1944

1944

*****

Pan-African Chronology

The party was dissolved on June 11, 1944. The few properties of the party were donated to Nuestra Raza.

January 26

*Activist Angela Davis was born in Birmingham, Alabama (January 26)

January 30

*Sharon Pratt Dixon Kelly was born in Washington, D. C.  In 1990, she would become the capital's first woman mayor.

February

*In Ethiopia (Abyssinia), laws were issued under the authority of the Emperor and the parliament until the end of February 1944, when the sole authority of the Emperor again was used, which continued until the beginning of November of 1944, when the parliament was again in session.

February 2

*Basil Coetzee, a South African musician best known as a saxophonist, was born in District Six, Cape Town, South Africa.

February 9

*Novelist, poet, and essayist Alice Walker was born in Eatonton, Georgia.  She would win the American Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize for her novel The Color Purple.

February 20

*In the Belgian Congo (today's Democratic Republic of the Congo), mutineers broke into the Luluabourg armory and pillaged the white quarter of the town.

March

*In South Africa, members of the African National Congress Youth League published a manifesto in which it castigated the African National Congress for its elitism and for "giving way in the face of oppression".

March 14

*In Canada, the Province of Ontario passed the Racial Discrimination Act.

March 26

*Singer Diana Ross was born in Detroit, Michigan.

April

*James Mpanza started the Sofasonke squatter movement.

April 2

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Magda Saleh (b. April 2, 1944, Cairo, Egypt – d. June 11, 2023, Cairo, Egypt) was an Egyptian ballet dancer.

Saleh was born in Cairo in 1944, the daughter of an Egyptian father and Scottish mother. She studied English literature before attending the Higher Institute of Ballet and receiving a scholarship to attend the Moscow State Academy of Choreography.  Upon her return to Egypt, Saleh became a founding member of the Cairo Opera Ballet Company. In 1966, she staged her first performance, The Fountain of Bakhchisarai. The performance was viewed by President Gamal Abdel Nasser, who was so impressed that he awarded her the Order of Merit and sent her and her co-stars on a tour of Egypt, notably to Aswan, where the Aswan Dam was being built. By the end of the 1960s, she had become the most notable ballerina in Egypt, having been invited to perform at the Bolshoi Theatre and the Mariinsky Theatre. 

In 1971, the Khedivial Opera House burned down, which dealt a fatal blow to Saleh's ballet company. Additionally, President Anwar Sadat severed ties with the Soviet Union. In response, many Egyptian ballerinas emigrated to Europe, Russia, or the United States. Saleh chose to settle in the United States. She received a master's degree in modern dance from the University of Southern California and a doctorate from New York University, for studies in traditional Egyptian dance.

After the assassination of Anwar Sadat and Hosni Mubarak's rise to power, Saleh returned to Egypt in 1983 to chair the Higher Institute of Ballet and later, 1988, the Cairo Opera House. At the beginning of the 1990s, she was forced to give up power and returned to the United States, where she lived on Shelter Island, New York. She was married to Egyptologist Jack Josephson from 1993 until his death in 2022.

After Josephson's death, Saleh returned to Cairo to be closer to family. Magda Saleh died on June 11, 2023, at the age of 79.

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April 3 

*The United States Supreme Court ruled in Smith v. Allwright that the white primary, which had excluded African Americans from voting in the South, was unconstitutional.  The decision paved the way for African Americans to participate in Southern politics for the first time since Reconstruction, although many states were to enact new extra-legal devices to frustrate African American voting.

April 4

Nelson Prudêncio (April 4, 1944 – November 23, 2012) was a Brazilian athlete who competed in the triple jump. He won silver medals at the 1967 and 1971Pan American Games and 1968 Summer Olympics, and a bronze at the 1972 Summer Olympics. Prudêncio was ranked world's #2 in 1968, #3 in 1972, #5 in 1975, and #8 in 1971.^[1]

Prudêncio's jump of 17.27 metres (56 feet 8 inches) at the 1968 Olympics was the world record before Viktor Saneyev extended it to 17.39 metres (57 feet 1 inch) a few minutes later.^[2]

Prudêncio was Professor of Physical Education at the Federal University of São Carlos and vice-president of Confederação Brasileira de Atletismo (Brazilian Athletics Confederation).^[1][3] He died of lung cancer on November 23, 2012, in São Carlos. He was 68 years old.^[4]

April 9

*In South Africa, the African National Congress Youth League (CYL) was formed with Anton Lembede as its first president (April 9).

April 24

*The United Negro College Fund (UNCF) was founded to coordinate the fund-raising efforts of the private all-black institutions of higher learning (HBCUs).  Many of these colleges were facing extinction due to inadequate finances. 

May 20

*Eugene Chen, Sun Yat Sen's Foreign Minister, died in Shanghai, China.

May 24

*Singer Patricia Louise Holte, better known as "Patti LaBelle", was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

May 28

*Singer Gladys Knight was born in Atlanta, Georgia.

July 11 

*Louis "Sweet Lou" Hudson, a basketball star with the Atlanta Hawks, was born in Greensboro, North Carolina.

August 1

*Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., one of the most flamboyant and controversial politicians of the twentieth century, was elected United States Congressman from Harlem, becoming the first African American member of the House of Representatives from the East.  

  

August 20

*The SS Frederick Douglass, the first ship named in honor of an African American, was lost in European waters.

September 27

*Printmaker Stephanie Pogue was born in Shelby, North Carolina. 

November 

*In November 1944, the government gave the go-ahead for a fare increase in the Alexandra township located 15 kilometers (9 miles) from Johannesburg -- and this time the protest which followed was marked by increasingly tough action by police and Transportation Board officials.  Lift-givers were harassed, workers were arrested in Pass raids and meetings of more than twenty people were banned.  Finally, after seven weeks of deadlock, a compromise was reached when a coupon scheme, which allowed passengers to buy tickets in advance at the old price and companies to claim the deficit from the city council, was started. 

December 13

*African American women joined the WAVES (Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service) for the first time.

The United States

*****

Father Divine

In 1944, singer/songwriter Johnny Mercer came to hear of one of Divine's sermons. The subject was "You got to accentuate the positive and eliminate the negative." Mercer said, "Wow, that's a colorful phrase!”  He went back to Hollywood and got together with songwriter Harold Arlen ("Over The Rainbow"), and together they wrote "Ac-cent-tchu-ate The Positive", which was recorded by Mercer himself and the Pied Pipers in 1945. It was also recorded by Bing Crosby with the Andrew Sisters that same year.

*****

W. E. B. Du Bois

Turning down job offers from Fisk and Howard, Du Bois re-joined the NAACP as director of the Department of Special Research. Surprising many NAACP leaders, Du Bois jumped into the job with vigor and determination. During the ten years while Du Bois was away from the NAACP, its income had increased fourfold, and its membership had soared to 325,000 members.

*****

Awards

*The NAACP bestowed its first awards to motion picture actors whose roles advanced the image of African Americans.  Among the recipients were Rex Ingram for Sahara, Lena Horne for As Thousands Cheer, and Dooley Wilson for Casablanca.

*Congress awarded Matthew Henson a medal for his participation with Commander Robert Peary on the 1909 expedition to the North Pole.  It was the first official recognition of Henson's contribution.

*Frank Yerby won the O. Henry Award for his first published short story, Health Card.  Like many of his early stories, it concerned Negro life in the South.

*****

Education

*The United Negro College Fund was founded by Frederick Douglass Patterson, president of Tuskegee Institute, to coordinate fund-raising efforts for historically black private colleges (HBCUs) (April 24).

The United Negro College Fund (UNCF) was chartered with the aid of the Julius Rosenwald Fund and the General Education Board.  William Trent, Jr. was its first executive director.  Its purpose was to provide financial support for African American colleges.  The UNCF also sponsors a scholarship program for African students in America and a fellowship program for African American graduate students.

*****

The Labor Movement

*The CIO under the leadership of Sidney Hillman began integrating African American workers into its political structure.

CIO leader Sidney Hillman believed that the basic interests of organized workers and African Americans were the same.  Hillman helped to integrate African American workers into the political structure of the CIO, particularly in the Political Action Committee (PAC) which he headed.  Hillman also sought the participation of African American leaders in the National Citizens PAC, which he set up in this year.  Hillman said: "All that the Negro demands and is justly entitled to as an American citizen and as a worker are encompassed in the immediate and long-term objectives of the progressive movement.  The objectives the PAC has spelled out in its Peoples Program for 1944.  Victory and peace, employment security, housing, health and education for all our people are among the PAC objectives."  A statement sponsored by the NAACP "closely paralleled the CIO-PAC program." 

*When the Fair Employment Practices Commission, a federal agency, directed the Philadelphia Transportation Company to hire African Americans, 4,500 European American employees struck in protest.  Rioting broke out in many areas of the city, prompting President Roosevelt to order an army takeover of the Philadelphia transit system and to announce his personal support of the commission's directive.

The Philadelphia Transportation Co. accepted a Fair Employment Practices Commission directive on the hiring and upgrading of African Americans as employees.  On August 1, the transport workers, not affiliated with the CIO, struck against the Philadelphia Transportation Co. over employment of African American drivers.  By noon, 4,500 operators had left their vehicles, and no subways, buses or other transportation ran.  There were reports of widespread rioting in many areas of the city.  Nine European Americans were injured, one was beaten critically in a North Philadelphia borderline district.  President Roosevelt ordered the Army to take over the Philadelphia Transit System, and gave his support to the FEPC directive.

*From 1944 to 1948, Anna Arnold Hedgeman, an African American, served as executive director of the National Council of the FEPC.  From 1949 to 1953, she was assistant to the director of the Federal Security Agency.

*****

The Law

*The United States Supreme Court, in Smith v. Allwright, ruled that African Americans could not be excluded from voting in primary elections (April 3).

In the case of Smith v. Allwright, the Supreme Court declared that "white primary" laws and rules that had excluded African Americans from taking part in Democratic primaries in the South were unconstitutional.  The case involved a Texas law which said that "in no event shall a Negro be eligible to participate in a Democratic Party primary election held in the state of Texas."  The Supreme Court said that the Texas primary was by law a part of "the machinery for choosing officials, state and national" and thus the white primary law violated the 15th Amendment.

*In the case of James v. Marineship Corp., the United States Supreme Court decided that a person had the right to work in a closed shop without union membership when union membership had been denied to him on the grounds of race or color.

*The Virginia Legislature empowered the State Corporation Commission to require separate waiting rooms and other facilities in airports.

*****

Literature

*Frank Yerby won the O. Henry Award for his first published short story, Health Card.  Like many of his early stories, Health Card concerned African American life in the South.

*Poet Melvin P. Tolson published a collection of verse, Rendezvous with America.

*****

Media

*Harry s. McAlpin, a reporter for Atlanta's Daily World, became the first African American given credentials to attend White House press conferences.

*The actor, Canada Lee, narrated the first radio series on the race question, New World A-Comin'. 

*****

The Military

*The 92nd Division of the United States Army became the first African American unit sent into combat duty in Europe.

Of the African American troops overseas, 71% were in the quartermaster, engineer or transport battalions.  The first African American unit to be sent into combat in Europe, the 92nd Division, was deluged with publicity.  Less than two months after they arrived in Italy, one of the members, Captain Charles F. Gandy of Washington, D. C., was mortally wounded in action at Mt. Cavala, for which he was awarded the Silver Star posthumously.

When Secretary of War Stimson was questioned about the use of African American combat units for labor, he wrote: "It so happens that a relatively large percentage of the Negroes inducted in the Army have fallen within lower educational qualifications, and many Negro units accordingly have been unable to master efficiently the techniques of modern weapons."  Stimson further stated:  "I do not believe that they [the Negro 93rd Squadron] can be turned into a really effective combat troop without all officers being white."

*The 761st Tank Battalion played a major role in the D-Day invasion in Normandy.  It was the first African American armored unit in combat. 

Approximately 500 African Americans were among the United States soldiers at Omaha Beach on D-Day.  The 761st Tank Battalion, landing at Omaha Beach, Normandy, was the first African American armored unit in combat in the war.  General Patton of the 3rd Army, to which the 761st was attached, said, "Men, you're the first Negro tankers ever to fight in the American Army.  I would never have asked for you if you weren't good.  I don't care what color you are, so long as you go up there and kill those Kraut sons-a-bitches."  Beginning on November 7, the 761st spent 183 days in action.  Major General M. S. Eddy said of it: "I consider the 761st Tank Battalion to have entered combat with such conspicuous courage and success as to warrant special commendation."  Ten tanks from the battalion were chosen to be in the honor guard at the German surrender in Austria. 

*At Anzio Beach, Italy, the 387th Separate Engineer Battalion, consisting of 500 African Americans, engaged in heavy combat, even though it was not a combat unit.  Fifteen men (4 officers, 11 enlisted men) died and 61 were wounded.  Three members were later awarded Silver Stars for gallantry.

*The 99th Pursuit Squadron, the first African American flying unit in the Air Force, flew its 500th combat mission.

The 99th Pursuit Squadron won a commendation from Air Force Commanding General H. A. Arnold for its air combat performance over the Anzio-Nettuno beachhead.  In June, the squadron became part of the 332nd Fighter Group under Colonel Benjamin O. Davis, Jr., an African American.  In March 1945, this unit was given the Distinguished Unit Citation, the highest unit decoration, for a 1,600 mile, round-trip air attack on Berlin under Colonel Davis.  By this time, it had flown 1,578 combat missions.  Officers and men received 95 Distinguished Flying Crosses, 1 Silver Star, 1 Legion of Merit, 14 Bronze Stars, 744 Air Medals and Clusters, and 8 Purple Hearts. 

*The 969th Negro Field Artillery Battalion fought at the Battle of the Bulge.

General Maxwell Taylor wrote to their commander in January, 1945: "The officers and men of the 101st Airborne Division wish to express to your command their appreciation of the gallant support rendered by the 969th Field Artillery Battalion in the recent defense of Bastogne, Belgium.  ... This division is proud to have shared the battlefield with your command.  A recommendation for a unit citation of the 969th Field Artillery Battalion is being forwarded by this Headquarters."

*The War Department called for an end to segregation in the United States Army recreation and transportation facilities.  The announcement was met with widespread European American protest and noncompliance, especially in the South.

*The United States Navy removed restrictions that prevented African Americans from serving at sea.  It also began allowing African Americans into the Marine Corps and the Coast Guard, and started integrating its training, mess, and recreational facilities.

The restriction of African American Navy men to shore duty was abandoned.  Thereafter, steps were taken to end segregation in training and mess and recreation facilities.  Exclusion of African Americans from the Marine Corps and the Coast Guard was abandoned at about the same time. 

*African American women joined the WAVES (Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service) for the first time (December 13).

WAVES was established on July 30, 1942 as a World War II division of the United States Naval Reserve, that consisted entirely of women. On June 12, 1948, women gained permanent status in the armed services of the United States. The name "WAVES" was an acronym for "Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service" (as well as an allusion to ocean waves). The word "emergency" implied that the acceptance of women was due to the unusual circumstances of World War II, and at the end of the war the women would not be allowed to continue in Navy careers, but it or its successors continued for decades afterwards. Their official name was the U.S. Naval Reserve (Women's Reserve), but the nickname as the WAVES stuck.

The WAVES did not initially accept African American women into the division. In November 1944, Harriet Ida Pickens and Frances Wills graduated from the United States Naval Reserve Midshipmen's School  (Women's Reserve) at Northampton, Massachusetts,  and became the first female African-American WAVE officers. From the fall of 1944 onwards, the Navy trained roughly one African American woman for every 36 European American women enlisted in the WAVES; this was about 2.77%, below the 10% cap agreed upon by the armed services in 1940.

*African Americans stationed on Guam were subject to discrimination, taunts and physical violence.  On Christmas Eve, the situation exploded when African American soldiers on liberty were driven out of a European American recreation area by gunfire.  Shooting broke out on Christmas Day, and an African American was killed and another wounded.  Mass arrests of African Americans were made, but no European Americans were arrested.  Of the African Americans, 44 were sentenced to long prison terms, but the NAACP secured their release by appeals to the President and the War Department.

*At Yerba Buena, 52 African American sailors were charged with mutiny after racial trouble. The NAACP secured their return to duty.

*In Port Chicago, California, the explosion of an ammunitions depot killed 320 navy men, including 202 African Americans.  When 258 African Americans subsequently refused to work at the depot, the "Port Chicago Mutiny" trial was held.  Fifty African Americans were convicted.  

*The first United States Army training film favorably depicting African Americans was made.  It was designed to introduce African American and European American soldiers to the contributions of African Americans in military history. Frank Capra (the producer), Carlton Moss (an African American writer), and a large group of African American soldiers were among those who created The Negro Soldier.

*****

The NAACP

*The NAACP was so well regarded among African American soldiers for its efforts on their behalf that they contributed liberally to it.  $3,920 was contributed in August by a single unit in the Pacific.  In October, the men of the 823rd Engineering Battalion gave $2,000.

*The NAACP bestowed its first awards to motion picture actors whose roles advanced the image of African Americans.  Among the recipients were Rex Ingram for Sahara, Lena Horne for As Thousands Cheer, and Dooley Wilson for Casablanca.

*****

Notable Births

*Activist Angela Davis was born in Birmingham, Alabama (January 26)

*Singer Patricia Louise Holte, better known as "Patti LaBelle", was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (May 24).

*Louis "Sweet Lou" Hudson, a basketball star with the Atlanta Hawks, was born in Greensboro, North Carolina (July 11). 

Louis Clyde Hudson (July 11, 1944 – April 11, 2014) was an American National Basketball Association (NBA) player.

Lou Hudson graduated from Dudley High School in Greensboro. As a junior at the University of Minnesota, Hudson averaged 24.8 points and 10.7 rebounds and was named an All-American.  After starring at the University of Minnesota, Hudson was selected by the St. Louis Hawks with the 4th pick of the 1966 NBA Draft.

Hudson was named to the 1967 NBA All-Rookie Team after averaging 18.4 points per game in his first season. At 6'5", Hudson could play as either a guard or a forward, and he had a long and successful professional career. Hudson went on to average at least 24 points per game for five consecutive seasons beginning in 1969-70, and scored 17,940 points in 13 seasons (1966–1979).  He was a six time All-Star with the Hawks (who moved to Atlanta in 1968), and he earned the nickname "Sweet Lou" for his smooth and effective jump shot. 

Hudson's jersey number was retired by both the Atlanta Hawks and the University of Minnesota.

After his NBA career ended in 1979, Hudson sold restaurant equipment in Atlanta and briefly worked as a radio announcer for the Atlanta Hawks. In 1984, Hudson relocated to Park City, Utah, where he became a real estate investor and served on the Park City city council in the early 1990s.  In Park City, he created a recreation basketball league where he served as coach for 20 years before suffering a major stroke on a Park City ski slope in February 2005. He made public appearances as an "ambassador" for the "Power to End Stroke" organization.

In 2014, he died after a stroke, aged 69.

*****

*Sharon Pratt Dixon Kelly was born in Washington, D. C. (January 30).  In 1990, she would become the capital's first woman mayor.

*Singer Gladys Knight was born in Atlanta, Georgia (May 28).

*****

Nuriddin, Jalaluddin Mansur

Jalaluddin Mansur Nuriddin (b. July 24, 1944, Brooklyn, New York – d. June 4, 2018, Atlanta, Georgia) was an African American poet and musician. He was one of the founding members of The Last Poets, a group of poets and musicians that evolved in the 1960s out of the Harlem Writers Workshop in New York City.

Nuriddin was born Lawrence Padilla on July 24, 1944, in Brooklyn and grew up in a housing project in the Fort Greene neighborhood. Information on survivors was not immediately available.Earlier in his career he used the names Lightnin' Rod and Alafia Pudim. He is sometimes called "The Grandfather of Rap".

He cofounded the Last Poets in May 1968, with fellow poets Omar Ben Hassan and Abiodun Oyewole, and percussionist Nilijah.

The Last Poets, the critically-acclaimed spoken-word group, won early hip-hop fans over with their political rap vocals behind percussion accompaniments in the early 1970s.

Nuriddin, under the name Lightnin' Rod, also appeared on a 1973 solo album "Hustlers Convention," an album considered to be a cornerstone in the development of what is now a part of global and hip-hop culture.

"Hustlers Convention" became one of the most sampled albums ever made, with groups like the Wu-Tang Clan, Beastie Boys, and Red Hot Chili Peppers lifting ideas from it.

At some point in 1973, Lightnin' Rod transitioned to the name of Jalal Mansur Nuriddin.

Music icons like Miles Davis and Quincy Jones hailed the Last Poets as groundbreakers in the genre that became rap and hip-hop music.  After converting to Islam, the artist changed his name from Alafia Pudim to Jalal Mansur Nuriddin. When Hassan and Oyewole left the Last Poets in 1973, poet Sulaiman El Hadi joined and the group and started using poetry over tribal percussive beats, to an all-out band with spoken word at its core.

Jalal Mansur Nuriddin died after a long battle with cancer on June 4, 2018.

*****
*Printmaker Stephanie Pogue was born in Shelby, North Carolina (September 27). 

*Singer Diana Ross was born in Detroit, Michigan (March 26).

*****

Notable Deaths

*Two African Americans were reported to have been lynched in 1944.

*****

Performing Arts

*Dancer Pearl Primus made her Broadway debut in a show combining African and traditional American dance patterns.  Josh White was the balladeer. 

*The play Anna Lucasta, starring Hilda Simms and Frederick O'Neal, opened on Broadway.

*At the age of 12, Philippa Schuyler, a child music prodigy, performed Manhattan Nocturne, her own composition with the New York Philharmonic

*Dance clubs were subjected to severe taxation.

In 1944, with the United States' continuing involvement in World War II, a 30% federal excise tax was levied against "dancing" night clubs. Although the tax was later reduced to 20%, "No Dancing Allowed" signs went up all over the country. 

*The "Jitterbug" crossed the oceans.

World War II facilitated the spread of jitterbug across the Pacific and the Atlantic Oceans. British Samoans were doing a "Seabee version" of the jitterbug by January 1944. Across the Atlantic in preparation for D-Day, there were nearly 2 million American troops stationed throughout Britain in May 1944. Ballrooms that had been closed because of lack of business opened their doors. Working class girls who had never danced before made up a large part of the attendees, along with American soldiers and sailors. By November 1945, after the departure of the American troops following D-Day, English couples were being warned not to continue doing energetic "rude American dancing." Time magazine reported that American troops stationed in France in 1945 jitterbugged, and by 1946, the jitterbug had become a craze in England. It was already a competition dance in Australia.

*****

Politics

*The Democratic Party platform of this year read:  "We believe that racial and religious minorities have the right to live, develop, and vote equally with all citizens and share the rights that are guaranteed  by our Constitution.  Congress shall exert its full constitutional power to protect these rights."  Walter White, the NAACP leader, called this racial plank a mere "splinter."  African Americans were upset by the lack of mention of the FEPC, anti-poll tax laws, anti-lynching legislation, or Armed Services discrimination, and also by the rejection of Henry Wallace as Vice Presidential candidate on the Democratic ticket.  They associated Wallace's liberalism with their drive for equal rights.  Several African American newspapers, such as the Pittsburgh Courier and the New York Amsterdam News, supported Thomas E. Dewey, the Republican candidate.

*The Republican Party platform stated:  "We unreservedly condemn the injection into American life of appeals to racial and religious prejudice.  We pledge an immediate Congressional inquiry to ascertain the extent to which mistreatment, segregation and discrimination against Negroes who are in our armed forces are impairing morale and efficiency, and the adoption of corrective legislation. We pledge the establishment by Federal legislation of a permanent Fair Employment Practice Commission.  The payment of any poll tax should not be a condition of voting in Federal elections, and we favor immediate submission of a Constitutional amendment for its abolition."  It also stated: "We favor legislation against lynching, and pledge our sincere efforts in behalf of its early enactment."

*The Socialist Party platform said:  "Democracy requires the application of the principle that each person is to be accorded social, political, and economic equality, and judged solely on the basis of his own deeds, rather than by his race, religion, or national origin."  It further stated:  "We condemn anti-Semitism, Jim-Crowism and every form of race discrimination and segregation in the armed forces as well as civil life.  We urge the passage of anti-lynching and anti-poll tax laws, and urge the passage of anti-lynching and anti-poll tax laws, and the prompt enactment of legislation to set up a permanent Federal Fair Employment Practice Committee.  We affirm our historic opposition to any doctrine or practices of a master or favored race, not only in the realm of law, but in such labor unions -- fortunately a minority -- churches, political parties and other basic social organizations as today countenance it.  One of the conditions that will help make permanent the end of racial prejudice is the maintenance of full employment."  The party platform concluded:  "An America disgraced by racial tensions which occasionally find expression in lynching and race riots cannot lead the way to a peace which depends upon world-wide reconciliation of races on the basis of equality of right."

*Minister and civil rights activist Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., was elected to the United States House of Representatives from Harlem, the first African American representative from the Northeast (August 1).

Powell was the son of a famous Harlem minister and political leader.  After being expelled from City College of New York, Powell received his education at Colgate University.  After graduation, Powell became a vociferous minister and a publisher, and led Harlem ministers in a jobs-for-Negroes campaign in the 1930s.  Powell began his political career in 1941 as the first African American of the New York Council. 

Powell chaired the powerful Education and Labor Committee from 1960 to 1967.  He became famous for his Powell Amendments which aimed to deny federal funds for the construction of segregated schools.  In 1967, Powell ran afoul of congressional ethics and was temporarily denied his seat in the House.  Re-elected by Harlem in 1968 despite the Congress' censure, Powell was defeated in 1970 by another African American, Charles Rangel.

*****

Publications

*Gunnar Myrdal, in his book American Dilemma, wrote:  "Segregation is now becoming so complete that the white Southerner practically never sees a Negro except as his servant and in other standardized and formalized caste situations."

*****

Sports

*Bob Montgomery won the world lightweight boxing championship.  He would hold the title through 1947.

*****

Visual Arts

*Selma Burke designed a portrait of Franklin Roosevelt that some believe was used in minting the Roosevelt dime.

*****

The Americas

Barbados

*Frank A. Collymore, a native of Barbados, published two books of verse, 30 Poems in 1944 and Beneath the Casuarians in 1945.

  Canada

*J. B. Salsberg introduced the Racial Discrimination Act.

Salsberg was a popular MPP (Member of Parliament)  inside and outside the house and was respected by members of all parties. He was instrumental in the introduction of the Racial Discrimination Act, 1944 which he proposed as a result of posted notices banning Jews and Blacks from various swimming pools in Toronto and as a result of other cases of anti-Semitism and racism in the province. The law was one of the foundations that led to the eventual passage of the Ontario Human Rights Code.

*Ontario passed the Racial Discrimination Act (March 14).

Ontario was the first province to respond to social change when it passed the Racial Discrimination Act of 1944. This landmark legislation effectively prohibited the publication and display of any symbol, sign, or notice that expressed ethnic, racial, or religious discrimination. 

*****

Uruguay

The party was dissolved on June 11, 1944. The few properties of the party were donated to Nuestra Raza.

Europe

*The SS Frederick Douglass, the first ship named in honor of an African American, was lost in European waters.

Germany

*By 1944, only 30,000 French colonial prisoners remained in German prison camps.

Around 120,000 prisoners from the French colonies were captured during the Battle of France. Most of these troops, around two-thirds, came from the French North African colonies of Tunisia, Morocco and particularly Algeria. Around twenty percent were from French West Africa. The rest were from Madagascar and Indochina. Influenced by Nazi racial ideology, German troops summarily killed between 1,000 and 1,500 black prisoners during the Battle of France. Among those captured was Leopold Sedar Senghor, an academic who would become the first President of independent Senegal in 1960.

Unlike their white compatriots, the colonial prisoners of war were imprisoned in Frontstalags in France rather than being brought to Germany. By keeping colonial soldiers in France on the pretext of preventing the spread of tropical diseases, the Germans also wanted to prevent the "racial defilement" (Rassenschande) of German women outlawed by the Nuremberg Laws of 1935. Black troops were treated worse than their white compatriots, and some of them were used for "degrading" anthropological experiments or became subjects of medical testing.

Although the living conditions for black soldiers gradually improved, they were still kept in considerably worse ones than those of the white French soldiers, and the mortality rate among black soldiers was also considerably higher. Around 10,000 North African prisoners were released in 1941. Escapes and repatriations reduced the number of colonial prisoners of war to 30,000 by July 1944.

With the Allied advance through France, between 10–12,000 prisoners were transported to Stalags in Germany where they were held until the end of the war.

Italy

When the Italian empire fell, the PAI forces were moved in Rome with duties of public order until the liberation of the city on June 4, 1944 when the corps was disbanded and all its vehicles and equipment were taken over by the police (Polizia). The new corps was initially subordinated to the Ministry of the Colonies and then to the "Ministry of Italian Africa". This was the first case in Italy of an Armed Force put under a civil ministry.

The United Kingdom

*The Pan-African Federation was founded in Manchester, United Kingdom.

The Pan-African Federation was a multinational Pan-African organization founded in Manchester, United Kingdom in 1944. Participating groups included the Negro Association (of Manchester), Coloured Workers Association (of London), Coloured Peoples Association (of Edinburgh), African Union (Glasgow), United Committee of Colonial and Coloured Peoples' Associations (of Cardiff), Association of Students of African Descent (of Dublin), Kikuyu Central Association (Kenya) represented by Jomo Kenyatta, West African Youth League (Sierra Leone section) represented by Isaac Wallace-Johnson and Friends of African Freedom Society (Gold Coast).

The aims of the Pan-African Federation were:

1. To promote the well-being and unity of African peoples and peoples of African descent throughout the world
2. To demand self-determination and independence of African peoples, and other subject races from the domination of powers claiming sovereignty and trusteeship over them
3. To secure equality of civil rights for African peoples and the total abolition of all forms of racial discrimination. 
4. To promote co-operation between African peoples and others who share our aspirations

*****

Asia

China

*Eugene Chen, Sun Yat Sen's foreign minister, died in Shanghai, China (May 20).

Eugene Chen (Chinese: 陳友仁; pinyin: Chén Yǒurén) (July 2, 1878, San Fernando, Trinidad – May 20,1944, Shanghai, China), known in his youth as Eugene Bernard Achan, was a non-native (an overseas) Chinese lawyer who in the 1920s became Sun Yat Sen's foreign minister known for his success in promoting Sun's anti-imperialist foreign policies and for successfully negotiating the Chen-O'Malley Agreement that returned the City of Hankow to Chinese governance.

Chen's father, Chen Guangquan, was known as Joseph Chen or Achan. He is of Hakka ancestry from Meizhou district (present Meixing). After taking part in the Taiping Rebellion against the Manchu dynasty, he fled to the French West Indies where he met his wife, Mary Longchallon (Marie Leong), the mixed race daughter of a Chinese immigrant. Chen, as well as the Longchallon family, had been required by the French authorities to accept the Catholic faith as a condition of immigration.

Eugene was the oldest of Chen Guangquan and Mary Longchallon's three sons. Eugene's wife Aisy was of African and French blood.

After attending Catholic schools (including St. Mary's College in Port-of-Spain) in Trinidad, Chen qualified as a barrister and became known as one of the most highly skilled solicitors in the islands. Eugene Chen built a large law practice in Trinidad, with many Chinese and Indian clients. 

The Chen family did not speak Chinese at home; and, since there were no Chinese schools, Eugene never learned to read Chinese. It was later said of him that his library was filled with Dickens, Shakespeare, Scott, and legal books, that he "spoke English as a scholar" and "except for his color, neither his living nor his habits were Chinese".

After being admitted to the London Bar Association and after practicing law for a few years, Eugene married Agatha Alphonsin Ganteaume, a Creole, despite the "ironic" objections of his family.  By accounts, Agatha was fun and mischievous and terrorized the nuns at St. Joseph's Convent, where she attended school.  Eugene and Agatha would have four children who survived infancy: Percy, Sylvia, Yolanda and Jack. All of the Chen children were accomplished.

After experiencing some financial difficulties, Chen eventually left the island to live in London, where he heard Sun Yat-sen speak at a rally against the Manchu government in China. Sun persuaded Chen to come to China and contribute his legal knowledge to the new Republic in 1912. Chen took the Trans-Siberian Railroad, and shared the journey with Wu Lien-te, a physician born in Malaysia. Learning that Chen had no Chinese name, Wu suggested "Youren" as the equivalent of "Eugene".

After Sun was forced to flee to Japan in 1913, Chen remained in Peking (Beijing), where he began a second career in journalism. Chen edited the bi-lingual Peking Gazette 1915-1917, then founded the Shanghai Gazette, the first of what Chen envisioned as a network of newspapers across China. Chen had given up his initial support for Yuan Shikai, the general who would be emperor, and became a strong critic of the government, accusing it of "selling China." In 1918, Chen joined Sun in Canton to support the southern government, which he helped to represent at the Paris Peace Conference, where he resisted Japanese and British plans for China. In 1922, Chen became Sun's closest adviser on foreign affairs, and developed a leftist stance of anti-imperialist nationalism and support of Sun's alliance with the Soviet Union.

Chen's diplomacy led one historian to call him "arguably China's most important diplomat of the 1920s and instrumental in the rights recovery movement." Chen welcomed Sun's alliance with the Soviet Union, and worked harmoniously with Michael Borodin, the chief Soviet advisor in the reorganization of the Nationalist Party at Canton. After Sun's death in 1925, Chen was elected to the Central Executive Committee and appointed Foreign Minister. Over the next two years, Chen lodged vigorous and articulate protests over continued imperialist policies with the American and British governments, as well as negotiating with the British authorities over the massive labor strikes in Hong Kong. When Chiang Kai-shek's Northern Expedition appeared on the verge of unifying the country, Chen joined the rival Nationalist government at Wuhan. In January 1927, the Nationalists at Wuhan forcibly took control over the foreign concession there, and when violent crowds also took the foreign concession at Kiukiang, foreign warships gathered at Shanghai. Chen's negotiations with the British led to confirmation of Chinese control of the two concessions and this success was hailed as the start of a new revolutionary foreign policy.

The apex of Chen’s diplomatic career came after he became the foreign minister of the Wuhan Government. He was mostly remembered for his contribution in recovering the sovereignty of the Hankow and Jiujiang British Concession in 1927, which was quite a feat considering China’s weak position at the international stage at the time.

The successful recovery, to a large extent, was achieved through a clever ruse by Chen. As a lawyer, Chen knew well that according to the British law, when the property is completely abandoned, the Chinese government has the right to take it back. To that end, he advised to the British who came to him for help fearing for their safety, that they should retreat to their warships on the Yangtze River where they could be protected by the British Navy. So the British left, leaving only the Indian police at the concession who were then invited for drinks and lured away.

The British Government reacted by sending the Indian Fleet to the China Sea, which Eugene had known all along by collecting garbage from the British Consulate and piecing together cables that were sent to London. He knew that the ships would come at the low season which meant they could not come up the river. In the end, the British government was forced to concede and return the sovereignty of the concession back to the Chinese.

The situation soon reversed. The foreign powers retaliated for the deadly xenophobic attacks on foreigners by elements of the National Revolutionary Army in Nanking, and Chiang Kai-shek launched White Terror attacks on leftists in Shanghai. Chen sent Borodin, his sons Percy Chen and Jack Chen, and the American leftist journalist Anna Louise Strong in an automotive convoy across Central Asia to Moscow. Chen, his daughters Si-lan and Yolanda, Madame. Sun Yat-sen, and the American journalist Rayna Prohme traveled from Shanghai to Vladivostok, and once again by Trans-Siberian Railway to Moscow.

Life in Moscow was not easy, however. After an initial warm public reception, Stalin showed little tolerance for living symbols of the Soviet failure in China. Chen and Mme. Sun were frustrated in their attempts to establish a leftist Chinese front, and soon left Moscow. After a period of exile in Europe and brief service with governments in China which challenged the Nanking government, Chen was finally expelled from the Guomindang for serving as Foreign Minister in the Fukien Rebellion of 1934. Chen again took refuge in Europe, but returned to Hong Kong after the outbreak of the war with Japan. Chen was taken to Shanghai in the spring of 1942 in hopes of persuading him to support the Japanese puppet government, but he remained loudly critical of that "pack of liars" until his death in May, 1944, at the age of 66.

In 1899, Chen married Agatha Alphosin Ganteaume (1878–1926), known as Aisy, a French Creole whose father owned one of the largest estates in Trinidad. They had eight children, four of whom survived childhood: Percy (1901-1986), a lawyer, worked with his father for many years; (Sylvia) Si-lan (1905-1996), an internationally known dancer, married the American film historian Jay Leyda; Yolanda (1913- ); and Jack (1908-1995), who made an international reputation as a journalistic cartoonist during the Sino-Japanese War, and who wrote A Year in Upper Felicity, an account of his experience in the countryside during the Cultural Revolution. In 1958, Jack married Chen Yuan-tsung. 

Aisy died of breast cancer in May 1926. Chen and Chang Li Ying (later known as Georgette Chen) were married in 1930 and remained together until Chen's death in 1944.

Africa

Ethiopia
(Abyssinia)

*Laws were issued under the authority of the Emperor and the parliament until the end of February 1944, when the sole authority of the Emperor again was used, which continued until the beginning of November of that year, when the parliament was again in session.

Democratic Republic of the Congo

(Belgian Congo)

*Mutineers broke into the Luluabourg armory and pillaged the white quarter of the town (February 20).

The colonial government in the Congo depended on its military to maintain civil order and, above all, it depended on the loyalty of the native troops who made up the bulk of the Force Publique. Black non-commissioned officers led by First Sergeant-Major Ngoie Mukalabushi, a veteran of the East Africa Campaign, mutinied at Luluabourg in the central Congolese province of Kasaï in February 1944. The trigger for this was a plan to vaccinate troops who had served at the front, though the soldiers were also unhappy about the demands placed on them and their treatment by their white officers.

The mutineers broke into the base's armory on the morning of February 20 and pillaged the white quarter of the town. The town's inhabitants fled, and a Belgian officer and two white civilians were killed. The mutineers attacked visible signs of the colonial authorities and proclaimed their desire for independence. The mutineers then dispersed to their home villages, pillaging on the way.  However, they failed to spread the insurrection to neighboring garrisons and were eventually captured. Two mutineers, including Mukalabushi, were executed for their part in the insurrection.

Nigeria

Nnamdi Azikiwe

*After a successful journalism enterprise, Nnamdi Azikiwe entered into politics, co-founding the National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons (NCNC) alongside Herbert Macaulay.


*****
*The Ibo Federal Union was formed.

The Ibo Federal Union was founded in 1944 as a cultural organization.  It aimed mainly to promote solidarity among the Igbo (Ibo) and their educational development.  When the National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons (NCNC) was founded later that year by Nnamdi Azikiwe, who was an Ibo, the Ibo Federal Union was one of its member organizations.  In 1948, the union changed its name to Ibo State Union and redefined its purpose to include organizing Ibo linguistic groups into a political unit in accordance with the NCNC Freedom Charter.  The union gave its unflinching support to the NCNC and elected the party leader, Azikiwe, its national president.  The organization worked relentlessly to promote Ibo solidarity especially outside the Ibo land and to provide for the educational advancement of the Ibo people through scholarship at home and abroad.  The union was banned in 1966 after the military seized power.

*The National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons was formed.

The National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons (NCNC), was a Nigerian political party from 1944 to 1966, during the period leading up to independence and immediately following independence.

The National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons was formed in 1944 by Nnamdi Azikiwe and Herbert Macaulay.  Herbert Macaulay was its first president, while Azikiwe was its first secretary. The NCNC was made up of a rather long list of nationalist parties, cultural associations, and labor movements that joined to form NCNC. The party at the time was the second to take a concerted effort to create a true nationalist party. It embraced different sets of groups from the religious, to tribal and to trade groups with the exception of a few notable ones such as the Egbe Omo Oduduwa and early on the Nigerian Union of Teachers. Nnamdi Azikiwe became its second president and M.I. Okpara, it's third president, when Azikiwe went on to become the first indigenious President of Nigeria. The party is considered to be the third prominent political party formed in Nigeria after a Lagos-based party, the Nigerian National Democratic Party and the Nigerian Youth Movement formed by Professor Eyo Ita who became the Deputy National President of NCNC before he left the party to form his own political party called the National Independence Party.

South Africa

Nelson Mandela

*Mandela married Evelyn Ntoko Mase. The couple would have four children, but Mr. Mandela’s political activities put a strain on the relationship. The couple divorced in 1958.

*Mandela and other activists form the African National Congress Youth League after becoming disenchanted with the cautious approach of the older members of the A.N.C. The league’s formation marks the shift of the congress to a mass movement. But its manifesto, so charged with pan-African nationalism, offends some non-black sympathizers.

*Basil Coetzee, a South African musician best known as a saxophonist, was born in District Six, Cape Town, South Africa (February 2).


*****

Basil "Mannenberg" Coetzee (b. February  2, 1944, Cape Town, South Africa –  d.  March 11, 1998,) was a South African musician, perhaps best known as a saxophonist.  Coetzee was born in District Six, Cape Town, South Africa.  He is probably best known for his recording work with Abdullah Ibrahim (previously known as Dollar Brand).  Ibrahim recorded "Mannenberg" with Basil Coetzee – it became an enormous hit in the townships and became legendary amongst musicians as the recording is reputed to have been made in just one take.

*Members of the African National Congress Youth League published a manifesto in which it castigated the African National Congress for its elitism and for "giving way in the face of oppression" (March).

The following month, on Easter Sunday (April 9), the Congress Youth League held its inaugural conference.

*James Mpanza started the Sofasonke squatter movement (April).

James Mpanza (1889–1970) was an eccentric teacher and preacher who was once convicted of both murder and fraud, but who later became a squatter leader in Johannesburg, South Africa from the mid-1940s until the late 1960s. In 1944, he led the land invasion that resulted in the founding of modern Soweto.  Mpanza was at one time known as 'the father of Soweto'.

In April 1944, despite being seen as controversial, Mpanza persuaded 8,000 people to follow him from Orlando to create a new township called Sofasonke Township with himself as unofficial mayor. By 1946, there were 20,000 people squatting there and Mpanza charged a fee to join the camp and to claim a site.  Afterwards, the squatters paid a fee of two shillings and sixpence every week. In return, the squatters had their own police force. 

Mpanza operated informal courts at his Orlando home where family disputes could be settled. Conditions, however, were poor and there was no health service. The death of Mpanza's son, Dumisani, was put down to poor medical care. The squatters had left the slums of Orlando but their plight was still uncertain and Mpanza got the nickname of "Sofasonke" ("we shall all die"). It was this rhetoric that got Mpanza's movement the nickname but it also encouraged the funding necessary to convert this shantytown into the town of SOuth WEstern TOwnships" or Soweto. 

*The African National Congress Youth League (CYL) was formed (April 9).

The foundation of the Congress Youth League in 1944 by Ashley Peter Mda, Walter Sisulu and Oliver Tambo marked the rise of a new generation of leaders. The first President of the Congress Youth League was Anton Lembede who shaped its militancy. Mandela wrote that Lembede had a "magnetic personality who thought in original and often startling ways" and "Like Lembede I came to see the antidote as militant African nationalism. Lembede died in 1947.

At the inaugural conference of the CYL, its founders proclaimed: "The hour of youth has struck!  As the forces of National Liberation gather momentum, the call to youth to close ranks in order to consolidate the national Unity Front, becomes more urgent and imperative."  Membership was open to all Africans between the ages of 12 and 40, and all those older that 17 would automatically become members of the ANC.  Lembede was elected its first president.

By the end of the 1940s, the Youth League had gained control of the African National Congress. It called for civil disobedience and strikes in protest at the hundreds of laws associated with the new apartheid system. These protests were often met with force by the South African Government. In 1950, 18 blacks were killed during a walkout, while protesters, including Mandela, were jailed and beaten for their opposition to the government.


*Anton Lembede became the first elected general president of the African National Congress Youth League (April).

Anton Lembede (January 21, 1914 – July 30, 1947) was a South African activist and founding president of the African National Congress Youth League (ANCYL). He has been described as "the principal architect of South Africa's first full-fledged ideology of African nationalism." Lembede had a strong influence on Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu and Oliver Tambo and worked with them to reform the ANC, which the Youth League described as "a body of gentlemen with clean hands".  Lembede never saw the success of Black activism that enabled Black South Africans to be treated equally.  He died in 1947 at the age of 33. Nevertheless, Lembede is regarded as the progenitor of the "Programme of Action" that was adopted as a guiding document by the 1949 meeting of the African National Congress. 

*In November 1944, the government gave the go-ahead for a fare increase in the Alexandra township located 15 kilometers (9 miles) from Johannesburg -- and this time the protest which followed was marked by increasingly tough action by police and Transportation Board officials.  Lift-givers were harassed, workers were arrested in Pass raids and meetings of more than twenty people were banned.  Finally, after seven weeks of deadlock, a compromise was reached when a coupon scheme, which allowed passengers to buy tickets in advance at the old price and companies to claim the deficit from the city council, was started. 

General Historical Events

January 22

*Allied troops fought their way ashore on Anzio beach 40 kilometers/25 miles from Rome.

*The British Royal Air Force bombed Berlin.

February 6

*Allied forces in the Pacific captured Kwajalein Island.

February 15

*Allied bombers destroy the abbey at Monte Cassino in Italy.

June 6 

*Allied forces landed on the beaches of Normandy, France.

June 15

*American bombers attacked Kyushu, Japan.

June 19

*The Battle of the Philippine Sea began.  The Americans lost only 27 planes, the Japanese 402.

July 3

*The City of Minsk fell to the Russians, who captured 100,000 German soldiers.

July 9

*United States troops succeeded in taking Saipan in the Marianas.  United States bombers could reach Tokyo from Saipan so the conquest of the island marked a major turning point in the war.

July 17

*Iceland gained its independence from Denmark.

July 18 

*The Tokyo government fell.

July 20

*Hitler survived an attempt by his generals to assassinate him.  He was injured by the bomb, but not seriously.

August 4

*The Amsterdam Jew Otto Frank and his family were betrayed to the Gestapo after two years in hiding.  They were sent to the Auschwitz death camp.

August 11

*Allied forces crossed the River Loire.

August 15

*United States troops landed in southern France and moved north along the Rhone valley.

August 19

*General Patton's Third Army reached the River Seine.

August 23

*French troops retook Marseilles.

August 25

*Paris was retaken and General de Gaulle returned.

August 30

*The Soviet Army entered Bucharest.

September 4

*The Allies took Antwerp.

September 5

*The U.S.S.R. declared war on Bulgaria.

*The Allies took Brussels.

September 16

*Soviet troops entered Sofia.

September 17

*British paratroopers were dropped at Eindhoven and Arnheim but they were unable to outflank the German army and sustained heavy losses.

October 13

*British and Greek forces retook Athens from the Germans.

October 20

*Soviet and Yugoslav partisan troops took Belgrade.

October 21

*Allied troops retook Aachen.

November 12

*The Allies sank the German battleship Tirpitz in Norway.

November 24

*The Allies took Strasbourg.

December 16

*The Battle of the Bulge occurred.  The Germans launched an offensive in the Ardennes causing serious losses to the United States Army.

December 27

*Soviet troops surrounded Budapest.

*****

*Franklin Delano Roosevelt was elected to his fourth term as president of the United States.

*General George Patton led United States forces across France, routing the Germans. 

*Tennessee Williams completed his first play, The Glass Menagerie.