SANDY KOZEL

Jack Roosevelt Robinson
(January 31, 1919 – October 24, 1972)

On April 15, 1947, Jackie Robinson, age 28, become the first
African American player in Major League Baseball when he
stepped onto Ebbets Field in Brooklyn to compete for the
Brooklyn Dodgers.

Hiram Rhodes Revels (September 27, 1827 – January 16, 1901)

On this day in 1870 Hiram Rhodes Revels, a Republican from
Natchez, Mississippi, was sworn into the U.S. Senate, becoming
the first African American ever to sit in Congress.

During the Civil War, Revels, a college-educated minister, helped
form African American army regiments for the Union cause,
started a school for freed men, and served as a chaplain for the
Union army. Posted to Mississippi, Revels remained in the
former Confederate state after the war and entered into
Reconstruction-era Southern politics.

Hiram Revels taking the oath of office.

Cicely Tyson (December 19, 1924 – January 28, 2021)

(Fox News) – Cicely Tyson, the groundbreaking Emmy and Tony
award-winning actress, has died. The acting icon passed away
on Thursday afternoon. No cause or location was given.

Cicely Tyson holding a baby in a scene from the TV movie: Roots.

Martin Luther King Jr. (January 15, 1929 – April 4, 1968)

King was a Baptist minister and activist who became the most
visible spokesperson and leader in the civil rights movement
from 1955 until his assassination in 1968.

ROCHESTER, N.Y. (AP) — Baby Nancy, the first Black baby doll to have an
Afro and other authentic features, was inducted into the National Toy Hall
of Fame on Thursday, along with sidewalk chalk and the wooden block
game Jenga.

The 2020 honorees were recognized for their creativity and popularity over
time.

They were chosen by a panel of experts from among 12 finalists that also
included bingo, Breyer Horses, Lite-Brite, Masters of the Universe, My
Little Pony , Risk, Sorry!, Tamagotchi, and Yahtzee.

Baby Nancy was the inaugural doll for Shindana Toys, a California company launched in 1968 by Operation Bootstrap Inc., the not-for-profit Black
community self-help organization that emerged in the aftermath of the
Watts riots in Los Angeles.