I.D. Shadd elected Speaker of the lower house of the Mississippi legislature.

Julian Bond, 59,legislator, civil rights leader, born Nashville, Tn, Jan 14, 1940.

Biologist and pioneer of cell divsion, Ernest E Just, serves as V.P. of American Zoologists

January 14, 1878, Decided; OCTOBER, 1877 Term

MR. CHIEF JUSTICE WAITE delivered the opinion of the court.

For the purposes of this case, we must treat the act of Louisiana of Feb. 23, 1869, as requiring those engaged in inter-state commerce to give all persons traveling in that State, upon the public conveyances employed in such business, equal rights and privileges in all parts of the conveyance, without distinction or discrimination on account of race or color. Such was the construction given to that act in the courts below, and it is conclusive upon us as the construction of a State law by the State courts. It is with this provision of the statute alone that we have to deal. We have nothing whatever to do with it as a regulation of internal commerce, or as affecting any thing else than commerce among the States.

There can be no doubt but that exclusive power has been conferred upon Congress in respect to the regulation of commerce among the several States. The difficulty has never been as to the existence of this power, but as to what is to be deemed an encroachment upon it; for, as has been often said, legislation may in a great variety of ways affect commerce and persons engaged in it without constituting a regulation of it within the meaning of the Constitution. Sherlock v. Alling, 93 U.S. 103; State Tax on Railway Gross Receipts, 15 Wall. 284. Thus, in Munn v. Illinois, 94 U.S. 113, it was decided that a State might regulate the charges of public warehouses, and in Chicago, Burlington, & Quincy Railroad Co. v. Iowa, id. 155, of railroads situate entirely within the State, even though those engaged in commerce among the States might sometimes use the warehouses or the railroads in the prosecution of their business. So, too, it has been held that States may authorize the construction of dams and bridges across navigable streams situate entirely within their respective jurisdictions. Willson v. Blackbird Creek Marsh Co., 2 Pet. 245; Pound v. Turck, supra, p. 459; Gilman v. Philadelphia, 3 Wall. 713. The

Harve B. Gantt, the first African American student to enroll at Clemson University in Charleston, South Carolina. Gantt became mayor pro tem of Charleston in 1983 and later served as mayor of Charlotte from 1983 to 1987.

Gantt, architect and politician, was born January 14, 1943 in Charleston, South Carolina to Christopher and Wilhelmenia Gantt.

Franklin Raines was born in Seattle on January 14, 1949, and graduated from Franklin High School in Seattle.

He was born in Nashville, Tennessee, on January 14, 1940 to Julia Agnes and Horace Mann Bond.

P.B.S. Pinchback elected to the U. S. Senate. Since he had previously been elected to Congress, he went to Washington with the unique distinction of being both a senator-elect and a congressman-elect.

Lincoln University is a public university located in Jefferson City, the capital of Missouri. It is a member of the Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), and was founded in 1866 by members of the 62nd and 65th United States Colored Infantry and as such is the only black college founded by African American members of the U.S. Army.  At the end of the Civil War, members of the 62nd Colored Infantry (made up mostly of Missourians) decided to found a school when they returned to Jefferson City. They stipulated that the institution be created for the explicit benefit of African Americans, that it be located in Missouri, and that it combine classical and vocational education. The soldiers contributed the first funds that allowed the institution to open on January 14, 1866.

Richard Baxter, who was a first lieutenant in the 62nd Colored Infantry, became the first President when the Lincoln Institute opened its doors on January 14. The Institute began receiving state aid in 1870, and in 1879 formally became a state institution, when it deeded its property to Missouri. Under the Morrill Act of 1890 it became a land-grant institution and industrial and agricultural classes were added.

In 1877 Lincoln began to offer college course-work. In 1921 its name was changed by the Missouri Legislature to Lincoln University. Its four-year college of arts and sciences was accredited in 1934 by the North Central Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools. The graduate division was added in 1940. In 1954, with the passage of Brown v. Board of Education, Lincoln opened its doors to all who met its admission criteria, regardless of race.

Lincoln currently has an enrollment of approximately 3,000 students, 90% of whom are undergraduates. It offers Bachelor, Associate, and Masters degrees, as well as Post-Masters Certification. The most commonly chosen majors for undergraduates are in Business, Nursing, and Education. Computer Science and Engineering and Security and Law Enforcement are also popular fields of study.

In Richmond, Virginia former Lt. Governor Lawrence Douglas Wilder took office as the first popularly elected African American governor of an American state.

Carl Weathers, 51, actor (Rocky), (In the Heat of the Night), born New Orleans, LA, Jan 14, 1948.

Carol Moseley Braun was born in Chicago, Illinois on August 16, 1947. She attended the Chicago Public Schools and received a degree from the University of Illinois in 1969.  She earned her degree from the University of Chicago Law School in 1972.

Moseley Braun served as assistant prosecutor in the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Chicago from 1972 to 1978. In the latter year she was elected to the Illinois House of Representatives and served in that body for ten years. During her tenure Moseley Braun made educational reform a priority. She also became the first African American assistant majority leader in the history of the Illinois legislature.  Moseley Braun returned to Chicago in 1988 to serve as Cook County Recorder of Deeds.

Capitalizing on the public furor over the Clarence Thomas-Anita Hill controversy and in particular the way in which Hill was treated by U.S. Senators, Carol Moseley Braun upset incumbent Senator Alan Dixon in the Illinois Democratic Primary in 1992 and went on to become the first female Senator elected from Illinois and the first African American woman in the U.S. Senate.  During her term in the U.S. Senate (1992-1998) Moseley Braun focused on education issues.  She served on the Senate Finance, Banking and Judiciary Committee; the Small Business Committee; and the Housing and Urban Affairs Committee.

In 1998, Moseley Braun was defeated for re-election in a campaign marred by allegations of illegal campaign donations during her 1992 campaign, although she was never formally charged with misconduct. Moseley Braun was also hurt by her business ties to Nigerian dictator Sami Abacha.  After her 1998 defeat President Bill Clinton nominated Moseley Braun to the post of U.S. Ambassador to New Zealand and Samoa, a post she held until 2001.

Late in 2003 Moseley Braun announced her candidacy for the Democratic Nomination for President.  However, she failed to attract financial support and withdrew from the race on January 14, 2004.

After teaching briefly at Morris Brown College in Atlanta, Georgia,

William T. Coleman is named Secretary of Transportation by President Gerald R. Ford. He is the second African American to hold a Cabinet level position

novelist, John Oliver Killens was born, 1916

James Frank, president of Lincoln University in Jefferson City, Mo. is installed as the first African American president of the National Collegiate Athletic Association

Blacks organized the National Steamboat Company in Washington, D.C. The company sailed a steamboat, the George Leary, between DC and Norfolk, Virginia. The luxury boat held a capacity of 1,500 passengers and included three decks, sixty-four state rooms, on hundred berths, and a dining room.

South Carolina constitutional convention, the first official assembly in the West with a Black majority, met in the Charleston Clubhouse with seventy-six Black delegates and forty-eight white delegates. Two-thirds of the Black delegates were former slaves. A New York Herald reporter wrote: Here in Charleston is being enacted the most incredible, hopeful, and yet unbelievable experiment in all the history of mankind.

In December 2010, a college graduate who worked as a street vendor set himself on fire in the city of Sidi Bouzid to protest unemployment, corruption and the continued police state. A spate of other protests followed and spread throughout the country. As many as 10,000 people took to the streets of Tunis, the capital. President Ben Ali attempted to quell the protests with a promise of new elections—but not until 2014—and the creation of 300,000 jobs, but the demonstrations continued and the police retaliated with live gunfire, batons, and tear gas. As many as 80 protesters died in the violence.

After 23 years in power, Ben Ali stepped down and left the country on January 14, 2011. His resignation only complicated the political unrest in Tunisia. Prime Minister Mohamed Ghannouchi said he would assume power, but the following day backed down from that plan and set up a unity government with Fouad Mebazaa, speaker of Parliament, as interim president. The opposition rejected the government and continued their protests, saying high-level posts were given to members of Ben Alis party, while low-ranking ministries were reserved for the opposition. On Feb. 27, Prime Minister Ghannouchi resigned amid ongoing protests and continued criticism that he was too closely linked to the Ben Ali regime. He was replaced by Beji Caid-Essebsi, a former government minister. He responded to demands of the opposition and lifted the 20-year ban on the main Islamist party and froze the assets of Ben Ali. He did not, however, dissolve Parliament or suspend the constitution.

In June, Ben Ali and his wife, Leila Trabelsi, were found guilty in absentia of corruption and sentenced to 35 years in prison and fined $66 million.

North Carolina constitutional convention (15 Blacks, 118 whites) met in Releigh.

By 1963 Alabama Governor George Corley Wallace had emerged as the leading opponent to the growing civil rights movement.  Six months later he gained international notoriety for his stand in the door of the University of Alabama to block the entrance of two black students, Vivian Malone and James Hood, who had been order admitted by a federal judge.  Between 1964 and 1976 Wallace ran for President four times (three as a Democrat and once as an Independent) exploiting what he believed was a deep-seated aversion to racial integration among Northerners as well as Southerners.  Long before these events, he would at his inauguration as Governor on January 14, 1963, lay out his opposition to integration and the civil rights movement.  His excerpted speech appears below.

Today I have stood, where once Jefferson Davis stood, and took an oath to my people. It is very appropriate then that from this Cradle of the Confederacy, this very Heart of the Great Anglo-Saxon Southland, that today we sound the drum for freedom as have our generations of forebears before us done, time and time again through history. Let us rise to the call of freedom- loving blood that is in us and send our answer to the tyranny that clanks its chains upon the South. In the name of the greatest people that have ever trod this earth, I draw the line in the dust and toss the gauntlet before the feet of tyranny . . . and I say . . . segregation today . . . segregation tomorrow . . . segregation forever.

The Washington, D.C. school riot report is disgusting and revealing. We will not sacrifice our children to any such type school system--and you can write that down. The federal troops in Mississippi could be better used guarding the safety of the citizens of Washington, D.C., where it is even unsafe to walk or go to a ballgame--and that is the nations capitol. I was safer in a B-29 bomber over Japan during the war in an air raid, than the people of Washington are walking to the White House neighborhood. A closer example is Atlanta. The city officials

Horace G. Dawson, Jr. was appointed U.S. Ambassador to Botswana by President Jimmy Carter in 1979.  After his confirmation by the U.S. Senate he served in that post until 1983.  Dawson was born in Augusta, Georgia on January 30, 1926.  He attended Lincoln University in Pennsylvania where he earned a B.A. in English in 1949, M.A. in comparative literature in English from Columbia University in 1950, and a Ph.D. in mass communications from the University of Iowa in 1961. Dawson was awarded an honorary Doctorate of Laws degree from Lincoln University in 1991.

Dawson was drafted into the U.S. Army while working on his undergraduate degree. He served two years of duty in both Europe and the Philippines before returning to complete his bachelor’s degree at Lincoln University.

In 1950 Dawson began his professional career teaching English at Southern University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. In 1951 he secured a position at North Carolina Central University teaching English and serving as the institution’s public relations director, remaining there for the next decade.  

In 1962 Edward R. Murrow, then Director of the United States Information Agency (USIA) persuaded Dawson to leave university teaching and join his agency. Dawson did so and was assigned his first overseas post (1964-1967) as USIS (the agency was called the United States Information Service outside the United States) officer at the U.S. Embassy in Kampala, Uganda. He served as the cultural affairs officer where his primary responsibilities included identifying and interpreting major stories in the U.S. press to Ugandan reporters and more generally keeping the Ugandan government and people aware of U.S. interests in maintaining democratic institutions in nations around the world.  Dawson drew upon his academic experience to help promote cultural exchange and cultural understanding in Uganda through two publications, Press Time, USA, and Uganda Calling, that were published at Uganda’s Makerere University. Dawson later served in similar roles at the U.S.

Carl Weathers is an American actor and former professional football player. He was born on January 14, 1948 in New Orleans and graduated from Long Beach Polytechnic High School in 1966. He registered at Long Beach City College but could not play football there due to an ankle injury. He then transferred to San Diego State University where he played from 1966 to 1969. His professional career started with a brief stint with the Oakland Raiders in 1970 and 1971 before transferring to the Canadian Football League. He retired from football in 1974 in order to pursue his acting career.

He started acting by first appearing in two blaxploitation films, namely “Bucktown” and “Friday Foster” in 1975. He made a guest appearance on an episode of the television series “Kung Fu”. He also appeared on the first four “Rocky” films with Sylvester Stallone in 1976, 1979, 1982 and 1985. His character died in the fourth film and Sylvester Stallone asked Weathers for permission to use some footage of him from the earlier movies for the final film. Weathers wanted to appear in person for those scenes but Stallone refused and Weathers subsequently refused to give Stallone permission to use his earlier footage in the final film.

In 1978, Carl Weathers appeared in a television movie called “Not This Time” and also in a number of action films including “Force 10 from Navarone” in 1978, “Predator” with  Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jesse Ventura in 1987, “Action Jackson” in 1988 and “Hurricane Smith” in 1992. He appeared in Michael Jackson’s music video for the song  “Liberian Girl” and appeared on two Adam Sandler films “Happy Gilmore” and “Little Nicky”. He made small appearances in a parody sketch on the hit comedy sketch show “Saturday Night Live” announcing that he was running for a political office and urging viewers to vote for him.

Weathers played the role of Hampton Forbes, the chief of police, on the final season of the television show “In the Heat of the Night” as a replacement for Bill Gillespie and reprised this role in the

Sansford and Son TV Premiere Jan 14, 1972. NBC sitcom which gained immediate popularity depicting an African-American Father and son engaged in the junkyard business. Norman Lear and Bud Yorkin developed the comedy series based on the British Steptoe and Son. The name Sanford came from John Sanford, the real name of comedian Redd Foxx, who played Fred Sanford. His son, Lamont, was played by Demond Wilson.