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Black Facts for June 22nd

1937 - Jean-Joseph Rabéarivelo

Jean-Joseph Rabéarivelo , (born March 4, 1901, Tananarive, Madagascar—died June 22, 1937, Tananarive), Malagasy writer, one of the most important of African poets writing in French, considered to be the father of modern literature in his native land.

Rabéarivelo, a largely self-educated man who earned his living as a proofreader for the Imerina Printing Press, wrote seven volumes of poetry before his tragic death. Presque-Songes (1934; “Nearly Dreams”) and Traduit de la nuit (1935; “Translation of the Night”) are considered to be the most important. His early work is closely imitative of late 19th-century French poetry, especially that of Charles Baudelaire and of a literary group known as the Fantaisites, who wrote melancholy verse expressing a sense of futility. His later work is more remote and impersonal, retaining a Baudelairean sense of form but exhibiting a more mature, individual style. A final collection of poems, Vieilles Chansons du pays Imérina (“Old Songs of the Imerina Country”), published two years after his death, is based on poetic love dialogues (hain-teny) adapted from Malagasy vernacular tradition.

The mythical world Rabéarivelo creates in his poetry is an intensely personal one dominated by visions of death, catastrophe, and alienation, which are all mitigated only occasionally by hope of salvation or resurrection. The overall impression is one of a surrealistic other world in which natural objects such as birds, trees, stars, cows, and fish have human emotions and human figures seem cosmic or semidivine.

It is thought that disappointment at being unable to visit the France whose poets he so long admired, coupled with a melancholy temperament and drug addiction, were the causes of Rabéarivelo’s suicide in 1937.

1884 - Lane College (1882- )

Lane College is a co-ed, liberal arts college located in Jackson, Tennessee.  The college was founded in 1882 by Bishop Isaac Lane, a former slave and bishop of the Colored Methodist Episcopal (CME) Church.  Lane College is the first institution established by the Methodist Episcopal Church and one of the oldest historically black colleges.

The idea of Lane College came in 1878 when Reverend J.K. Daniels presented a resolution to establish a school at the Tennessee Annual Conference of the CME Church held in the Capers Chapel C.M.E. Church in Nashville.  The school originally opened in November 1882 as the C.M.E. High School with Jennifer Lane, daughter of Bishop Lane, as its first teacher.  On June 22, 1884, the school changed its name to the Lane Institute after it was chartered under the laws of the State of Tennessee, and expanded its curriculum to focus on preparing ministers and teachers. In 1887, the first class graduated from Lane Institute.  That year also saw the appointment of Reverend T.F. Saunders as the school’s first president.  

In 1896, Lane Institute developed a College Department and broadened its curriculum by including courses in the classics, natural and physical sciences, as well as in mathematics.   The Board of Trustees also decided to change the name of the institution to Lane College to better reflect the growth of the curriculum.  In 1907, James Franklin Lane, the son of Bishop Lane was elected as president of the institution.  Under the tenure of President Lane, the college improved its facilities and attracted the attention of various philanthropic organizations.  Lane College was approved by the Southern Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools in 1936 and gained full membership in 1961.

While many Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) have struggled to remain open, Lane College has prospered and continues to grow.  The college has gone through several renovations and the Lane College Historic District, comprised of several of the original buildings, was

1941 - Ed Bradley

Ed Bradley , in full Edward Rudolph Bradley, Jr. (born June 22, 1941, Philadelphia, Pa., U.S.—died Nov. 9, 2006, New York, N.Y.), American broadcast journalist, known especially for his 25-year association with the televised newsmagazine 60 Minutes.

As a student at Cheyney State College (now Cheyney University of Pennsylvania), Bradley worked his way into broadcasting by volunteering at Philadelphia radio station WDAS-FM. After graduating with a degree in education (B.S., 1964), Bradley became an elementary schoolteacher but continued to work evenings in radio jobs that ranged from disc jockey to reporter. The station finally began paying Bradley a small hourly wage after he spent two days covering a Philadelphia race riot; however, he did not leave his teaching job until 1967, when he joined WCBS radio in New York City as a reporter.

Bradley held many other positions with CBS. He worked briefly in Paris in 1971, was stationed in Saigon, Vietnam, and Phnom Penh, Cambodia, in the early 1970s, and was injured by shrapnel while reporting in Cambodia. He moved to Washington, D.C., and began covering presidential campaigns in 1976, eventually becoming a White House correspondent. His feature stories, however, drew on topics from around the world. In 1980 he won awards for two CBS Special Reports: The Boat People (1979), exploring the plight of Southeast Asian refugees, and Blacks in America: With All Deliberate Speed? (1979), his in-depth examination of African American progress since the Brown v. Board of Education decision. He joined the staff of the long-running 60 Minutes in 1981. Bradley received numerous honours during his career, including 4 George Foster Peabody Awards and 19 Emmys.

1772 - Sommersett, James (c1741-c1772)

James Sommersett was the subject of a landmark legal case in Great Britain, which was the first major step in imposing limits on Trans-Atlantic African slavery. Sommersett entered the pages of history when in 1771, he fled his North American owner, Charles Stewart, while both were living in London, England.  Sommersett was originally purchased in Virginia and had been bought to Britain by Stewart from Boston, Massachusetts in 1769.  He fled two years later and was apprehended on the Ann and Mary, a ship bound for Jamaica.  

Sommersett’s cause was taken up by Granville Sharp, a member of Parliament and the leading abolitionist of his era. Once Sharp learned that bondsman Sommersett had been transported to England on a business trip and upon capture was spirited and shackled on board a British vessel, he applied for and was granted a writ of habeas corpus which ordered Stewart to deliver Sommersett to the King’s Bench in January 1772 to determine his legal status.  Sharp organized a five-attorney legal defense team led by prominent barrister Francis Hargrave who argued the case before Hon. William Murray, Earl of Mansfield and Chief Justice of the King’s Bench, England’s highest common law court.

At issue was whether a slave, even if owned in British Colonial America was by dint of residing in Britain still to be legally regarded as chattel or should be considered free. Francis Hargrave argued that by being on the soil of Great Britain, Sommersett could not remain enslaved.  On June 22, 1772 Lord Mansfield decided in Somerset v. Stewart that Sommersett was to be released since no English law sanctioned slavery in Great Britain.

Sommersett’s case had differential impacts on both sides of the Atlantic. Within England it gave impetus to the nascent abolitionist movement led by Sharp and eventually William Wilberforce but which included late 18th Century black Britishers Olaudah Equiano, Quobna Ottobah Cuguano, and Ignatius Sancho.  The case also moved the debate over slavery to the British Parliament. Britains