Week of January 21- 27

January 21

1773—Poet Phyllis Wheatley, born in 1753, was freed on this day in 1773. Kidnapped in Africa and sold as a slave when she was only seven years old, Wheatley would become Black America’s first poet. She grew up in a prosperous Boston family, which allowed her to learn to read. She not only mastered English but also excelled in Greek and Latin. Her first book of poetry received rave reviews in the United States and Europe.

NEW ORLEANS (AP)—Officers shot an unarmed man in the back and then burned his body in a car and doctored a report to conceal their crimes in the chaotic aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, a federal prosecutor said Monday at a trial that will test the government's push to clean up the troubled New Orleans police department.

While prosecutors insisted Katrina offers no excuses, attorneys for the five current or former officers charged in Henry Glover's death have urged jurors to consider the 2005 storm when judging their actions.

STORMY TRIAL— Rev. Audrey Wallace, left, from the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and Rebecca Glover, aunt of Henry Glover, talk outside the courthouse where five New Orleans police officers are on trial in New Orleans, Nov. 10. (Ao Photo/Gerald Herbert)

(NNPA)—A group of Black Ivy League students and graduates claim the owners of a popular club in Cambridge, Mass. unfairly kicked them out because of their ethnicity.

According to Boston NBC affiliate WHDH, an event was held at Cure Lounge by a group of Black Yale and Harvard students on Nov. 18. But the private function, held in celebration of the big Harvard-Yale football game, was shut down just 15 minutes after it started.

While some bouncers blamed the shut-down on technical difficulties, one of the students said he overheard club managers say they spotted “gang bangers” in line to enter, and were allegedly concerned that the Black students and graduates would draw the wrong crowd.

Week of Dec. 10-16

December 10

1846—Norbert Rillieux invents the “multiple effect pan evaporator” which revolutionizes the sugar industry and makes the work much less hazardous for the workers. Rillieux was born “quadroon libre” in New Orleans, La. His father was a wealthy French plantation owner and his mother a former slave. He was sent to Paris, France to be educated in engineering. He also researched Egyptian hieroglyphics. There is no record that he ever returned to the U.S. after the 1850’s. He died in Paris in 1894.

JOE ‘KING’ OLIVER