July 1930 Chronology

1930

Pan-African Chronology

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July

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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. 

Ahmad Jamal (b. Frederick Russell Jones, July 2, 1930, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) began playing piano at the age of three, when his uncle Lawrence challenged him to duplicate what he was doing on the piano. Jamal began formal piano training at the age of seven with Mary Cardwell Dawson, whom he describes as greatly influencing him. His Pittsburgh roots remained an important part of his identity and it was there that he was immersed in the influence of jazz artists such as Earl Hines, Billy Strayhorn, Mary Lou Williams, and Erroll Garner. Jamal also studied with pianist James Miller and began playing piano professionally at the age of fourteen, at which point he was recognized as a "coming great" by the pianist Art Tatum. 

Born to Baptist parents in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Jamal did not discover Islam until his early 20s. While touring in Detroit (where there was a sizable Muslim community in the 1940s and 1950s), Jamal became interested in Islam and Islamic culture. He converted to Islam and changed his name to Ahmad Jamal in 1950. In an interview with The New York Times a few years later, Jamal said his decision to change his name stemmed from a desire to "re-establish my original name." In 1986, Jamal sued critic Leonard Feather for using his former name in a publication.

After the recording of the best-selling album But Not For Me, Jamal's music grew in popularity throughout the 1950s. In 1959, he took a tour of North Africa to explore investment options in Africa. Jamal, who was twenty-nine at the time, said he had a curiosity about the homeland of his ancestors, highly influenced by his conversion to the Muslim faith. He also said his religion had brought him peace of mind about his race, which accounted for his "growth in the field of music that has proved very lucrative for me."

Upon his return to the United States after a tour of North Africa, the financial success of Live at the Pershing: But Not For Me allowed Jamal to open a restaurant and club called The Alhambra in Chicago. In 1962, The Three Strings disbanded and Jamal moved to New York City, where, at the age of 32, he took a three-year hiatus from his musical career.

In 1964, Jamal resumed touring and recording, this time with the bassist Jamil Nasser and recorded a new album, Extensions, in 1965. Jamal and Nasser continued to play and record together from 1964 to 1972. He also joined forces with Vernel Fournier (again, but only for about a year) and drummer Frank Gant (1966–76), among others. He continued to play throughout the 1970s and 1980s, mostly in trios with piano, bass and drums, but he occasionally expanded the group to include guitar. One of his most long-standing gigs was as the band for the New Year's Eve celebrations at Blues Alley in Washington, D. C., from 1979 through the 1990s. Until 1970, he played acoustic piano exclusively. The final album on which he played acoustic piano in the regular sequence was The Awakening. In the 1970s, Jamal played electric piano as well. 

In 1985, Jamal agreed to do an interview and recording session with his fellow jazz pianist, Marian McPartland on her NPR show Piano Jazz. Jamal, who said he rarely plays "But Not For Me" due to its popularity since his 1958 recording, played an improvised version of the tune – though only after noting that he has moved on to making ninety percent of his repertoire his own compositions. He said that when he grew in popularity from the Live at the Pershing album, he was severely criticized afterwards for not playing any of his own compositions.

In 1994, Mr. Jamal received the American Jazz Masters fellowship award from the National Endowment for the Arts.  The same year he was named a Duke Ellington Fellow at Yale University, where he performed commissioned works with the Assai String Quartet. 

In 2007 the French Government inducted Mr. Jamal into the prestigious Order of the Arts and Letters by French Culture Minister Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres, naming him Officier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.   

Mr. Jamal’s previous recording A Quiet Time (Dreyfus Records), released in January 2010, was the number No. 1 CD on jazz radio for the year 2010.  Also in 2010 the French Jazz Academy has voted "The Complete Ahmad Jamal Trio Argo Sessions 1956-1962" released by Mosaïc "Best reissue of the year with outstanding research work".  
 
In December of 2011, Mr. Jamal was enshrined into DownBeat’s 76th Reader’s Poll Hall of Fame.  

*****

July 3

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

Ronnell Bright (b. July 3, 1930, Chicago, Illinois), a jazz pianist, also dabbled in the area of acting,  Bright made a guest appearance as a piano player in the Season 1 episode of The Jeffersons titled "Lionel, The Playboy". as well as similar cameo appearances on two other hit 1970's TV series, CBS-TV's The Carol Burnett Show, and NBC-TV's Sanford and Son.

Bright played piano from a very young age, and won a piano competition when he was nine years old. In 1944, he played with the Chicago Youth Piano Symphony Orchestra. He studied at Juilliard, graduating early in the 1950s. Moving back to Chicago, he played with Johnny Tate and accompanied Carmen McRae before relocating to New York City in 1955. There he played with Rolf Kuhn and put together his own trio in 1957. In 1957-58, he was with Dizzy Gillespie, and acted as an accompanist for Sarah Vaughan, Lena Horne, and Gloria Lynne over the next few years. His compositions were recorded by Vaughan as well as by Cal Tjader, Horace Silver, and Blue Mitchell. In 1964, Bright became Nancy Wilson's arranger and pianist after moving to Los Angeles. Later in the decade he found work as a studio musician, playing in Supersax from 1972 to 1974.

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July 4

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

Ancella Radford Bickley (b. July 4, 1930, Huntington, West Virginia) earned a bachelor's degree in English from West Virginia State College, now West Virginia State University, in 1950,  a master's degree in English from Marshall University  (where she was the first full-time African American student) in 1954, and an Ed. D. in English from West Virginia University in 1974.

With Lynda Ann Ewen, she co-edited Memphis Tennessee Garrison: The Remarkable Story of a Black Appalachian Woman, published by Ohio University Press. Bickley authored stories and articles in West Virginia's cultural magazine, Goldenseal.  She also conducted and published interviews at Marshall University for the Oral History of Appalachia Program.

In 1993, Bill Drennen, commissioner of the West Virginia Division of Culture and History, recorded a thirty-minute interview with Bickley for the Cultural Conversations series.

Bickley was a Rockefeller Foundation Scholar funded through the Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Gender in Appalachia (CSEGA) at Marshall University, in 1999.

The West Virginia State Archives house a collection of documents gifted to them by Bickley, half of the materials relating to the annual West Virginia Conferences on Black History begun in 1988. Another portion of materials donated pertain to the Alliance for the Collection, Preservation, and Dissemination of West Virginia's Black History.

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.

Victor S. Pascall (b. 1886, Diego Martin, Trinidad – d. July 7, 1930, Port of Spain, Trinidad) was primarily used as a left-arm spinner, but he was also regarded as a reasonable batsman. Pascall was related to the Constantine family.  He was the maternal uncle of Elias and Learie Constantine and may have been a coaching influence on the latter. At the time he played, critics considered him the best left-arm spinner in the West Indies.

Pascall was born in Diego Martin, Trinidad, at some time in 1886. His parents were Yoruba from West Africa who were brought to South America as slaves. According to family legend, Pascall's father, Ali, escaped as a child and sailed to Trinidad. Ali lived to be around 100 years old and maintained some African traditions in the family.

Pascall first played for Trinidad in 1906, making his first-class debut and taking a wicket in the final of the Inter-Colonial Tournament.  From 1909, he played regularly on the team and appeared in the Inter-Colonial tournament until 1927. In total, he played 24 times for Trinidad to score 513 runs at a batting average of 15.08 and took 102 wickets at a bowling average of 17.39. He twice played innings of over 50 runs and took more than five wickets in six innings. He first represented a combined West Indies team in 1913 when he took four wickets for 83 runs for West Indies against a Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) team which was touring the region. Then in 1923, he was chosen as part of the West Indies team which toured England. Pascall played 19 matches on the tour and took 52 wickets at an average of 24.30. His best figures were five for 67 against Cambridge University and six for 77 against MCC at Lord's Cricket Ground. His final appearances for West Indies came in 1926. In 22 games for teams styled "West Indies" or "West Indians", Pascall hit 268 runs at an average of 10.31 and took 59 wickets at 25.20. In all first-class cricket, he hit 859 runs at an average of 13.63, with a top score of 92 against Barbados in 1922, and took 171 wickets at 20.09, with best figures of six for 26 against British Guiana, also in 1922.

In Trinidad, Pascall represented the Shannon team and was used as the third bowler. The Shannon club was made up of members of the black lower-middle classes, and contained several international players. The team played in a highly competitive manner and were passionately supported by their spectators. Shannon players took part in games in a serious manner and were not given to smiling on the field, but Pascall, while a formidable opponent, was more friendly. The people of Trinidad regarded Pascall with great affection, as he was a most charming person and a great popular favorite with all classes on the island.


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July 10

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

Ganiyu Akanbi Bello (b. July 10, 1930, Oyo State, Nigeria – d. June 5, 2014, Kano, Nigeria), a Yoruba community ambassador in Kano, was the chairman and chief executive of Criss Cross Ltd.  He was popularly known as G A Bello.

Bello was born in Oyo State, Nigeria, on July 10, 1930, to Abdullahi Yusuf and Sinota Bello, the second of three children. Both parents died while he was a child and he was sent to live with his uncle who refused to send him to school. He left his uncle and started cutting wood in order to fund his school fees.

Bello married Sakirat Ayoka Ogabi Bello in approximately 1959. Their first child named Tawakalitu Bello Sanusi, was followed by Moriliatu Bisola Bello Sanusi, Basira Biodun Bello Oyefeso, and a son Nurudeen Bello. Between 1966 and 1967, during the Nigerian Civil War, known as the Biafran War, Bello sent his wife and children to Lagos while he remained in Kano. His family returned shortly after to join him, and they had their fifth child, Shamsideen Bello. His sixth child, Fausat Bello, was born around 1970 but died of measles as an infant.

In 1950, Bello joined the Nigerian Police under British colonial rule. During the time, he was a police officer, his closest friend was Ado Bayero,  the Chief of the Nigerian Police Force who was later appointed Emir of Kano in 1963. He resigned around 1958 and founded a company which dealt in Building and Civil Engineering.

His company was the first to build a multi-story building in Kano on Odutola Street which was a residential estate. He later bought his first private residence along Abedee Street Sabon Gari, Kano. He opened the first filling station in Kano in 1968 and behind it he opened a club known as the Criss Cross Club which sold drinks, chicken, and pepper soup. His company built its first hotel, the Criss Cross Hotel, in 1971. His second hotel, known as Gab Hotel, and built in 1980.

His two eldest daughters, Tawakalitu and Moriliatu, married on the same day in 1988. Tawa married Dr. Lukman Sanusi while Morili married Retired Colonel Olawale Sanusi. In 1989, his youngest daughter, Basira, married Sakiru Olanipekun Oyefeso, the founder and managing director of Standard Trust Assurance Company. His eldest son, Nuru, married Salawat Titilope.

From 1990 to 2000, G. A. Bello was the Vice-Chairman of the Independent Petroleum Association (IPMAN) in the Kano Nigerian National Petroleum Cooperation (NNPC).

Even though Bello only had a secondary school education, he was a great believer in it and each of his children attended university.

Bello was an advocate of unity in Kano. He encouraged the government to foster unity between the different tribes in Kano State. He advised the government to encourage Nigerians to stop tribalism and live in harmony. This encouraged the Yorubas to continue to live in Kano. In January 2006, Bello served as the acting Oba of the Yoruba Community in Kano State for sixty days.

Bello contributed to many Islamic causes in Kano including the construction of two Juma't Mosques built in Sabon Gari, a non-native's settlement area. The first mosque was built around 1982 at Nomans Land, Kano and it was commissioned by the Emir of Kano, Ado Bayero. In early 2000, he built a second mosque, the Ahammadiya Mosque along Emir Road, for the Ahmadiya Muslims.

Bello donated millions of naira (the currency of Nigeria) to charity related issues, including the Rotary International.  He donated equally generously to communities, Mosques and Churches. This earned him a long list of honorary awards.

Bello held many Chieftaincy titles such as: Aarre Egbe Omo Balogun Maiyegun of Ibadanland, Babasaiye of Owu, Abeokuta of Ogun State, and Aarre Basorun Timi Agbale of Ede in Osun State.  He was also given an Honorary Doctorate Degree in Business Administration by Kenton University. 

Bello was murdered a month before his 84th birthday on June 5, 2014 by unknown assailants in Kano. He was buried in his residence at Race Course Road. 

Abubakar Abdurrahman Sadiq was caught by Nigerian police in August 2014 and confessed to the murder. Sadiq had broken into Bello's house to steal money and stabbed him when Bello tried to stop him. Sadiq had previously worked in one of Bello's hotels, but was let go for stealing.

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July 14

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

Albert "Al" Beckles (b. July 14, 1930, Barbados) was born in Barbados but emigrated to London.  In the mid-1960s, he won several British regional titles before winning the 1969 and 1970 National Amateur Body-Builders' Association (NABBA) Mr. Britain titles. In 1971, Beckles joined the International Federation of BodyBuilding and Fitness (IFBB), earning the overall at the IFBB "Mr. Universe."

Beckles was one of the most active participants in bodybuilding history, having been in over 100 contests. In 1982, he won the Night of Champions competition in New York.

Beckles’ 13 forays into the IFBB Mr. Olympia competition yielded six placings among the top five, including coming in second to Lee Haney in 1985.

In 1991, at the age of 61 years, Beckles won the Niagara Falls Pro Invitational.

July 24

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

Charles Decatur Brooks, also known as C. D. Brooks, (b. July 24, 1930, Greensboro, North Carolina - d. June 5, 2016, Laurel, Maryland) was born in Greensboro, North Carolina, on July 24, 1930, the tenth child of Marvin and Mattie Brooks. Although Methodists at the time, shortly after C.D.’s birth the Brooks family began observing the seventh-day Sabbath in honor of a pledge Mattie Brooks made to God while in a hospital bed suffering from a near-fatal illness. Learning more truth years later from reading Ellen G. White's The Great Controversy, C.D., along with his mother and six sisters, was baptized into the Seventh-day Adventist Church on a Sabbath in 1940. In 1947 after attending an evangelistic tent meeting, C.D. remained under the tent long after the last person had departed. “Charles, I want you to make truth clear,” C.D. distinctly heard a voice say, and then had a vision of himself standing behind the pulpit at the front of the tent, proclaiming the truth with power and clarity. Brooks immediately jettisoned his career plans for dentistry for the ministry, setting his sights on Oakwood.

At Oakwood, Brooks met the love of his life, Walterene Wagner, daughter of John H. Wagner, Sr., a stalwart of 20th century black Adventism. Along with other roles, Wagner was the first president of Allegheny Conference, one of the five inaugural leaders of regional conferences in 1945.

In 1951, Brooks graduated from Oakwood College (now Oakwood University) in Huntsville, Alabama, with a degree in theology.
 
Brooks and Walterene were united in marriage on September 14, 1952, at the Ebenezer Seventh-day Adventist Church in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Brooks would go on to serve the Columbia Union as a pastor, evangelist and administrator until 1971, working mostly in Pennsylvania, Delaware, New Jersey, and Ohio.

In 1971. Brooks was asked by General Conference (GC) president Robert Pierson to serve as a field secretary for the Seventh-day Adventist world church, a role he held until 1995, making him the longest tenured field secretary in church history. While serving at the GC, Brooks took on the dual role as speaker/director for the Breath of Life Ministry, a new television ministry of the GC that was produced at the Adventist Media Center in Thousand Oaks, California. Brooks partnered with Walter Arties, Louis B. Reynolds, and the Breath of Life Quartet to produce television programming that reached out to audiences all around the world. As speaker-director of Breath of Life, Brooks took his place among legendary Adventist media revolutionaries such as H.M.S. Richards, George Vandeman, and William Fagal. In 1989 the ministry was broadcast on Black Entertainment Television (BET), and reached a potential audience of more than 90 million people a week.

Brooks was speaker-director of Breath of Life Ministries for 23 years, from 1974 to 1997. In his time at the helm, the ministry brought approximately 15,000 people to Christ, established 15 Breath of Life congregations, and was viewed by untold millions. In 1994 Brooks was inducted into the Martin Luther King, Jr. Board of Preachers and Collegium of Scholars at Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia.

In 1996 health challenges forced Brooks to retire from the General Conference and in 1997 he stepped down as speaker-director for Breath of Life. Brooks had a long and productive retirement and in 2007, in honor of Edward Earl Cleveland, Charles Bradford, and Brooks, the Bradford-Cleveland-Brooks Leadership Center (BCBLC) was established. The center is housed on the campus of Oakwood University in a 10,000-square-foot, $2.5 million state-of-the-art edifice.

On December 1, 2010, the Ellen G. White Estate elected Brooks a lifetime member of the Ellen G. White Estate Board. The North American Division invited Brooks to be its chaplain in residence in 2013, a position he held until his death.

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July 25

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

Ado Abdullahi Bayero (b. July 25, 1930, Kano, Northern Nigeria – d. June 6, 2014, Kano, Nigeria) was seen as one of Nigeria's most prominent and revered Muslim leaders.  He was the son of Abdullahi Bayero son of Muhammad Abbas. Ado Bayero was the 13th Fulani emir since the Fulani War of Usman dan Fodio, when the Fulani took over the Hausa city-states. He was one of the strongest and most powerful emirs in the history of the Hausa land. He was renowned for his abundant wealth, maintained by means of stock market investments and large-scale agricultural entrepreneurship both at home and abroad.

Ado Bayero was the son of Abdullahi Bayero, a former emir, who reigned for 27 years. 

Bayero was born to the family of Hajiya Hasiya and Abdullahi Bayero and into the Fulani Sullubawa clan that has presided over the emirate of Kano since 1819. He was the eleventh child of his father and the second of his mother. At the age of seven, he was sent to live with Maikano Zagi.

Bayero started his education in Kano studying Islam, after which he attended Kano Middle School. He graduated from the School of Arabic Studies in 1947. He then worked as a bank clerk for the Bank of British West Africa until 1949, when he joined the Kano Native Authority. He attended Zaria Clerical College in 1952. In 1954, he won a seat to the Northern regional House of Assembly.

He was head of the Kano Native Authority police division from 1957 until 1962, during which he tried to minimize the practice of briefly detaining individuals and political opponents on the orders of powerful individuals in Kano. He then became the Nigerian ambassador to Senegal. During this time he enrolled in a French language class. In 1963, he succeeded Muhammadu Inuwa as Emir of Kano.

Muhammadu Sanusi who was Ado Bayero's half brother ruled after their father from 1953 to 1963. Following his dethronement in 1963, Muhammadu Inuwa ruled only for three months. After Muhammadu's death, Ado Bayero ascended the throne in October 1963. Bayero was the longest-serving emir in Kano's history. Bayero's Palace played host to official visits by many government officials and foreigners.  

Bayero became emir during the first republic, at a time when Nigeria was going through rapid social and political changes and regional, sub-regional and ethnic discord was increasing. In his first few years, two pro-Kano political movements gained support among some Kano elites. The Kano People's Party emerged during the reign of Muhammadu Inuwa  and supported the deposed Emir Sanusi, but it soon evaporated. The Kano State Movement emerged towards the end of 1965 and favored more economic autonomy for the province.

The death in 1966 of many political agitators from northern Nigeria, and the subsequent establishment of a unitary state, consolidated a united front in the northern region but also resulted in a spate of violence there, including in Kano. Bayero's admirers credit him with bringing calm and stability during this and later crises in Kano.

As emir, Bayero became a patron of Islamic scholarship and embraced Western education as a means to succeed in a modern Nigeria. The constitutional powers of the emir were whittled down by the military regimes between 1966 and 1979. The Native Authority Police and Prisons Department was abolished, the emir's judicial council was supplanted by another body, and local government reforms in 1968, 1972, and 1976 reduced the powers of the emir. During the second republic, he witnessed hostilities from the People's Redemption Party led government of Abubakar Rimi.

In 1981, Governor Abubakar Rimi restricted traditional homage paid by village heads to Ado Bayero and excised some domains from his emirate. In 1984, a travel ban was placed on the emir and his friend Okunade Sijuwade.

In 2002, Bayero led a Kano elders forum in opposing the onshore and offshore abrogation bill.

Ado Bayero was seen as a vocal critic of the Islamist group Boko Haram who strongly opposed their campaign against western education.

On January 19, 2013, Bayero survived an assassination attempt blamed on the Islamist group which left two of his sons injured and his driver and bodyguard dead, among others. 

Ado Bayero died on June 6, 2014. He was succeeded by his brother's grandson Muhammadu Sanusi II. 

*****

July 29

*****

*Jim Stewart, the co-founder of Stax Records, was born in Middleton, Tennessee.

James Frank Stewart (known as "Jim Stewart", b. July 29, 1930, Middleton, Tennessee – d. December 5, 2022, Memphis, Tennessee) was an American record producer and executive who in 1957 co-founded, with his sister Estelle, Stax Records, one of the leading recording companies during soul and R&B music's heyday.  The label also scored many hits on the Billboard Hot 100 pop music chart, and internationally, during this time.

Stewart was born on July 29, 1930. Raised on a farm in Middleton, Tennessee, he moved to Memphis in 1948 after graduating from high school, then worked at Sears and the First National Bank before being drafted into the United States Army. After serving for two years, Stewart returned to his job as a bank clerk in Memphis in 1953.

Stewart was a part-time fiddle player and joined a local country music group, the Canyon Cowboys. He worked days as a banker at Union Planters Bank.  In 1957, Stewart launched his own record label, then called Satellite Records, which issued country music and rockabilly records. His sister, Estelle Axton, mortgaged her home to invest in her brother's venture by buying an Ampex 300 tape recorder.

In 1959, the label moved into the former Capitol Theatre in Memphis (The label's name 'STAX' is a combination of STewart and AXton). The auditorium was converted to studio space, and the stage was made into the control room. To save money, Stewart did not level the floor. This created unique acoustics, which are noticeable in the recordings made there, with many featuring a heavy, bassy sound.

Although Stewart initially recorded country music and some rockabilly, several local R&B musicians, including Rufus and CarlaThomas found their way to Stax and also began recording there. With the success of Carla Thomas' "Gee Whiz", Stewart made a distribution deal in 1960 giving Atlantic first choice on releasing Satellite (later Stax) recordings.

After selling millions of records during its history, Stax went bankrupt in 1976. Stewart kept a low profile and intensely protected his privacy. When he was inducted into the Rock and Roll of Fame in 2002, he sent his granddaughter Jennifer to the induction ceremony to accept the award on his behalf.

In 2018, Stewart made a rare public appearance at the Stax Museum to donate his fiddle to the museum.

James "Jim" Stewart died on December 5, 2022 in Memphis, Tennessee, at the age of 92.

Some of the R & B artists who worked with Stewart include: William Bell, Booker T & the MGs, Eddie Floyd, Isaac Hayes, Wilson Pickett, Otis Redding, Carla Thomas, Rufus Thomas, and Sam & Dave. 

June 1930 Chronology

1930

Pan-African Chronology

*****

June 

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

Bernardo Baró (b. February 27, 1896 – d. June 1930) was a Cuban professional baseball player player in the Negro leagues and the Cuban League. Primarily an outfielder, he also played some games as a pitcher or an infielder. He played from 1913 to 1930 for the Cuban Stars (West), the Cuban Stars (East), and the Kansas City Monarchs.

Baró played winter baseball in the Cuban League from 1915 to 1929. He led the league in batting average in 1922/23 with an average of .401. He ranks fifth all-time in Cuban League career batting average with an average of .311. In 1945 he was elected to the Cuban Baseball Hall of Fame.

Bernardo Baró was a top Cuban player of the 1910s and 1920s.

Baró debuted in the USA with the 1913 Cuban Stars. He first appeared in the Cuban Winter League (CWL) in 1915-1916, hitting .250 for San Francisco.  In 1916-1917, he batted .382 for Almendares and would have led the CWL had he qualified. He hit .218 for the Cuban Stars in 1917 and went 2-2 on the mound.  Baro never pitched regularly back in Cuba. In 1918, he batted .130 for the Stars and was 2-3. On July 21, he had his best game as a pitcher, throwing a no-hitter against the Indianapolis ABCs.  Moving to the outfield full-time in 1919, he hit .320, third-best among midwestern black clubs behind Pete Hill and Oscar Charleston. In 24 games against white major leaguers that fall, he hit .271. In 1919-1920, he hit .352 for Almendares, second in the CWL behind Cristobal Torriente. Bernardo led the league with 105 at-bats, 21 runs and 37 hits.

Baró hit .364 for the Cuban Stars in 1920, second in the new Negro National League (NNL) behind Jimmie Lyons.  He went 6 for 14 in an exhibition series against the New York Giants. He struggled with Almendares in 1920-1921, going 5 for 34 with a double in a reduced role. He batted .327 in 1921 and stole 23 bases, tying Lyons for third in the NNL. The Cuban season shut down early in December 1921 after Bernardo started 5 for 15. He moved to the eastern edition of the Cuban Stars in 1922; there was no organized league in the east that winter so statistics are unavailable.

Bernardo starred for Almendares in 1922-1923, hitting .401 to win the batting crown. He also led the league with 12 doubles and tied Torriente for the most hits (61). His 13 steals were second-most, two behind Torriente. In 1923, Baró hit .366, 5th in the Eastern Colored League behind Biz Mackey, Pop Lloyd, Jud Wilson and fellow Cuban Alejandro Oms.  He fell to .293 for Almendares in 1923-1924.

In 1924, Baró had leg surgery following a fracture, which reduced his speed. He moved to first base for the next couple years in the United States, though he continued to patrol the outfield back in Cuba. He hit .353 in 1924 and also managed the Stars for part of the year. He hit .412 in 1925, third-best in the ECL behind Wilson and Charleston. In 1925-1926, the veteran hit .309 for Almendares.

The left-hander hit only .205 for the Cuban Stars in 1926 while moving back to the outfield. In 1926-1927, he batted .309 once again for Almendares, followed by a .277 mark in the United States in 1927. He batted .246 for Almendares in 1927-1928, .284 for the Stars in 1928, .311 between two Cuban Winter League teams in 1928-1929 and .315 in 1929, his best average in four years. That year, he had a mental collapse. He recovered to join the Kansas City Monarchs in 1930 but he died after a quick illness that summer.

Overall, Baró hit .311 in the Cuban Winter League, fifth all-time behind Torriente, Oms, Lloyd and Willie Wells. He was inducted into the Cuban Baseball Hall of Fame in 1945.

 *****

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.

Eugénio de Paula Tavares (b. October 18, 1867, Brava, Cape Verde - d. June 1, 1930, Vila Nova Sintra) was born on the island of Brava to Francisco de Paula Tavares and Eugenia Roiz Nozzolini Tavares. His family is mainly descended from Santarem, Portugal.  He was baptized at the Saint John the Baptist (São João Baptista) church in Brava. A few years later, his father starved to death and he was adopted by José and Eugenia Martins de Vera Cruz.  José Martins de Vera Cruz, a physician and surgeon who was also mayor (now president) of Boa Vista and Sal (Sal was not its own municipality until the 1930s) and later of Brava after he moved.

In 1876, Tavares attended Nova Sintra's primary school (Escola Primaria). However, most of the time, Tavares never attended school.  Along with another Cape Verdean poet, Jose Lopes, he was self-taught.

The city of Mindelo was largely marked by the Bravense child, later he went to the public farm in Tarrafal de Santiago. At the age of 15, Tavares made an anthology known as the Almanaque de lembraço Luso-Brasileiro, an almanac which he wrote until his death, the remaining were posthumously published in 1932. He returned to his native island in 1890, first he received his own farm and married D. Guiomar Leça. When Serpa Pinto was colonial governor, he congratulated the poet. He published several "morna" poems, his new themes included love, island, sea, women, emigrant and health. 

Between 1890 and 1900, Tavares was the "dolphin" of Cape Verde". One of his works did not appear until 1996 in Cape Verde and was "Hino de Brava" ("Hymn of Brava") which became the island's official anthem. As hunger affected the island along with the archipelago, Tavares lived in New Bedford, Massachusetts, in the United States of America between 1900 and 1910, there he wrote articles for A Alvorada, a Portuguese language exile newspaper. When Portugal along with its empire became a republic, it promoted criticism in the colonies. He went back to Cape Verde afterwards. A year after his return, he published one of the most influential newspapers at the time, A Voz de Cabo Verde (Voice of Cape Verde) up to 1916.

The name of Eugenio Tavares is honored in the name of the town square in Vila Nova Sintra along with a statue, where his home is located which is now a museum. Later, a street name was named in the western part of the capital city of Praia in Cidadela which runs for about 500 meters and intersects the Praia-Cidade Velha road, near the Jean Piaget University of Cape Verde.

Cape Verdean singers and musicians including Cesaria Evora and Celina Pereira sang songs based on Tavares' morna.

The poem "morna aguada" was featured in a Cape Verdean escudo note in 1999. Between 2007 and 2014, Tavares was featured on a Cape Verdean $2000 escudo note.

In 2007, the Monument to the Emigrants which features one of Tavares' mornas on top was erected in Praia's Achada Grande Tras at a circle or a roundabout intersecting the Praia Circular Road (Circular da Praia), Avenida Aristides Pereira and the road to Nelson Mandela International Airport. 

June 7

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

Around 1442, the Portuguese first arrived in Southern Africa while trying to find a sea route to India. The term negro, literally meaning "black", was used by the Spanish and Portuguese as a simple description to refer to the Bantu peoples that they encountered. Negro denotes "black" in Spanish and Portuguese, derived from the Latin word niger, meaning black.  "Negro" was also used of the peoples of West Africa in  old maps labelled Negroland, an area stretching along the Niger River.

,A specifically female form of the word, negress (sometimes capitalized), was occasionally used. However, like Jewess, it has all but completely fallen from use.

 "Negroid "has traditionally been used within physical anthropology to denote one of the three purported races of humankind, alongside Caucasoid and Momgoloid.  The suffix "-oid" means "similar to". "Negroid" as a noun was used to designate a wider or more generalized category than Negro; as an adjective, it qualified a noun as in, for example, "negroid features".

The term Negro superseded the term colored as the most polite word for African Americans at a time when black was considered more offensive.  In 17th-century Colonial America, the term "Negro" had been also used to describe Native Americans. John Belton O'Neall's The Negro Law of South Carolina (1848) stipulated that "the term negro is confined to slave African (the ancient Berbers) and their descendants.  It does not embrace the free inhabitants of Africa, such as the Egyptians, Moors, or the negro Asiatics, such as the Lascars."

The American Negro Academy was founded in 1896, to support liberal arts education.  Marcus Garvey used the word in the names of black nationalist and pan-Africanist organizations such as the Universal Negro Improvement Association (founded 1914), the Negro World (1918), the Negro Factories Corporation (1919), and the Declaration of the Rights of the Negro Peoples of the World (1920).  W. E. B. DuBois and Dr. Carter G. Woodson used it in the titles of their non-fiction books, The Negro (1915) and The Mis-Education of the Negro  (1933) respectively. "Negro" was accepted as normal, both as exonym (external name for a group of people) and as endonym (internal name for a group of people), until the late 1960s, after the later Civil Rights Movement.  One well-known example is the identification by Martin Luther King, Jr. of his own race as "Negro" in his famous "I Have a Dream" speech of 1963.

However, during the 1950s and 1960s, some black American leaders, notably Malcolm X, objected to the word Negro because they associated it with the long history of slavery, segregation, and discrimination that treated African Americans as second class citizens, or worse. Malcolm X preferred Black to Negro, but also started using the term Afro-American after leaving the Nation of Islam. 

Since the late 1960s, various other terms have been more widespread in popular usage. These include black, Black African, Afro-American (in use from the late 1960s to 1990) and African American.  The word Negro fell out of favor by the early 1970s. However, many older African Americans initially found the term black more offensive than Negro.

The term Negro is still used in some historical contexts, such as the songs known as Negro spirituals, the Negro Leagues of sports in the early and mid-20th century, and organizations such as the United Negro College Fund.  The academic journal published by Howard University since 1932 still bears the title Journal of Negro Education, but others have changed: e.g. the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History (founded 1915) became the Association for the Study of Afro-American Life and History in 1973, and is now the Association for the Study of African American Life and Historey;  its publication The Journal of Negro History became The Journal of African American History in 2001. 

The United States Census Bureau included Negro on the 2010 Census, alongside Black and African-American, because some older black Americans still self-identify with the term. The United States Census now uses the grouping "Black, African-American, or Negro".  On the other hand, the term has been censored by some newspaper archives.

June 9

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

Ibrahima Fall (b. 1855, Ndiaby Fall, Cayor, Senegal – d. June 9, 1930, Touba, Senegal) was a disciple of Sheikh Aamadu Bamba Mbakke (Amadou Bamba), founder of the Mouride Brotherhood movement in West Africa. Well known in the Mouride Brotherhood, Ibrahima Fall established the influential Baye Fall movement.

Ibrahima Fall catalyzed the Mouride movement. Fall led all the labor work in the Mouride brotherhood. Fall reshaped the relation between Mouride Talibes (Mouride disciples) and their guide, Aamadu Bàmba Mbàkke. Fall instituted the culture of work among Mourides with his concept of Dieuf Dieul “you reap what you sow”.

Ibrahima Fall was born around 1855 in a northern village, Ndiaby Fall, Cayor. His original tyeddo name was Yapsa Khanth Fall. Aamadu Bàmba Mbàkke later gave him the name Ibrahima Fall. Ibrahima Fall was a son of Amadou Rokhaya Fall and Seynabou Ndiaye. At an early age, Ibrahima Fall learned the Qur'an in a neighboring village, Ndiaré. Fall studied major Arabic sciences such as theology, fiqh, tafsir, grammar and rhetoric. 

In 1882, Ibrahima Fall went looking for the best Muslim teachers. Ibrahima Fall studied under Serigne Massamba Syll and afterwards under Serigne Adama Gueye. It was Adama Gueye who directed Ibrahima Fall to Aamadu Bàmba Mbàkke in 1883.

The encounter between Ibrahima Fall and Aamadu Bàmba Mbàkke defined the beginning of Mouridism. 

An accord developed between Fall and Aamadu Bàmba Mbàkke. Ibrahima Fall became Aamadu Bamba's 40th disciple. From this moment, Fall followed the Ndiguel "orders" of Aamadu Bamba until Fall’s death.

Within this accord called “Diebelou”, Ibrahima Fall displayed an absolute, slave-like devotion to his master. His “pastef” (courage and devotion) served example for all Mourides. Fall started growing food, cutting firewood, fetching water and building shelters and mosques. Likewise, Serigne Moussa Kâ tells us that Fall reshaped quickly the relation between a disciple and his guide. Ibrahima Fall instituted five rules of deference to the Sheikh:

1. Never stand at the same level than Aamadu Bàmba Mbàkke
2. Never greet the Shaikh with your hat on your head
3. Never walk in front of him
4. Always do the “sudiot” (kiss his hands) with the Shaikh
5. Always lower your voice in front of him

Ibrahima Fall himself supervised these rules.

In 1890, Shaikh Aamadu Bàmba nominated Fall the third responsible in the Mouride Brotherhood. Fall had to supervise all manual works. With the exile of Aamadu Bàmba Mbàkke, Fall’s life changed. He moved to Saint-Louis, Senegal,  to defend the innocence of his Shaikh. 

On September 21, 1895, the French exiled Aamadu Bàmba to Gabon.  Aamadu Bàmba then ordered Ibrahima Fall to work for Sherif Hassan.  He did so until 1901, when Sherif Hassan died. In this interval (1895–1901), Fall kept sending money (in Wolof “Adiya”) to the Shaikh until his return in 1902. On November 11, 1902, Aamadu Bàmba Mbàkke returned to Senegal and awarded Ibrahima Fall the degree of Sheikh.

In June 1912, the French kept Aamadu Bàmba under house arrest in Ndjarèem, Diourbel.  Consequently, Sheikh Ibrahima Fall followed him to Diourbel. In Diourbel, Fall created a famous district, Keur Sheikh. In Keur Sheikh, the Baye Fall movement consolidated and expanded very quickly. Many tyeddos became his disciples. In 1925, the French banned construction of the Touba Mosque. Sheikh Ibrahima Fall enclosed the area of the mosque with timbers Fall carried from Ndjarèem to Touba.

In 1927, at the death of Aamadu Bàmba Mbàkke, Sheikh Ibrahima Fall performed the first obeisance to the Shaikh's son, Serigne Moustapha Mbacké. 

Sheikh Ibrahima Fall died June 9, 1930 after helping the succession of Aamadu Bàmba. He lies in Touba.

Sheikh Ibrahima Fall obviously helped Shaikh Aamadu Bàmba Mbàkke to expand Mouridism, particularly with Fall’s establishment of the Baye Fall movement. For this contribution, Serigne Fallou (the second Caliph after Aamadu Bàmba) named him “Lamp Fall" (the light of Mouridism). In addition, Ibrahima Fall earned the title of “Babul Mouridina”, meaning "Gate of Mouridism".

*****

June 10

*Johnson Donatus Aihumekeokhai Ojeikere, known as J. D. 'Okhai Ojeikere, a Nigerian photographer known for his work with unique hairstyles found in Nigeria, was born in Ovbiomu-Emai, a rural village in south-western Nigeria

Johnson Donatus Aihumekeokhai Ojeikere (b. June 10, 1930, Ovbiomu-Emai, Nigeria – d. February 2, 2014, ), known as J.D. 'Okhai Ojeikere, Ojeikere was born on June 10 in 1930 in Ovbiomu-Emai, a rural village in south-western Nigeria. He worked and lived in Ketu, Nigeria. At the age of 20 he pursued photography, which was out of the ordinary for people in Nigeria, especially those in his village. Cameras were not in high demand and were of low priority as they were considered a luxury. However, in 1950 Ojeikere bought a modest Brownie D camera without flash, and had a friend teach him the fundamentals of photography.

Ojeikere started out as a darkroom assistant in 1954 at the Ministry of Information in Ibadan.  After Nigeria gained its independence in 1960, Ojeikere pursued his first job as a photographer. In 1961, he became a studio photographer, under Steve Rhodes, for Television House Ibadan. From 1963 to 1975 Ojeikere worked in publicity at West Africa Publicity in Lagos. In 1967, he joined the Nigerian Arts Council. In 1968, he began one of his largest projects as he documented Nigerian hairstyles. This was a hallmark of Ojeikere's work and he printed approximately a thousand pictures of different African women's hair.

A large selection of Ojeikere's work was included in the arsenale section of the 55th Venice Biennale d'arte, "Il Palazzo Enciclopedia" curated by Massimiliano Gioni in 2013.

Ojeikere died on February 2, 2014, at the age of 83. He is the subject of a documentary film by Tam Fiofori entitled J. D. ‘Okhai Ojeikere: Master Photographer.

*****

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 in Fort Wayne, Indiana (June 11).

Johnny D. Bright (b. June 11, 1930, Fort Wayne, Indiana – d. December 14, 1983, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada) played college football at Drake University. In 1951, Bright was named a First Team College Football All-American, and was awarded the Nils V. "Swede" Nelson Sportsmanship Award. In 1969, Bright was named Drake University's greatest football player of all time. Bright is the only Drake football player to have his jersey number (No. 43) retired by the school.  In February 2006, the football field at Drake Stadium, in Des Moines, Iowa, was named in his honor. In November 2006, Bright was voted one of the Canadian Football League's Top 50 players (No. 19) of the league's modern era by Canadian sports network TSN.

In addition to his outstanding professional and college football careers, Bright is perhaps best known for his role as the victim of an  intentional, most likely racially motivated, on-field assault by an opposing college football player from Oklahoma A&M (now Oklahoma State University) on October 20, 1951, that was captured in a widely disseminated and Pulitzer Prize winning photo sequence, and eventually came to be known as the "Johnny Bright Incident". 

Born in Fort Wayne, Indiana, on June 11, 1930, Bright was the second oldest of five brothers. Bright lived with his mother and step father Daniel Bates, brothers, Homer Bright, the eldest, Alfred, Milton, and Nate Bates, in a working class, predominantly African American neighborhood in Fort Wayne.  

Bright was a three-sport (football, basketball, track and field) star at Fort Wayne's Central High School. Bright, who also was an accomplished softball pitcher and boxer, led Central High's football team to a City title in 1945, and helped the basketball team to two state tournament Final Four appearances.

Following his graduation from Central High in 1947, Bright initially accepted a football scholarship at Michigan State University, but, apparently unhappy with the direction of the Spartans football program, transferred to Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa, where he accepted a track and field scholarship that allowed him to try out for the football an basketball squads. Bright eventually lettered in football, track, and basketball, during his collegiate career at Drake..

Following a mandatory freshman redshirt year, Bright began his collegiate football career in 1949, rushing for 975 yards and throwing for another 975 to lead the nation in total offense during his sophomore year, as the Drake Bulldogs  finished their season at 6–2–1. In Bright's junior year, the halfback/quarterback rushed for 1,232 yards and passed for 1,168 yards, setting an NCAA record for total offense (2,400 yards) in 1950, and again led the Bulldogs to a 6–2–1 record.

Bright's senior year began with great promise. Bright was considered a pre-season Heisman Trophy candidate, candidate, and was leading the nation in both rushing and total offense with 821 and 1,349 yards respectively, when the Drake Bulldogs, winners of their previous five games, faced Missouri Valley Conference foe Oklahoma A&M at Lewis Field (now Boone Pickens Stadium) in Stillwater, Oklahoma, on October 20, 1951.

Bright's participation as a halfback/quarterback in Drake's game against Oklahoma A&M on October 20, 1951, was controversial, as it marked the first time that such a prominent African American athlete, with national notoriety (Bright was a pre-season Heisman Trophy candidate and led the nation in total offense going into the game) and of critical importance to the success of his team (Drake was undefeated and carried a five-game winning streak into the contest, due in large part to his rushing and passing), had played against Oklahoma A&M in a home game at Lewis Field, in Stillwater.

During the first seven minutes of the game, Bright had been knocked unconscious three times by blows from Oklahoma A&M defensive tackle Wilbanks Smith. While the final elbow blow from Smith broke Bright's jaw, Bright was able to complete a 61-yard touchdown pass to halfback Jim Pilkington a few plays later before the injury finally forced Bright to leave the game. Bright finished the game with 75 yards (14 yards rushing and 61 yards passing), the first time he had finished a game with less than 100 yards in his three-year collegiate career at Drake. Oklahoma A&M eventually won the game 27-14.

A photographic sequence by Des Moines Register cameramen Don Ultang and John Robinson clearly showed that Smith's jaw breaking blow to Bright had occurred well after Bright had handed off the ball to fullback Gene Macomber, and that the blow was delivered well behind the play.  The pictures won a Pulitzer Prize in 1952 for the photographer, Don Ultang of The Des Moines Sunday Register. Years later, Ultang said that he and Robinson were lucky to capture the incident when they did; they'd only planned to stay through the first quarter so they could get the film developed in time for the next day's edition.

It had been an open secret before the game that A&M was planning to target Bright. Even though A&M had integrated two years earlier, the Jim Crow spirit was still very much alive in Stillwater. Both Oklahoma A&M's student newspaper, The Daily O'Collegian, and the local newspaper, The News Press, reported that Bright was a marked man, and several A&M students were openly claiming that Bright "would not be around at the end of the game." Ultang and Robinson had actually set up their camera after rumors of Bright being targeted became too loud to ignore.

When it became apparent that neither Oklahoma A&M nor the Missouri Valley Conference (MVC) would take any disciplinary action against Smith, Drake withdrew from the MVC in protest and stayed out until 1956 (though it did not return for football until 1971). Fellow member Bradley University pulled out of the league as well in solidarity with Drake; while it returned for non-football sports in 1955, Bradley never played another down of football in the MVC (it dropped football in 1970).

The "Johnny Bright Incident", as it became widely known, eventually provoked changes in NCAA football rules regarding illegal blocking, and mandated the use of more protective helmets with face guards.

Recalling the incident without apparent bitterness in a 1980 Des Moines Register interview noted three years before Bright's death:

There's no way it couldn't have been racially motivated. Bright went on to add: What I like about the whole deal now, and what I'm smug enough to say, is that getting a broken jaw has somehow made college athletics better. It made the NCAA take a hard look and clean up some things that were bad.

Bright's jaw injury limited his effectiveness for the remainder of his senior season at Drake, but he finished his college career with 5,983 yards in total offense, averaging better than 236 yards per game in total offense, and scored 384 points in 25 games. As a senior, Bright earned 70 percent of the yards Drake gained and scored 70 percent of the Bulldogs' points, despite missing the better part of the final three games of the season.

Despite irrefutable evidence of the incident, Oklahoma A&M officials denied anything had happened. Indeed, Oklahoma A&M/State refused to make any further official comment on the incident for over half a century. This was the case even when Drake's former dean of men, Robert B. Kamm,  became president of OSU in 1966. Years later, he said that the determination to gloss over the affair was so strong that he knew he could not even discuss it. Finally, on September 28, 2005, Oklahoma State President David J. Schmidly wrote a letter to Drake President David Maxwell formally apologizing for the incident, calling it "an ugly mark on Oklahoma State University and college football." The apology came twenty-two years after Bright's death.

In February 2006, the football field at Drake Stadium, in Des Moines, Iowa, was named in Bright's honor.

Following his final football season at Drake (1951), Bright was named a First Team College Football All-American and finished fifth in the balloting for the 1951 Heisman Trophy. Bright was also awarded the Nils V. "Swede" Nelson Sportsmanship Award, and played in both the post-season East-West Shrine Game and the Hula Bowl.

In 1969, Bright was named Drake University's greatest football player of all time. He is also the only Drake football player to have his jersey number (No. 43) retired by the school.

Bright was the first pick of the Philadelphia Eagles in the first round of the 1952 National Football League draft.  Bright spurned the NFL, electing to play for the Calgary Stampeders of the Western Interprovinciai Football Union (WIFU), the precursor to the West Division of the Canadian Football League. Bright later commented:

I would have been their (the Eagles') first Negro player. There was a tremendous influx of Southern players into the NFL at that time, and I didn't know what kind of treatment I could expect.

Bright joined the Calgary Stampeders as a fullback/linebacker in 1952, leading the Stampeders and the WIFU in rushing with 815 yards his rookie season. Bright played fullback/linebacker with the Stampeders for the 1952, 1953, and part of the 1954 seasons. In 1954, the Calgary Stampeders traded Bright to the Edmonton Eskimos in mid-season. Bright would enjoy the most success of his professional football career as a member of the Eskimos.

Though Bright played strictly defense as a linebacker in his first year with the Eskimos, he played both offense (as a fullback) and defense for two seasons (1955-1956), and played offense permanently after that (1957-1964).  He, along with teammates Rollie Miles, Normie Kwong, and Jackie Parker, helped lead the Eskimos to successive Grey Cup titles in 1954, 1955, and 1956 (where Bright rushed for a then Grey Cup record of 171 yards in a 50–27 win over the Montreal Alouettes). In 1957, he rushed for eight consecutive 100-yard games, finishing the season with 1,679 yards. In 1958, he rushed for 1,722 yards. In 1959, following his third straight season as the Canadian pro rushing leader with 1,340 yards, Bright won the Canadian Football League's Most Outstanding Player Award, the first African American or African Canadian athlete to be so honored.

Bright was approached several times during his Canadian career by NFL teams about playing in the United States, but in the days before the blockbuster salaries of today's NFL players, it was common for CFL players such as Bright to hold regular jobs in addition to football, and he had already started a teaching career in 1957, the year he moved his family to Edmonton.

Bright retired in  1964 as the CFL's all-time leading rusher. Bright rushed for 10,909 yards in 13 seasons, had five consecutive 1,000 yard seasons, and led the CFL in rushing four times. While Bright, as of 2017, was 15th on the All-Pro Rushing list, his career average of 5.5 yards per carry is the highest among 10,000+ yard rushers (National Football League Hall of Famer Jim Brown is second at 5.2 yards per carry). At the time of his retirement, Bright had a then-CFL record thirty-six 100-plus-yard games, carrying the ball 200 or more times for five straight seasons. Bright led the CFL Western Conference in rushing four times, winning the Eddie James Memorial Trophy in the process, and was a CFL Western Conference All-Star five straight seasons from 1957 to 1961. Bright played in 197 consecutive CFL games as a fullback/linebacker. Bright's No. 24 jersey was added to the Edmonton Eskimos' Wall of Honour at the Eskimo's Commonwealth Stadium in 1983. Bright was inducted into the Canadian Football Hall of Fame on November 26, 1970. In November 2006, Bright was voted one of the CFL's Top 50 players (No. 19) for the league's modern era by Canadian sports network TSN. 

Bright earned a Bachelor of Science degree in education at Drake University in 1952, becoming a teacher, coach, and school administrator, both during and after his professional football career, eventually rising to the seat of principal of D.S. Mackenzie Junior High School and Hillcrest Junior High School in Edmonton, Alberta. He became a Canadian citizen in 1962.

Bright died of a massive heart attack on December 14, 1983, at the University of Alberta Hospital  in Edmonton, while undergoing elective surgery to correct a knee injury suffered during his football career. He was survived by his wife and four children.

Bright is buried at Holy Cross Cemetery, in Edmonton.

In September 2010, Johnny Bright School, a kindergarten through grade 9 school, was named in Bright's honor, and opened in the Rutherford neighborhood of Edmonton. The school was officially opened on September 15, 2010, by representatives of the school district and Alberta Education Minister Dave Hancock, and included tributes from Bright's family, several dignitaries, and former colleagues of Bright from both his athletic and educational careers.

*****

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

Charles Bernard "Charlie" Rangel (b. June 11, 1930, New York City,  New York), the United States Representative for New York's 13th Congressional District. Rangel was the first African American Chair of the influential House Ways and Means Committee.  He was also a founding member of the Congressional Black Caucus. 

Rangel was born in Harlem in New York City. He earned a Purple Heart and a Bronze Star for his service in the United States Army during the Korean War, where he led a group of soldiers out of a deadly Chinese army encirclement during the Battle of Kunu-ri in 1950. Rangel graduated from New York University in 1957 and St. John's University School of Law in 1960. He then worked as a private lawyer, Assistant United States Attorney, and legal counsel during the early-mid-1960s. He served two terms in the New York State Assembly, from 1967 to 1971, and then defeated long-time incumbent Congressman Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. in a primary challenge on his way to being elected to the House of Representatives.  

Once there, Rangel rose rapidly in the Democratic ranks, combining solidly liberal views with a pragmatic approach towards finding political and legislative compromises. His long-time concerns with battling the importation and effects of illegal drugs led to his becoming chair of the House Select Committee on Narcotics, where he helped define national policy on the issue during the 1980s. As one of Harlem's "Gang of Four", he also became a leader in New York City and State politics. He played a significant role in the creation of the 1995 Upper Manhattan Empowerment Zone Development Corporation and the national Empowerment Zone Act, which helped change the economic face of Harlem and other inner-city areas. Rangel was known both for his genial manner, with an ability to win over fellow legislators, and for his blunt speaking; he has long been outspoken about his views and has been arrested several times as part of political demonstrations. He was a strong opponent of the George W. Bush administration and the Iraq War, and he put forth proposals to reinstate the draft during the 2000s. 

Beginning in 2008, Rangel faced a series of allegations of ethics violations and failures to comply with tax laws. The House Ethics Committee focused on whether Rangel improperly rented multiple rent-stabilized New York apartments, improperly used his office in raising money for the Rangel Center at the City College of New York, and failed to disclose rental income from his villa in the Dominican Republic. In March 2010, Rangel stepped aside as Ways and Means Chair. In November 2010, the Ethics Committee found Rangel guilty of 11 counts of violating House ethics rules, and on December 2, 2010, the full House approved a sanction of censure against him. During the 2012 and 2014 elections, Rangel faced two strong primary challenges in a now primarily Hispanic district but prevailed. He did not run for re-election in 2016 and left office in January 2017.

*****

June 14

*Babacar Ba, a Senegalese politician from Kaolack, who served as Foreign Minister of Senegal from 1971 to 1978, was born.

Babacar Ba (June 14, 1930 – December 13, 2006) served as Minister of Finance and Economy from 1971 to 1978, when Ousmane Seck took office. Ba stepped down from the foreign ministry later that same year and was succeeded by Moustapha Niasse.

*****

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.

Mary Jane McLeod Bethune (b. Mary Jane McLeod; July 10, 1875, Mayesville, South Carolina – d. May 18, 1955, Daytona Beach, Florida) was an American educator, stateswoman, philanthropist, humanitarian, and civil rights activist.  Bethune founded the National Council for Negro Women in 1935, established the organization's flagship journal Aframerican Women's Journal, and resided as president or leader for myriad African American women's organizations including the National Association for Colored Women and the National Youth Administration's Negro Division. She also was appointed as a national adviser to president Franklin D. Roosevelt,  whom she worked with to create the Federal Council on Negro Affairs, also known as the Black Cabinet.  She is well known for starting a private school for African-American students in Daytona Beach, Florida.  It later continued to develop as Bethune-Cookman University.  Bethune was the sole African American woman officially a part of the United States delegation that created the United Nations charter, and she held a leadership position for the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps.  For her lifetime of activism, she was deemed the"acknowledged First Lady of Negro America" by Ebony magazine in July 1949 and was known by the Black Press as the "Female Booker T. Washington".  She was known as "The First Lady of The Struggle" because of her commitment to gaining better lives for African Americans.

Born in Mayesville, South Carolina, to parents who had been slaves, she started working in fields with her family at age five. She took an early interest in becoming educated. 
With the help of benefactors, Bethune attended college hoping to become a missionary in Africa. She started a school for African-American girls in Daytona Beach, Florida. It later merged with a private institute for African-American boys and was known as the Bethune-Cookman School. Bethune maintained high standards and promoted the school with tourists and donors, to demonstrate what educated African Americans could do. She was president of the college from 1923 to 1942, and 1946 to 1947. She was one of the few women in the world to serve as a college president at that time.

Bethune was also active in women's clubs, which were strong civic organizations supporting welfare and other needs, and became a national leader. Bethune wrote prolifically, publishing in National Notes from 1924–1928, Pittsburgh Courier from 1937–1938, Aframerican Women’s Journal from 1940–1949, and Chicago Defender from 1948–1955, among others.^[12] After working on the presidential campaign for Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1932, she was invited as a member of his "Black Cabinet." She advised him on concerns of African Americans and helped share Roosevelt's message and achievements with blacks, who had historically been Republican voters since the Civil War. At the time, blacks had been largely disenfranchised in the South since the turn of the century, so she was speaking to black voters across the North.

The honors bestowed upon Bethune include the designation of her home in Daytona Beach as a National Historic Landmark; her house in Washington, D. C. as a National Historic Site; and the installation of a memorial sculpture of her in Lincoln Park in Washington, D. C.  The Legislature of Florida designated her in 2018 as the subject of one of Florida's two statues in the National Statuary Hall Collection. 

*****

June 28

Cachalia, Amina

Amina Cachalia (b. Amina Asvat; June 28, 1930 Vereeniging, South Africa – d. January 31, 2013, Johannesburg, South Africa) was a longtime friend and ally of Nelson Mandela. Her late husband was political activist Yusuf Cachalia.

Cachalia was born Amina Asvat, the ninth of eleven children in Vereeniging, South Africa, on June 28, 1930. Her parents were political activists Ebrahim and Fatima Asvat. She began campaigning against Apartheid and racial discrimination as a teenager. She became a women's rights activist, often focusing on economic issues, such as financial independence for women.

Amina and Yusuf Cachalia were friends of Nelson Mandela before his imprisonment at Robben Island in 1962. She became a staunch anti-apartheid activist. She spent fifteen years under house arrest throughout the 1960s and 1970s. She was the treasurer of the Federation of South African Women (Fedsaw), a leading supporter of the Federation of Transvaal Women, and a member of both the Transvaal Indian Youth Congress and Transvaal Indian Congress during the Apartheid era.

In 1995, Mandela asked Cachalia to marry him. At the time, he had been separated from his wife, Winnie Madikizela-Mandela. Cachalia turned down Mandela's proposal because she said that "I'm my own person and that I had just recently lost my husband whom I had enormous regard for". Mandela divorced Madikizela-Mandela a year later and married Graca Machel in 1998.

Cachalia was elected to the National Assembly of South Africa in the 1994 South African general election, the country's first with universal adult suffrage. In 2004, she was awarded the Order of Luthuli in Bronze for her contributions to gender and racial equality and democracy.

Cachalia died at Milpark Hospital in Parktown West, Johannesburg, January 31, 2013, aged 82. The cause of death was complications following an emergency operation due to a perforated ulcer.

Her funeral was held in her home in Parkview, Johannesburg, according to traditional Muslim customs. It was attended by South African President Jacob Zuma, former Presidents Thabo Mbeki and Kgalema Motlanthe, ANC Deputy Cyril Ramaphosa, former First Lady Graca Machel, former Finance Minister Trevor Manuel and fellow activisti Ahmed Kathrada, among others.

After her death, in March 2013, her autobiography When Hope and History Rhyme was published.