On January 13, 1966, President Lyndon B. Johnson appointed
the first African American cabinet member, making Robert C.
Weaver head of the Department of Housing and Urban
Development (HUD). The agency that develops and
implements national housing policy and enforces fair
housing laws.
 

In keeping with his vision for a Great Society, Johnson
sought to improve race relations and eliminate urban
blight.

As many of the country’s African Americans lived in run-
down inner-city areas, appointing Weaver was an attempt
to show his African American constituency that he meant
business on both counts.

SANDY KOZEL

On January 12,1986, astronaut and physicist Franklin Chang-
Diaz became the first Hispanic American to fly in space on the
Space Shuttle Columbia, which orbited Earth 96 times, deployed
the SATCOM KU satellite used for broadcast television and
conducted experiments in astrophysics. It was a high point in
an aeronautical career with plenty of high points.

That six-day flight was the first of his seven space missions,
tying the record for most space flights held by astronaut Jerry
Ross.

Franklin Ramon Chang-Díaz will be 76 in
April.

Freeman Gosden (“Amos”) and Charles Carrell (“Andy”).

On January 12, 1926, the two-man comedy series “Sam ‘n’ Henry”
debuted on Chicago’s WGN radio station. Two years later, after
changing its name to “Amos ‘n’ Andy,” the show becomes one
of the most popular radio programs in American history.

Though the creators and the stars of the new radio program,
Freeman Gosden and Charles Carrell were both white, the
characters they played were two Black men from the Deep
South who moved to Chicago to seek their fortunes.        
       

Gosden and Correll celebrate the tenth anniversary of the
show on NBC in March 1938.

On January 11, 1964, United States Surgeon General Luther
Terry (above) released a groundbreaking government report
announcing a definitive link between smoking and cancer.

Knowing his report was a bombshell, Terry intentionally
chose to release it on that date, which fell on a Saturday,
in order to limit its immediate effects on the stock market.

The link had long been suspected. Anecdotal evidence
had always pointed to negative health effects from
smoking, and by the 1930s physicians were noticing
an increase in lung cancer cases.