1945

1945

*****

Pan-African Chronology

February 24

*Steve Berrios, a jazz drummer and percussionist, was born in New York City, New York.

March 7

*Photographer Anthony Bonair was born in Trinidad.

March 8

*Phyllis Mae Daley became the first African American to receive a commission from the United States Navy Nurse Corps.

March 12

*New York established the first state Fair Employment Practices Commission to guard against discrimination in the workplace.

March 22

Jorge Duilio Lima Menezes (born March 22, 1945),^[1][2] known as Jorge Ben Jor, is a Brazilian popular musician. His characteristic style fuses samba, funk, rock and bossa nova with lyrics that blend humor and satire with often esoteric subject matter.^[3] Some of his hits include Chove Chuva, Mas Que Nada, Ive Brussel, Balança Pena, among others, and have been interpreted by artists such as Caetano Veloso, Sergio Mendes, Miriam Makeba, and Marisa Monte.

Born Jorge Duilio Lima Menezes in Rio de Janeiro, he first took the stage name Jorge Ben after his mother's name (of Ethiopian origin)^[4] but in the 1980s changed it to Jorge Ben Jor (commonly written Benjor).

Jorge Ben obtained his first pandeiro (Brazil's most popular type of tambourine) when he was thirteen, and two years later, was singing in a church choir. He also took part as a pandeiro player in the blocos of Carnaval, and from eighteen years of age, he began performing at parties and nightclubs with the guitar his mother gave him. He received the nickname "Babulina", after their enthusiastic pronunciation of Ronnie Self's song "Bop-A-Lena". Was presented to Tim Maia by Erasmo Carlos, soon discovered that Maia was also known for the same reason. ^[5] It was at one of those clubs in which he performed that his musical career took off. In 1963, Jorge came on stage and sang "Mas Que Nada" to a small crowd that happened to include an executive from the recording company, Philips. One week later, Jorge Ben's first single was released.

The hybrid rhythms that Jorge employed brought him some problems at the start of his career, when Brazilian music was split between the rockier sounds of the Jovem Guarda and traditional samba with its complex lyrics. But as that phase in Brazilian pop music history passed, and bossa nova became better known throughout the world, Ben rose to prominence.

Holdings both television programs O Fino da Bossa and Jovem Guarda from Rede Record, after being reprimanded by the production of "O Fino da Bossa", chose to participate in the Jovem Guarda, soon after, joined the program Divino, Maravilhoso from TV Tupi, presented by Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil.^[6]

Jorge Ben's first public appearances were in small festivals organised by his friends, where bossa nova and rock and roll predominated. As with most musicians of the time, Ben was initially influenced byJoão Gilberto even though he was quite innovative in his own right. The aforementioned song, "Mas Que Nada", was his first big hit in Brazil, and remains to this day the most played song in the United States sung entirely in Portuguese.^{[citation needed]} Outside of Brazil, the song is better known in cover versions by Sérgio Mendes and the Tamba Trio. The song has also been reinterpreted by jazz luminaries such as Ella Fitzgerald, Oscar Peterson, Dizzy Gillespie and Al Jarreau; as well as other samba artists of the time, such as Elza Soares.

His musical work has been vastly sampled by several Music Producers and DJ's and covered by many bands in a variety of genres such as Heavy Metal Music, Disco, rock, Reggae, Jazz, Drum and Bass,House Music and more.

In 1969, Jorge Ben released his self-titled album amid the excitement of the cultural and musical Tropicália movement. The album featured Trio Mocotó as his backing band, who would go on to launch a successful career on the back of their association with Ben. The album was noted for "País Tropical," one of his most famous compositions, although it would be Wilson Simonal who would take his recording of the song to the top of the charts in Brazil that same year. Instead, the song "Charles, Anjo 45", also from the self-titled album, would become Ben's biggest self-performed chart hit of the year.

In the 1970s, Jorge Ben released his most esoteric and experimental albums, most notably A Tábua de Esmeralda in 1974 and Solta o Pavão in 1975. In 1976, he released one of his most popular albums: "África Brasil," a fusion of funk and samba which relied more on the electric guitar than previous efforts. This album also features a remake of his previously released song "Taj Mahal," from which Rod Stewart's 1977 hit "Da Ya Think I'm Sexy? was plagiarized (a matter that he claimed was settled out of court in his favor).

In 1989, Jorge changed his recording label as well as his artistic name, becoming Jorge Benjor (or Jorge Ben Jor). At the time, it was said that there were numerological reasons for his change in name; other sources say it was in response to an incident where some of his royalties accidentally went to American guitaristGeorge Benson.

In 2002, Jorge Ben contributed to the critically acclaimed Red Hot + Riot, a compilation CD created by the Red Hot Organization in tribute to the music and work of Nigerian musician, Fela Kuti, that raised money for various charities devoted to raising AIDS awareness and fighting the disease. He collaborated with fellow hip-hop artists Dead Prez, Talib Kweli, and Bilal to remake the famous song by Fela Kuti, "Shuffering and Shmiling," for the CD.

In 2006, a remake of Ben's "Mas Que Nada" became an international chart hit for Sérgio Mendes with The Black Eyed Peas after being used by Nike in a global TV advertisement during the 2006 FIFA World Cup; this remake (the second time Mendes had covered the track) reached the Top 10 in several European countries, including the UK and Germany, in addition to reaching Number 1 in the Netherlands.

Jorge Ben is also a big fan of Flamengo, a Brazilian football club, located in Rio de Janeiro, which counts Zico, Junior and Leandro among their former star players. Ben's interest in football carries over to his music, as many of his songs deal with the subject, such as "Flamengo," "Camisa 10 da Gávea," "Ponta De Lança Africano (Umbabarauma)," "Zagueiro," and "Filho Maravilha."

On July 7, 2007 he performed at the Brazilian leg of Live Earth in Rio de Janeiro.

On March 20th, 2011 his name was mentioned in President Barack Obama's speech in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil at the Theatro Municipal (Rio de Janeiro). President Barack Obama quoted: "You are, as Jorge Ben-Jor sang, “A tropical country, blessed by God, and beautiful by nature.”"

March 29

*Walt Frazier, a basketball player for the New York Knicks, was born in Atlanta, Georgia.

May

Clark was serving as a steward first class aboard the U.S.S. Aaron Ward, a destroyer, when Japanese kamikazes attacked it near Okinawa in May 1945.

“They would guide those planes directly into the ships,” Mr. Clark said of the planes, which he described as “flying bombs,” in a 2011 interview with The Associated Press.

Six kamikazes hit the destroyer, with the blast from one plane so powerful that it blew Mr. Clark all the way across the ship.

Though he suffered a broken collarbone in the attack, he was credited with saving the lives of several men by dragging them to safety. He also put out a fire in an ammunition locker that would have cracked the vessel in half.

Even though the destroyer’s captain acknowledged that Mr. Clark had saved the ship, his actions were not mentioned in the battle report. “It wouldn’t look good to say one black man saved the ship,” he said in 2011.

The captain tried to make up for the slight by giving him extra leave and making sure that he was not sent back to sea, Mr. Clark said. He stayed in the Navy until 1958, rising to the rank of chief petty officer.

Mr. Clark’s bravery came to light when he was interviewed by Sheila Dunec for a documentary she was filming, “Remembering World War II.” Ms. Dunec brought his story to the attention of Mr. Clark’s representative in Congress, Anna G. Eshoo, Democrat of California, who pressed the Navy to investigate.

Mr. Clark received the Navy and Marine Corps Commendation Medal on Jan. 17, 2012, during a ceremony at Moffett Field in Mountain View, Calif.

May 13

*Kathleen Cleaver, who would later become the highest-ranking woman in the Black Panther Party, was born in Dallas, Texas.

June 

*The United Nations Charter was approved in San Francisco.  Several African Americans, including Mary McLeod Bethune, W. E. B. Du Bois, Walter White, Ralph Bunche, and Mordecai Johnson, attended the San Francisco conference.

July 7 

*Photographer Fern Logan was born in Jamaica, New York.  Her Artists Portrait Series would feature images of African-American artists.

August 2

*Jewell Jackson McCabe was born in Washington, D. C.  As president of the Coalition of 100 Black Women, she would build a network among leading African American women. 

September 2

*The Japanese surrendered and World War II ended.  More than one million African Americans served in the conflict, again distinguishing themselves for valor, and paying the supreme price for devotion to duty.

September 18

*A huge anti-integration protest took place in the schools of Gary, Indiana.  One thousand European American students walked out of classes.  This massive walk-out, unparalleled at the time, would be a precedent for the integration troubles of the next two to three decades.

October 1

*Donny Hathaway was born in Chicago, Illinois.  He would become a major R&B recording artist during the 1970s.

October 23

*The Brooklyn Dodgers hired Jackie Robinson and sent him to their top farm club, the Montreal Royals.

November 27

*James Avery, the actor best known for his portrayal of the patriarch and attorney Philip Banks in the television sitcom Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, was born in Pughsville, Hampton Roads, Virginia.

December 14

*Stanley Crouch, a poet and Village Voice journalist, was born in Los Angeles, California.

December 27

*Judith Cummings, the first African American woman to head a national news bureau for The New York Times, was born in Detroit, Michigan (December 27).

The United States

*****


W. E. B. Du Bois

Du Bois was a member of the three-person delegation from the NAACP that attended the 1945 conference in San Francisco  at which the United Nations was established. The NAACP delegation wanted the United Nations to endorse racial equality and to bring an end to the colonial era. To push the United Nations in that direction, Du Bois drafted a proposal that pronounced "[t]he colonial system of government ... is undemocratic, socially dangerous and a main cause of wars." The NAACP proposal received support from China, Russia and India, but it was virtually ignored by the other major powers, and the NAACP proposals were not included in the United Nations charter.

After the United Nations conference, Du Bois published Color and Democracy: Colonies and Peace, a book that attacked colonial empires and, in the words of one reviewer, "contains enough dynamite to blow up the whole vicious system whereby we have comforted our white souls and lined the pockets of generations of free-booting capitalists."

In late 1945, Du Bois attended the fifth, and final, Pan-African Congress, in Manchester, England. The congress was the most productive of the five congresses, and there Du Bois met Kwame Nkrumah, the future first president of Ghana who would later invite Du Bois to Africa.

Du Bois helped to submit petitions to the United Nations concerning discrimination against African Americans. These culminated in the report and petition called "We Charge Genocide", submitted in 1951 with the Civil Rights Congress.  "We Charge Genocide" accuses the US of systematically sanctioning murders and inflicting harm against African Americans and therefore committing genocide. 

*****

Civil Rights

*In New York, the legislature created the State Commission Against Discrimination, the first such state commission in United States history (March 12).

The New York State Legislature passed the Ives-Quinn Bill which established the State Commission Against Discrimination.   It was the first state to create such a commission.  New Jersey followed soon after, and established a division against discrimination in the Department of Education.  In 1946, Massachusetts created a Fair Employment Practices Commission.  By 1965, 25 states had similar commissions. 

*In Gary, Indiana, 1,000 European American students in public schools boycotted classes to protest racial integration.

*****

Educational Institutions

*A huge anti-integration protest took place in the schools of Gary, Indiana.  One thousand European American students walked out of classes.  This massive walk-out, unparalleled at the time, would be a precedent for the integration troubles of the next two to three decades.

*****

The Labor Movement

*Congress refused to fund the Fair Employment Practices Commission, thereby discontinuing it. 

*****


Literature

*Richard Wright's autobiographical novel Black Boy was published.

*Chester Himes published his first novel, If He Hollers Let Him Go.  Himes' subsequent works include The Lonely Crusader (1947), Third Generation (1954), Cotton Comes to Harlem (1965), and Pinktoes (1965).

*Gwendolyn Brooks published her first collection of poems, A Street in Bronzeville.

*****

The Military

*In the early part of 1945 in Germany, shortages of troops caused the Army to use African American platoons attached to European American units to replace European American soldiers.  Colonel John R. Ackor of the 99th Infantry Division reported: "The Negro platoons performed in an excellent manner at all times while in combat.  These men were courageous fighters and never once did they fail to accomplish their assigned mission.  They were particularly good in town fighting, and [were] often used as the assault platoon with good results.  The platoon assigned to the 393rd Infantry is credited with killing approximately 100 Germans and capturing 500.  During this action only 3 of their own men were killed, and 15 wounded."

*Colonel Benjamin O. Davis, Jr., was named commander of Godman Field in Kentucky.

*The 370th Negro Regiment of the United States Army was joined with a Japanese-American regiment and a European American regiment to make up a reconstructed 92nd Division.  In April, this division fought in the Northern Appenines in Italy and moved successfully to Genoa.  Though the Negro 92nd Division was plagued by difficulties and was later called by General Mark Clark before a Southern audience in 1956 "the worst division I had," by July 10, 1945, its members had received 542 Bronze Stars, 82 Silver Stars, 12 Legion of Merit Awards, 2 Distinguished Service Crosses, and 1 Distinguished Service Medal.

*There were 165,000 African American enlisted men in the Navy and 53 officers.  There were 17,000 African Americans in the Marine Corps.  About 4,000 enlisted men and 4 officers in the Coast Guard were African Americans.  By the end of the year, 95% of the African Americans in the Navy were still serving as messmen.

*Colonel Benjamin O. Davis, Jr., assumed command of Godman Field in Kentucky, becoming the first African American to command an air force base. 

*The Army Nurse Corps began admitting African American nurses after protests from the National Association of Colored Nursing Graduates.

On March 8, Phyllis Mae Daley became the first African American to receive a commission from the United States Navy Nurse Corps thereby becoming the first African American nurse in the Navy Nurse Corps. 

*By the end of World War II in August, when the Japanese surrendered, over a million African Americans had served in the United States Armed Forces. 

*****

Movies

*The documentary We've Come a Long Way, charting the progress of African Americans in United States history, was released.

Jack Goldberg produced and directed the film We've Come a Long Way, and it was narrated by Elder Michaux.  The documentary recorded the progress of African Americans over the preceding 300 years.

*****

Music

*Cecil Gant's recording of I Wonder was successful and marked the revival of record companies' interest in African American blues music.

*Sarah Vaughan made her first record, "I'll Wait and Pray," with Billy Eckstine.

*****

The NAACP

*The NAACP sent a representative to the United Nations conference in San Francisco to propose the abolition of colonialism throughout the world.

The NAACP was invited to send a representative to the United Nations Conference in San Francisco.  Walter White and W. E. B. Du Bois proposed the abolition of colonialism, and protested the action of the United States, Great Britain and France in voting against the Chinese-Russian proposal that colonial independence be assured in the United Nations Charter.

*The NAACP received $400,000 in contributions from all sources during World War II.


*****

Notable Births

*****

*James Avery, the actor best known for his portrayal of the patriarch and attorney Philip Banks in the television sitcom Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, was born in Pughsville, Hampton Roads, Virginia (November 27).

James LaRue Avery (November 27, 1945 – December 31, 2013) was an American actor, best known for his portrayal of the patriarch and attorney (later judge) Philip Banks, Will Smith's character's uncle, in the TV sitcom The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.  This character was ranked #34 in TV Guide's "50 Greatest TV Dads of All Time." He also provided the voice of Shredder in the 1987 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles television series, as well as War Machine in the animated series Iron Man and Junkyard Dog in Hulk Hogan's Rock 'n' Wrestling.  He also played Michael Kelso's commanding officer at the police academy late in the series run of That '70s Show. 

Avery was born in 1945 in Pughsville, Hampton Roads, Virginia and raised in Atlantic City, New Jersey.  He served in the Vietnam War as a member of the United States Navy from 1968–1969, after graduating high school. Later on, he moved to San Diego, California, where he began to write poetry and TV scripts.

In addition to his fame in sitcoms,  he did voice acting for many animated series, most notably the 1987 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles series (as the voice of The Shredder) and James Rhodes in the 1990s Iron Man series.

^{He married Barbara in 1988.  He had no biological children of his own, but was a stepfather to his wife's son, Kevin Waters.} 

^{On December 31, 2013, Avery died at the age of 68 from complications following open heart surgery in a Los Angeles suburb hospital, Glendale Adventist Medical Center.} 

*****

*Steve Berrios, a jazz drummer and percussionist, was born in New York City, New York (February 24).

Steve Berrios (February 24, 1945 – July 24, 2013) was an American jazz drummer and percussionist born in New York, New York, United States. He started playing trumpet, but he was not best known for that instrument. He often performed in the Afro-Cuban jazz medium, having played with Pucho & His Latin Soul Brothers and Mongo Santamaría. He also worked with artists from other jazz musicians, such as Kenny Kirkland and Art Blakey.

Berrios recorded more than a dozen albums as a member of the Fort Apache Band, including “The River Is Deep,” (1982) “Obatalà,” (1988) “Rumba Para Monk,” (1988) “Earthdance,” (1990) and “Moliendo Café” (1991).

“And Then Some!” (1997), one of the few albums he recorded at the head of his own group, was nominated for a Grammy for Best Latin Jazz Performance.

*****



*****

*Kathleen Cleaver, who would later become the highest-ranking woman in the Black Panther Party, was born in Dallas, Texas (May 13).

*Stanley Crouch, a poet and Village Voice journalist, was born in Los Angeles, California (December 14).

*Judith Cummings, the first African American woman to head a national news bureau for The New York Times, was born in Detroit, Michigan (December 27).

Judith Cummings (December 27, 1945, Detroit, Michigan - May 6, 2014, Detroit, Michigan) was the first black woman to head a national news bureau for The New York Times, serving as chief correspondent in Los Angeles from 1985 to 1988.

Cummings was born on December 27, 1945, in Detroit and attended Howard University, where she received her bachelor's degree in 1967.

In 1971, her career in journalism began after she was recruited by the Times in their minority training program. Prior to this, she was a speech writer for Clifford L. Alexander Jr., the head of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in Washington, D.C.

From 1972 to 1979, Cummings was a general assignment reporter for the Times, where she covered crime and major events in New York City. Unsatisfied with the fact that Blacks and other minorities were pigeonholed into covering local beats, she joined others in filing a federal lawsuit against the paper for neglecting to promote journalists of color to cover national stories.

The Times agreed in a settlement to expand their minority hiring, training and promotional practices. Cummings became a correspondent for the Los Angeles area in September 1981 and became the bureau chief four years later.

In 1988, Cummings retired to care for her parents. 

*****

*Walt Frazier, a basketball player for the New York Knicks, was born in Atlanta, Georgia (March 29).

*Donny Hathaway was born in Chicago, Illinois (October 1).  He would become a major R&B recording artist during the 1970s.

*Photographer Fern Logan was born in Jamaica, New York (July 7).  Her Artists Portrait Series would feature images of African-American artists.

*Jewell Jackson McCabe was born in Washington, D. C. (August 2).  As president of the Coalition of 100 Black Women, she would build a network among leading African American women. 

*****

Notable Deaths

*There were seven recorded lynchings of African Americans in 1945.

*****

Performing Arts

*Todd Duncan debuted as "Tonio" in the New York City Opera's production of Il Pagliacci, making him the first African American to sing a leading role with a major United States opera company.

*****

Politics

*Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., a New York Democrat, began serving in the House of Representatives.

*Ralph Bunche was appointed division head in the United States Department of State.

*President Harry S. Truman named Irwin C. Mollison to the United States Customs Court.

*****

Publications

*The first issue of Ebony magazine was published by John H. Johnson in Chicago, Illinois.

*****

Sports

*Ike Williams became the National Boxing Association (NBA) lightweight boxing champion.

*The Brooklyn Dodgers hired Jackie Robinson and sent him to their top farm club, the Montreal Royals (October 23).

*****

Visual Arts

*The Albany, New York, Institute of History and Art held a major exhibit, "The Negro Artist Comes of Age:  A National Survey of Contemporary American Artists."

*****

The Americas

Barbados

*Sandyland and Other Poems by H. A. Vaughan was published.  Vaughan was born in Barbados and educated in England.  He is also known for his History of Barbados.

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

Martinique

*With the support of the French Communist Party (PCF), Aime Césaire was elected mayor of Fort-de-France and deputy to the French National Assembly for Martinique.

Trinidad

*Photographer Anthony Bonair was born in Trinidad (March 7).

*****


Europe

France

*After the war, Josephine Baker received the Croix de guerre and the Rosette de la Resistance.  She was also made a Chevalier of the Legion d'honneur by General Charles de Gaulle.


United Kingdom

The Fifth Pan-African Congress was held in Manchester, United Kingdom, October 15-21, 1945.  It followed the foundation of the Pan-African Federation in Manchester in 1944.

Africans and people of African descent again fought in World War II.  After this war, many felt that they now deserved independence. This Congress is widely considered to have been the most important. Organized by the influential Trinidadian pan-Africanist George Padmore and Ghanaian independence leader Kwame Nkrumah,  it was attended by 90 delegates, 26 from Africa. They included many scholars, intellectuals and political activists who would later go on to become influential leaders in various African independence movements and the American civil rights movement, including the Kenyan independence leader Jomo Kenyatta, American activist and academic W. E. B. Du Bois, Malawi's Hastings Banda, Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, prominent Jamaican barrister Dudley Thompson and Obafemi Awolowo and Jaja Wachuku from Nigeria.  

There were 33 delegates from the West Indies and 35 from various British organizations, including the West African Students Union.  The presence of 77-year-old Du Bois was historic, as he had organized the First Pan-African Congress in 1919.

The British Press scarcely mentioned the conference. A number of resolutions were passed, among them the criminalization of racial discrimination and the main resolution decrying imperialism and capitalism. 

Pan-Africanism is aimed at the economic, intellectual and political cooperation of the African countries. It demands that the riches of the continent be used for the betterment of its people. It calls for the financial and economic unification of markets and a new political landscape for the continent. Even though Pan-Africanism as a movement began in 1776, it was the fifth Pan-African congress that advanced Pan-Africanism and applied it to decolonize the African continent.

The people in Manchester were politically conscious and that was one of the reasons why it was selected as the venue for the fifth Pan-African congress. The fifth congress was organized by people of African origin living in Manchester. The Fifth Pan-African Congress has a great significance as it was an important step towards ending of the control exerted by imperial powers in Africa. Unlike the four earlier congresses, the fifth one involved people from the African Diaspora, including African Caribbeans and African Americans. 

*****

Africa

July 8 

*In Nigeria, the government banned the West African Pilot and the Daily Comet for misrepresenting facts about the general strike. This did not silence Nnamdi Azikiwe, who continued to print articles and editorials on the strike in his Port Harcourt Guardian.

Nigeria


*The General Strike occurred.

During the Second World War, and as a result of the austerity measures adopted by the colonial government, the condition of life for Nigerian workers increasingly deteriorated.  In 1942, the government approved a cost-of-living allowance (COLA) to workers, but this did not improve the quality of life much.  Because government price control efforts were also ineffective, workers asked for a 50 percent increase in the cost of living allowance and a minimum daily wage.  When the demands were not met, union leaders called for a strike by the railway workers, postal and telegraph workers, and technical workers in government departments.  The strike, lasting 37 days, virtually paralyzed the economy.  The government later set up the Davies Commission of Enquiry to examine the workers' grievances.  As a result of its submission, workers' salaries were regraded upward and the cost-of-living allowances were also increased.  Nationalists like Nnamdi Azikiwe and his newspapers gave strong support to the workers.  Afterwards, even though the colonial government had helped the development of labor organizations in Nigeria, labor unions became one of the pressure groups, fighting not only for economic betterment but also for social and political reforms.

*On July 8, 1945, the government banned the West African Pilot and the Daily Comet for misrepresenting facts about the General Strike. This did not silence Nnamdi Azikiwe, who continued to print articles and editorials on the strike in his Port Harcourt Guardian.

 *In 1945, Nnamdi Azikiwe's group bought Mohammed Ali's Comet, four years later converting it into a daily newspaper and then transferring it to Kano, where it was the first daily in the north. 

South Africa

When the war in Europe ended in May 1945, 20,000 Africans joined a "People's Day of Victory" celebration march in Johannesburg organized by the Council of non-European Trade Unions, the ANC and the Communist Party.  In contrast, the government published cash and clothing allowances for discharged servicemen: while whites received five pounds in cash and a twenty-five pound clothing allowance, coloured men received three pounds and fifteen pounds respectively, and Africans only two pounds and a khaki suit worth two pounds.

*The Natives (Urban Areas) Consolidation Act was passed.

The Natives (Urban Areas) Act of 1923 deemed urban areas in South Africa as "white" and required all black African men in cities and towns to carry around permits called "passes" at all times. Anyone found without a pass would be arrested immediately and sent to a rural area. It was replaced in 1945 by the Natives (Urban Areas) Consolidation Act, which imposed "influx control" on black men, and also set up guidelines for removing people deemed to be living idle lives from urban areas. This act outlined requirements for African peoples' "qualification" to reside legally in white metropolitan areas. To do so, they had to have Section 10 rights, based on whether

• the person had been born there and resided there always since birth;
• the person had laboured continuously for ten years in any agreed area for any employer, or lived continuously in any such area for fifteen years;

The Black (Natives) Laws Amendment Act of 1952 amended the 1945 Native Urban Areas Consolidation Act, stipulating that all black people over the age of 16 were required to carry passes, and that no black person could stay in an urban area more than 72 hours unless allowed to by Section 10. 

General Historical Events

January 9 

*A major United States invasion of the Philippines under General Douglas MacArthur began.

January 26

*Soviet troops liberated the Polish death camp Auschwitz, but found only 3,000 prisoners.  The SS had already deported the rest to camps inside Germany.  Over a million people had died at Auschwitz.

February 3

*A thousand United States bombers raided Berlin in an effort to produce a surrender.

February 4

*General Douglas MacArthur entered Manila.

February 13

*British bombers raided Dresden, killing 135,000 civilians.

March 9

*United States bombers raided Tokyo, killing more than 124,000 civilians.

March 10

*United States troops invaded Mindanao in the Philippines.

March 22

*The League of Arab States was founded to coordinate the thrust towards complete independence.

April 11

*General Patton's forces liberated the Buchenwald concentration camp.

April 12 

*United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt died at the age of 63.  Vice President Harry S. Truman assumed the presidency.

April 21

*The United States Army took Nuremberg.

April 24

*Dachau concentration camp was liberated.

April 25

*Soviet and United States armies met on the River Elbe just south of Berlin and celebrated far into the night.

*Himmler began negotiations for a surrender.

April 28

*Mussolini and 12 of his associates were executed at Lake Como.  Hitler was unnerved by the news of Mussolini's death.

April 29

*German troops in Italy surrendered unconditionally.

April 30

*Hitler committed suicide in his bunker in Berlin.  He was 56 years old.  Goebbels killed his family and then committed suicide.

May 7

*Germany surrendered unconditionally, bringing the European war to an end.

June

*The United Nations Charter was approved in San Francisco, California.

July 10 

*The United States began a full-scale air war against the islands of Kyushu and Honshu.

July 30

*The Japanese torpedoed the United States warship Indianapolis in the Indian Ocean after she had delivered the atom bomb components to the Marianas.  The ship sank in 12 minutes and only 316 of her crew of 1,996 survived.

August 2

*The Potsdam Conference ended with Truman, Stalin and Churchill determining that Germany was to be disarmed and demilitarized and its leaders to be tried for war crimes.

August 6

*The United States dropped an atom bomb on the civilian population of Hiroshima, killing 100,000 Japanese civilians.  Another 100,000 would come to die in the ensuing months from burns and radiation sickness.

August 8

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

August 9

*The United States dropped an atom bomb on the civilian population of Nagasaki, killing 75,000 people outright.

August 10

*Japan asks for peace.

August 14

*President Truman formally declared the Second World War over.  55 million people died during the War and Europe had 10 million displaced people.

August 15

*In France, Marshal Petain was sentenced to death for treason (collaborating with the Germans), but his sentence was commuted to life imprisonment.  He was 89 and would live until July of 1951.

*****