Today in Black History: May 9th
1960 – Tony Gwynn Was Born
Anthony Keith Gwynn Sr., nicknamed “Mr. Padre”, was an American professional baseball right fielder, who played 20 seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the San Diego Padres. The left-handed hitting Gwynn won eight batting titles in his career, tied for the most in National League (NL) history. He was a 15-time All-Star, recognized for his skills both on offense and defense with seven Silver Slugger Awards and five Gold Glove Awards. Gwynn had the fourth-highest career average of any player with 3,000 hits, and the highest of anyone who was born after 1900. Gwynn played in the only two World Series appearances in San Diego’s franchise history. He was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2007, his first year of eligibility.
1967– Phillippa Duke Schuyler’s Death
Schuyler was born on August 2, 1931, and grew up in Harlem, New York. Schuyler’s parents focused particularly on Philippa’s education, as it was apparent that she was very gifted. At age eight, she tested at an IQ of 185. By age 13 she had written over 100 compositions and for her high school graduation ceremony at age 15, Schuyler wrote “The Rhapsody of Youth” in honor of the inauguration of Haitian president Paul Magloire.
Schuyler’s talents were described in media reports as framed as a result of her parents’ eccentric style of care. For example, giving her a diet of raw food such as liver or brains, and a scrapbook was kept on her, “hybrid experiment.”
As Schuyler entered her thirties, she expanded her career beyond music to working as a journalist like her father. By 1965, she became Manchester Union Leader’s correspondent covering the Vietnam War. Tragically, on May 9, 1967, Schuyler died in Vietnam at the age of 36 when a U.S. Army helicopter she was in crashed into the ocean.
2020– Little Richard’s Death
Richard Wayne Penniman, also known as Little Richard, was a singer, songwriter, and pianist born in 1932 in Macon, Georgia. He found a band when the singer I.A. Harris quit and the members asked Penniman to replace him. He continued the tour with them and was dubbed the title “Little Richard.”
In 1951, nineteen year old Little Richard Penniman signed with RCA Records and recorded his first single, “Every Hour.” In 1957, at the height of his career Penniman underwent a religious conversion, declared that he was a born-again Christian, and announced his retirement from secular music while on tour in Australia. Penniman returned to the United States, and in 1964 started a new act called the Little Richard Show, hiring a little known guitarist named Maurice Jones who later achieved fame as Jimi Hendrix.
In 1986 Penniman was one of the first seven inductees into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He now has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Richard “Little Richard” Penniman passed away at his home in Tullahoma, Tennessee on Saturday, May 9, 2020, from bone cancer.
