1930 The United States

*****

The United States

During the Great Depression of the 1930s, southern African Americans in agriculture suffered more economic adversity than any other American group, black or white.  In 1930, there were 1,112,510 African Americans employed as agricultural laborers: two-thirds of all southern African Americans.  Ten years later, this number dropped to 780,312: a 30% reduction even though the affected population declined only 4%.  In addition, the average wage earned by a southern African American agricultural laborer in 1940 was less than half what it was in 1930.  Black migration from the South to the North came to a virtual standstill during this period because northern whites were taking the unskilled jobs formerly left for migrating African Americans to fill. 

*****

*****

Academic Achievements

*Ambrose Caliver received an Ph.D. in education (with special reference to college administration) from Columbia University, New York City, New York.

*****

Black Enterprise

*There were 944 African American banking and brokerage entrepreneurs and officials, clerks and accountants and 9,325 insurance executives, managers, etc.  The first figure was less than 1 for every 600 European American workers in such positions, and the second represented about 2% of the national total of such workers.

*Seventy African American building and loan associations had assets of $6,600.000.  These assets represented less than one percent of the total for all building and loan associations.  The number of associations fell to 30 by 1938, and assets to $3,600,000.

*The Depression-related failure of four African American bands severely impacted the African American community in Chicago.

*****

Census

*There were 11,891,100 African Americans in the United States, representing 9.7% of the total population.  The percentage of African Americans in the Northeast was 9.6%; in the North Central states, 10.6%; in the South , 78.7%; and in Western states, 1%.

*The foreign born African American population of the United States was 98,620 or 0.99% of the total African American population.  Of all the African American immigrants in the United States, 73% were born in the West Indies.  91,677 foreign born African Americans, or 93% resided in urban areas. Of these, 65% lived in New York City.

*In the North and West, 88% of all African Americans lived in urban areas; 32% of the African Americans in the South livd in urban areas.

*African American illiteracy was 16.3%.  Of the African American illiterates 93.6% lived in the South.  Per capita expenditure per European American school child was $44.31 in areas where segregation was legally mandatory; for African American students it was $12.57.

*The Depression hit the Southern African Americans in agriculture the hardest.  Two thirds of Southern African Americans were sharecroppers or wage laborers.  In 1930, 1,112,510 African Americans were employed as agricultural laborers.  By 1940, this figure had dropped to 780,212.  Of the African Americans, 13.1% were owners or managers, in contrast to 42.4% of the European Americans in Southern agriculture.

*Between 1930 and 1940 the total African American rural farm population decreased 4.5%.

*The total number of African American policemen in the United States was 1,297.  Only 7% of whom were employed in the Deep South.  There were no African American policemen in Mississippi, South Carolina, Louisiana, Georgia, Alabama, Arkansas, and Virginia.

*The 2,946 African American undertakers represented one-tenth of all United States undertakers.

*The number of African American contractors fell to 2,400, or 1.6% of the total number of contractors in the United States.

*****

Civil Rights

*National Guardsmen in Huntsville, Alabama, attacked a crowd around the Madison County jail with tear gas bombs (September 29). The mob was trying to storm the jail where an African-American man was being held in connection with the murder of a businessman.

*A group of prominent women from seven Southern states met to form the Association of Southern Women for the Prevention of Lynching. 

*****

The Communist Party

*The American Communist Party organized the League of Struggle for Negro Rights (LSNR).  Langston Hughes was elected president.  The league united several African American groups in a sweeping program to eliminate wrongs against African Americans, and envisioned the eventual establishment of an African American republic in America.  However, the NAACP and the National Urban League, and the majority of African Americans steered clear of the LSNR.  It, therefore, accomplished little.

*****

Crime and Punishment

*Between 1930 and 1939, there were 1,666 executions under civil authority in the United States.  Of these, 827 were European American and 816 African American.  In the two major crime categories, of a total 1,514 executed for murder, 804 were European American and 687 African American; of the total of 125 executions for rape, 10 were European American and 175 African American.

*****

Education

*Mary McLeod Bethune, educator and civil rights activist, was cited as one of America's 50 leading women by historian Ida Tarbell.

*Where public school segregation was legally mandated, $44.31 was spent annually on each European American child and $12.57 was spent annually on each African American child.

*****

Labor

*Approximately 22 major unions officially discriminated against African Americans.  This figure was reduced to 13 by 1943, to 9 by 1949, and 2 by 1963.

*R. L. Mays, president of the Railway Men's International Benevolent Industrial Association, organized a convention of African American railway workers to fight discrimination in job appointments and promotions.

R. L. Mays, a Chicago African American, was president of the Railway Men's International Benevolent Industrial Association and executive officer of the Interstate Order of Locomotive Firemen, Yard and Train Service Employees and Railway Mechanics.  He organized a convention of African American railway workers to combat "the tendency to eliminate from railway service our men now employed as skilled shop workers, trainmen, and locomotive firemen and yard switchmen," by organizing existing African American workmen's associations.  Mays asked those in control of American industry to recognize character instead of color and to give jobs to African Americans.  The convention met in Detroit, Michigan.

*****

*Only one percent of the employees in the Southern oil and gas production field were African Americans, and only ten percent of the employees in automobile-created jobs were African Americans.  Southern African Americans were principally employed as teamsters, drivers, maintenance and construction men on city and state projects and as menials in the wholesale and retail trade in banking brokerage houses and insurance.  In the South, European Americans were the majority as workers in hotels, restaurants, and boarding houses.  In the United States, African Americans employed as launderers and laundresses numbered 329,163 in 1930; by 1940 the fight had been reduced to 47,734.  In 1930, some 107,739 African Americans were employed as iron and steel laborers; by 1940 African American employment in that industry was down to 40,818.  In this period, there was one substantial increase in African American occupations: African American teamsters numbered 19,566 in 1930; by 1940 there were 137,121 African American teamsters.

*A small percentage of African Americans displaced from jobs in the South moved westward.  The African American population in the Western states between 1930 and 1940 increased by 2.1%. Migration to Northern cities of Southern African Americans was relatively low as the general unemployment of unskilled workers was such that European Americans were now hired for traditionally African American jobs.

*Of the 116,000 African Americans in professional jobs, over two-thirds were teachers or ministers.

*The total number of African American policemen in the United States was 1,297; only seven percent of whom were employed in the Deep South.  There were no African American policemen in Mississippi, South Carolina, Louisiana, Georgia, Alabama, Arkansas and Virginia.

*The 2,946 African American undertakers represented one-tenth of all United States undertakers.

*The number of African American contractors fell to 2,400 or 1.6% of the total number of contractors in the United States.

*****

Literature

The Depression changed the emphasis in African American writing from the race problem to class oppression.  During the 1930's, left-wing and Communist periodicals such as The New Masses and The Nation were among the few to accept African American manuscripts and give the European American audience African American views.

*Langston Hughes published his novel Not Without Laughter.

*James Weldon Johnson published Black Manhattan.

*Edward S. Silvera contributed verse to the collection Four Lincoln Poets.  His poems are free verse lyrics, similar in style to those of Emily Dickinson.

*****

The Media

*In a gesture meant to convey respect, the New York Times began capitalizing the word "Negro" (June 7).

*****

Music

*The National Baptist Convention, U.S.A., became the first major religious group to publicly endorse gospel music.

From this endorsement followed the first choruses, the first publishing houses, the first professional organizations, and the first paid gospel concerts.  Thomas Dorsey (1899-1993), the "Father of Gospel," founded the first gospel choir in the world with Theodore Frye at Chicago's Ebenezer Baptist Church in 1931.  Dorsey later established the first music publishing firm dedicated only to gospel music in 1932.  The 1930 endorsement of gospel music b the Baptist convention, which had been carried away by Dorsey's "If You See My Savior," called public attention to a major change that had been taking place in the music of black churches. The 1930 endorsement is often considered the starting point for the history of gospel music.

*****

The NAACP

*The U.S. Senate rejected President Hoover's Supreme Court Justice nominee John J. Parker by a vote of 41–39 (May 7).  The NAACP successfully campaigned to defeat confirmation of Supreme Court nominee John H. Parker, who was on record in opposition to voting rights for African Americans.

John H. Parker, once an opponent of African American suffrage, was nominated to the Supreme Court by President Herbert Hoover.  The NAACP protested and through a strong nation-wide campaign influenced the Senate to vote against Parker's confirmation.  The NAACP then waged a campaign against those Senators who had voted for Judge Parker, and was credited with the defeat of eleven (11) of them when they ran for re-election.

*****

Nation of Islam

In the Summer of 1930, in the African American section of Detroit, a mysterious person known variously as Farad Mohammed, F. Mohammed Ali, Professor Ford, Wally Farad, and W. D. Fard, began to peddle to African Americans silks and other articles purported to be from Africa.  He preached about the "home country" of the African Americans and about their "true religion" of Islam.  Fard preached against the white race and against Christianity, and gained many converts, who hired a hall which they called the Temple of Islam.  These people were the initiators of the movement later called the Nation of Islam or the Black Muslims.  

Fard's origins, racial and national, are not known.  Many thought him to be an Arab.  In his teaching, Fard used the writings of Joseph F. "Judge" Rutherford, leader of the Jehovah's Witnesses; Hendrik van Loon's Story of Mankind; James Breasted's The Conquest of Civilization; the Qur'an; the Bible; etc.  Fard wrote two manuals for his followers:  The Secret Ritual of the Nation of Islam, which was taught orally; and Teaching for the Lost-Found Nation of Islam in a Mathematical Way.  

Fard founded a University of Islam, actually an elementary and secondary school.  He created the Muslim Girls Training Class for teaching home economics and proper behavior as wife and mother.  Fard founded the Fruit of Islam, a military protection group.  He appointed ministers of Islam and assistant ministers.  In 1934, Fard disappeared and was succeeded by Elijah Muhammad, born Elijah Poole in Georgia, one of Fard's earliest lieutenants.  Muhammad moved the Muslim headquarters to Chicago.  Elijah Muhammad became the Prophet, and Fard was identified with Allah.  

Black Muslims, the members of the Nation of Islam, believed that Elijah Muhammad was the messenger of Allah, directly commissioned by Allah himself, who came in person under the name of Fard to awaken African Americans to their superiority over Europeans and European Americans.  The tenets of the Nation of Islam held that all men were originally black with two sides to their natures, the white half represented the weaknesses and evils of man, the black half, the strengths and virtues.  A scientist had separated the two halves.  Whites had been given 6,070 years to rule and then the blacks would reign.  The black hegemony was to begin in 1984. 

It should not be lost that most Black Muslims in Detroit from 1930 to 1934 were recent immigrants from the rural South and were "functionally illiterate."

1930 Pan-African Chronology

1930

Pan-African Chronology

*****

January 1

*Clarence Adams, an African American soldier during the Korean War who was captured  by the Chinese and who later defected to China, was born in Memphis, Tennessee.   Adams was captured on November 29, 1950, when the People's Liberation Army overran his all-black artillery unit's position. Adams was held as a prisoner of  war (POW) until the end of the war. Instead of returning to the United States during Operation Big Switch, Adams was one of 21 American soldiers who chose to settle in the People's Republic of China. As a result of their decision, those 21 Americans were considered defectors.

January 3

*Percy Bassett, an featherweight professional boxer, was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

*Hulda Stumpf, an European American Christian missionary and vocal opponent to female genital mutilation, was murdered in her home near the Africa Inland Mission station in Kijabe, Kenya.

*Cyrus Wiley, an educator who became the president of Georgia State Industrial College for Colored Youth, died in Atlanta, Georgia.

January 9

*Lolis Elie, a civil rights lawyer who helped to desegregate New Orleans, was born in New Orleans.

January 23

*Derek Walcott, the 1992 recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature, was born in Castries, Saint Lucia.

January 27

*Bobby "Blue" Bland, a legendary blues singer, was born in Rosemark, Tennessee.

January 30

*Sandy Amoros, a Cuban left fielder in Major League Baseball for the Brooklyn and Los Angeles Dodgers  and the Detroit Tigers best known for his defensive play in the 1955 World Series which enabled the Brooklyn Dodgers to win their first World Series, was born in Havana, Cuba.

February 21

*Richard B. Harrison starred as "De Lawd" in The Green Pastures, which opened on Broadway.

February 24

*Richard Boone, a jazz musician and scat singer who became a resident of Denmark, was born in Little Rock, Arkansas.

February 25

*Archibald Grimke, a lawyer, intellectual, journalist, diplomat and community leader who was the recipient of the Spingarn Medal in 1919, died in Washington, D. C.

February 26

*The President of the Dominican Republic Horacio Vasquez fled Santo Domingo as rebel forces led by General Rafael Trujillo, a person of African descent, toppled his government.

March 9

*Jazz saxophonist Ornette Coleman, the principal initiator and leading exponent of free jazz, was born in Fort Worth, Texas.

March 13

*Jazz trumpeter Richard "Blue" Mitchell was born in Miami, Florida.

March 22

*Willie Thrower, the first African American to appear at the quarterback position in the National Football League, was born New Kensington, Pennsylvania.

March 24

*David Dacko, the first President of the Central African Republic, was born the village of Bouchia, near Mbaiki in the Lobaye region, which was then a part of the French Equatorial African territory of Moyen Congo (Middle Congo) (March 24).

March 30

*Sterling Betancourt, a Trinidad-born pioneer, inventor, arranger and musician who became a major figure in pioneering the steel pan in Europe and the United Kingdom, was born in Laventille, near Port of Spain, Trinidad.

March 31

*President Hoover appointed Judge John J. Parker of North Carolina, a known racist, to the Supreme Court.  The NAACP launched a successful campaign against Parker's confirmation.

*Gugsa Welle, the husband of the Ethiopian Empress Zewditu and the Shum (Governor) of Begemder Province, was met by forces loyal to Negus Tafari (the future Haile Selassie) and was defeated at the Battle of Anchem.  Gugsa Welle was killed in action. 

April

*In South Africa, Pixley Seme replaced Josiah Gumede as President of the African National Congress.

April 1

*Victor Banjo, a star crossed Colonel in the Nigerian Army who was executed for staging a coup against Biafran President Odumegwu Ojukwu, was born.

April 2

*Zewditu, the Empress of Ethiopia from 1916 to 1930, died.  

April 7


*Pythias Russ, a Negro League Baseball star, died in Cynthiana, Kentucky. 

April 13


*Neval Thomas, a civil rights activist and the president of the Washington, D. C. branch of the NAACP from 1925 to 1930, died in Washington, D. C.

May 1

*Ethel Ayler, a veteran African American character actress with a career spanning over five decades most notably in the role as Carrie Hanks, the mother of Claire Huxtable of the The Cosby Show, was born in Whistler, Alabama.

May 4

*Katherine Esther Jackson, the matriarch of the Jackson musical family, was born in Clayton, Alabama. 

May 6

*Charles Gilpin, a noted stage actor, died in Eldridge Park, New Jersey.

May 7

*The U.S. Senate rejected President Hoover's Supreme Court Justice nominee John J. Parker by a vote of 41–39. The NAACP successfully campaigned to defeat confirmation of Supreme Court nominee John H. Parker, who was on record in opposition to voting rights for African Americans.

May 9

*A mob in Sherman, Texas, burned down a courthouse during the trial of George Hughes, an African-American man who was accused of assaulting his boss' wife, a white woman. The mob attacked the courthouse vault, retrieved the dead body of Hughes, dragged it behind an automobile and hanged it from a tree. National Guard troops were sent to Sherman to restore order as the mob looted stores in the African American business district.

May 10

*Texas Governor Dan Moody placed the city of Sherman, Texas, under martial law.  Fourteen rioters were placed under arrest.

*The National Pan-Hellenic Council was formed on the campus of Howard University in Washington, D. C.

May 11

*Edward Brathwaite, a Barbadian poet and academic widely considered one of the major voices in the Caribbean literary canon, was born in Bridgetown, Barbados.

May 12

*Paul Panda Farnana M'Fumu, the first Congolese intellectual and a Pan-Africanist, died in Matada, Belgian Congo.

May 13

*Radhames Aracena, a Dominican radio host, music producer and businessman who helped give birth to bachata music and thereby changed the musical landscape of the Dominican Republic during and after Rafael Trujillo's dictatorship, was born in Santiago, Dominican Republic.

May 14

*Chris de Broglio, a Mauritian-born South African weightlifter and anti-Apartheid activist, was born in Mauritius.

May 16

*General elections were held in the Dominican Republic.  Rafael Trujillo was elected president unopposed when opposition candidates withdrew their names in protest, accusing members of the body overseeing the election of being appointed illegally.

*Jazz singer Betty Carter, popularly known as "Betty Bebop" was born in Flint, Michigan.

May 19

*Playwright Lorraine Hansberry, who would write A Raisin in the Sun, was born in Chicago,

May 22

*Edward Melvin Porter, the first African American elected to the Oklahoma state senate and the co-owner and publisher of Black Voices magazine, was born in Okmulgee, Oklahoma.

June 

*Bernardo Baro, a professional baseball player who was elected to the Cuban Baseball Hall of Fame, died (June).

June 1

*Eugenio de Paula Tavares, a Cape Verdean poet known for his famous poems (mornas) written in the Crioulo of Brava, died in Vila Nova Sintra, Cape Verde.

June 3

*Ronnell Bright, a jazz pianist and actor, was born in Chicago, Illinois.

June 7

*In a gesture meant to convey respect, the New York Times began capitalizing the word "Negro" in its pages.


June 9

*Ibrahima Fall, a disciple of Aamadu Bamba and the founder of the influential Baye Fall movement, died in Touba, Senegal.

June 11

*Johnny Bright, a professional football player in the Canadian Football League and a member of the Canadian Football Hall of Fame, the National Football Foundation's College Football Hall of Fame, the Missouri Valley Conference Hall of Fame, the Edmonton Eskimos Wall of Honour, the Alberta Sports Hall of Fame, and the Des Moines Register's Iowa Sports Hall of Fame, was born Fort Wayne, Indiana (June 11).

*Charles Rangel, a New York Congressman, was born in New York City.

June 14

*Babacar Ba (b. June 14, 1930 – d. December 13, 2006), a Senegalese politician from Kaolack, who served as Foreign Minister of Senegal in 1978, was born.

June 22

*Mary McLeod Bethune, a Florida African American educator, feminist leader, and civil rights spokesperson, was named one of America's fifty leading women by the historian Ida Tarbell. Bethune was born in Maysville, South Carolina in 1875.  She studied at Scotia Seminary in North Carolina and at the Moody Bible Institute in Chicago.  In 1904, Bethune founded the Bethune-Cookman College at Daytona Beach, Florida.  A recipient of the Medal of Merit from the Republic of Haiti and the NAACP Spingarn Award, Bethune was president of the National Council of Negro Women and the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History.  She was a principal advisor as well as a friend to President and Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt.

July 2

*Ahmad Jamal,  (b. Frederick Russell Jones), an American jazz pianist known for his rendition of But Not ForMe, was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. 

July 4

*Ancella Bickley, a historian known for her role in preserving African Amercan history in West Virginia, was born in Huntington, West Virginia.

July 7

*Victor Pascall, a Trinidadian cricketer who represented the West Indies in the days before they achieved Test status, died in Port of Spain, Trinidad.

July 10

*Ganiyu Bello, a prominent Yoruba community leader and business tycoon, was born in Oyo State, Nigeria.

July 14

*Albert Beckles, a professional bodybuilder and a three time New York City Night of Champions winner, was born in Barbados.

July 24

*Charles Decatur Brooks, a Seventh-day Adventist evangelist best known for his Breath of Life television ministry.

July 25

*Ado Bayero, the Emir of Kano from 1963 to 2014, was born in Kano, Northern Nigeria.

August 2

*Bobbie Beard, an African American child actor best known for portraying "Cotton" in several Our Gang short films from 1932 to 1934, was born in Los Angeles, California.

*Eddie Locke, a jazz drummer who became a member of the Coleman Hawkins Quartet in the 1960s, was born.

August 6

*Abbey Lincoln, an American jazz vocalist, songwriter, and actress, who wrote and performed her own compositions, was born in Chicago, Illinois. She was a civil rights advocate during the 1960s.  

*Robert Blair, a gospel musician and leader of The Fantastic Violinaires, was born.

August 7

*Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith were lynched in Marion, Indiana.  There were beaten and hanged.  James Cameron survived. This would be the last recorded lynching of African Americans in the Northern United States.

*Edward Willard Bates, a prominent African American who served as a physician and surgeon in the 368th Ambulance Company in the 317th Sanitary (Medical) Train of the 92nd Division during World War I, died in Los Angeles, California.  For his bravery in battle, he was recommended for the Distinguished Service Cross (DSC). 

September 3

*A hurricane struck the Dominican Republic, killing over 8,000 people and doing as estimated $15 million in damage.

September 4

Josiah Ransome-Kuti, a Nigerian clergyman and music composer, died. He was known for setting Christian hymns to indigenous music, and for writing Christian hymns in Yoruba.

September 7

*Sonny Rollins, an American jazz tenor saxophonist, widely recognized as one of the most important and influential jazz musicians, was born in New York, New York.  A number of his compositions, including "St. Thomas", "Oleo", "Doxy", "Pent-Up House", and "Airegin", became jazz standards. 

September 8


*Walter Benton, an African American jazz tenor saxophonist, was born in Los Angeles, California.

September 9

*Frank Lucas, a former heroin dealer, who operated in Harlem during the late 1960s and early 1970s, was born in La Grange, North Carolina.

September 13

*Bola Ige, a Nigerian lawyer and politician, was born in Zaria, Kaduna. 

September 14

*Bill Berry, a jazz trumpeter best known for playing with the Duke Ellington Orchestra in the early 1960s and for leading his own big band, was born in Benton Harbor, Michigan.

September 16

*Jerry Donal Jewell, the first African American to serve as governor of Arkansas, was born in Chatfield, Arkansas.  A dentist who was the president pro tem of the state senate, Jewell held the post of Governor of Arkansas for three days, as Governor Jim Guy Tucker attended the Presidential inauguration of former Governor Bill Clinton.

September 19

*Muhal Abrams, the founder of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians, was born in Chicago, Illinois.

September 20

*Eddie Bo, a singer and pianist known for his blues,soul and folk recordings, was born in New Orleans, Louisiana.

*Kenneth Mopeli, the Chief Minister of the South African bantustan of QwaQwa from 1975 to 1994, was born in Namahadi.

September 23

*Ray Charles, a jazz, soul, and pop singer, was born in Albany, Georgia.  Blind by the age of six, he would become one of  America's most-beloved performing artists.

September 24

*Cardiss Robertson Collins was born in St. Louis, Missouri.  In 1973, she would be elected to the United States House of Representatives.

September 29

*National Guardsmen in Huntsville, Alabama, attacked a crowd around the Madison County jail with tear gas bombs. The mob was trying to storm the jail where an African-American man was being held in connection with the murder of a businessman.

September 30

*Students at the University of Havana held a demonstration against president Gerardo Machado.  Police blocked the streets and during the ensuing clashes, a student leader by the name of Rafael Trejo was killed. Trejo was later held up to be a martyr and a hero in Cuban history.

*Marcel Antoine Lihau,  a Congolese politician and law professor who served as the President of the Supreme Court of Justice of the Congo and was involved in the creation of two functional constitutions for the Democratic Republic of the Congo, was born in Lisala, Equateur Province, Belgian Congo.

 October 3

*Revolution broke out in Brazil against the rule of President Washington Luis.

*Austin Amissah, a Ghanaian lawyer, judge and academic who became a judge of the Court of Appeal in Botswana, was born in Accra, Ghana.

October 4

*The Cuban congress granted the request of President Gerardo Machado to suspend the constitution in and around Havana until after general elections on November 1.

October 8

*The artist Faith Ringgold was born in New York.

October 13

*Rufus Herve Bacote, a prominent physician in Kentucky and Tennessee who served as a First Lieutenant and an army doctor in the 370th Infantry Regiment of the 93rd Division during World War I, died in Earlington, Kentucky (October 13).

October 14

*Henry Creamer, the song lyricist best known for composing the lyrics for "Way Down Yonder in New Orleans", died in New York City, New York. 

*Mobutu Sese Seko, a President of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, was born in Lisala, Belgian Congo.

October 22

*Lew Leslie's Blackbirds of 1930 premiered at New York's Royal Theater with Ethel Waters and Cecil Mack's Choir.  Songs in the musical include "Memories of You" by Eubie Blake with lyrics by Andy Razaf.  The musical would have 57 performances.

October 24

*Brazil's three-week civil war ended in rebel victory as President Washington Luis resigned.

October 29

*Omara Portuondo Peláez, a singer and dancer whose career spanned over half a century was born in Havana, Cuba. She was one of the original members of the Cuarteto d'Aida, and performed with Ignacio Pineiro, Orquesta Anacaona, Orquesta Aragon, Nat King Cole, Adalberto Alvarez, Los Van Van, the Buena Vista ensemble, Pupy Pedroso, Chucho Valdes and Juan Formell. 

November 1

*James C. Matthews, the first African American law school graduate in New York, died in Albany, New York.

November 2

*Ras Tafari, who took the name Haile Selassie when he was proclaimed Negus (King) in 1928, was crowned King of Kings at Addis Adaba.  He would reign until 1974 and be regarded by Jamaican Rastafarians as the living God.  He was seen as fulfilling a prophecy of Marcus Garvey, "Look to Africa, where a black king shall be crowned, for the day of deliverance is near."

November 3

*Getulio Vargas became President of Brazil.

November 6

*Derrick Albert Bell, Jr., the first tenured African American Professor of Law at Harvard Law School who is largely credited as one of the originators of critical race theory (CRT), was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He was a visiting professor at New York University School of Law from 1991 until his death. He was also a dean of the University of Oregon School of Law.  

*Leslie Lee, a Tony Award-nominated playwright, was born in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania.

November 7

*Greg Bell, a long jumper who won the gold medal in the long jump at the 1956 Summer Olympics in Melbourne, Australia, was born in Terre Haute, Indiana.

November 8

*The United States and Britain extended formal recognition to the new Brazilian government.

November 10

*Clarence Pendleton, Jr. was born in Louisville, Kentucky.  Pendleton would become the first African American chairperson of the United States Civil Rights Commission in 1981.


*Guillermo Erazo, an Afro-Ecuadorian musician, singer, and marimba player better known as Papa Roncon, was born in Borbon, Esmeraldas, Ecuador.

November 13

*Cuban President Gerardo Machado suspended the Constitution for 25 days as rioting in Havana killed seven.

*Benny Andrews, a painter, printmaker, creator of collages and an educator, was born in Plainview, Georgia.

November 16

*Chinua Achebe, a Nigerian novelist whose first novel, Things Fall Apart, became the most widely read book in modern African literature, was born in Ogidi, Nigeria Protectorate.

*Thomas Barnes, the first African American Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force, was born. 

November 18

*Stenio Vincent was elected President of Haiti by the National Assembly.
 
November 20

*Bertin Borna, a Beninese politician who served as Benin's minister of finance, was born in Tanguieta, Benin.

November 30


*Jim Boyd, the winner of an Olympic boxing gold medal in the Light Heavyweight (173 pound) Division at the 1956 Melbourne Olympic Games, was born in Rocky Mount, North Carolina. 

December

*In South Africa, African National Congress "radicals" in the Western Cape formed an independent African National Congress.

December 3

*Art Bragg, a sprinter who competed in the 1952 Helsinki Summer Olympics in the 100 meter dash, was born in Baltimore, Maryland.

December 4


*Alexander Bada, the second Pastor of the Celestial Church of Christ (CCC), was born in Abeokuta, Nigeria. 

December 6

*Daniel Muchiwa Lisulo, the Prime Minister of Zambia from June 1978 until February 1981, was born in Mongu, Zambia.

December 7

*Frank Bernasko, a Ghanaian soldier, lawyer, and politician who was a founder and leader of Ghana's Action Congress Party, was born in Ghana.

December 9 

*Andrew "Rube" Foster, a baseball player, manager, and pioneer executive in the Negro Leagues, died in Kankakee, Illinois. Known as the "Father of Black Baseball", Foster was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1981.

December 16

*In South Africa, Communist leader Johannes Nkosi was killed during a protest in Durban (December 16-17). 

December 20

*Pat Hare, a blues guitarist and singer, was born in Cherry Valley, Arkansas.

December 21

*Adebayo Adedeji, a Nigerian politician who was an Executive Secretary to the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa from 1975 to 1978, and the United Nations Under-Secretary-General from 1978 until 1991, was born. He became the founding Executive Director of the African Centre for Development and Strategic Studies (ACDESS) in 1991.

December 24

*Mel Triplett, a star running back for the New York Giants football team, was born in Indianola, Mississippi.

December 28

*Mary Tate, the first American woman to serve as a Bishop in a nationally recognized denomination, died in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

December 29

*Walter Cohen, a Republican politician and businessman, died in New Orleans, Louisiana.

December 31

*Odetta, the folksinger and activist known as "The Voice of the Civil Rights Movement" was born in Birmingham, Alabama.

Date Unknown

*'Abd Allah II ibn 'Ali 'Abd ash-Shakur, the last Emir of Harar, died. 

*Cloves Campbell, the first African American elected to the Arizona State Senate, was born in Elizabeth, Louisiana.

*Nicolas Geffrard, a Haitian musician best known for composing La Dessalinienne, the Haitian national anthem, died. The piece was adopted in 1904 to celebrate one hundred years of Haitian independence. He spent part of his career working in Europe.