cry, Scream!” (1969), “Tough Notes: A Healing Call For Creating Exceptional Black Men” (2002), and “Run Toward Fear” (2004). His poetry and essays were published in more than 75 anthologies from 1997 to 2010. His recent releases are “YellowBlack: The First Twenty-One Years of a Poet’s Life, A Memoir” (2006) and “Liberation Narratives: New and Collected Poems 1966-2009” (2009). Madhubuti’s latest book of poems is “Honoring Genius: Gwendolyn Brooks: The Narrative of Craft, Art, Kindness and Justice” (2011) and he is co-editor of the new anthology, “By Any Means Necessary: Malcolm X: Real, Not Reinvented” (2012).
 
Dr. Madhubuti is a proponent of independent Black institutions. He founded Third World Press in 1967. He is also a founder of the Institute of Positive Education/New Concept School (1969), and a cofounder of Betty Shabazz International Charter School (1998), Barbara A. Sizemore Middle School (2005), and DuSable Leadership Academy (2005), all of which are in Chicago.

• May 3, 1898 Septima Poinsette Clark, “grandmother of the Civil Rights Movement,” was born in Charleston, South Carolina. She graduated from high school in 1916, but could not afford to attend college. As an African American, Clark was barred from teaching in the Charleston public schools therefore she began teaching on John’s Island. In 1919, she returned to Charleston to teach at Avery Normal Institute, a private academy for black children, and she became active with the NAACP. From 1929 to 1947, Clark taught in the Columbia, South Carolina public school system. During that time, she earned her Bachelor of Arts degree from Benedict College in 1942 and her Master of Arts degree from Hampton Institute in 1946. In 1956, Clark became vice president of the Charleston branch of the NAACP. That same year, the South Carolina legislature passed a law banning city or state employees from being involved with civil rights organizations. Clark refused to leave the NAACP and was fired from her teaching position. Beginning in 1954, Clark was active with the Highlander Folk School where she ran an adult literacy program. One of the participants in her workshops was Rosa Parks who, a few months after, helped to start the Montgomery Bus Boycott. In response to Southern states which required literacy and knowledge of the United States constitution in order to register to vote, Clark established “Citizenship Schools” throughout the Deep South. The program became so large that it was transferred to the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and Clark became SCLC’s director of education and training. Clark retired from the SCLC in 1970 and from 1974 to 1982 served on the Charleston County School Board, the first black female member. In 1979, President Jimmy Carter presented Clark a Living Legend Award. Her autobiography, “Ready from Within: Septima Clark and the Civil Rights Movement,” was published in 1986 and won the American Book Award. Clark died December 15, 1987.

• May 2, 1843 Elijah J. McCoy, engineer and inventor, was born in Colchester, Ontario, Canada. His parents had escaped enslavement to Canada. McCoy studied engineering in Edinburgh, Scotland and after returning to Canada found work with the Michigan Central Railroad. On July 12, 1872, he received patent number 129,843 for “Improvements in Lubricators for Steam-Engines.” This was a boon for railroads because it allowed trains to run faster and more profitably with less need to stop for lubrication and maintenance. McCoy continued to invent until late in his life, receiving 57 patents mostly related to lubrication, but also including a folding ironing board and a lawn sprinkler. In 1920, he formed the Elijah McCoy Manufacturing Company and he died October 10, 1929. In 1975, a historical marker was placed at the site of his Detroit, Michigan home and Elijah McCoy Drive in Detroit was named in his honor. In 2001, he was posthumously inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame and in 2006 the play “The Real McCoy” was written which chronicled his life and inventions. His biography, also titled “The Real McCoy,” was published in 2007. McCoy’s name is enshrined in the Ring of Genealogy at the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History in Detroit, Michigan.

• May 1, 1866 The Memphis Riots of 1866 began after a shooting altercation between white policemen and black soldiers recently mustered out of the Union Army in Memphis, Tennessee. For three days, mobs of white civilians and policemen rampaged through black neighborhoods. A report by a joint Congressional Committee detailed 46 blacks and 2 whites killed, 75 persons injured, over 100 persons robbed, 5 women raped, and 91 homes, 4 churches, and 8 schools burned. No criminal charges were ever brought against any of the perpetrators of atrocities committed during the riots. The riots did result in major changes to the city’s police force.