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James Forten, Jr. was the son of Charlotte and James E. Forten, prominent Philadelphia abolitionists and as such was part of a second generation of three generations of political activists. Raised in this remarkable family, James Forten, Jr., became politically active at an early age. While still a teenager, he wrote for the Liberator and was an active member of the Young Mens Anti-Slavery Society in Philadelphia and of the American Moral Reform Society. On the evening of April 14, 1836, nineteen-year-old Forten presented an address to the Ladies Anti-Slavery Society in Philadelphia. That address appears below.

LADIES —There is nothing that could more forcibly induce me to express my humble sentiments at all times, than an entire consciousness that is the duty of every individual who would wish to see the foul curse of slavery swept forever from the land—who wishes to become one amongst the undaunted advocates of the oppressed—who wishes to deal amongst the undaunted advocates of the oppressed—who wishes to deal justly and love mercy. In a word, it is my indispensable duty, in view of the wretched, the helpless, the friendless condition of my countrymen in chains, to raise my voice, feeble though it be, in their behalf; to plead for the restoration of their inalienable rights. As to the character of the ANTI-SLAVERY-SOCIETY, it requires but one glance from an impartial eye, to discover the purity of its motives—the great strength of its moral energies; its high and benevolent-its holy and life giving principles. These are the foundations, the very architecture of Abolition, and prove its sovereignty. In fact, all associated bodies which have for their great aim the destruction of tyranny, and the moral and intellectual improvement of mankind, have been, and ever will, considered as bearing a decided superiority over all others. And how well may this Association, before which I now have the honor to appear, be deemed one of that

Malick Sidibé , (born c. 1935, Soloba, French Sudan [now Mali]—died April 14, 2016, Bamako, Mali), Malian photographer who created mainly black-and-white images that revealed the gradual Westernization of Mali as it made the transition from colony to independent country.

Sidibé’s first home was a Peul (Fulani) village. After finishing school in 1952, he trained as a jewelry maker and then studied painting at the École des Artisans Soudanais (now the Institut National des Arts) in Bamako, graduating in 1955. That year he was apprenticed to French photographer Gérard Guillat, and in 1957 he began to document the everyday life of Bamako. In particular, Sidibé chronicled the carefree youth culture at dance clubs and parties, at sporting events, and on the banks of (or in) the Niger River. His remarkably intimate shots show exuberant young Africans intoxicated with Western styles in music and fashion.

Although he continued his street work and close association with young Malians for another 20 years, in 1958 Sidibé opened his own commercial studio and camera-repair shop. There he took thousands of portraits, of both individuals and groups, creating dramatic images of subjects eager to assert their postcolonial middle-class identity, often with exaggerated idealized versions of themselves. After 1978 he worked exclusively in his studio.

Sidibé’s work was unknown outside his own country until the early 1990s, when European art critic André Magnin, who was in Bamako to visit another Malian photographer, Seydou Keïta, was taken to Sidibé’s studio by mistake. Magnin began to publicize the photographs of Sidibé, and he published a monograph on the photographer in 1998. There followed an impressive number of group and solo exhibitions in Europe, the United States, and Japan. In 2003 Sidibé received the Hasselblad Foundation International Award in Photography. He was also awarded the Venice Biennale art exhibition’s Golden Lion Award for lifetime achievement; he was the first photographer and the first African to ever

Cleveland Leigh Abbott died at the Veterans Hospital in Tuskegee on April 14, 1955 and was buried in the Tuskegee University Campus Cemetery at Tuskegee, Alabama.

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SLAUGHTER-HOUSE CASES.; THE BUTCHERS BENEVOLENT ASSOCIATION OF NEW ORLEANS v. THE CRESCENT CITY LIVE-STOCK LANDING AND SLAUGHTER-HOUSE COMPANY.; PAUL ESTEBEN, L. RUCH, J. P. ROUEDE, W. MAYLIE, S. FIRMBERG, B. BEAUBAY, WILLIAM FAGAN, J. D. BRODERICK, N. SEIBEL, M. LANNES, J. GITZINGER, J. P. AYCOCK, D. VERGES, THE LIVE-STOCK DEALERS AND BUTCHERS ASSOCIATION OF NEW ORLEANS, AND CHARLES CAVAROC v. THE STATE OF LOUISIANA, ex rel. S. BELDEN, ATTORNEY-GENERAL.; THE BUTCHERS BENEVOLENT ASSOCIATION OF NEW ORLEANS v. THE CRESCENT CITY LIVE-STOCK LANDING AND SLAUGHTER-HOUSE COMPANY.

April 14, 1873, Decided; DECEMBER, 1872, Term

Mr. Justice MILLER, now, April 14th, 1873, delivered the opinion of the court.

These cases are brought here by writs of error to the Supreme Court of the State of Louisiana. They arise out of the efforts of the butchers of New Orleans to resist the Crescent City Live-Stock Landing and Slaughter-House Company in the exercise of certain powers conferred by the charter which created it, and which was granted by the legislature of that State.

The cases named on a preceding page, n11 with others which have been brought here and dismissed by agreement, were all decided by the Supreme Court of Louisiana in favor of the Slaughter-House Company, as we shall hereafter call it for the sake of brevity, and these writs are brought to reverse those decisions.

n11 See supra, p. 36, sub-title.

The records were filed in this court in 1870, and were argued before it at length on a motion made by plaintiffs in error for an order in the nature of an injunction or supersedeas, pending the action of the court on the merits. The opinion on that motion is reported in 10 Wallace, 273.

On account of the importance of the questions involved in these cases they were, by permission of the court, taken up out of their order on the docket and argued in January, 1872. At that hearing one of the justices was absent, and it was found, on consultation, that there was a diversity of views among those who were present.

First abolitionist society in United States organized in Philadelphia.

Born in Los Angeles on April 14, 1962, to a black father and white mother, Laura Richardson is currently congresswoman for the 37th congressional district, serving her first term. Her mother, Maryann Richardson, who was a member of the Teamsters labor union, raised Richardson by herself. Richardson graduated from UCLA in 1984 with a bachelor degree in political science. She then worked for the Xerox Company for several years before earning her MBA from the University of Southern California in 1996. Next she worked as staff for Juanita Millender-McDonald, Democratic Representative for California’s 37th congressional district for two years.

In 2000, Richardson won a seat on the Long Beach City Council, where she served until 2006. As a Long Beach councilwoman she was instrumental in bringing the first new bank to the Central Area of Long Beach since the riots of 1992. She was also responsible for opening the first job-training center for working families in Long Beach’s inner city, and for gaining the first funding for alley maintenance by the City of Long Beach.

Richardson ran for the 55th district seat on the California State Assembly in 2006 and won. Her position as the assistant speaker pro tempore in the assembly made her the first African American to hold this position.

In 2007, Richardson was elected to Congress to represent the 37th district, replacing Juanita Millender-McDonald who passed away April 22nd, 2007. This made her the 27th African American female to be elected to the House of Representatives. Richardson serves in the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee and the Committee on Science and Technology.

He died on April 14, 1989, at the age of 72.

President Lincoln was shot and critically wounded at Fords Theater in Washington.

Civic and educational leader Gloria Dean Randle Scott, the first African-American president of the Girl Scouts of America and the twelfth president of Bennett College, was born on April 14, 1938 in Houston, Texas to Juanita Bell and Freeman Randle.  Scott grew up in Houston, attending Blackshear Elementary and Jack Yates Secondary School.  Acquiring a scholarship, she continued her education at Indiana University where she received a BA in 1959, an MA in Zoology in 1960, and a PhD in education in 1965.

While attending Indiana University, Scott became a research associate in genetics and embryology at the Indiana University Institution for Psychiatric Research, and taught biology at Marion College. Upon graduation, Scott moved to Knoxville as Dean of Students and Deputy Director of Upward Bound in 1965.  She relocated to North Carolina A&T University in 1967 when she accepted the position as Special Assistant to the President and Educational Research Planning Director.

In 1975, Gloria Scott served as the first African-American president of the Girl Scouts of America.  In her youth, Scott joined the Junior Girl Scout Troop #155 at Jack Yates School and later noted that the segregated troop provided her with unique experiences and also helped develop her leadership skills.  Scott served as the President of the Negro Girl Scout Senior Planning Board in the 1950s.  During her last year as president of GSA in 1978, the trefoil was redesigned; the new symbol highlighted the diversity of the girl scouts with a silhouette of three girls--black, white, and brown.

Scott returned to Texas in 1976 and worked as the Institutional Research Planning Director at Texas Southern University and the next year moved to Atlanta, Georgia to become Vice President of Clark College.  In 1987, she was selected as president of Bennett College, an elite black womens college in Greensboro, North Carolina.  In 2001, she resigned her post and moved to Corpus Christi with her husband Will Braxton Scott, a Sociology professor.  Will Scott, a

U.S. Supreme Court decision in Slaughterhouse cases began process of diluting the Fourteenth Amendment. The Court said the Fourteenth Amendment protected federal civil rights, not Civil rights heretofore belonging exclusively to the states.

Student Afro-American Society seized the Columbia College admissions office and demanded a special admissions board and staff.

South Carolina voters approved constitution, 70,758 to 27,228, and elected state officers, including the first Black cabinet officer, Francis L. Cardozo, secretary of state. New constitution required integrated education and contained a strong bill of rights section: Distinctions on account of race or color, in any case whatever, shall be prohibited, and all classes of citizens shall enjoy equally all common, public, legal and political privileges.

In 2009 W. Mae Kent, published Titanic: The Untold Story, the first historical fiction novel on the sinking of the R.M.S. Titanic which makes it’s central character, Nathan Badeau Legarde, a black man.  The inspiration for her story came from Joseph Phillipe Lemercier Laroche, an Afro-French citizen who died along with 1,516 other passengers when the Titanic sank in the North Atlantic on April 14, 1912.  In this article Kent for the first time writes why she chose to write the novel and the parallels between Laroche and the fictional Legarde.

The real life story of Joseph Phillipe Lemercier Laroche, the only black passenger on the ill-fated R.M.S. Titanic is fascinating. So much so that it served as the catalyst for my story, the first and only historical fiction novel set on the ship to feature a black hero.  In Titanic: The Untold Story, my protagonist, Nathan Badeau Legarde is loosely based on Joseph Laroche.  However, the word loosely is operative here because while there are strong similarities between the man who was actually on the Titanic and his fictional counterpart, I have also inserted some strong differences.  

First, let’s look at some basic facts about Laroche.  He was born in Cap Haitian, Haiti, into the country’s royal family.  The son of a white, French army officer and a native Haitian girl, he grew up as a privileged child in the midst of wealth.  At the age of 15, he followed the custom of the Haitian ruling class and went to France to further his education. Shortly after receiving an engineering degree, Laroche married a white, French woman and they quickly had two daughters.  An intensely proud man he was  accustomed to living well. He and his wife were expecting a third child and he was struggling with an intolerable situation. He was employed at the Paris metro and was being paid less than his fellow employees.  He was repeatedly told that his lower wages were because of inexperience, however, he learned that newly hired workers with less experience than he had were being paid more.