1936
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Pan-African Chronology
January 20-24
*The First Battle of Tembien stopped the progress of the Ethiopian offensive and the Italians were ready to continue their offensive (January 20-24).
February 17
*Football player Jim Brown was born on Saint Simons Island, Georgia. A record-breaking offensive back for the Cleveland Browns, he would later star in films and founded the Negro Industrial and Economic Union.
February 21
*Barbara Jordan, a three-term United States representative, was born in Houston, Texas. She would become the first African American to make the keynote speech at the Democratic National Convention.
March 6
*Marion Barry, a civil rights activist and four term mayor of Washington, D. C., was born in Itta Bena, Mississippi.
March 7
*Hitler took advantage of the crisis over Italy's invasion of Ethiopia to reoccupy the Rhineland.
March 24
*Don Covay, a singer and songwriter who composed "Chain of Fools".
*Kalaparusha McIntyre, a free jazz tenor saxophonist was born in Clarksville, Arkansas.
April 6
*In South Africa, the Cape African franchise was abolished.
April 28
*King Ahmed Fuad (age 68) of Egypt died. He was succeeded by his 16 year old son Farouk.
May 2
*The Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie went into exile.
May 2
*The Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie went into exile.
May 5
*Italian troops seized Addis Adaba, Abyssinia (Ethiopia).
May 9
*Italian dictator Benito Mussolini proclaimed his Africa Orientale Italiana (AOI, Italian East African Empire), formed from the newly occupied Ethiopia and the colonies of Italian Eritrea and Italian Somaliland.
June 30
*The Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie appealed to the League of Nations in person, "to claim the justice that is due to my people". He prophetically added, "It is us today; it will be you tomorrow."
July 3
*John Hope was honored in New York City by the NAACP for his achievements as an eduational and civil rights leader.
July 12
*Actress Rose McClendon died in New York City. Famous for her roles in Deep River, In Abraham's Bosom, and Porgy, she helped found the Negro People's Theater and the Rose McClendon Players.
August 9
*African Americans reacted warmly to the news that Jesse Owens, an African American track star, had won four gold medals at the Summer Olympics held in Berlin, Germany.
August 21
*Basketball player and coach Wilt Chamberlain was born in Philadelphia. He would be widely regarded as the best offensive player in basketball history.
August 31
*Educator Marva Collins was born in Monroeville, Alabama (August 31). She would start Westside Preparatory School in one of Chicago's poorest neighborhoods.
October 19
*Educator Johnnetta Betsch Cole was born in Jacksonville, Florida. She would become the first African American female president of Spelman College.
October 20
*Political activist Bobby Seale was born in Dallas, Texas. He would co-found the Black Panther Party with Huey P. Newton.
November 4
December 8
*The case of Gibbs v. Board of Education of Montgomery County, Maryland, was filed by the NAACP. The decision set the precedent for equalizing the salaries of African American and European American school teachers.
*President Franklin D. Roosevelt, continuing to organize his unofficial "Black Cabinet," appointed Mary McLeod Bethune director of the Division of Negro Affairs of the National Youth Administration
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The United States
Father Divine
On December 16, John Hunt, a white millionaire and disciple from California calling himself John the Revelator, met the Jewett family of Denver, Colorado. He kidnapped their 17-year-old daughter Delight and took her back to California without her parents' consent. Renaming her "Virgin Mary", John the Revelator began sexual relations with her. He announced that she would give birth to a "New Redeemer" by "immaculate conception" in Hawaii. Father Divine summoned Hunt to New York, separated the couple and chastised his eccentric follower. The Jewetts, finding their daughter apparently brainwashed into believing she was literally the Virgin Mary, demanded compensation. After the movement's attorneys conducted an internal investigation, they refused. Outraged, the Jewetts offered their story to William Randolph Hearst's New York Evening Journal, an established critic of the movement. After a manhunt and trial, John Hunt was sentenced to three years and adopted a new name, the "Prodigal Son". Father Divine publicly endorsed the conviction of John the Revelator, contrary to some expectations (some followers expected him to once again "smite" the judge). However, the scandal brought bad publicity to Father Divine. News coverage implied his followers were gullible and dangerous.
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Du Bois took a trip around the world in 1936, which included visits to Nazi Germany, China and Japan. While in Germany, Du Bois remarked that he was treated with warmth and respect. After his return to the United States, he expressed his ambivalence about the Nazi regime. He admired how the Nazis had improved the German economy, but he was horrified by their treatment of the Jewish people, which he described as "an attack on civilization, comparable only to such horrors as the Spanish Inquisition and the African slave trade."
Following the 1905 Japanese victory in the Russo-Japanese War, Du Bois became impressed by the growing strength of Imperial Japan. He considered the victory of Japan over Tsarist Russia as an example of colored peoples defeating white peoples. A representative of Japan's "Negro Propaganda Operations" traveled to the United States during the 1920s and 1930s, meeting with Du Bois and giving him a positive impression of Imperial Japan's racial policies. In 1936, the Japanese ambassador arranged a trip to Japan for Du Bois and a small group of academics.
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Awards
*The NAACP presented the Spingarn Medal posthumously to John Hope, president and founder of the Atlanta University system (July 3).
Hope was a founder of the Atlanta University Center, which comprises Morehouse College, an undergraduate school for men; Spelman College, an undergraduate school for women; and Atlanta University, a co-educational graduate school which was founded in 1929. In later years, three other African American colleges in Atlanta -- Clark, Morris Brown, and a theological seminary (all co-educational) -- joined the complex, making it the largest educational center for people of African descent in the world.
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Black Enterprise
*The National Negro Congress was organized in Chicago to work for better business and economic opportunities for African Americans. The 817 delegates from more than 500 organizations elected A. Philip Randolph of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters as president.
The National Negro Congress (NNC) was founded by intellectuals at Howard University. They organized a coalition of religious, labor, fraternal and civic groups to work for a better economic situation for African Americans. The first meeting of the NNC took place in Chicago. 817 delegates representing states and organizations attended. A. Philip Randolph was elected president and John P. Davis, executive secretary. Local branches were established. The organization: (1) condemned any form of discrimination practiced against foreign-born African Americans; (2) opposed any attempt at deporting foreign-born African Americans or dropping them from relief; (3) sought to bring about a better relationship between foreign-born African Americans and native born African Americans; (4) supported foreign-born African Americans in their struggle for economic and political freedom in their respective homes; (5) tried to bring about an international congress to establish better relations among African Americans throughout the world.
Members of the Communist Party such as James W. Ford, helped to found the National Negro Congress, but Communist influence was not dominant at its inception in Chicago. At the first meeting, the executive secretary of the NNC, John P. Davis, suggested acceptance of the Communist program, especially in foreign affairs. In the following year, the NNC showed a moderate labor-oriented stance. By the 1940 meeting in Washington, however, Communists were in complete control. The meeting passed several anti-war and anti-Roosevelt resolutions. Membership dwindled rapidly. A. Philip Randolph, president of the NNC, refused to stand for re-election because of the Communist influence in the organization. Ralph Bunche also became disillusioned at the 1940 meeting.
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The Communist Party
*The American Communist Party established the Negro People's Committee to Aid Spanish Democracy when the Spanish Civil War broke out. The Committee had several branches, one headed by Lester P. Granger of the Urban League, until he determined that he had not control over the committee.
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*In the 1934 case of Brown, Ellington, Shields v. State of Mississippi, three African American farm laborers had been sentenced to death for murder. The only evidence was a confession by Ellington made under torture. When asked ho severely he had whipped Ellington, the deputy sheriff stated, "Not too much for a Negro; not as much as I would have done if it were left to me." The convictions were upheld by the Mississippi Supreme Court, the NAACP brought the case to the United States Supreme Court, where the conviction was reversed.
*The NAACP represented Donald Murray in his attempt to be admitted to the University of Maryland Law School. The Supreme Court in Pearson v. Murray ruled that Murray should be admitted. He graduated in 1938.
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*Arna Bontemp's novel Black Thunder, based on the 1800 slave revolt led by Gabriel Prosser, was published and hailed by the Crisis as "the best historical novel written by an American Negro."
Black Thunder, by Arna Bontemps, is based on the slave insurrection of Gabriel Prosser (1800) and is notable for its accuracy and the objectivity with which it handles the slavery issue. A. B. Spingarn in Crisis called it "the best historical novel written by an American Negro."
*The African American novelist, O'Wendell Shaw, published Greater Need Below, the first novel to deal with African American college life. Shaw exposed the appalling education given African Americans at the tax-supported African American colleges in the South. Their curricula were oriented to debase the African American and their administrators were liaison men between African American coeds and European American businessmen in the community. African American colleges and their African American faculty and student bodies were humiliated by their European American benefactors.
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Movies
*The movie version of The Green Pastures was released, featuring Eddie "Rochester" Anderson and Rex Ingram as "De Lawd."
*The movie The Big Broadcast of 1937 was widely criticized for showing a European American pianist on screen while Teddy Wilson, a black pianist, played the music off screen. Critics felt Wilson's talent as being exploited.
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The NAACP
*The NAACP prompted the case of Gibbs v. Board of Education of Montgomery County, Maryland, which set a precedent for offering equal salaries to black and white schoolteachers.
*The NAACP presented the Spingarn Medal posthumously to John Hope, president and founder of the Atlanta University system.
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Notable Births
*Marion Barry, a civil rights activist and four term mayor of Washington, D. C., was born in Itta Bena, Mississippi (March 6).
Marion Barry, in full Marion Shepilov Barry, Jr. (b. March 6, 1936, Itta Bena, Mississippi — d. November 23, 2014, Washington, D.C.), American civil rights activist and politician who served four terms as mayor of Washington, D.C. Barry received a bachelor’s degree from LeMoyne College (1958) and a master’s degree from Fisk University (1960). He was a founding member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and was selected as its first national chairman. In 1971 Barry was elected to the Washington, D.C., city school board and in 1974 won a seat on the city council. He was elected mayor in 1978 and twice won reelection, in 1982 and 1986, serving as a strong advocate of statehood for the District of Columbia. In 1990 Barry was convicted of a misdemeanor drug charge and sentenced to six months in prison. Following his release from prison, Barry reentered politics in Washington, D.C., winning a seat on the city council in 1992. In 1994 he was once again elected mayor; he left office after his term expired. In 2004 he was elected to the Washington, D.C., city council, and he was reelected in 2008 and 2012. He wrote (with Omar Tyree) the autobiography Mayor for Life (2014).
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*Football player Jim Brown was born on Saint Simons Island, Georgia (February 17). A record-breaking offensive back for the Cleveland Browns, he would later star in films and founded the Negro Industrial and Economic Union.
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*Basketball player and coach Wilt Chamberlain was born in Philadelphia (August 21). He would be widely regarded as the best offensive player in basketball history.
Wilt Chamberlain was born in Philadelphia and attended the University of Kansas. Twice voted All-American, he left college to play with the Harlem Globetrotters. In 1959, he signed with the Philadelphia Warriors of the NBA, and in his first season with the team broke the league scoring record.
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*Educator Johnnetta Betsch Cole was born in Jacksonville, Florida (October 19). She would become the first African American female president of Spelman College.
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*Educator Marva Collins was born in Monroeville, Alabama (August 31). She would start Westside Preparatory School in one of Chicago's poorest neighborhoods.
Marva Collins, née Marva Delores Knight (b. August 31, 1936, Monroeville, Alabama —d. June 24, 2015, Bluffton, South Carolina), was an educator who broke with a public school system she found to be failing inner-city children and established her own rigorous system and practice to cultivate her students’ independence and accomplishment.
Marva Knight attended the Bethlehem Academy, a strict school that proved to have an influence on the development of her later educational methods. She studied secretarial sciences at Clark College in Atlanta but was unable to work as a secretary because of her race. From 1957 she taught bookkeeping, typing, shorthand, and business law at Monroe County Training School. She moved to Chicago in 1959 and married Clarence Collins.
In 1961 Marva Collins began working for the Chicago school system. Dissatisfied with its apathy, neglect, and hostility toward inner-city students, most of whom were poor and black, Collins set high standards for her pupils and adopted unorthodox teaching methods. She relied on such traditional methods as memorization, and to inspire her students to read she assigned them classic texts that others considered too challenging.
In 1975 Collins left the Chicago school system to found the private Daniel Hale Williams Westside Preparatory School. With financial assistance from the government-funded Alternative Schools Network, she began with four students. Within a year enrollment had increased to 20 students, most of whom were considered uneducable by the standards of Chicago public schools.
In 1979 Westside Prep gained national prominence following a story and interview with Collins on the television news show 60 Minutes. Highly laudatory coverage followed in such magazines as Time, Jet, Newsweek, and Black Enterprise. In 1981, CBS aired The Marva Collins Story. Collins refused several offers for powerful positions, including United States Secretary of Education and superintendent of the Los Angeles school system, choosing to remain with her school.
In 1982 an educational magazine accused Collins of inflating test scores; she was also charged with plagiarism, harassing parents about tuition payments, and fueling right-wing attacks on public education. Despite the controversy, she retained many supporters and began a teacher-training program to impart her methods to other inner-city teachers. Collins later resigned her position at the school but continued working with the Westside Prep staff and traveled widely to promote her ideas. The school was closed in 2008 owing to a shortage of funds.
In 2004 President George W. Bush awarded Collins the prestigious National Humanities Medal. Collins recounted her career in Marva Collins’ Way (1982, reissued 1990), written with Civia Tamarkin.
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*Don Covay, a singer and songwriter who composed "Chain of Fools" (March 24).
Donald James Randolph (March 24, 1936 – January 31, 2015), better known by his stage name Don Covay, was an American R&B, rock and roll and soul singer and songwriter most active from the 1950s to the 1970s. His most successful recordings included "Mercy, Mercy" (1964), "See-Saw" (1965), and "It's Better To Have (And Don't Need)" (1974). Other songs written by Covay included "Pony Time", a United States #1 hit for Chubby Checker, and "Chain of Fools", a Grammy-winning song for Aretha Franklin. He received a Pioneer Award from the Rhythm and Blues Foundation in 1994.
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*Barbara Jordan, a three-term United States representative, was born in Houston, Texas (February 21). She would become the first African American to make the keynote speech at the Democratic National Convention.
*Kalaparusha McIntyre, a free jazz tenor saxophonist was born in Clarksville, Arkansas (March 24).
Kalaparusha Maurice McIntyre (March 24, 1936 – November 9, 2013) was an American free jazz tenor saxophonist.
McIntyre, who was born in Clarksville, Arkansas but raised in Chicago, studied at the Chicago College of Music, and during the 1960s began playing with musicians such as Malachi Favors, Muhal Richard Abrams, and Roscoe Mitchell. Along with them he became a member of the ensemble Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians in the mid-1960s. His first solo record appeared in 1969. During this time he also recorded as a session musician for Delmark Records, playing with George Freeman, J.B. Hutto, and Little Milton, among others.
McIntyre moved to New York City in the 1970s, playing at Sam Rivers' Riveba Studios and teaching at Karl Berger's Creative Studio. He and Muhal Richard Abrams toured Europe several times. After his 1981 live album, McIntyre recorded very little, playing on the streets and in the subways of New York. His next major appearance on record was not until 1998, with Pheeroan akLaff and Michael Logan. The following year, he played with many AACM ensemble members on the album Bright Moments. He continued to release as a leader into the 2000s.
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*Political activist Bobby Seale was born in Dallas, Texas (October 20). He would co-found the Black Panther Party with Huey P. Newton.
Notable Deaths
*There were eight recorded lynchings of African Americans in 1936.
*Actress Rose McClendon died in New York City (July 12). Famous for her roles in Deep River, In Abraham's Bosom, and Porgy, she helped found the Negro People's Theater and the Rose McClendon Players.
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Performing Arts
*Composer William Grant Still was guest conductor of the Los Angeles Symphony Orchestra in the Hollywood Bowl, the first African American to lead a major symphonic orchestra.
William G. Still was the first African American to lead a major symphony orchestra when he was guest conductor of the Los Angeles Symphony Orchestra in the Hollywood Bowl. Still was a composer of operas and symphonies and an arranger for Broadway shows, radio and motion pictures.
Born in Woodville, Mississippi, Still studied at Wilberforce University, Oberlin Conservatory of Music, and the New England Conservatory of Music. Still worked in a great variety of musical settings, from playing in dance and theater orchestras, to supplying arrangements of popular music for African American show people, and was a prolific composer in the art-music tradition. In 1936, Still was the first African American to conduct a major symphony orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and became the first African American to have an opera performed by a major opera company in 1949, when New York City Opera put on Troubled Island.
*Count Basie made his first appearance in New York City at the Roseland Ballroom.
*Langston Hughes' Troubled Island opened on Broadway.
*Walk Together, by Frank Wilson, an African American playwright, ran 29 performances at the Lafayette in Harlem and inaugurated the Federal Theater Project in New York City.
*Macbeth, the most highly acclaimed production of the entire Federal Theater Project in Harlem, included Canada Lee in the cast and was produced by John Houseman and Orson Welles.
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Politics
*A United States Senator from South Carolina and the mayor of Charleston walked out of the Democratic National Convention in protest when an African American minister offered a prayer at the opening of a session. Later, the South Carolina delegation officially protested the presence of African Americans at the convention.
*Mary McLeod Bethune became director of the Division of Negro Affairs in President Roosevelt's National Youth Administration.
*The platforms of the Democratic, Prohibition, Socialist Labor and Union parties made no mention of the African American.
*At the Democratic National Convention, "Cotton Ed" Smith, South Carolina Senator, and Mayor Burnet Maybank of Charleston walked out while an African American minister was opening a session with a prayer. Smith said he would not support "any political organization that looks upon the Negro and caters to him as a political and social equal." Smith later walked out on a speech of African American Congressperson Mitchell of Illinois. The South Carolina delegation officially protested the presence of African Americans.
*The Republican Party platform said, "We favor equal opportunity for our colored citizens. We pledge our protection of their economic status and personal safety. We will do our best to further their employment in the gainful occupied life of America, particularly in private industry, agriculture, emergency agencies and the civil service. We condemn the present New Deal policies which would regiment and ultimately eliminate the colored citizen from the country's productive life, and make him solely a ward of the Federal Government."
Crisis condemned the Republican Party's pledge of "protection" of the African Americans' economic status: "That is precisely what the Negroes do not want. His present economic status is the chief cause of his discontent."
African Americans did not like the Democratic platform any better than the Republican one, but they had some faith in Roosevelt's personal attitudes. Joel Spingarn, president of the NAACP, endorsed Roosevelt because "he has done more for the Negro than any Republican President since Lincoln." Crisis, the NAACP journal, said, "Even with their failures, they [the New Deal relief administrators, especially Harry Hopkins] have made great gains for the race in areas which heretofore have set their faces steadfastly against decent relief for Negroes."
*The Communist Party platform read: "The Negro people suffer doubly. Most exploited of working people, they are also victims of jim crowism and lynching. They are denied the right to live as human beings." The party endorsed "abolition of poll taxes and other limitations of the right to vote." It demanded the release of political prisoners, among them Tom Mooney, Angelo Herndon and the Scottsboro boys. The party's platform continued: "We demand that the Negro people be guaranteed complete equality, equal rights to jobs, equal pay for work, the full right to organize, vote, serve on juries, and hold public office. Segregation and discrimination against Negroes must be declared a crime. Heavy penalties must be established against mob rule, floggers and kidnappers, with a death penalty for lynchers. We demand the enforcement of the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments to the Constitution." James W. Ford was again Vice Presidential candidate on the Communist ticket.
*the Socialist Party platform said that under Democratic rule, "lynching, race discrimination and the development of Fascist trends have continued unabated. Against these infringements of human rights the Democratic administration has kept an ominous silence."
*In Chicago, 49% of the African American vote went to Roosevelt. In 1940, this vote increased to 52%.
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Publications
*Louis E. Martin founded the Michigan Chronicle, a black newspaper.
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Sports
*African Americans reacted warmly to the news that Jesse Owens, an African American track star, had won four gold medals at the Summer Olympics held in Berlin, Germany (August 9).
In 1936, Jesse Owens from Ohio State University won four gold medals at the Berlin Olympics and infuriated German Chancellor Adolf Hitler, who preached the mental and physical supremacy of Aryan whites over all other racial types. Owens won gold medals in the 100 and 200 meter dashes. In the 200 meter dash, he set an Olympic record. Owens also set a world and Olympic record in the long jump, and world record in the 400 meter relay with Ralph Metcalfe.
Owens' first-place victories embarrassed Adolf Hitler, who championed the theory of Aryan racial superiority. Owens was born in Ohio in 1913. He began competing in track and field at the Fairmount Junior High School in Cleveland and continued through his years at Ohio State University. Owens was a student at Ohio State when he won the 100-meter dash, the 200-meter dash, the long jump, and anchored the victorious 400-meter relay at the 1936 Olympics. The Associated Press designated Owens "the outstanding track athlete of the first 50 years of the 20th century."
*Jesse Owens won four gold medals in track events at the Berlin Olympics. Other African Americans earning gold medals were John Woodruff in the 800-meter run and Archie Williams in the 400 meter run.
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Statistics
*The average annual income per family in 1936 was, in the urban North, $1,227 for African Americans and $2,616 for European Americans; in the urban South, $635 for African Americans and $2,019 for European Americans; and, in the rural South, $556 for African Americans and $1,535 for European Americans.
*Of the urban African American work force, 36% of the African American males and 28% of the female were unemployed or in emergency work. For the European American urban work force the figures were 21% and 19%.
*An average dwelling unit for an African American family had three rooms; for a European American family, 5 to 6 rooms.
*A survey of housing in four small Southern cities among non-relief families found that 60% of European American dwellings had hot and cold water in kitchen and bathroom. Only 10% of the African American dwellings had no indoor water supply, but more than 60% had no indoor water supply for the kitchen. More than 75% had no indoor water supply for the bathroom. Of the European American dwellings, 88% had a drain in the kitchen sink, but only 26% of the African Americans had drains.
*The National Health Survey revealed that 73% of European American families and 9% of African American families in cities of less than 10,000 had indoor flush toilets.
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Visual Arts
*The WPA commissioned Richmond Barthe, an African American sculptor and artist, to do a series of murals for the Harlem River Houses.
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The Americas
Haiti
*Max Beauvoir, a Haitian high priest of voodoo, was born in Haiti (August 25).
Max Gesner Beauvoir (b. August 25, 1936 – d. September 12, 2015) was a Haitian biochemist and houngan. Beauvoir held one of the highest titles of Voudou priesthood, "Supreme Servitur" (supreme servant), a title given to Houngans and Mambos (Voudou priests and priestesses) who have a great and very deep knowledge of the religion, and status within the religion. As Supreme Servitur, Beauvoir was seen as a high authority within Voudou.
Beauvoir graduated in 1958 from City College of New York with a degree in chemistry. He continued his studies at the Sorbonne from 1959 to 1962, when he graduated with a degree in biochemistry. In 1965, at the Cornell Medical Center, he supervised a team in synthesizing metabolic steroids. This led him to a job at an engineering company in northern New Jersey, and later as an engineer at Digital Equipment Company in Massachusetts. His interest in steroids led him to experiment with hydrocortisone synthesized from plants. However, the death of his father led him to move back to Haiti in January 1973 and become a voodoo priest.
In 1974, he founded Le Péristyle de Mariani, a Hounfour (voodoo temple) in his home (which also served as a village clinic) in the village of Mariani. He had a troubled relationship with the ruling Duvalier family. While he urged that they do more to meet the medical needs of the poor, his status as a houngan kept him from being subjected to much of the wanton violence exacted by the Tonton Macoutes against critics.
During this period, he founded the Group for Studies and Research on the African Tradition (French: Groupe d'Etudes et de Recherches Traditionnelles, GERT) with a group of scholars, and later founded the Bòde Nasyonal in 1986 to counter the effects of the post-Duvalier dechoukaj violence which had targeted both Vodou practitioners and the Tonton Macoutes paramilitary, both of which had been used by the Duvalier regime to oppress the Haitian people.
In 1996, Beauvoir founded The Temple of Yehwe, a Washington, D. C. based non-profit organization for the promotion of education concerning African American religion. In 1997, he became involved with the creation of the KOSANBA group at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
In 2005, Beauvoir launched the Federasyon Nasyonal Vodou Ayisyen, which he later renamed in 2008 as Konfederasyon Nasyonal Vodou Ayisyen; he serves as "chef Supreme" or "Ati Nasyonal" of the organization, which is an attempt to organize the defense of Vodou in the country against defamation.
Mexico
Julia López (b. 1936), a self-taught Mexican painter whose works depict her childhood home in the Costa Chica region of Guerrero state. She was born in a small farming village but left early for Acapulco and Mexico City to find a better life. In the capital, she was hired as a model for artists at the Escuela Nacional de Pintura, Escultura y Grabado "La Esmeralda" and as such became part of the circle of notable artists of that time. Their influenced encouraged her to draw and paint, with Carlos Orozco Romero discouraging her from formal instruction as to not destroy her style. She began exhibiting in 1958 and exhibited individually and collectively in Mexico, the United States and Europe. Her work was recognized with awards and membership in the Salon de la Plastica Mexicana.
López was born in 1936 in a small village near the town of Ometepec on the Costa Chica of Guerrero. She was one of eight daughters born to African and Amuzgo heritage parents. The parents were farmers, raising cotton, chili peppers, tobacco, sesame seed, bananas and other crops.
She has stated that she was blessed to have the childhood that she did, which would not have been possible in a big city. However, she wanted more in life and began her journey by going to Ometepec to work in a hotel called Casa Verde when she was only thirteen years old. In 1951, she moved again, this time to Acapulco, where she worked in a hotel kitchen. During this time she did not attend school but rather taught herself to read and do basic math.
Her final move was to Mexico City, finding initial employment modeling bridal and other formal dresses. This job allowed her to meet a number of people, especially from Coyoacan including a muralist that introduced her to Frida Kahlo in 1952. She gave her a card to present herself to Antonio M. Ruiz, then director of La Esmeralda. Her professionalism in her work allowed her to model for most of the well-known artists of the mid-20th century such as Jose Chavez Morado, Vlady and even Diego Rivera at La Esmeralda and at the Academy of San Carlos.
While doing this, she listened carefully to teachers’ comments to students and integrated herself with this artistic community. She initially remained very poor, along with her artist friends, which included Alberto Gironella, Hector Javier, Lauro Lopez, Vlady and Jose Luis Cuevas sharing accommodations, food and work. She began sketching on old bread wrappers images of saints, horses, seahorses and other familiar elements. She showed her work to Carlos Orozco Romero, who encouraged her novel style. She suggested an exchange whereby she would pose and he would teach her to paint. However, Orozco Romero convinced her that the classes would take away her spontaneity.
López developed her art career while continuing to pose in order to earn money for materials. She began exhibiting in 1958 and since then her work has been shown in various parts of Mexico, the United States and in Europe. Her work can be found in the collections of over forty museums and galleries, but most of her work is in private collections in Mexico and abroad.
Her work was first recognized with a first place prize at a competition held at the Salón de la Plástica Mexicana. Later she received the New Vales Prize from the Fine Art Gallery of California. She is a member of the Salón de la Plástica Mexicana.
Three books have been written about her life and work Los colores mágicos de Julia López (1995), Fiori e Canti, Nella Pittura di Julia López (1996, in Italian) and Dueña de la luz (1998).
Europe
France
Italy
Spain
France
Italy
*On May 9, 1936, Italian dictator Benito Mussolini proclaimed his Africa Orientale Italiana (AOI, Italian East African Empire), formed from the newly occupied Ethiopia and the colonies of Italian Eritrea and Italian Somaliland.
Spain
Of the 3,200 Americans who fought in the Spanish Civil War, between 60 and 80 were African Americans. There were about 10 African Americans in the first group of 550 Americans who formed the Abraham Lincoln Battalion. Most prominent was Oliver Law, a United States career Army man from Chicago. In April, 1937, Law was given command of the Lincoln Battalion, probably the first time an almost all-European American American military unit was commanded by an African American.
Law was killed in action during an attack he lead on Villanueva de la Canada, on July 13, 1937. Another African American, Harry Heywood, served as assistant to George Aitken, the commissar of the 15th Brigade, which included the Lincoln and Washington battalions. Another African American who served with distinction was Milton Herndon, the brother of Angelo Herndon, a well-known member of the United States Young Communist League. He headed a machine gun crew and was killed at Fuentes in the fall off 1937. Solaria Kee of Akron, Ohio, an African American nurse, also served with the American battalions in Spain.
Switzerland
*On June 30, the Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie appealed to the League of Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, in person, "to claim the justice that is due to my people". He prophetically added, "It is us today; it will be you tomorrow."
Africa
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Nnamdi Azikiwe
*As a result of publishing an article on May 15, 1936, entitled "Has the African a God?" written by I. T. A. Wallace-Johnson, Nnamdi Azikiwe was brought to trial on charges of sedition. Although he was found guilty of the charges and sentenced to six months in prison, he was acquitted on appeal.
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Ethiopia
(Abyssinia)
*The First Battle of Tembien stopped the progress of the Ethiopian "Christmas Offensive" and the Italians were ready to continue their offensive (January 20-24).
The First Battle of Tembien was a battle fought on the northern front of what was known as the Second Italo-Abyssinian War. This battle consisted of attacks and counterattacks by Italian forces under Marshal Pietro Badoglio and Ethiopian forces under Ras Kassa Haile Darge. This battle was primarily fought around Warieu Pass in what was then the Tembien Province of Ethiopia.
*Emperor Haile Selassie protested to the League of Nations about Italy's bombing of villages (January 3).
*In the Battle of Ganale Dorya, General Graziani counter-attacked the advancing troops of Ras Desta Damtew (January 7-10). After more than three days of slaughter, the Ethiopians broke and fleed.
*Negele Boran in Sidamo province was captured by Graziani (January 20). Ethiopia asked for stronger sanctions against Italy.
*The inconclusive First Battle of Tembien brought the Ethiopian "Christmas Offensive" to an end (January 20-24).
*The Italians attacked and the Ethiopians under Ras Mulugeta counterattacked in the Battle of Amba Aradam southwest of Chalacot (February 10).
*The Battle of Amba Aradam ended and the Ethiopians were defeated with heavy losses, including Mulugeta and his son (February 19).
*The Second Battle of Tembien began (February 27).
- February 29: The Ethiopians are defeated in the Second Battle of Tembien leaving few survivors from the armies of Ras Kassa and Ras Seyoum.
- February 29: The Battle of Shire begins.
- March 3: The League asks Italy and Ethiopia to open negotiations.
- March 4: The Battle of Shire ends with the destruction of Ras Imru's army.
- March 5: Ethiopia accepts negotiations appeal.
- March 20: Ethiopia again appeals to the League, stating that nothing effective had yet been enforced.
- March 21: Emperor Haile Selassie protests to the League again, reporting Italian atrocities such as use of chemical weapons, destruction of ambulances and the massacre of civilians.
- March 29: Italian planes firebomb Harar.
- March 31: Emperor Haile Selassie personally leads an unsuccessful counterattack in the Battle of Maychew. This is the last major battle of the war on the northern front.
- April 1: Ethiopia pleads for removal of arms embargo, financial assistance, and heavier sanctions on Italy; Achille Starace's East African Fast Column (Colonna Celere de Africa Orientale) arrives in Gondar.
- April 4: Most of what remained of Haile Selassie's withdrawing army is destroyed at Lake Ashangi.
- April 14: The Battle of the Ogaden begins on the southern front.
- April 17: The League admits failure in the Italo-Ethiopian dispute.
- April 25: The Ethiopians are defeated during the Battle of the Ogaden, but much of the Ethiopian army escapes.
- April 26: Badoglio's launches his "March of the Iron Will" from Dessie.
- April 27: Princess Tsehai of Ethiopia appeals to the League.
- May 2: Emperor Haile Selassie leaves the capital city of Addis Ababa for Djibouti, whence he travels to Europe to personally address the League. He appoints RasImru Haile Selassie as his regent during his absence.
- May 5: The "March of the Iron Will" is completed and Addis Ababa is captured by Italian forces.
- May 7: Italy officially annexes Ethiopia.
- May 8: Graziani enters Harar.
- May 9: Victor Emmanuel III is proclaimed Emperor of Abyssinia and Badoglio is appointed as his Viceroy in Ethiopia.
- May 10: Italian troops from the northern front and from the southern front link up at Dire Dawa.
- June 1: Italy merges Ethiopia with Eritrea and Italian Somaliland, calling the new state Africa Orientale Italiana (Italian East Africa).
- June 11: Marshal Graziani is appointed Viceroy of Ethiopia.
- June 20: Emperor Haile Selassie addresses the League of Nations. The League officially condemns the Italian actions.
- July 4: The League drops all sanctions against Italy.
- July 28: Two sons of Ras Kassa lead several thousand men in an attempt to recapture Addis Ababa from the Italians, but are driven back by the Italian garrison. Suspected of supporting this action, the archbishop of Dessie, Abuna Petros, is shot by the Italians.
- October: The Italians begin armed campaigns into the two-thirds of Ethiopia still administered by Imperial officials.
- December 18: Ras Imru surrenders to the Italians near the Gojeb River. Italy declares the country pacified.
On May 2, the Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie went into exile.
The Emperor went first to Jerusalem to pray and then to Britain as a private guest. Still convinced that the League could be rallied to his cause, he appealed to it and its members not to recognize the Italian conquest. Shamed, the League permitted him to state his case, and his appearance before the delegates assembled in Geneva on June 30, 1936, was a moment in history that few who witnessed it ever forgot.
*On May 9, Italian dictator Benito Mussolini proclaimed his Africa Orientale Italiana (AOI, Italian East African Empire), formed from the newly occupied Ethiopia and the colonies of Italian Eritrea and Italian Somaliland.
*On June 30, the Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie appealed to the League of Nations in person, "to claim the justice that is due to my people". He prophetically added, "It is us today; it will be you tomorrow."
Madagascar
(French Madagascar)
*Didier Ratsiraka (b. November 4,1936), a Malagasy politician who was President of Madagascar from 1975 to 1993 and from 1997 to 2002, was born in Vatomandry, Atsinanana Region of French Madagascar.
South Africa
*The Cape African franchise was abolished (April 6).
On April 6, 1936, the South African parliament approved two segregation bills (the Representation of Natives bill and the Natives' Trust and Land bill) sponsored by South African Prime Minister Barry Hertzog by an overwhelming 168 votes to 11.
The Representation of Natives Act No. 12 of 1936 (commencing on July 10, 1936) was legislation passed in South Africa which further reduced black rights at the time. The Cape province had a qualified franchise which had allowed a small number of blacks in the Cape to vote for the common roll (although not to sit in parliament) in terms of the Cape Qualified Franchise. The qualified franchise dated back to the pre-Union period, when the Cape was a separate British colony. The Franchise also excluded poorer white men. The 1936 Act removed blacks to a separate roll – and halted the right to run for office. Other earlier legislation removed the qualifications imposed in the Cape on whites.
With this act, the small black elite - most blacks never had the vote - were removed from the common rolls on which they had been able to register since 1854. Chiefs, local councils, urban advisory boards and election committees in all provinces were to elect four whites to the senate by a system of block voting. The act also created a Native Representative Council of six white officials, four nominated and twelve elected Africans.
This Act was repealed on June 19, 1959 by the Promotion of Bantu Self-government Act, 1959.
This Act was repealed on June 19, 1959 by the Promotion of Bantu Self-government Act, 1959.
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*The Native Trust and Land Act was passed (April 6).
The Native Trust and Land Act, 1936 (Act No. 18 of 1936; subsequently renamed the Bantu Trust and Land Act, 1936 and the Development Trust and Land Act, 1936) was a South African law that served as the reorganization of its agricultural structures. This followed the recommendations of the Beaumont Commission.
This ordinance stipulated that the reserve land, which the black population under the Natives Land Act, 1913 had been allocated of 7.13% (9,709,586 acres) was to be enlarged to approximately 13.6% of the total area of the then South Africa. However, this value was not reached and remained unfulfilled until the 1980s. As late as 1972, did the government purchase 1,146,451 acres to meet this requirement in the homelands.
In view of the fact that the black population accounted for at this time (1936) about 61% in the general population, this area ratio was very small. During the world economic depression, damage occurring to agricultural land through erosion and overgrazing played a relevant role in the preparation of the Act. At the same time the rights of the black people as tenant farmers were removed and such tenant rights became restricted to white owners. From then on, blacks were only allowed to live on farms, which were owned by whites, and the black were simply employees who worked on them.
The selling pressure caused by the Act forced many blacks to seek work in salaried employment in areas outside of their family and tribal tradition. Destinations of these migrations were the large farms owned by the whites and the cities, preferably industrial urban centers.
The act was repealed by the Abolition of Racially Based Land Measures Act, 1991 on June 30, 1991.
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General Historical Events
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January 20
*George V (age 70), the King of Great Britain, died in London. He was succeeded by his 41 year old son, Edward VIII.
February 26
*In an army mutiny at Tokyo, young officers assassinated the former Premier Saito and the Finance Minister Takahashi in a futile attempt to set up a military dictatorship.
March 7
*Hitler took advantage of the crisis over Italy's invasion of Ethiopia to reoccupy the Rhineland.
April 28
*King Ahmed Fuad (age 68) of Egypt died. He was succeeded by his 16 year old son Farouk.
May 5
*Italian troops seized Addis Adaba.
May 9
*Mussolini proclaimed the annexation of Ethiopia by Italy. With Eritrea and Italian Somaliland, the annexed Ethiopia would become Italian East Africa.
June 2
*A coup in Nicaragua was led by General Somoza, who deposed President Sacasa and would make himself President in 1937.
June 30
*The Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie appealed to the League of Nations in person, "to claim the justice that is due to my people". He prophetically added, "It is us today; it will be you tomorrow."
July 7
*In Japan, 17 of the army officers involved in the attempted coup in February were sentenced to death.
July 18
*The Spanish Civil War began as army officers in Spanish Morocco started an insurrection against the Madrid government rallying behind Generals Emilio Mola and Francisco Franco. The revolt spread to garrisons at Cadiz, Saragossa, Burgos, and Seville.
July 20
*Mola and Franco formed a junta at Burgos.
November 6
*The troops of the Spanish junta of Mola and Franco laid siege to Madrid using equipment from Germany and Italy.
December 10
*In England, Edward VIII abdicated in favor of his brother George VI.
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*Franklin Delano Roosevelt was elected by a landslide to a second term as the United States President.
*Stalin liquidated his enemies in the Soviet Union in a great purge that lasted two years and cost up to 10 million lives.
*The Queen Mary went into service on the North Atlantic run.
*Margaret Mitchell's novel Gone with the Wind was published.
*Boulder (later Hoover) Dam was completed, blocking the Colorado River to create Lake Mead, the world's largest reservoir.
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