Tennis champion, Althea Gibson, becomes the first Black athlete to win a US national tennis championship, 1957
On this date in 1981, Roy Wilkins (80), longtime executive director of the NAACP, in New York passes away.
On this date in 1965, Actress Dorothy Danridge (41) dies in Hollywood.
On this date in 1925, prominent Detroit Doctor Ossian Sweet, arrested on murder charges after shots were fired into a mob in front of the Sweet home in a previously all-white area. Sweet was defended by Clarence Darrow, who won an acquittal in the second trial.
On this date in 1875, Mississippi Governor Ames requested federal troops to protect Black voters. Attorney General Edward Pierrepont refused the request and said “the whole public are tired of these annual autumnal outbreaks in the South.” President Grant and Attorney General Pierrepont told Governor Ames to use federal troops only if the white liners used violence on election day. No violence took place on election day, however, the intimidation tactics of the white liners prior to the election kept blacks and Republican voters from the polls.
