Today in Black History, former World Heavyweight Boxing Champion Jimmy Ellis was born in 1940.

Jimmy Ellis-Getty Images
Jimmy Ellis-Getty Images
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107 Jamz salutes African Americans who've made & continue to make history through art, music, inventions and more.  To the artists on the canvas or stage, to the poets, the authors, the inventors, innovators and trailblazers, we honor and remember them all, especially every Black History Month.

1811

Daniel Payne was born on this day.  He was the sixth Bishop of AME Church. In 1863 he became the first African American in the Untied States the AME Church bought the college; chosen to lead it, Payne became the first African-American president of a college in the United States and served in that position until 1877.
1864
On this day, Rebecca Lee Crumpler became the first African American woman to receive an M.D. degree and become a doctor in the U.S.  She graduated from the New England Female Medical College and in 1883 her book, A Book of Medical Discourses was one of the first written by an African American about medicine.  Rebecca Lee Crumpler was born in 1833. She worked from 1852-1860 as a nurse in Massachusetts.
1868
On this day President Andrew Johnson became the first sitting president to be impeached. As Vice President, he was next in line after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Johnson opposed the Fourteenth Amendment, which gave citizenship to African-Americans and because of that a conflict between the branches of government grew.  Congress passed the Tenure of Office Act, which restricted Johnson from firing Cabinet officials.
When he went against that and tried to replace Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, with Ulysses S. Grant he was impeached by the House of Representatives.
1940
Former world heavyweight boxing champion Jimmy Ellis was born on this day in Louisville, Kentucky.  Born, James Albert Ellis, won the title after beating Jerry Quarry in April 1968.
http://youtu.be/D1uBdw2cEJg
He retired from at age 35 in 1975, with a record of 40-12-1 (24 KOs). The onetime sparring partner for Muhammad Ali captured the heavyweight boxing championship after it had been stripped from Ali, for his refusing to go to the Army.  He passed away of Alzheimer’s disease on Tuesday in his hometown of Louisville, Ky. He was 74.
http://youtu.be/ltax6sZavyA
1966
Kwame Nkrumah was elected leader and first president of Ghana on this day.  Though he led the Gold Coast's drive for independence from Britain and presided over its emergence as the new nation he would be ousted in a military coup, while he was away on a peace mission to Vietnam.

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