Brooklyn Today for Feb. 13
Good morning. Today is the 44th day of the year. On this day in 1898, African-American leader Booker T. Washington, then head of the Hampton Institute, addressed Plymouth Church in Brooklyn Heights, according to the Brooklyn Daily Eagle. After the pastor of the church spoke, the meeting was kicked off by the Hampton Institute Quartet, who sang “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot.”
Robert C. Ogden, also of the institute, spoke about how apt it was to speak here, since Abraham Lincoln, who abolished slavery, had campaigned at Plymouth Church in 1860. After Washington himself spoke, the meeting ended with the quartet singing “Steal Away.” The Hampton Institute became Hampton University, a historically black college in Hampton, Virginia.
Well-known people who were born today include actress Stockard Channing (“Six Days of Separation,” “House of Blue Leaves”), singer-songwriter Peter Gabriel (“Sledgehammer”), actress Kim Novak (“Bell, Book and Candle,” “Vertigo”), television host and former Cleveland Mayor Jerry Springer and pilot Chuck Yeager.