October 17, 2008 Levi Stubbs, lead vocalist of the Four Tops, died. Stubbs was born Levi Stubbles on June 6, 1936 in Detroit, Michigan. In 1954, he and three friends formed a singing group called the Four Aims. Two years later they changed their name to the Four Tops and in 1963 signed with Motown […]
Archive | October 17, 2010
October 17th in African American History – Mae Carol Jemison
October 17, 1956 Mae Carol Jemison, physician and the first African American woman to travel in space, was born in Decatur, Alabama. Jemison entered Stanford University at the age of 16 and graduated in 1977 with a Bachelor of Science in Chemical Engineering and a Bachelor of Arts in African and Afro-American Studies. She earned […]
October 16th in African American History – Leon Howard Sullivan
October 16, 1922 Leon Howard Sullivan, minister, civil rights leader and activist, was born in Charleston, West Virginia. Sullivan became a Baptist minister at 18 and moved to New York where he graduated from the Union Theological Seminary in 1945 and earned a Master’s in Religion from Columbia University in 1947.
October 16th in African American History – Arthur Art Blakey
October 16, 1990 Arthur “Art” Blakey, jazz drummer and bandleader, died. Blakey was born October 11, 1919 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. By the time he was a teenager he was playing the piano full-time and leading a commercial band. Shortly afterwards, he taught himself to play the drums. In 1947, Blakey recorded with a group led […]