Historical Events in Time, The Sixties.
1960 |
Student National Coordinating Committee (SNCC) was founded.
Its members, an interracial group, are a model of diversity and
are headed by Stokely Carmichael and H. Rap
Brown.. |
Track star Wilma Rudolph wins three gold medals at the
Olympic games. The games were held in Rome Italy..
John F. Kennedy defeats Richard M. Nixon and will become the 35th President of the United States. His Vice President is Lyndon Baines Johnson.. |
SPDP-1 was the brainchild of Digital
Electronics Corporation (DEC). Most say its successor is the
Minicomputer. The PDP-1 sold for $120,000, obviously lower than
IBM’s Mainframes. It was also smaller (weighed 250 pounds),
fast, and had a CRT graphics display (early monitor). It
took one person to operate the unit. |
However the most popular computer of the day was IBM’s
1401. It afforded small companies to have data processing
capabilities. It was a scaled down version of other IBM
units and could be leased for a little as $2500.00 per month.
IBM reportedly leased more than 15000 of these units.
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1960 |
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Opera Diva, Grace Bumbry performed with the Paris
Opera Company. She played the role of Amneris in Verdi’s Aida.
Percussionist Maxwell (Max) Roach collaborated with noted
songwriter Oscar Brown Jr and jazz artist Abbey
Lincoln in 1960. The result was an album dedicated to the
civil rights movement entitled We Insist, The Freedom Now Suite..
It began in Greensboro, N.C. with four college freshmen from
Negro Agricultural and Technical College seated at a lunch
counter at F. W. Woolworth’s. A white waitress ignored their
request for service. Finally leaving at closing time without
being served, they returned the next morning with 25 of
their schoolmates to continue the Sit-in demonstration.
Within weeks, similar demonstrations sprang up at segregated
lunch counters throughout the south. Students and others were
challenging the Jim Crow lunch counter custom that allowed Negroes to be served while standing but they
could not sit down and eat. | |
1960 |
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Meanwhile in Africa, the motherland, the Nobel Piece
Prize is awarded to South African civil rights leader Albert
Luthuli. The nations of Niger, Senegal, Mauritania, Togo,
Madagascar, Somalia, and Mali gain their independence. Later,
Cameroon, Upper Volta, and Ivory Coast were added to the list. | | |
1966 |
Areatha Franklin left Columbia Records and moves to the
Atlantic label, leaving her jazzy pop sound behind. She begins
to pump out hit after hit in a Rhythm and Blues style
that is laced with her gospel roots. |
NASA’s Launch Vehicle Digital Computer (LVDC),
manufactured by IBM, provides onboard digital guidance for the
Saturn rocket booster. The rocket boosters are used to propel
the Apollo spacecraft toward the moon. |
Bobby Seal & Huey Newton
are founders of the Black Panther Party located in
Oakland California.
The Acoustically Coupled Modem, a early sixties
invention that connected computers to the telephone network was
greatly improved by John Van Geen. Working from the Stanford
Research Institute, he built a receiver that could detect bits
of data within the hiss heard over long-distance telephone
connections. |
The words Black Power made their way into the
consciousness of African Americans. Stokely Carmichael is
credited with coining the words that simply meant independent
economic and political power for the black communities
throughout the U.S. Black leaders were teaching Black Pridewhich was a term African Americans voiced when referring to
their African heritage, culture, and contributions to American
society. | |
1966 continued |
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In the dawning hours of January 10th, two cars
filled with Klu Klux Klansmen arrived at their
destination located in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. It was
the home of Vernon Dahmer, a local NAACP official
and storekeeper. One of the men honked his car horn in a attempt
to let their victims know they were there. Getting out of their
cars, they proceeded to fire rifles and shotguns at the Dahmer
home. Throwing gasoline bombs through the window, they continued
firing as Vernon held them off by returning their fire. Fighting
the fire and shooting at as many as eight Klansmen, Vernon used
the distraction to allow his wife, Ellie Dahmer and
family to escape through a back window. Ellie held her husband
as he died several hours later from the effects of the fire.
TV coverage of the U.S. casualties in the Vietnam Conflict
is causing uneasiness in America. Dr. King says it’s "
rapidly degenerating into a sordid military adventure".
Blacks seem to outnumber other races representing American armed
services participating in the conflict. It was reasoned that
more blacks and other minorities were joining the armed services
than whites. The first major rally against what the public
increasingly interprets as a war occurs in our nation capital. | |
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The Poll Tax is ruled unconstitutional. Edward W.
Brook of Massachusetts becomes the first African American
elected to the U.S. Senate since the Reconstruction era.
David Parham has the honor of being the first black captain
selected by the U.S. Navy.
The Smithsonian’s first
American Folklife Festival celebrates the African American and
Native American Cultures. Dr. Clifton Johnson established
Amistad Research Center, now at Tulane University.
The White House Conference on Civil Rights attended by 2400
people. Constance Baker Motley’s confirmation as a U.S.
District Court Judge records her in the history books as the
first African American woman to do so. | | |
1967 |
In February Aretha Franklin
releases I never loved a man (the way I love you)
and Do right Woman, Do right Man which go on to
become mega hits. She follows them up with, Respect
& Dr. Feelgood in April. In July she releases Baby I love you followed by (you make me fell
like) a Natural Woman, and Chain of Fools
in September and November to finish out the year. What a year
for the lady that is called the Queen of Soul.
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"I believe it is the right thing to do, the right time
to do it, the right man, and the right place." Those
were the words spoken by President Johnson as he selected
Thurgood Marshall to be the first black Associate Justice of
the Supreme Court of the United States..
Bank Credit Cards are
catching on and are aimed at middle-income families.
Anacostia Neighborhood Museum
in Washington D.C. becomes the first federally funded black
museum.
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Los Angeles Watts riots lasted for six
days and claimed 35 lives with over 900 injured. Riots occur in
several other African American communities including Cleveland,
Newark, and Boston. The Detroit riots left 43 dead, and over
2000 injured. Another estimated 5000 were arrested for various
crimes associated with the riots.
South Vietnam elects Ngugen
Van Thieu as their president. Meanwhile "in country" U.S. troop
strength reaches 475,000. |
Dr. King stated the election of Mayors
Carl Burton Stokes (Cleveland, Oh) Kevin Hagan White
(Boston, Mass), and Richard Hatcher (Gary, Ind.) was a
"one-two-three punch against backlash and bigotry". | |
1967 |
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The Rolling Stones, another British
Rock n Roll group, is climbing up the Billboard charts. Publicly
they are direct opposites of the "nice guys" Beatles image. The
London papers are asking, "would you want your daughter to
marry a Rolling Stone?" Mick Jagger is captivating as
the energetic lead singer. This group also acknowledges their
sound is based upon the Negro Rhythm n Blues. | |
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Sidney Poitier co-stars withRod Steiger in the classic film "In the
Heat of the Night". This is the film that produced the
slap (Poitier slaps an old guard racist) that reverberates
through out the African American communities. It is one of the
first times an audience has viewed a white man being slapped by
black man
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Historical Events II
