1943
*****
Pan-African Chronology
January 5
*George Washington Carver, scientist, teacher, and nutritionist, died in Tuskegee, Alabama.
January 6
*William Hastie, a former federal judge and law school dean, resigned his position as aide to United States Secretary of War Henry Stimson to protest discriminatory practices in the armed forces. He later won the NAACP's Spingarn Medal.
January 26
*Brigadier general Sherian Grace Cadoria was born in Marksville, Louisiana.
March 22
*Jazz guitarist and vocalist George Benson was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
April 10
*Tennis star Arthur Ashe, the first African American to win the men's singles at the United States Open and at Wimbledon was born in Richmond, Virginia.
April 14
*Artist Howardena Pindell was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
May 15
*Fashion designer Stephen Burrows was born in Newark, New Jersey.
May 20
May 25
*A race riot began at a Mobile, Alabama, shipyard when African American workers were upgraded. Governor Chauncey Sparks of Alabama ordered seven (7) companies of state guardsmen to be on the alert. Of the eight (8) men injured at the Atlanta Drydock & Shipbuilding Company, seven (7) were African American. The disturbance began when African American welders were assigned to work on the same job with European American welders. Police finally put down the riot, and the plant resumed operation after 7,000 African Americans were sent home from their jobs at the plant and throughout the city.
*Singer and actress Leslie Uggams was born in New York City.
May 30
*Chicago Bears running back Gale Sayers was born in Wichita, Kansas. He would become the youngest player elected to the Football Hall of Fame.
June 7
*Poet Nikki Giovanni was born in Knoxville, Tennessee.
June 16
*A race riot in Beaumont, Texas, on June 16, was precipitated by the rape of a young European American mother. The riot lasted for about 15 hours. Ellis C. Brown, a 55-year-old European American carpenter, and one other person were killed. Martial law was declared. At the height of the rioting crowds of European American men surged into the African American section, causing the closing of stores and cafes. Work at the Penn Shipyards was practically stopped.
June 20
*A race riot began in Detroit, Michigan. African Americans in Detroit rioted to protest their exclusion from civilian defense-related jobs. Federal troops were summoned after 34 people were killed.
July 8
*Faye Wattleton, president of Planned Parenthood, was born in St. Louis, Missouri.
July 14
*On July 14, 1943, President Franklin D. Roosevelt dedicated $30,000 for the George Washington Carver National Monument west-southwest of Diamond, Missouri, the area where Carver had spent time in his childhood. This was the first national monument dedicated to an African American and the first to honor someone other than a president. The 210-acre (0.8 km2) national monument complex includes a bust of Carver, a ¾-mile nature trail, a museum, the 1881 Moses Carver house, and the Carver cemetery. The national monument opened July 1953.
July 19
*Harry Herbert Pace, the founder of Black Swan Records, died in Chicago, Illinois.
August
*In August 1943, an official investigation ruled in favor of the bus companies operating in the Alexandra township located 15 kilometers (9 miles) north of Johannesburg, South Africa, regarding a fare increase. In response, 20,000 people decided to walk to work and back. The protest lasted ten days, and in that time communists, white left-wingers and liberals, led by Senator Hyman Basner, organized lift-clubs to help some of the people to get to work on time. Police and traffic department officials also assisted, and the Department of Native Affairs appealed to companies not to sack latecomers. On August 10, 1943, the government appointed a commission of inquiry and, for the time being, the four pence fare was restored.
August 1
*A riot erupted in Harlem after a European American policeman shot an African American soldier. Five African Americans were killed and hundreds wounded. Figures for property damage ran into several million dollars.
August 9
*Heavyweight Boxing Champion Ken Norton was born in Jacksonville, Illinois.
September 9
*Lester B. Granger of the National Urban League sent a contribution from a committee of 77 African Americans to the United Jewish Appeal. In the letter he wrote to accompany the contribution Granger wrote: "We who have known deprivation and suffering in our native land, America, stand aghast at the maniacal fury and bestial atrocities practiced against the Jewish people by Hitler and his foul associates. Those crimes of Nazi leadership constitute one further reason why Negroes must remain wholeheartedly committed to this war until the last vestige of Nazism is driven from the earth."
October 4
*H. Rap Brown, chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) was born in Baton Rouge.
November
November
*In South Africa, dance in the Pietermaritzburg City Hall organized by the Coloured Welfare League was broken up by white soldiers -- and two white and three black civilians were injured.
December
*In South Africa, the African National Congress (ANC) accepted the proposal for the formation of the Congress Youth League.
December
*In South Africa, the African National Congress (ANC) accepted the proposal for the formation of the Congress Youth League.
December 15
*Fats Waller, pianist and composer ("Ain't Misbehavin'", "Honesuckle Rose", and "Stormy Weather"), died in Kansas City, Missouri.
*****
The United States
George Washington Carver
Upon returning home one day, Carver took a bad fall down a flight of stairs; he was found unconscious by a maid who took him to a hospital. Carver died January 5, 1943, at the age of 78 from complications (anemia) resulting from this fall. He was buried next to Booker T. Washington at Tuskegee University. Due to his frugality, Carver's life savings totaled $60,000, all of which he donated in his last years and at his death to the Carver Museum and to the George Washington Carver Foundation.
On his grave was written, He could have added fortune to fame, but caring for neither, he found happiness and honor in being helpful to the world.
A movement to establish a United States national monument to Carver began before his death. Because of World War II, such non-war expenditures had been banned by presidential order. Missouri senator Harry S. Truman sponsored a bill in favor of a monument. In a committee hearing on the bill, one supporter said:
The bill passed unanimously in both houses.
On July 14, 1943, President Franklin D. Roosevelt dedicated $30,000 for the George Washington Carver National Monument west-southwest of Diamond, Missouri, the area where Carver had spent time in his childhood. This was the first national monument dedicated to an African American and the first to honor someone other than a president. The 210-acre (0.8 km2) national monument complex includes a bust of Carver, a ¾-mile nature trail, a museum, the 1881 Moses Carver house, and the Carver cemetery. The national monument opened July 1953.
*****
W. E. B. Du Bois
*****
W. E. B. Du Bois
In 1943, at the age of 76, Du Bois was abruptly terminated from his position at Atlanta University by college president Rufus Clement. Many scholars expressed outrage, prompting Atlanta University to provide Du Bois with a lifelong pension and the title of professor emeritus. Arthur Spingarn remarked that Du Bois spent his time in Atlanta "battering his life out against ignorance, bigotry, intolerance and slothfulness, projecting ideas nobody but he understands, and raising hopes for change which may be comprehended in a hundred years."
Father Divine
*****
Black Enterprise
The Pace Phonograph Company (Pace Phonographic Corporation), which used the Black Swan label, was the first African American owned and operated record company. It was established in January 1921 by Harry Herbert (Henry) Pace (January 6, 1884 – July 19, 1943), who had been owner of a music publishing company with W. C. Handy. Two former workers for the Pace-Bundy Company joined him: Fletcher Henderson (1897-1952) as a recording manager, and William Grant Still (1895-1978) as an arranger. In spring 1912, Ethel Waters (1896-1977) recorded the company's first hit, "Down Home Blues/Oh, Daddy." During its first six months the company reportedly sold over half a million records. It went broke in 1923, and was sold to Paramount Records the following year.
*****
Black Enterprise
*Eta Phi Beta, a national professional sorority for businesswomen, was founded in Detroit, Michigan.
*Harry Herbert Pace, the founder of Black Swan Records, died in Chicago, Illinois.
The Pace Phonograph Company (Pace Phonographic Corporation), which used the Black Swan label, was the first African American owned and operated record company. It was established in January 1921 by Harry Herbert (Henry) Pace (January 6, 1884 – July 19, 1943), who had been owner of a music publishing company with W. C. Handy. Two former workers for the Pace-Bundy Company joined him: Fletcher Henderson (1897-1952) as a recording manager, and William Grant Still (1895-1978) as an arranger. In spring 1912, Ethel Waters (1896-1977) recorded the company's first hit, "Down Home Blues/Oh, Daddy." During its first six months the company reportedly sold over half a million records. It went broke in 1923, and was sold to Paramount Records the following year.
*****
Civil Rights
A series of race riots occurred across the nation from May to August. Approximately forty people were killed. United States troops were called out in Mobile and Detroit (where the clashes threatened defense production). Other incidents were in Beaumont, Texas, and in Harlem, New York.
*In a Mobile, Alabama, shipyard, the assignment of African American welders to work alongside European American welders triggered a riot causing extensive property damage and injury. The shipyard remained closed until Governor Chauncey Sparks ordered 7,000 African American workers at the shipyard and elsewhere to stay home for the day.
On May 25, a race riot began at a Mobile, Alabama, shipyard when African American workers were upgraded. Governor Chauncey Sparks of Alabama ordered seven (7) companies of state guardsmen to be on the alert. Of the eight (8) men injured at the Atlanta Drydock & Shipbuilding Company, seven (7) were African American. The disturbance began when African American welders were assigned to work on the same job with European American welders. Police finally put down the riot, and the plant resumed operation after 7,000 African Americans were sent home from their jobs at the plant and throughout the city.
*A race riot in Beaumont, Texas, on June 16, was precipitated by the rape of a young European American mother. The riot lasted for about 15 hours. Ellis C. Brown, a 55-year-old European American carpenter, and one other person were killed. Martial law was declared. At the height of the rioting crowds of European American men surged into the African American section, causing the closing of stores and cafes. Work at the Penn Shipyards was practically stopped.
In Detroit, 26,000 European American workers struck the Packard Motor Plant in protest over the employment of African Americans. Walter White of the NAACP reported hearing one man scream to the assembly of strikers: "I'd rather see Hitler and Hirohito win the war than work beside a nigger on the assembly line." The riot began with a fistfight between an African American and a European American on the bridge leading from Belle Isle Park to the city. Rumors spread among both communities of various atrocities. European American mobs attacked African Americans, dragging them from cars and entering African American movie theaters. African Americans retaliated, smashing European American owned shops in Detroit's ghetto, Paradise Valley. In one day, 34 persons were killed. Of the African Americans killed, 17 were killed by the police. On the second day, at Walter White's request, President Roosevelt declared a Federal state of emergency and sent in 6,000 Federal troops and state troopers who established an uneasy peace. The NAACP set up relief headquarters, and Walter White remarked that the African Americans looked like the "bombed-out victims of Nazi terror in Europe." Thurgood Marshall reported on the looting and destruction of African American property by the Detroit police, but no action was taken.
Altercations between youths started on June 20, 1943, on a warm Sunday evening on Belle Isle, a recreation area on an island in the Detroit River off Detroit's mainland. In what was considered a communal disorder, youths fought intermittently throughout the afternoon. The brawl eventually grew into a confrontation between groups of European Americans and African Americans on the long Belle Isle Bridge, crowded with pedestrians returning to the city, and it spread into the city. European American sailors joined fights against African Americans. The riot escalated in the city after a false rumor spread that a mob of European Americans had thrown an African-American mother and her baby into the Detroit River. African Americans looted and destroyed European American owned property but in the end, much more African American owned property was destroyed.
The rumors that gave rise to the riot reflected longstanding racial fears. Based on history, African American males feared European American male violence against African American women and children. Conversely, based on a false rumor, European Americans feared that African Americans had raped and murdered a European American woman on the Belle Isle Bridge. In response to the false rumor, angry mobs of European Americans spilled onto Woodward Avenue near the Roxy Theater around 4 a.m., beating blacks as they were getting off street cars on their way to work. Stores were looted and buildings were burned in the riot, most of them in the African American neighborhood of Paradise Valley, one of the oldest and poorest neighborhoods in Detroit.
The clashes soon escalated to the point where mobs of European Americans and African Americans were assaulting one another, beating innocent motorists, pedestrians and streetcar passengers, burning cars, destroying storefronts and looting businesses. Both sides were said to have encouraged others to join in the riots with false claims that one of "their own" was attacked unjustly. African Americans were outnumbered by a large margin, and suffered more deaths, personal injuries and property damage.
The riots lasted three days and ended after Mayor Jeffries and Governor Harry Kelly asked President Roosevelt to intervene. Roosevelt ordered in federal troops. A total of 6,000 troops restored peace and occupied the streets of Detroit. Over the course of three days of rioting, 34 people had been killed: 25 were African Americans, and 17 of these were killed by the police (the police forces at the time were predominately European American and dominated by descendants of immigrants). Thirteen murders remain unsolved. Of the approximately 600 persons injured, more than 75 percent were African American; of the roughly 1,800 people arrested over the course of the three-day riots, 85 percent were African American.
After the riot, leaders on both sides had explanations for the violence, effectively blaming the other side. European American city leaders, including the mayor, blamed young "black hoodlums” and persisted in framing the events as being caused by outsiders, people who were unemployed and marginal. The Wayne County prosecutor believed that leaders of the NAACP were to blame as instigators of the riots. Governor Kelly called together a Fact Finding Commission to investigate and report on the causes of the riot. Its mostly European American members blamed African American youths, and regarded the events as an unfortunate incident. The commissioners never interviewed any of the rioters but based their conclusions on police reports, which were limited.
Other officials drew similar conclusions, despite discovering facts that disproved their thesis. Dr. Lowell S. Selling of the Recorder's Court Psychiatric Clinic conducted interviews with 100 offenders, finding them to be "employed, well-paid, longstanding (of at least 10 years) residents of the city", with some education and a history of being law abiding. He attributed their violence to their Southern heritage. This view was repeated in a separate study by Elmer R. Akers and Vernon Fox, sociologist and psychologist, respectively, at the State Prison of Southern Michigan. Although most of the men they studied had jobs and had been in Detroit an average of more than 10 years, Akers and Fox characterized them as unskilled, unsettled, and stressed their Southern heritage as predisposing them to violence.
Detroit's African American leaders identified numerous other causes, including persistent racial discrimination in jobs and housing, the lack of African Americans among police officers and frequent police brutality against blacks, and the daily animosity directed at their people by much of Detroit's European American population.
A late 20th-century analysis of the facts collected on the arrested rioters has drawn markedly different conclusions, noting that European Americans were younger, generally unemployed, and had clearly traveled long distances from their homes to the African American neighborhood to attack people there. Even in the early stage of the riots near Belle Isle Bridge, European American youths traveled in groups to the riot area and carried weapons.
Later in the second stage, European Americans continued to act in groups and were prepared for action, carrying weapons and traveling miles to attack the ghetto along its western side at Woodward Avenue. African Americans arrested were older, often married and working men, who had lived in the city for 10 years or more. They fought closer to home, mainly acting independently to defend their homes, persons or neighborhood, and sometimes looting or destroying mostly European American owned property there in frustration. Where felonies occurred, European Americans were more often arrested for use of weapons and African Americans for looting or failing to observe the curfew imposed. European Americans were more often arrested for misdemeanors. In broad terms, both sides acted to improve their positions; the European Americans fought out of fear, African Americans fought out of hope for better conditions.
Following the violence, Japanese propaganda officials incorporated the event into its materials that encouraged African American soldiers not to fight for the United States. They distributed a flyer titled "Fight Between Two Races". The Axis Powers publicized the riot as a sign of Western decline.
Walter White, head of the NAACP, noted that there was no rioting at the Packard and Hudson plants, where leaders of the UAW and CIO had been incorporating blacks as part of the rank and file, part of the changes that had begun to open opportunities for blacks.
Future Supreme Court Justice, Thurgood Marshall, then with the NAACP, assailed the city's handling of the riot. He charged that police unfairly targeted African Americans while turning their backs on European American atrocities. He said 85 percent of those arrested were African American while European Americans overturned and burned cars in front of the Roxy Theater with impunity as police watched. Marshall said: "This weak-kneed policy of the police commissioner coupled with the anti-Negro attitude of many members of the force helped to make a riot inevitable."
*A riot erupted in Harlem after a European American policeman shot an African American soldier. Five African Americans were killed and hundreds wounded. Figures for property damage ran into several million dollars.
In August, in Harlem, an African American woman, Margie Polite, argued with a European American policeman. An African American soldier objected to the way the policeman spoke to Ms. Polite, and to the police officer's saying that she would be arrested for disorderly conduct. The policeman allegedly was knocked down by the soldier and the policeman, fearing a further attack, shot him. The woman then ran down the street screaming that the soldier had been killed. He had in fact only been wounded. A riot ensued. It took, according to the New York Times, 8,000 State Guard troops, 1,500 civilian volunteers (mostly African American), and 6,600 members of the city police, military police and civil patrol units to quell the riot. Five persons were killed and 400 injured. Hundreds of stores were wrecked and looted. Property damage was estimated as high as $5 million. About 500 people were arrested, all African American, 100 of them women. The dead were all African American, and all the injured were African American except for approximately 40 European American policemen.
After Collins told Polite to leave, she became verbally abusive of the officer and Collins arrested her on the grounds of disturbing the peace. Florine Roberts, the mother of Robert Bandy, an African American soldier in the United States Army, observed the incident and asked for Polite's release. The official police report held that the soldier threatened Collins. In the report, Bandy and Mrs. Roberts proceeded to attack Collins. Bandy hit the officer, and while attempting to flee, Collins shot Bandy in the shoulder with his revolver. In an interview with PM, the soldier stated that he intervened when the officer pushed Polite. According to Bandy, Collins threw his nightstick at Bandy, which he caught. When Bandy hesitated after Collins asked for its return, Collins shot him. Bandy's wound was superficial, but he was taken to Sydenham Hospital for treatment. Crowds quickly gathered around Bandy as he entered the hospital, around the hotel, and around police headquarters, where a crowd of 3,000 amassed by 9:00 pm. The crowds combined and grew tense as rumors that an African American soldier had been shot soon turned to rumors that an African American soldier had been killed.
At 10:30 pm, the crowd became violent after an individual threw a bottle off of a roof into the crowd aggregated about the hospital. The group dispersed into gangs containing between 50–100 members. The gangs first broke windows of European American owned businesses as they traveled through Harlem. If the mob was informed the business was under African American ownership, it left the establishment alone. If the ownership was European American, however, the store would be looted and vandalized. Rioters broke streetlights and threw white mannequins onto the ground. In grocery stores, the rioters took war-scarce items, such as coffee and sugar; clothing, liquor, and furniture stores were also looted. Estimates put the total monetary damage between $250,000–$5,000,000, which included 1,485 stores burglarized and 4,495 windows broken.
When Mayor Fiorello H. La Guardia was informed of the situation at 9:00 pm, he met with police and visited the riot district with African American authority figures such as Max Yergan and Hope Stevens. La Guardia ordered all unoccupied officers into the region. In addition to the 6,000 city and military police, 1,500 volunteers were called on to help control the riot, with an additional 8,000 guardsmen "on standby". Traffic was directed around Harlem to contain the riot. After he returned from the tour, the mayor made the first of a series of radio announcements that urged Harlemites to return home. Soon after, he met with Walter Francis White of the National Association of Colored People to discuss the appropriate action to take. White suggested that African American leaders again visit the district to spread the message of order. Just after 2:00 A.M, the mayor instructed all taverns to close.
The riot ended on the night of August 2. Cleanup efforts started that day. The New York City Department of Sanitation worked to clean the area for three days and the New York City Departments of Buildings and Housing boarded windows. The city assigned a police escort for all department workers. The Red Cross gave Harlemites lemonade and crullers, and the mayor organized various hospitals to handle an influx of patients. By August 4, traffic had resumed through the borough, and taverns reopened the next day. La Guardia had food delivered to the residents of Harlem, and on August 6, food supplies returned to normal levels. Overall, six people died and nearly 700 were injured. Six hundred men and women were arrested in connection with the riot.
The cause of the riot lay with a disparity between the values of American democracy and the conditions of African American citizens. The segregation of African Americans in the armed forces while the United States fought for freedom underscored this disparity. The resentment of the status given African American members of the armed forces came to be embodied Robert Bandy while James Collins came to represent European American oppression of African Americans. Additionally, when Franklin Delano Roosevelt gave his Four Freedoms speech, calling for freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear for people "everywhere in the world", African Americans felt that they never had such freedoms themselves in America and, therefore, needed to be willing to fight for them domestically.
After the Harlem Riot of 1935 caused widespread destruction, La Guardia ordered a commission to pinpoint its underlying causes: commission head E. Franklin Frazier wrote that "economic and social forces created a state of emotional tension which sought release upon the slightest provocation". The report listed several "economic and social forces" that worked against African Americans, including discrimination in employment and city services, overcrowding in housing, and police brutality. Specifically, it criticized New York City Police Commissioner Lewis Joseph Valentine and New York City Hospitals Commissioner Sigismund S. Goldwater, both of whom responded with criticisms of the report. Conflicted, La Guardia asked academic Alain LeRoy Locke to analyze both accounts and assess the situation. Confidentially, Locke wrote to La Guardia that Valentine was blameworthy and listed several areas for immediate improvement, such as health and education. Publicly, Locke published an article in the Survey Graphic which blamed the 1935 riot on the state of affairs that La Guardia inherited.
Communally, conditions for African American Harlemites improved by 1943, with better employment in civil services, for instance, but economic problems became exacerbated under wartime conditions, which enforced employment discrimination in new war and non-war industries and business. Though new projects such as the Harlem River Houses expanded housing for African Americans, by 1943, Harlem housing had deteriorated as new construction slowed and buildings were destroyed. Although the state of African Americans improved relative to society, individuals could not accelerate their own progress.
On Sunday, August 1, 1943, a European American policeman attempted to arrest an African American woman for disturbing the peace in the lobby of the Braddock Hotel. The hotel, which once hosted show business celebrities in the 1920s, had become a location known for prostitution by the 1940s. The Army designated the area as a "raided premise", and a policeman was stationed in the lobby to prevent further crime.
Various accounts detail how Marjorie (Margie) Polite, the African American woman, became confrontational with James Collins, the European American policeman. According to one, Polite checked into the hotel on August 1, but was unsatisfied and asked for another room. When she switched rooms and found the new accommodation did not have the shower and bath she wanted, Polite asked for a refund, which she received. Afterwards, however, she asked for the $1 tip that she gave to an elevator operator to be returned. The operator refused. Polite began to protest loudly, which caught the attention of Collins. According to another account, she became drunk at a party in one of the rooms, and confronted the officer as she attempted to leave.
After Collins told Polite to leave, she became verbally abusive of the officer and Collins arrested her on the grounds of disturbing the peace. Florine Roberts, the mother of Robert Bandy, an African American soldier in the United States Army, observed the incident and asked for Polite's release. The official police report held that the soldier threatened Collins. In the report, Bandy and Mrs. Roberts proceeded to attack Collins. Bandy hit the officer, and while attempting to flee, Collins shot Bandy in the shoulder with his revolver. In an interview with PM, the soldier stated that he intervened when the officer pushed Polite. According to Bandy, Collins threw his nightstick at Bandy, which he caught. When Bandy hesitated after Collins asked for its return, Collins shot him. Bandy's wound was superficial, but he was taken to Sydenham Hospital for treatment. Crowds quickly gathered around Bandy as he entered the hospital, around the hotel, and around police headquarters, where a crowd of 3,000 amassed by 9:00 pm. The crowds combined and grew tense as rumors that an African American soldier had been shot soon turned to rumors that an African American soldier had been killed.
At 10:30 pm, the crowd became violent after an individual threw a bottle off of a roof into the crowd aggregated about the hospital. The group dispersed into gangs containing between 50–100 members. The gangs first broke windows of European American owned businesses as they traveled through Harlem. If the mob was informed the business was under African American ownership, it left the establishment alone. If the ownership was European American, however, the store would be looted and vandalized. Rioters broke streetlights and threw white mannequins onto the ground. In grocery stores, the rioters took war-scarce items, such as coffee and sugar; clothing, liquor, and furniture stores were also looted. Estimates put the total monetary damage between $250,000–$5,000,000, which included 1,485 stores burglarized and 4,495 windows broken.
When Mayor Fiorello H. La Guardia was informed of the situation at 9:00 pm, he met with police and visited the riot district with African American authority figures such as Max Yergan and Hope Stevens. La Guardia ordered all unoccupied officers into the region. In addition to the 6,000 city and military police, 1,500 volunteers were called on to help control the riot, with an additional 8,000 guardsmen "on standby". Traffic was directed around Harlem to contain the riot. After he returned from the tour, the mayor made the first of a series of radio announcements that urged Harlemites to return home. Soon after, he met with Walter Francis White of the National Association of Colored People to discuss the appropriate action to take. White suggested that African American leaders again visit the district to spread the message of order. Just after 2:00 A.M, the mayor instructed all taverns to close.
The riot ended on the night of August 2. Cleanup efforts started that day. The New York City Department of Sanitation worked to clean the area for three days and the New York City Departments of Buildings and Housing boarded windows. The city assigned a police escort for all department workers. The Red Cross gave Harlemites lemonade and crullers, and the mayor organized various hospitals to handle an influx of patients. By August 4, traffic had resumed through the borough, and taverns reopened the next day. La Guardia had food delivered to the residents of Harlem, and on August 6, food supplies returned to normal levels. Overall, six people died and nearly 700 were injured. Six hundred men and women were arrested in connection with the riot.
The cause of the riot lay with a disparity between the values of American democracy and the conditions of African American citizens. The segregation of African Americans in the armed forces while the United States fought for freedom underscored this disparity. The resentment of the status given African American members of the armed forces came to be embodied Robert Bandy while James Collins came to represent European American oppression of African Americans. Additionally, when Franklin Delano Roosevelt gave his Four Freedoms speech, calling for freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear for people "everywhere in the world", African Americans felt that they never had such freedoms themselves in America and, therefore, needed to be willing to fight for them domestically.
After the Harlem Riot of 1935 caused widespread destruction, La Guardia ordered a commission to pinpoint its underlying causes: commission head E. Franklin Frazier wrote that "economic and social forces created a state of emotional tension which sought release upon the slightest provocation". The report listed several "economic and social forces" that worked against African Americans, including discrimination in employment and city services, overcrowding in housing, and police brutality. Specifically, it criticized New York City Police Commissioner Lewis Joseph Valentine and New York City Hospitals Commissioner Sigismund S. Goldwater, both of whom responded with criticisms of the report. Conflicted, La Guardia asked academic Alain LeRoy Locke to analyze both accounts and assess the situation. Confidentially, Locke wrote to La Guardia that Valentine was blameworthy and listed several areas for immediate improvement, such as health and education. Publicly, Locke published an article in the Survey Graphic which blamed the 1935 riot on the state of affairs that La Guardia inherited.
Communally, conditions for African American Harlemites improved by 1943, with better employment in civil services, for instance, but economic problems became exacerbated under wartime conditions, which enforced employment discrimination in new war and non-war industries and business. Though new projects such as the Harlem River Houses expanded housing for African Americans, by 1943, Harlem housing had deteriorated as new construction slowed and buildings were destroyed. Although the state of African Americans improved relative to society, individuals could not accelerate their own progress.
*CORE conducted its first sit-in to protest segregation at a restaurant in the Loop in Chicago.
*****
The Labor Movement
*Through various constitutional and organizational maneuvers, 30 AFL unions denied membership to African Americans, including the unions for airline pilots, plumbers, railroad telegraphers, and glassworkers.
Membership was denied African Americans by 30 AFL unions in their constitutions, through understandings, or by creation of non-represented auxiliary unions. Among them were the airline pilots, railroad telegraphers, glassworkers, granite cutters, plumbers and maintenance-of-way employees.
*****
The Law
*The District Attorney of New York County announced to newspapers that terms such as "restricted" and "selected clientele" in advertisements were "generally understood and intended to mean that guests of Jewish faith or colored persons were not wanted by such hotels and resorts," and that he would prosecute newspapers which published such advertisement.
*****
Literature
*He Who Would Die, the single collection of verse by H. Binga Dismond, was published. Much of Dismond's social-protest poetry utilizes the Jim Crow theme. He also translated and re-adapted contemporary Haitian verse.
*****
The Military
*****
Movies
20th Century-Fox released an all African American musical film Stormy Weather, starring Lena Horne, Bill Robinson, Cab Calloway, Dooley Wilson and many other African American stars.
*****
The Labor Movement
Membership was denied African Americans by 30 AFL unions in their constitutions, through understandings, or by creation of non-represented auxiliary unions. Among them were the airline pilots, railroad telegraphers, glassworkers, granite cutters, plumbers and maintenance-of-way employees.
*****
The Law
*The District Attorney of New York County announced to newspapers that terms such as "restricted" and "selected clientele" in advertisements were "generally understood and intended to mean that guests of Jewish faith or colored persons were not wanted by such hotels and resorts," and that he would prosecute newspapers which published such advertisement.
*****
Literature
*He Who Would Die, the single collection of verse by H. Binga Dismond, was published. Much of Dismond's social-protest poetry utilizes the Jim Crow theme. He also translated and re-adapted contemporary Haitian verse.
*****
The Military
*William Hastie, a former federal judge and law school dean, resigned his position as aide to United States Secretary of War Henry Stimson to protest discriminatory practices in the armed forces. He later won the NAACP's Spingarn Medal.
William H. Hastie, a civilian aide to Secretary of War Stimson, resigned on January 6 in protest over continued segregation of training facilities in the Air Force and the Army. A few weeks later the Air Force announced a program for the expansion of African American pilot training with African Americans being accepted "throughout the entire technical training command as well as at the Air Force Officers Training School at Miami, Fla."
William H. Hastie, a civilian aide to Secretary of War Stimson, resigned on January 6 in protest over continued segregation of training facilities in the Air Force and the Army. A few weeks later the Air Force announced a program for the expansion of African American pilot training with African Americans being accepted "throughout the entire technical training command as well as at the Air Force Officers Training School at Miami, Fla."
*The 99th Pursuit Squadron, an African American flying unit, performed its first combat mission by attacking Axis forces on the Italian island of Pantelleria.
*The Navy launched the destroyer escort USS Harmon, named for Mess Attendant First Class Leonard Harmon, recipient of the Navy Cross. This was the first United States Navy ship named after an African American.
Leonard Roy Harmon had been killed in the battle of Guadalcanal in 1942, and had received the Navy Cross for heroism.
*African American women became eligible to join the newly formed Women's Naval Corps (the WAVES).
No African American was awarded a Medal of Honor either during World War II or immediately afterwards with respect to their actions during that conflict. This changed in 1992 when a study conducted by Shaw University and commissioned by the United States Department of Defense and the United States Army asserted that systematic racial discrimination had been present in the criteria for awarding medals during the war. After an exhaustive review of files the study recommended that several of the Distinguished Service Crosses awarded to African Americans be upgraded to the Medal of Honor. On January 13, 1997, more than fifty years after the end of the war, President Bill Clinton awarded the Medal to seven African American World War II veterans. Vernon Baker was the only living recipient—the other six men had been killed in action or died in the intervening years.
Leonard Roy Harmon had been killed in the battle of Guadalcanal in 1942, and had received the Navy Cross for heroism.
*African American women became eligible to join the newly formed Women's Naval Corps (the WAVES).
No African American was awarded a Medal of Honor either during World War II or immediately afterwards with respect to their actions during that conflict. This changed in 1992 when a study conducted by Shaw University and commissioned by the United States Department of Defense and the United States Army asserted that systematic racial discrimination had been present in the criteria for awarding medals during the war. After an exhaustive review of files the study recommended that several of the Distinguished Service Crosses awarded to African Americans be upgraded to the Medal of Honor. On January 13, 1997, more than fifty years after the end of the war, President Bill Clinton awarded the Medal to seven African American World War II veterans. Vernon Baker was the only living recipient—the other six men had been killed in action or died in the intervening years.
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Movies
*Hollywood released Panama Hattie, with Lena Horne in her first important movie role.
*Stormy Weather, starring Lena Horne, Fats Waller, Cab Calloway, and Bill Robinson was released.
20th Century-Fox released an all African American musical film Stormy Weather, starring Lena Horne, Bill Robinson, Cab Calloway, Dooley Wilson and many other African American stars.
*Cabin in the Sky, featuring Eddie Robinson, Ethel Waters, Duke Ellington, and Louis Armstrong was released.
The movie Cabin in the Sky was released. An African American, Katherine Dunham, choreographed the musical, which starred an all-African American cast. Included in the cast were John Bubbles, Eddie Anderson, Ethel Waters, Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong and many other prominent African American artists.
The movie Cabin in the Sky was released. An African American, Katherine Dunham, choreographed the musical, which starred an all-African American cast. Included in the cast were John Bubbles, Eddie Anderson, Ethel Waters, Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong and many other prominent African American artists.
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Notable Births
*Tennis star Arthur Ashe, the first African American to win the men's singles at the United States Open and at Wimbledon was born in Richmond, Virginia (April 10).
*Jazz guitarist and vocalist George Benson was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (March 22).
*Jazz guitarist and vocalist George Benson was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (March 22).
*H. Rap Brown, chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) was born in Baton Rouge (October 4).
*Poet Nikki Giovanni was born in Knoxville, Tennessee (June 7).
*Heavyweight Boxing Champion Ken Norton was born in Jacksonville, Illinois (August 9).
*Fashion designer Stephen Burrows was born in Newark, New Jersey (May 15).
*Brigadier general Sherian Grace Cadoria was born in Marksville, Louisiana (January 26).
*Poet Nikki Giovanni was born in Knoxville, Tennessee (June 7).
*Heavyweight Boxing Champion Ken Norton was born in Jacksonville, Illinois (August 9).
Kenneth Howard Norton Sr. (August 9, 1943 – September 18, 2013) was an American heavyweight boxer and WBC world Heavyweight Champion. He was best known for his 12-round victory over Muhammad Ali, when he famously broke Ali's jaw, on March 31, 1973, becoming only the second man to defeat a peak Ali as a professional (after Joe Frazier, who won a 15-round unanimous decision against Ali on March 8, 1971).
Norton and Ali would fight twice more, with Ali officially winning narrowly both return bouts, although many felt Norton truly deserved their third fight. Norton was awarded the WBC title (by virtue of his win over Jimmy Young in a 1977 title elimination bout) when Leon Spinks declined a mandated title defense against Norton, the number one contender. However, Norton lost it in his first defense on a split decision by 1 point to Larry Holmes in a great contest (Holmes-Norton is ranked as the 10th-greatest heavyweight fight of all time by Monte D. Cox, a member of the International Boxing Research Organization).
Democratic Republic of the Congo
(Belgian Congo)
*A medical unit from the Congo, the 10th (Belgian Congo) Casualty Clearing Station, was formed in 1943, and served alongside British forces during the invasion of Madagascar and in the Far East during the Burma Campaign. The unit (which had a small body of Force Publique troops for local defense of the station) included 350 black and 20 white personnel, and continued to serve with the British until 1945.
Ethiopia
(Abyssinia)
*Despite the resurrection of the parliament in 1942, Haile Selassie promulgated a number of laws in the form of proclamations and decrees. It was not until his proclamation 34/1943 that the authority of the parliament was included.
Liberia
Nigeria
*The Nigerian Spokesman, a newspaper, was launched in Onitsha.
South Africa
*The Lansdowne commission investigated the working conditions and wages of African miners.
In 1943, after a series of work stoppages on the mines, the African Mineworkers' Union (AMWU) boosted its image when it played a key role in persuading the South African government to appoint the Lansdowne commission of inquiry to investigate the wages and working conditions of African miners.
During its evidence to the Lansdowne commission, the AMWU called for regular wage increases; payment of a cost-of-living allowance; statutory minimum wage levels to be determined by Wage Board inquiries; the total abolition of the compound system; the tribal division of the work force and restrictions on freedom of movement; and finally, recognition of the AMWU.
Against this, representatives of the Chamber of Mines stressed the industry's dependence on cheap migrant labor. The wages paid to African miners, it argued, were "perfectly adequate", considering that workers were housed and fed in the compounds and that Reserve production was another source of income. However, after an investigation of conditions in the rural homelands, the commission reported that "Reserve production is but a myth" and that poverty, landlessness and severe malnutrition were a "cause for grave concern".
Nevertheless, the Lansdowne commission refused to support AMWU calls for an end to the migrant labor system. Mindful of the "profitability constraints" of the mining industry, the commission backed the retention of the system at wages that provided "a proper livelihood".
On the question of recognition for the AMWU, the commission stated that while it was in favor of some sort of system of collective bargaining for Africans, black miners had not yet reached the stage of development which would enable them safely and usefully to employ trade unionism as a means of promoting their advancement.
*Leading middle-class Africans outlined African political demands in a document entitled "African Claims in South Africa."
In August 1941, at the height of World War II, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill slipped out of his beleaguered country for a round of secret talks with his United States counterpart Franklin Roosevelt. A few days later, from a battleship stationed off the coast of Newfoundland, the two leaders offered the world "a blueprint for future peace and security". The "blueprint" was called the Atlantic Charter and its initial purpose was to pave the way for the entry of the United States into the war. The Charter, therefore, placed heavy emphasis on the maintenance of human rights, with one of the major clauses being an undertaking that "the great nations of the world would do what they could to afford assurance that all men in all lands may live out their lives in freedom from fear and want".
Thousands of kilometers away, on the other side of the world, black South African nationalists adopted the charter as a symbol of the freedom for which they had been striving since before Union. The black South African nationalists subsequently argued that, as an ally of Great Britain and the United States, South Africa was morally obliged to abide by the terms of the document. Claims by the state that the charter was aimed primarily at Hitler-style oppression, were countered with the argument between the German dictator's brand of Nazism and the South African government's policy of racial segregation.
In a quandary, the South African government decided to keep quiet and offered as few comments as possible. However, the ever hopeful African spokesmen refused to let the matter rest, and when it was raised again in 1942 during a sitting of the Natives' Representative Council, a government spokesman told council members: "The freedoms vouchsafed to the people of the world in the Atlantic Charter were indicated for the African people as well." Significantly, the spokesman failed to say how and when the terms of the charter would be implemented.
In 1943, leading African professionals and politicians, including members of the African National Congress (ANC) and the Communist Party of South Africa (CPSA), outlined the full extent of black claims in a document entitled "African Claims in South Africa" -- a document which was, in effect, an interpretation of the Atlantic Charter from an African point of view. Among the demands put forward were the abolition of racial discrimination, the granting of full franchise (voting) rights, freedom of movement and residential rights, equal education, equal pay, equality of ownership and property and full social services for Africans.
Although Prime Minister Smuts rejected this interpretation of the charter, the African claims were later well-received at Pan-Africanist congresses, in the United Nations and, after 1947, in newly independent India.
*Communists launched the anti-Pass campaign (May 20).
In 1939, at the out break of World War II, the Communist Party of South Africa (CPSA) existed only in name. Ravaged by internal fights and rejected by both black and white activists, its membership had dwindled to about 300 supporters.
However, on June 22, 1941, when the Soviet Union was drawn into the conflict, and white South Africans began singing the praises of a "glorious and respected" new ally, communism began to thrive as never before.
Within a year, Moscow had established a diplomatic presence in South Africa. Fringe groups such as the Friends of the Soviet Union (FSU) and Medical Aid for Russia packed halls at nationwide meetings. Prominent public figures, such as the Minister of Justice Colin Steyn, agreed to become patrons of pro-Soviet clubs such as the FSU.
It opened up limitless new possibilities which the CPSA faithful were determined not to let slip. Choosing patriotism as their battle-cry, they expertly manipulated the new situation. A countrywide series of "Defend South Africa" rallies won over hundreds to their cause. And speakers who only a few months earlier had been calling on South Africans not to support an "imperialist" war now urged their followers to "avenge Tobruk", and the government to "arm the people."
One effect of the party's new-found respectability was a rapid growth in membership -- with a low of 300 in 1939 rising to several thousand by 1943. And although most of the recruits were Africans, whites also joined in sufficient numbers to encourage the CPSA to contest elections for the first time since the 1920s.
In many ways, the party's foray into white electoral politics was tinged with opportunism. Only too aware of the extent of white fears and prejudices, it adopted a deliberately vague and ambiguous approach to African aspirations -- especially during its campaign in the 1943 general election. In this respect, African opinion-makers in the party collaborated fully in the compilation of pamphlets such as one entitled, "We South Africans", in which it was suggested that "Africans may prefer a policy of total segregation under a socialist state".
The CPSA, which fielded nine candidates in the election, failed to capture a seat, but drew a satisfactory 7,000 votes. During the next year, it was given further encouragement when communist candidates won a total of four seats in municipal elections in Cape Town, East London and Johannesburg.
However, the moderation the CPSA projected to white voters in the election was tempered with the knowledge that it could not afford to alienate its black supporters. Thus the party also regularly called for black soldiers to be armed; for African trade unions to be recognized; for the extension of voting rights to Africans; and for the scrapping of the Pass laws.
Indeed, in 1943, when the government revoked its moratorium on the Pass laws, it was the CPSA which arranged an anti-Pass conference where more than 150 delegates representing 80,000 people, resolved to set up a countrywide network of anti-Pass committees and "to undertake every form of activity which will bring pressure on the government to abolish the Pass laws".
On May 20, 1943, the nationwide campaign was officially inaugurated when 540 delegates, representing organizations as diverse as trade unions, churches, vigilance associations, food clubs, the CPSA, the ANC, student groups and Advisory Boards, met in Johannesburg's Gandhi Hall to plan strategy. After rejecting calls for militant action by Trotskyite groups, delegates voted to embark on a million signature petition -- to be presented to the government in August that year.
But after a promising start, the campaign became bogged down -- and in June 1945, when the petition was finally delivered to deputy Prime Minister Jan Hofmeyr, only 100,000 signatures (which the government ignored anyway) had been collected.
Compared to previous forms of protest, a signature campaign seemed rather tame. However, by then, it had long been apparent that the CPSA had lost its nerve.
*The United Party won the general election.
*The Communist Party of South Africa garnered 7,000 votes in the general election.
The Communist Party of South Africa was founded in 1921 by the joining together of the International Socialist League and others under the leadership of William H. Andrews. It first came to prominence during the armed Rand Rebellion by white mineworkers in 1922. The large mining concerns, facing labor shortages and wage pressures, had announced their intention of liberalizing the rigid color bar within the mines and elevate some blacks to minor supervisory positions. (The vast majority of white miners mainly held supervisory positions over the laboring black miners.) Despite having opposed racialism from its inception, the CPSA supported the white miners in their call to preserve wages and the color bar with the slogan "Workers of the world, unite and fight for a white South Africa!". With the failure of the rising, in part due to black workers failing to strike, the Communist Party was forced by Comintern to adopt the "Native Republic" thesis which stipulated that South Africa was a country belonging to the Natives, that is, the Blacks. The Party thus reoriented itself at its 1924 Party Congress towards organizing black workers and "Africanising" the party. By 1928, 1,600 of the party's 1,750 members were black. In 1929, the party adopted a "strategic line" which held that, "The most direct line of advance to socialism runs through the mass struggle for majority rule". By 1948, the Party had officially abandoned the Native Republic policy.
*The Coloured Advisory Council (CAC) was established.
Prior to 1948, the ruling South African political party, the United Party, was firmly committed to the coloured franchise -- the coloured right to vote -- knowing only too well that nearly all the "coloured" votes were for their own candidates. Nevertheless, in 1943, the United Party sanctioned the establishment of a so-called Coloured Advisory Council (CAC), ostensibly to alleviate poverty among coloured people as their reward for military service during World War II. Whether or not the council was philanthropically inspired, it divided coloured political leaders at the Cape -- on the one hand, those prepared to collaborate, and on the other, those who, believing it was an instrument of segregation, formed the Anti-CAC (later Anti-CAD) committee, which then united with the All-African Convention to form the Non-European Unity Movement.
*An anti-CAC group allied with the All-African Convention to form the Non-European Unity Movement.
*A dance in the Pietermaritzburg City Hall organized by the Coloured Welfare League was broken up by white soldiers -- and two white and three black civilianx were injured (November). The military authorities blamed the City Council which, it said, should not have permitted a dance for coloured people in the City Hall. The Mayor, Mrs. Russel, bravely replied that she was "not impressed by, or interested in, what the military thought".
*The African National Congress (ANC) accepted the proposal for the formation of the Congress Youth League (December).
The election of Alfred Xuma to the presidency of the African National Congress (ANC) in 1940 had paved the way for gradual transformation. A capable and energetic organizer, Xuma had reorganized the ANC by centralizing control in the presidency and an executive of five who lived within 80 kilometers (50 miles) of the president. The House of Chiefs was abolished, women were given equal rights within the organization, and steps were taken to secure the financial base of the movement through paid membership. Xuma had also recognized that younger men in the movement were restless and had therefore started pressing for more thorough-going reforms. Thus, during 1943, Xuma permitted himself to be drawn into consultation by younger activists who needed his support for the proposed establishment of a youth wing.
The most prominent among the youth group were Peter Mda, Jordan Ngubane, William Nkomo, Nelson Mandela and Walter Sisulu. Later they were joined and led by Anton Lembede, a 33-year-old lawyer and political strategist who gave new shape to the development of radical African nationalism.
In December 1943, the annual conference of the ANC accepted the proposal for the formation of the Congress Youth League (CYL), despite a prophetic warning by the elder George Champion that the CYL would prove to be Xuma's eventual undoing.
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*Artist Howardena Pindell was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (April 14).
*Singer and actress Leslie Uggams was born in New York City (May 25).
*Chicago Bears running back Gale Sayers was born in Wichita, Kansas (May 30). He would become the youngest player elected to the Football Hall of Fame.
*Singer and actress Leslie Uggams was born in New York City (May 25).
*Faye Wattleton, president of Planned Parenthood, was born in St. Louis, Missouri (July 8).
*Toni Williams, the first African American showgirl with Ringling Brothers Circus, was born in Reading, Pennsylvania. She later formed a trapeze act on her own.
*Toni Williams, the first African American showgirl with Ringling Brothers Circus, was born in Reading, Pennsylvania. She later formed a trapeze act on her own.
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Notable Deaths
*There were three recorded lynchings of African Americans in 1943.
*George Washington Carver, scientist, teacher, and nutritionist, died in Tuskegee, Alabama (January 5).
By both books and experience, George acquired a fragmentary education while doing whatever work came to hand in order to subsist. He supported himself by varied occupations that included general household worker, hotel cook, laundryman, farm laborer, and homesteader. In his late 20s, he managed to obtain a high school education in Minneapolis, Kansas, while working as a farmhand. After a university in Kansas refused to admit him because he was black, Carver matriculated at Simpson College, Indianola, Iowa, where he studied piano and art, subsequently transferring to Iowa State Agricultural College (Ames, Iowa), where he received a bachelor’s degree in agricultural science in 1894 and a master of science degree in 1896.
Carver left Iowa for Alabama in the fall of 1896 to direct the newly organized department of agriculture at the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute, a school headed by noted black American educator Booker T. Washington. At Tuskegee, Washington was trying to improve the lot of African Americans through education and the acquisition of useful skills rather than through political agitation. Washington stressed conciliation, compromise, and economic development as the paths for black advancement in American society. Despite many offers elsewhere, Carver would remain at Tuskegee for the rest of his life.
In 1914, at a time when the boll weevil had almost ruined cotton growers, Carver revealed his experiments to the public, and increasing numbers of the South’s farmers began to turn to peanuts, sweet potatoes, and their derivatives for income. Much exhausted land was renewed, and the South became a major new supplier of agricultural products. When Carver arrived at Tuskegee in 1896, the peanut had not even been recognized as a crop, but within the next half century it became one of the six leading crops throughout the United States and, in the South, the second cash crop (after cotton) by 1940. In 1942 the U.S. government allotted 2,023,428 hectares (5,000,000 acres) of peanuts to farmers. Carver’s efforts had finally helped liberate the South from its excessive dependence on cotton.
*Harry Herbert Pace, the founder of Black Swan Records, died in Chicago, Illinois (July 19).
*Fats Waller, pianist and composer ("Ain't Misbehavin'", "Honesuckle Rose", and "Stormy Weather"), died in Kansas City, Missouri (December 15).
*George Washington Carver, scientist, teacher, and nutritionist, died in Tuskegee, Alabama (January 5).
George Washington Carver, (b. 1861?, near Diamond Grove, Missouri, — d. January 5, 1943, Tuskegee, Alabama), American agricultural chemist, agronomist, and experimenter whose development of new products derived from peanuts (groundnuts), sweet potatoes, and soybeans helped revolutionize the agricultural economy of the South. For most of his career he taught and conducted research at the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute (now Tuskegee University) in Tuskegee, Alabama.
Carver was born into slavery, the son of a slave woman named Mary, owned by Moses Carver. During the American Civil War, the Carver farm was raided, and infant George and his mother were kidnapped and taken to Arkansas to be sold. Moses Carver was eventually able to track down young George but was unable to find Mary. Frail and sick, the motherless child was returned to his master’s home and nursed back to health. With the complete abolition of slavery in the United States in 1865, George was no longer a slave. Nevertheless, he remained on the Carver plantation until he was about 10 or 12 years old, when he left to acquire an education. He spent some time wandering about, working with his hands and developing his keen interest in plants and animals. He learned to draw, and later in life he devoted considerable time to painting flowers, plants, and landscapes.
By both books and experience, George acquired a fragmentary education while doing whatever work came to hand in order to subsist. He supported himself by varied occupations that included general household worker, hotel cook, laundryman, farm laborer, and homesteader. In his late 20s, he managed to obtain a high school education in Minneapolis, Kansas, while working as a farmhand. After a university in Kansas refused to admit him because he was black, Carver matriculated at Simpson College, Indianola, Iowa, where he studied piano and art, subsequently transferring to Iowa State Agricultural College (Ames, Iowa), where he received a bachelor’s degree in agricultural science in 1894 and a master of science degree in 1896.
Carver left Iowa for Alabama in the fall of 1896 to direct the newly organized department of agriculture at the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute, a school headed by noted black American educator Booker T. Washington. At Tuskegee, Washington was trying to improve the lot of African Americans through education and the acquisition of useful skills rather than through political agitation. Washington stressed conciliation, compromise, and economic development as the paths for black advancement in American society. Despite many offers elsewhere, Carver would remain at Tuskegee for the rest of his life.
After becoming the institute’s director of agricultural research in 1896, Carver devoted his time to research projects aimed at helping Southern agriculture, demonstrating ways in which farmers could improve their economic situation. He conducted experiments in soil management and crop production and directed an experimental farm. At this time agriculture in the Deep South was in steep decline because the unremitting single-crop cultivation of cotton had left the soil of many fields exhausted and worthless, and erosion had then taken its toll on areas that could no longer sustain any plant cover. As a remedy, Carver urged Southern farmers to plant peanuts (Arachis hypogaea) and soybeans (Glycine max). As members of the legume family (Fabaceae), these plants could restore nitrogen to the soil while also providing the protein so badly needed in the diet of many Southerners. Carver found that Alabama’s soils were particularly well-suited to growing peanuts and sweet potatoes (Ipomoea batatas), but when the state’s farmers began cultivating these crops instead of cotton, they found little demand for them on the market. In response to this problem, Carver set about enlarging the commercial possibilities of the peanut and sweet potato through a long and ingenious program of laboratory research. He ultimately developed 300 derivative products from peanuts—among them milk, flour, ink, dyes, plastics, wood stains, soap, linoleum, medicinal oils, and cosmetics — and 118 from sweet potatoes, including flour, vinegar, molasses, ink, a synthetic rubber, and postage stamp glue.
In 1914, at a time when the boll weevil had almost ruined cotton growers, Carver revealed his experiments to the public, and increasing numbers of the South’s farmers began to turn to peanuts, sweet potatoes, and their derivatives for income. Much exhausted land was renewed, and the South became a major new supplier of agricultural products. When Carver arrived at Tuskegee in 1896, the peanut had not even been recognized as a crop, but within the next half century it became one of the six leading crops throughout the United States and, in the South, the second cash crop (after cotton) by 1940. In 1942 the U.S. government allotted 2,023,428 hectares (5,000,000 acres) of peanuts to farmers. Carver’s efforts had finally helped liberate the South from its excessive dependence on cotton.
Among Carver’s many honors were his election to Britain’s Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures, and Commerce (London) in 1916 and his receipt of the Spingarn Medal in 1923. Late in his career he declined an invitation to work for Thomas A. Edison at a salary of more than $100,000 a year. Presidents Calvin Coolidge and Franklin D. Roosevelt visited him, and his friends included Henry Ford and Mohandas K. Gandhi. Foreign governments requested his counsel on agricultural matters: Joseph Stalin, for example, in 1931 invited him to superintend cotton plantations in southern Russia and to make a tour of the Soviet Union, but Carver refused.
Carver thus increasingly came to stand for much of white America as a kind of saintly and comfortable symbol of the intellectual achievements of African Americans. Carver was evidently uninterested in the role his image played in the racial politics of the time. His great desire in later life was simply to serve humanity; and his work, which began for the sake of the poorest of the African American sharecroppers, paved the way for a better life for the entire South. His efforts brought about a significant advance in agricultural training in an era when agriculture was the largest single occupation of Americans, and he extended Tuskegee’s influence throughout the South by encouraging improved farm methods, crop diversification, and soil conservation.
In 1940 Carver donated his life savings to the establishment of the Carver Research Foundation at Tuskegee for continuing research in agriculture. During World War II, he worked to replace the textile dyes formerly imported from Europe, and in all he produced dyes of 500 different shades.
Many scientists thought of Carver more as a concoctionist than as a contributor to scientific knowledge. Many of his fellow African Americans were critical of what they regarded as his subservience. Certainly, this small, mild, soft-spoken, innately modest man, eccentric in dress and mannerism, seemed unbelievably heedless of the conventional pleasures and rewards of this life. But these qualities endeared Carver to many European Americans, who were almost invariably charmed by his humble demeanor and his quiet work in self-imposed segregation at Tuskegee. As a result of his accommodation to the mores of the South, European Americans came to regard him with a sort of patronizing adulation.
Carver thus increasingly came to stand for much of white America as a kind of saintly and comfortable symbol of the intellectual achievements of African Americans. Carver was evidently uninterested in the role his image played in the racial politics of the time. His great desire in later life was simply to serve humanity; and his work, which began for the sake of the poorest of the African American sharecroppers, paved the way for a better life for the entire South. His efforts brought about a significant advance in agricultural training in an era when agriculture was the largest single occupation of Americans, and he extended Tuskegee’s influence throughout the South by encouraging improved farm methods, crop diversification, and soil conservation.
*Harry Herbert Pace, the founder of Black Swan Records, died in Chicago, Illinois (July 19).
*Fats Waller, pianist and composer ("Ain't Misbehavin'", "Honesuckle Rose", and "Stormy Weather"), died in Kansas City, Missouri (December 15).
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Performing Arts
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Politics
*William L. Dawson, a Chicago African American and Democrat, became a member of the House of Representatives.
*Benjamin J. Davis, Jr., an African American and a member of the National Committee of the Communist Party, was elected to the New York City Council. He was re-elected in 1945.
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Publications
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Statistics
*In the three years from 1940 to 1943, the African American population of Los Angeles grew 30%; of Chicago 20%; of Detroit 19%; of Norfolk, Virginia, 100%; and Charleston, South Carolina, 39%.
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The Americas
Canada
*Wayne Adams, the first African Canadian member of the Nova Scotia House of Assembly, was born in Halifax, Nova Scotia.
Wayne Adams, (b. 1943), a former Canadian provincial politician who was the first African Canadian member of the Nova Scotia House of Assembly and cabinet minister, was born
A Nova Scotia Liberal, Adams was elected in the 1993 Nova Scotia general election in the riding of Preston. He was the Minister of the Environment, the Minister responsible for the Emergency Measures Act, and the Minister responsible for the Nova Scotia Boxing Authority in the governments of first John Savage (1993–1997) and then Russell MacLellan (1997–1998).
He was defeated in 1998 by the NDP candidate, Yvonne Atwell.
In 2011, he was invested as a member of the Order of Nova Scotia.
Haiti
*He Who Would Die, the single collection of verse by H. Binga Dismond, was published. Much of Dismond's social-protest poetry utilizes the Jim Crow theme. He also translated and re-adapted contemporary Haitian verse.
Mexico
*****
Uruguay
Performing Arts
*Othello opened on Broadway with Paul Robeson in the title role. It ran 296 performances, a record for a Shakespeare play.
*The all-black musical Carmen Jones, with Muriel Rahn and Muriel Smith alternating in the title role, opened on Broadway.
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Politics
*William L. Dawson, a Chicago African American and Democrat, became a member of the House of Representatives.
*Benjamin J. Davis, Jr., an African American and a member of the National Committee of the Communist Party, was elected to the New York City Council. He was re-elected in 1945.
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Publications
*The Sun-Reporter was started in San Francisco, California.
*Artist and art historian James A. Porter, published Modern Negro Art.
*In his book, One World, the defeated Republican Presidential candidate, Wendell Wilkie, wrote in the chapter "Our Imperialisms at Home" that American attitudes toward Negroes were blatantly imperialist and impeded the war effort by bringing America's sincerity into question with foreign nations.
*Charles S. Johnson began editing the Monthly Summary of Events and Trends in Race Relations (later called Race Relations) that developed out of a confidential assignment from President Roosevelt to write a monthly report on race relations.
*In his book, One World, the defeated Republican Presidential candidate, Wendell Wilkie, wrote in the chapter "Our Imperialisms at Home" that American attitudes toward Negroes were blatantly imperialist and impeded the war effort by bringing America's sincerity into question with foreign nations.
*Charles S. Johnson began editing the Monthly Summary of Events and Trends in Race Relations (later called Race Relations) that developed out of a confidential assignment from President Roosevelt to write a monthly report on race relations.
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Statistics
*In the three years from 1940 to 1943, the African American population of Los Angeles grew 30%; of Chicago 20%; of Detroit 19%; of Norfolk, Virginia, 100%; and Charleston, South Carolina, 39%.
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The Americas
Canada
*Wayne Adams, the first African Canadian member of the Nova Scotia House of Assembly, was born in Halifax, Nova Scotia.
Wayne Adams, (b. 1943), a former Canadian provincial politician who was the first African Canadian member of the Nova Scotia House of Assembly and cabinet minister, was born
in Halifax, Nova Scotia.
Adams was first elected to the Halifax Municipal Council in 1979 and was re-elected five times. He was Deputy Mayor from 1982 to 1983.
Adams was first elected to the Halifax Municipal Council in 1979 and was re-elected five times. He was Deputy Mayor from 1982 to 1983.
A Nova Scotia Liberal, Adams was elected in the 1993 Nova Scotia general election in the riding of Preston. He was the Minister of the Environment, the Minister responsible for the Emergency Measures Act, and the Minister responsible for the Nova Scotia Boxing Authority in the governments of first John Savage (1993–1997) and then Russell MacLellan (1997–1998).
He was defeated in 1998 by the NDP candidate, Yvonne Atwell.
In 2003, he was made a Member of the Order of Canada, Canada's highest civilian honor.
In 2011, he was invested as a member of the Order of Nova Scotia.
Haiti
*He Who Would Die, the single collection of verse by H. Binga Dismond, was published. Much of Dismond's social-protest poetry utilizes the Jim Crow theme. He also translated and re-adapted contemporary Haitian verse.
Mexico
*Tona la Negra, an Afro- Mexican singer, appeared in the movie, Maria Eugenia.
MarÃa Eugenia is a 1943 Mexican drama film directed by Felipe Gregorio Castillo and starring Maria Felix, Manolita Saval and Rafael Baledon. The film's sets were designed by the art director Manuel Fontanals.
*In 1943, Bricktop, the famous Paris Noir cabaret queen, moved to Mexico City, where she lived for six years and was part owner of the Minuit and Chavez's clubs.
*In 1943, Bricktop, the famous Paris Noir cabaret queen, moved to Mexico City, where she lived for six years and was part owner of the Minuit and Chavez's clubs.
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Uruguay
Rubén Rada (born 17 July 1943); moniker "El Negro Rada") is an Afro-Uruguayan percussionist, composer and singer. He is closely associated with candombe, an Afro–Uruguayan music and dance genre that is built around a chorus oftamboriles – Uruguayan barrel drums. Rada has recorded more than 30 albums, today considered Uruguayan classics.[1]Rada's music, labelled candombe beat, combines pop, rock,and many other international musical styles with typically Uruguayan sounds like those of the candombe drums and of the murga choruses typical of the Uruguayan Carnival. Rada has composed some of Uruguay's most cherished songs.
Europe
Italy
Africa
Italy
After the Armistice of Cassibile, on the evening of September 8, 1943, the PAI participated in the defense of Rome, engaging in their first conflict with the Germans at Mezzocammmino, near Castelfusano, with troops of Carabinieri, in aid to a garrison of Grenadiers of Sardinia. On the other side of Rome, at the same time, some troops protected the escape of the King Victor Emmanuel III along the Via Tiburtina. On September 9, 1943, the PAI, with the Bersaglieri and cadet police officers, forced for a while the Germans to retreat from the Magliana area. However, after some hours they had in turn to withdraw in direction of Fort Ostiense, which was later stormed by the Germans.
The commander and founder of the PAI, General Marraffa, was captured by the Nazis and deported to the Dachau concentration camp, where he died.
Later, there was a reorganization attempt in northern Italy, with the opening of a PAI school at Busto Arsizio in the autumn of 1943. However, the troops were absorbed by the Republican Police Force of the Italian Social Republic, and finally by the Republican National Guard.
Democratic Republic of the Congo
(Belgian Congo)
*A medical unit from the Congo, the 10th (Belgian Congo) Casualty Clearing Station, was formed in 1943, and served alongside British forces during the invasion of Madagascar and in the Far East during the Burma Campaign. The unit (which had a small body of Force Publique troops for local defense of the station) included 350 black and 20 white personnel, and continued to serve with the British until 1945.
Ethiopia
(Abyssinia)
*Despite the resurrection of the parliament in 1942, Haile Selassie promulgated a number of laws in the form of proclamations and decrees. It was not until his proclamation 34/1943 that the authority of the parliament was included.
Liberia
*Edwin Barclay, president of Liberia, visited President Roosevelt at the White House. It was the first official visit by an African head of state to an American president.
Nigeria
*The Nigerian Spokesman, a newspaper, was launched in Onitsha.
South Africa
*The Lansdowne commission investigated the working conditions and wages of African miners.
In 1943, after a series of work stoppages on the mines, the African Mineworkers' Union (AMWU) boosted its image when it played a key role in persuading the South African government to appoint the Lansdowne commission of inquiry to investigate the wages and working conditions of African miners.
During its evidence to the Lansdowne commission, the AMWU called for regular wage increases; payment of a cost-of-living allowance; statutory minimum wage levels to be determined by Wage Board inquiries; the total abolition of the compound system; the tribal division of the work force and restrictions on freedom of movement; and finally, recognition of the AMWU.
Against this, representatives of the Chamber of Mines stressed the industry's dependence on cheap migrant labor. The wages paid to African miners, it argued, were "perfectly adequate", considering that workers were housed and fed in the compounds and that Reserve production was another source of income. However, after an investigation of conditions in the rural homelands, the commission reported that "Reserve production is but a myth" and that poverty, landlessness and severe malnutrition were a "cause for grave concern".
Nevertheless, the Lansdowne commission refused to support AMWU calls for an end to the migrant labor system. Mindful of the "profitability constraints" of the mining industry, the commission backed the retention of the system at wages that provided "a proper livelihood".
On the question of recognition for the AMWU, the commission stated that while it was in favor of some sort of system of collective bargaining for Africans, black miners had not yet reached the stage of development which would enable them safely and usefully to employ trade unionism as a means of promoting their advancement.
*Leading middle-class Africans outlined African political demands in a document entitled "African Claims in South Africa."
In August 1941, at the height of World War II, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill slipped out of his beleaguered country for a round of secret talks with his United States counterpart Franklin Roosevelt. A few days later, from a battleship stationed off the coast of Newfoundland, the two leaders offered the world "a blueprint for future peace and security". The "blueprint" was called the Atlantic Charter and its initial purpose was to pave the way for the entry of the United States into the war. The Charter, therefore, placed heavy emphasis on the maintenance of human rights, with one of the major clauses being an undertaking that "the great nations of the world would do what they could to afford assurance that all men in all lands may live out their lives in freedom from fear and want".
Thousands of kilometers away, on the other side of the world, black South African nationalists adopted the charter as a symbol of the freedom for which they had been striving since before Union. The black South African nationalists subsequently argued that, as an ally of Great Britain and the United States, South Africa was morally obliged to abide by the terms of the document. Claims by the state that the charter was aimed primarily at Hitler-style oppression, were countered with the argument between the German dictator's brand of Nazism and the South African government's policy of racial segregation.
In a quandary, the South African government decided to keep quiet and offered as few comments as possible. However, the ever hopeful African spokesmen refused to let the matter rest, and when it was raised again in 1942 during a sitting of the Natives' Representative Council, a government spokesman told council members: "The freedoms vouchsafed to the people of the world in the Atlantic Charter were indicated for the African people as well." Significantly, the spokesman failed to say how and when the terms of the charter would be implemented.
In 1943, leading African professionals and politicians, including members of the African National Congress (ANC) and the Communist Party of South Africa (CPSA), outlined the full extent of black claims in a document entitled "African Claims in South Africa" -- a document which was, in effect, an interpretation of the Atlantic Charter from an African point of view. Among the demands put forward were the abolition of racial discrimination, the granting of full franchise (voting) rights, freedom of movement and residential rights, equal education, equal pay, equality of ownership and property and full social services for Africans.
Although Prime Minister Smuts rejected this interpretation of the charter, the African claims were later well-received at Pan-Africanist congresses, in the United Nations and, after 1947, in newly independent India.
*Communists launched the anti-Pass campaign (May 20).
In 1939, at the out break of World War II, the Communist Party of South Africa (CPSA) existed only in name. Ravaged by internal fights and rejected by both black and white activists, its membership had dwindled to about 300 supporters.
However, on June 22, 1941, when the Soviet Union was drawn into the conflict, and white South Africans began singing the praises of a "glorious and respected" new ally, communism began to thrive as never before.
Within a year, Moscow had established a diplomatic presence in South Africa. Fringe groups such as the Friends of the Soviet Union (FSU) and Medical Aid for Russia packed halls at nationwide meetings. Prominent public figures, such as the Minister of Justice Colin Steyn, agreed to become patrons of pro-Soviet clubs such as the FSU.
It opened up limitless new possibilities which the CPSA faithful were determined not to let slip. Choosing patriotism as their battle-cry, they expertly manipulated the new situation. A countrywide series of "Defend South Africa" rallies won over hundreds to their cause. And speakers who only a few months earlier had been calling on South Africans not to support an "imperialist" war now urged their followers to "avenge Tobruk", and the government to "arm the people."
One effect of the party's new-found respectability was a rapid growth in membership -- with a low of 300 in 1939 rising to several thousand by 1943. And although most of the recruits were Africans, whites also joined in sufficient numbers to encourage the CPSA to contest elections for the first time since the 1920s.
In many ways, the party's foray into white electoral politics was tinged with opportunism. Only too aware of the extent of white fears and prejudices, it adopted a deliberately vague and ambiguous approach to African aspirations -- especially during its campaign in the 1943 general election. In this respect, African opinion-makers in the party collaborated fully in the compilation of pamphlets such as one entitled, "We South Africans", in which it was suggested that "Africans may prefer a policy of total segregation under a socialist state".
The CPSA, which fielded nine candidates in the election, failed to capture a seat, but drew a satisfactory 7,000 votes. During the next year, it was given further encouragement when communist candidates won a total of four seats in municipal elections in Cape Town, East London and Johannesburg.
However, the moderation the CPSA projected to white voters in the election was tempered with the knowledge that it could not afford to alienate its black supporters. Thus the party also regularly called for black soldiers to be armed; for African trade unions to be recognized; for the extension of voting rights to Africans; and for the scrapping of the Pass laws.
Indeed, in 1943, when the government revoked its moratorium on the Pass laws, it was the CPSA which arranged an anti-Pass conference where more than 150 delegates representing 80,000 people, resolved to set up a countrywide network of anti-Pass committees and "to undertake every form of activity which will bring pressure on the government to abolish the Pass laws".
On May 20, 1943, the nationwide campaign was officially inaugurated when 540 delegates, representing organizations as diverse as trade unions, churches, vigilance associations, food clubs, the CPSA, the ANC, student groups and Advisory Boards, met in Johannesburg's Gandhi Hall to plan strategy. After rejecting calls for militant action by Trotskyite groups, delegates voted to embark on a million signature petition -- to be presented to the government in August that year.
But after a promising start, the campaign became bogged down -- and in June 1945, when the petition was finally delivered to deputy Prime Minister Jan Hofmeyr, only 100,000 signatures (which the government ignored anyway) had been collected.
Compared to previous forms of protest, a signature campaign seemed rather tame. However, by then, it had long been apparent that the CPSA had lost its nerve.
*The United Party won the general election.
*The Communist Party of South Africa garnered 7,000 votes in the general election.
The Communist Party of South Africa was founded in 1921 by the joining together of the International Socialist League and others under the leadership of William H. Andrews. It first came to prominence during the armed Rand Rebellion by white mineworkers in 1922. The large mining concerns, facing labor shortages and wage pressures, had announced their intention of liberalizing the rigid color bar within the mines and elevate some blacks to minor supervisory positions. (The vast majority of white miners mainly held supervisory positions over the laboring black miners.) Despite having opposed racialism from its inception, the CPSA supported the white miners in their call to preserve wages and the color bar with the slogan "Workers of the world, unite and fight for a white South Africa!". With the failure of the rising, in part due to black workers failing to strike, the Communist Party was forced by Comintern to adopt the "Native Republic" thesis which stipulated that South Africa was a country belonging to the Natives, that is, the Blacks. The Party thus reoriented itself at its 1924 Party Congress towards organizing black workers and "Africanising" the party. By 1928, 1,600 of the party's 1,750 members were black. In 1929, the party adopted a "strategic line" which held that, "The most direct line of advance to socialism runs through the mass struggle for majority rule". By 1948, the Party had officially abandoned the Native Republic policy.
*The Coloured Advisory Council (CAC) was established.
Prior to 1948, the ruling South African political party, the United Party, was firmly committed to the coloured franchise -- the coloured right to vote -- knowing only too well that nearly all the "coloured" votes were for their own candidates. Nevertheless, in 1943, the United Party sanctioned the establishment of a so-called Coloured Advisory Council (CAC), ostensibly to alleviate poverty among coloured people as their reward for military service during World War II. Whether or not the council was philanthropically inspired, it divided coloured political leaders at the Cape -- on the one hand, those prepared to collaborate, and on the other, those who, believing it was an instrument of segregation, formed the Anti-CAC (later Anti-CAD) committee, which then united with the All-African Convention to form the Non-European Unity Movement.
*An anti-CAC group allied with the All-African Convention to form the Non-European Unity Movement.
The Non-European Unity Movement (NEUM) was a Trotskyist organization formed in South Africa in 1943.
It was committed to non-racialism and its primary tactic was one of non-collaboration with the apartheid regime. The movement split in 1957, with both splinter organizations going into decline shortly thereafter. Both were revived in the 1980's, but have had little political influence since.
*In August 1943, an official investigation ruled in favor of the bus companies operating in the Alexandra township located 15 kilometers (9 miles) north of Johannesburg regarding a fare increase. In response, 20,000 people decided to walk to work and back. The protest lasted ten days, and in that time communists, white left-wingers and liberals, led by Senator Hyman Basner, organized lift-clubs to help some of the people to get to work on time. Police and traffic department officials also assisted, and the Department of Native Affairs appealed to companies not to sack latecomers. On August 10, 1943, the government appointed a commission of inquiry and, for the time being, the four pence fare was restored.*A dance in the Pietermaritzburg City Hall organized by the Coloured Welfare League was broken up by white soldiers -- and two white and three black civilianx were injured (November). The military authorities blamed the City Council which, it said, should not have permitted a dance for coloured people in the City Hall. The Mayor, Mrs. Russel, bravely replied that she was "not impressed by, or interested in, what the military thought".
*The African National Congress (ANC) accepted the proposal for the formation of the Congress Youth League (December).
The election of Alfred Xuma to the presidency of the African National Congress (ANC) in 1940 had paved the way for gradual transformation. A capable and energetic organizer, Xuma had reorganized the ANC by centralizing control in the presidency and an executive of five who lived within 80 kilometers (50 miles) of the president. The House of Chiefs was abolished, women were given equal rights within the organization, and steps were taken to secure the financial base of the movement through paid membership. Xuma had also recognized that younger men in the movement were restless and had therefore started pressing for more thorough-going reforms. Thus, during 1943, Xuma permitted himself to be drawn into consultation by younger activists who needed his support for the proposed establishment of a youth wing.
The most prominent among the youth group were Peter Mda, Jordan Ngubane, William Nkomo, Nelson Mandela and Walter Sisulu. Later they were joined and led by Anton Lembede, a 33-year-old lawyer and political strategist who gave new shape to the development of radical African nationalism.
In December 1943, the annual conference of the ANC accepted the proposal for the formation of the Congress Youth League (CYL), despite a prophetic warning by the elder George Champion that the CYL would prove to be Xuma's eventual undoing.
General Historical Events
January 23
*The British Eighth Army seized Tripoli in North Africa. Axis forces fell back with the British in pursuit.
January 27
*The Casablanca Conference was convened with Roosevelt, Giraud, de Gaulle, and Churchill. The Conference culminated in the appointment of General Eisenhower as Commander of the unified forces in North Africa.
February
*The new Mexican volcano Paricutin began erupting.
February 8
*Allied forces seized Guadalcanal in the Solomons.
March
*The Battle of Bismarck Sea occurred. The United States sank 21 Japanese transports taking troops to New Guinea.
March 15
*After losing Kharkov to the Russians, the Germans recaptured the city. The Germans lost 500,000 during winter fighting on the eastern front.
April 18
*The Battle of the Warsaw Ghetto began as 500,000 Jews bottled up in the ghetto defended themselves heroically for six weeks against attacks by German tanks and artillery. The losses were about 5,000 on each side, but the Jewish survivors were deported to death camps.
May 7
*The British took Tunis and Bizerte fell to the Americans, bringing Axis resistance in North Africa to an end.
July 5
*The Battle of Kursk began. After a week of heavy fighting the Soviet Fifth Army won. 70,000 German troops were lost.
July 9
*The United States airborne invasion of Sicily by United States and British paratroopers began.
July 19
*The United States conducted a bombing raid on Rome.
July 25
*Mussolini resigned under pressure and Marshal Badoglio took over at the age of 72.
August 5
*Allied forces seized the Japanese air base at Munda in the Solomon Islands.
August 17
*Allied troops seized Messina in Sicily and crossed into southern Italy. The Badoglio regime signed an armistice with the Allies at Algiers.
August 23
*Russian troops recaptured the city of Kharkov.
September 8
*Although Italy surrendered unconditionally, German forces in Italy continued to fight.
September 25
*Soviet troops retook Smolensk.
October 4
*Heinrich Himmler outlined in a speech to his Gruppenfuhrer his plan for "the extermination of the Jews". The plan would be a "never-to-be-written page of glory."
November 6
*Soviet forces retook the city of Kiev as they advance westwards.
December 24
*The Pas de Calais was attacked by Allied planes.
*****
*President Roosevelt met with Winston Churchill at the Casablanca Conference in Morocco.
*Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein's musical Oklahoma opened on Broadway.
*A "jitterbug" craze, based on an African American dance, swept the United States.
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