Carl Erskine is born. He will become a baseball player for the

Brooklyn Dodgers.

Dewey Pigmeat Markham, comedian, popular for his here comes de judge routine on televisions Laugh-In, dies

Ella Baker is born in Norfolk, Virginia. A civil rights worker who will direct the New York branch of the NAACP, Baker will become executive director of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in the 1960s during student integration of lunch counters in the southern states. She also will play a key role in the formation of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and its voter registration drive in Mississippi.

Archibald Lee Wright is born in Benoit, Mississippi. Better

known as Archie Moore, he will become a boxer and win the light

heavyweight crown in 1952. He will reign as champion until

1960.

The first African American women complete officer training for

the WAVES (Womens Auxiliary Volunteers for Emergency Service).

They had been admitted to the corps two months earlier.

Menelik II of Ethiopia died on December 13, 1913 after a reign that lasted from 1889 to 1913.

METCO (Metropolitan Council for Educational Opportunity), is Americas longest running voluntary school desegregation program.

METCO is a state-funded program to eliminate racial imbalance through the busing of children of color from Boston and Springfield to public school systems in surrounding suburban comunities.

This program was spearheaded by the Boston chapter of the NAACP in the early 1960s.

Daniel A Chapman becomes Ghanas 1st ambassador to the US

Lester Willis Young was a famous jazz saxophonist born in Woodville, Mississippi on August 27, 1909. He belonged to a musically accomplished family. His father was a teacher who taught Young to play the trumpet, violin, drums and the saxophone, and his brother was a drummer. The family relocated to Louisiana and then Minnesota when Lester was very young. The family had their own musical band known as the “Young Family Band” and Lester performed with them until the age of 18. He left the band when they were touring in the South, because of his deep dissatisfaction with the Jim Crow segregation laws in effect there. Young eventually settled in Kansas City in 1933, where he began performing with a number of small time bands. It was here that he met Count Basie, who was a prominent jazz composer and bandleader.

Young became a full time member of Basie’s orchestra and fit in well with their relaxed style of playing. He temporarily left the band to join Fletcher Henderson’s orchestra and then the Andy Kirk band, before rejoining Basie’s band. He was featured on several of their recordings such as “The Kansas City Sessions” and a number of recordings in which he played the clarinet which also featured the famous jazz singer Billie Holiday, who gave Young the nickname of “Pres” (which was short for President). Young stopped playing the clarinet in 1939, when his instrument was stolen and did not take it up again until 1957, when he was gifted one by the jazz producer Norman Granz who urged him to take it up again.

Lester Young left Basie’s band again in 1940 after he refused to play with them in a performance held on December 13, 1940 due to superstitious reasons. After leaving the band, he made a number of recordings with his own band which included his brother Lee Young as the drummer, and featured Billie Holiday and Nat King Cole. He rejoined Basie’s orchestra for 10 months in 1943 and was then drafted into the army during World War II. He was eventually Court martialed when he was found in possession of marijuana

Larry Doby is born. He will become the first African American in

baseballs American League, playing for the Cleveland Indians.

He will be the 1954 RBI leader.

Herman Cain is an experienced American author, politician and businessman, born on December 13, 1945 in Memphis, Tennessee. Born to a cleaning woman and a domestic worker, Cain grew up in a poor family but learnt what he understood as the true meaning of success. Through his father’s hard work, they eventually moved to a better house in the Collier Heights neighborhood of Memphis. Cain is married to a homemaker named Gloria Cain for nearly 45 years and has two children and three grandchildren.

Cain earned a Master’s degree in Computer Science from Purdue University in 1971, interestingly working as a ballistics analyst for the U.S Navy Department at the same time. Finishing his education around the same time, he then entered the corporate sector after taking up a computer systems analyst position with The Coca-Cola Company. In 1978, he left Coca-Cola for Pillsbury, becoming a senior director here for their Restaurants and Foods group.

By age 36, Herman Cain was handling and analyzing close to 400 Burger King Restaurants, mostly in Philadelphia. During the 1980s, his presence in the Burger King franchise reaped tremendous benefits as sales began to increase. Cain’s leadership skills and determination to transform hard work in to productivity and profits lead Pillsbury to appoint him as the next CEO of Godfather’s Pizza. This was the year 1986, and Godfather’s Pizza was in trouble as far as sales, profits and customers went. Cain had a tough job ahead of him, as the once leading Pizza franchise had fallen behind on ratings as far back as 5th. By laying off extra manpower and closing around 200 restaurants, Cain returned Godfather’s Pizza to it’s original standing. Cain was appointed chairman for the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City Omaha Branch for almost two years between 1989 and 1991, and later became a member of the Kansas Federal Reserve Bank. He left Godfather’s Pizza and then became the CEO of the National Restaurant Association, a trade group which had lobbied against increasing the minimum wage and

Herman Cain, Republican Party activist and 2012 Presidential candidate is also a newspaper columnist, popular radio talk show host in Atlanta, and former chairman and CEO of Godfather’s Pizza, a Pillsbury subsidiary.  Cain was born on December 13, 1945 in Memphis, Tennessee, the son of Luther and Lenora Cain.

Cain graduated from Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia in 1967, with a Bachelor of Sciences degree in Mathematics. He received a Masters Degree in Computer Science from Purdue University, in 1971, while working as a mathematician for the U.S. Navy.   

In 1977 Cain joined the Pillsbury Company in Minneapolis. Within five years he had risen to the position of Vice-President of Corporate Systems and Services, making him, at 32, the youngest vice president in the history of the corporation. In 1982 he moved to the Burger King subsidiary of Pillsbury, where he gained a reputation for turning around struggling companies. Four years later Cain led a group of investors in purchasing faltering Godfathers Pizza from Pillsbury.    Rather than investing more money in marketing as traditional business models advised, he focused on improving service to customers. His strategy worked and Godfather’s became a success.  Cain stepped down as Godfathers CEO in 1996.

Cain became President of the National Restaurant Association (NRA) in 1994, where he served for a year.  The NRA is the food service industry’s leading trade organization. After serving as deputy chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City from 1992 to 1994, he was elected chair and served in that role from 1995 to 1996.  

A charismatic speaker, Cain became active in politics in 1994, when he traveled around the country campaigning against President Bill Clinton’s health plan, contending that it would hurt small businesses. Cain entered the political arena in 2000 when he launched an unsuccessful presidential bid.  In 2004 he ran for U.S. Senate in Georgia, but lost out to Congressman Johnny Isakson in the Republican primary. In 2000 he launched The