People, Locations, Episodes

Elston Howard, Baseball Player born

*Elston Howard was born on this date in 1929. He was an African American baseball player.

From St. Louis, he graduated from Vashon High School where he starred in baseball, track, football and basketball. In 1948, at age nineteen the future New York Yankees’ star played three seasons in the Negro Leagues with the Kansas City Monarchs. He was not an outfielder when he joined the Monarchs, Howard was a catcher, but after working behind the plate on the night he was shifted to the outfield to bolster a wobbly garden defense, and immediately became a match.

Dick Tiger, Boxer born

*On this date in 1929, Dick Tiger was born. He was a Nigerian professional boxer.

Born Richard Ihetu in Nigeria little is known of his childhood but records show that he turned pro in 1952. Tiger campaigned in Nigeria and England and won the British Commonwealth middleweight title before debuting in the United States in 1959. Tiger was an aggressive counter-puncher. He would move forward trying to draw his opponent into an exchange. Tiger would then try to counter his opponent’s punches with blows of his own.

Curt Roberts, Baseball Player born

*Curt Roberts was born on this date in 1929.  He was a Black baseball player. Curtis Benjamin Roberts was a native of Pineland, Texas, but was raised in Oakland, California.  He attended McClymonds High School in West Oakland, the same high school future professional athletes Frank Robinson, Vada Pinson, Bill Russell, and Curt Flood all […]

John Henry Johnson, Football Player, born

*John Henry Johnson was born on this date in 1929. He was an African American prfessional football player.

Emery Barnes, Politician born

*Emery Barnes was born on this date in 1929. He was a Black Canadian football player and politician.

Born in New Orleans Louisiana and raised in Oregon, Barnes was an alternate hi-jumper for the 1952 US Olympic Track and Field team. He played football at the University of Oregon and graduated he received his B.S. degree in 1954. Later that year he was drafted by the NFL’s Green Bay Packers, but had much more success in the Canadian Football League with the B.C. Lions.

Arthur Dorrington, Hockey Player born

*Arthur Dorrington was born on this date in 1930.  He was a Black Canadian professional ice hockey player and Sheriff. A Nova Scotia native, James Arthur Dorrington learned to skate when he was three and began dreaming of a professional hockey career “soon as I could figure out how to hold the stick.”   Dorrington became […]

Don Haskins, Basketball Coach born

*Don Haskins was born on this date in 1930.  He was a white-American college basketball coach.  From Enid, Oklahoma, he was nicknamed “The Bear.” From 1949 – 1952, he played college basketball under coach Henry Iba at Oklahoma A&M (now Oklahoma State University) for three years.  After college and a stint with the Amateur Athletic […]

Willie Thrower, Football Player born

*Willie Thrower was born on this date in 1930. He was a Black college and NFL football player. Born near Pittsburgh in New Kensington, Pennsylvania, Willie Lee Thrower played halfback in the single-wing formation for New Kensington High (present-name: Valley High School) as a freshman just after the end of World War II in 1945. […]

Ollie Matson, Football Player, and Teacher born

*Ollie Matson was boron on this date in 1930. He was an African American football player, teacher, and coach.

The New York Cubans Baseball Team is Formed

*The New York Cubans baseball team is celebrated this date in 1930.  They were a Negro League baseball team that played during the 1930s and from 1939 to 1950. Operating in the Negro leagues, the team occasionally employed white-skinned Hispanic baseball players as well because Hispanics, in general, were largely ignored by the major league […]

Johnny Bright, Football Player, born

*Johnny Bright was born on this date in 1930. He was a Black college and professional football player in the Canadian Football League. John Dee Bright was the second oldest of five children raised by his mother in a working-class neighborhood in Fort Wayne, Indiana. He and his brothers shared two double beds in one […]

Wilbanks K. Smith, Collegiate Football Player born

*Wilbanks K. Smith was born on this date in 1930. He was a white-American college football player from Mangum, Greer County, Oklahoma. In 1951, two brutal hits by Smith in a football game at Oklahoma A&M on Johnny Bright broke the Drake star running back’s jaw. Called the Johnny Bright Incident, the Des Moines Register captured the blows […]

Ernie Banks, Baseball Player born

*Ernie Banks was born on this date in 1931. He was an African American baseball player.

Growing up in Dallas, Banks had to be bribed with nickels and dimes by his father to play catch. Banks, more interested in softball than baseball, was a high school star in both football and basketball, and once ran a 52-second quarter mile. At 17, he signed on to play baseball with a Negro barnstorming team for $15 a game. Cool Papa Bell later signed him for the Kansas City Monarchs.

Willie Mays, Baseball Player born

*Willie Mays was born on this date in 1931. He was a Black Baseball player.

From Westfield, Alabama, both of his parents were athletes. His father played baseball on the all-Black teams of the segregated south, and his mother was a champion sprinter in her school. In his youth, his father also worked in a steel mill, and played on a semi- professional team sponsored by the mill. Young Mays was taught to catch a ball before he could walk, and at age 14, he joined his father on the mill team. His high school had no baseball team, so he played basketball and football.

Barbara Hillary, Explorer, and Environmentalist born

*Barbara Hillary was born on this date in 1931. She was a Black nurse, publisher, adventurer, and environmental justice advocate.   Hillary was born in New York City in the Lincoln Square neighborhood (formerly San Juan Hill). Her mother raised her in Harlem, and her father died while she was a baby. Hillary grew up impoverished; […]