1930 The Americas

The Americas

Brazil

*Revolution broke out in Brazil against the rule of President Washington Luis (October 3).

*Brazil's three-week civil war ended in rebel victory as President Washington Luis resigned (October 24).

*Getulio Vargas became President of Brazil (November 3).

*The United States and Britain extended formal recognition to the new Brazilian government (November 8).

Cuba

*Students at the University of Havana held a demonstration against president Gerardo Machado (September 30).  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.

*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 4).

*Omara Portuondo Peláez, a singer and dancer whose career spanned over half a century was born in Havana, Cuba (October 29). 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. 

*Cuban President Gerardo Machado suspended the Constitution for 25 days as rioting in Havana killed 7 (November 13).

Dominican Republic

*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 (February 26).

*General elections were held in the Dominican Republic (May 16).  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.


*A hurricane struck the Dominican Republic, killing over 8,000 people and doing as estimated $15 million in damage (September 3).

Haiti

*Stenio Vincent, a COTW, was elected President of Haiti by the National Assembly (November 18). 

Jamaica

In September 1929, Marcus Garvey founded the People's Political Party  (PPP), Jamaica's first modern political party, which focused on workers' rights, education,  and aid to the poor. Also in 1929, Garvey was elected councilor for the Allman Town Division of the Kingston and St. Andrew Corporation (KSAC). In July 1929, the Jamaican property of the UNIA was seized on the orders of the Chief Justice. Garvey and his solicitor attempted to persuade people not to bid for the confiscated goods, claiming the sale was illegal and Garvey made a political speech in which he referred to corrupt judges.  As a result, he was cited for contempt of court and again appeared before the Chief Justice. He received a prison sentence, as a consequence of which he lost his seat. However, in 1930, Garvey was re-elected, unopposed, along with two other PPP candidates.

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*In Jamaica, Rastafarians hailed the new Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassie as the living God, the fulfillment of a prophecy by Marcus Garvey who was said to have declared, "Look to Africa, where a black  king shall be crowned, for the day of deliverance is near."  Members of the new sect withdrew from Jamaican society, called white religion a rejection of black culture, insisted that  blacks leave "Babylon" (the Western world) and return to Africa, and contributed to Jamaican culture (notably to the island's reggae music) but Rasta extremists would traffic in ganja (marijuana) and engage in acts of violence.

*Una M. Marson had a first collection of poetry, Tropic Reveries, published.  Subsequent collections appeared in 1931, 1937, and 1945.

Saint Lucia

*Derek Walcott, the 1992 recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature, was born in Saint Lucia (January 23).

Derek Alton Walcott, (b. 23 January 1930) is a Saint Lucian-Trinidadian poet and playwright. He received the 1992 Nobel Prize in Literature. His works include the Homeric epic poem Omeros (1990), which many critics view "as Walcott's major achievement." In addition to having won the Nobel Prize, Walcott has won many literary awards over the course of his career, including an Obie Award in 1971 for his play Dream on Monkey Mountain, a MacArthur Foundation "genius" award, a Royal Society of Literature Award, the Queen's Medal for Poetry, the inaugural OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature and the 2011 T. S. Eliot Prize for his book of poetry White Egrets.^[5]

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Europe

Germany

*In 1930, there were between 20,000 and 25,000 people of African descent in Germany.  Most prominent amongst the German people of African descent were the so-called "Rhineland Bastards".

"Rhineland Bastard" (German: Rheinlandbastard) was a derogatory term used in the Weimar Republic and Nazi Germany to describe Afro-German children, who were fathered by Africans serving as French colonial troops occupying the Rhineland after World War I.  Under Nazism's racial theories, these children were considered inferior to Aryans and consigned to compulsory sterilization.

The term "Rhineland Bastard" can be traced back to 1919, just after World War I, when Entente troops, most of them French, occupied the Rhineland. A relatively high number of German women married soldiers from the occupying forces, while many others had children by them out of wedlock (hence the disparaging label "bastards"). The resulting children numbered from 16,000 to 18,000. The occupation itself had been regarded as a national disgrace by Germans across the political spectrum, and there was a widespread tendency to consider all forms of collaboration and fraternization with the occupiers as moral (if not legal) treason. The fact that it was carried out by what were viewed as "B-grade" troops (a notion that itself was drawn from colonial and racial stereotypes) increased the feelings of humiliation. In the Rhineland itself, local opinion of the troops was very different, and the soldiers were described as "courteous and often popular", possibly because French colonial soldiers harbored less ill-will towards Germans than war-weary French occupiers.

In Mein Kampf, Hitler described children resulting from marriages to African occupation soldiers as a contamination of the white race "by Negro blood on the Rhine in the heart of Europe." He thought that "Jews were responsible for bringing Negroes into the Rhineland, with the ultimate idea of bastardizing the white race which they hate and thus lowering its cultural and political level so that the Jew might dominate." He also implied that this was a plot on the part of the French, since the population of France was being increasingly "negrified".

However, most of the small population of people of African descent in Germany at that time were children of German settlers and missionaries in the former German colonies in Africa and Melanesia, who had married local women or had children with them out of wedlock. With the loss of the German colonial empire after World War I, some of these colonists returned to Germany with their mixed-race families. While the black population of Germany at the time of the Third Reich was small at 20–25,000 in a population of over 65 million, the Nazis decided to take action against those in the Rhineland. They despised black culture, which they considered inferior, and even sought to prohibit "traditionally black" musical genres like jazz as being "corrupt negro music".  No official laws were enacted against the black population, or against the children of mixed parentage, since they were the offspring of marriages and informal unions from before the Nuremberg laws of September 1935 which prohibited miscegenation. The law also deprived persons of mixed parentage their freedom to marry at all, or at least the spouse of their choice by banning future sexual relations and mixed marriages between Aryans and others. Instead, a group named "Commission Number 3" was created to resolve the problem of the "Rhineland Bastards" with the aim of preventing their further procreation in German society. Organized under Eugen Fischer of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Anthropology, Human Heredity, and Eugenics, it was decided that the children would be sterilized under the 1933 Law for the Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased  Offspring. 

The program began in 1937, when local officials were asked to report on all "Rhineland Bastards" under their jurisdiction. All together, some 400 children of mixed parentage were arrested and sterilized. This order applied only in the Rhineland. Other African-Germans or mixed race Germans were unaffected. According to Susan Samples, the Nazis went to great lengths to conceal their sterilization and abortion program.

Africa

Nnamdi Azikiwe

*Nnamdi Azikiwe, the future President of Nigeria, graduated from Lincoln University, an historically black university located in Chester County, Pennsylvania in the United States.

Nnamdi Azikiwe (b. November 16, 1904, Zungeru, Nigeria  — d. May 11, 1996, Enugu) was the first president of independent Nigeria (1963–66) and prominent nationalist figure.

Azikiwe attended various primary and secondary mission schools in Onitsha, Calabar, and Lagos. He arrived in the United States in 1925, where he attended several schools. Azikiwe earned multiple certificates and degrees, including bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Lincoln University in Pennsylvania and a second master’s degree from the University of Pennsylvania. In 1934 he went to the Gold Coast (now Ghana), where he founded a nationalist newspaper and was a mentor to Kwame Nkrumah (later the first president of Ghana) before returning to Nigeria in 1937. There he founded and edited newspapers and also became directly involved in politics, first with the Nigerian Youth Movement and later (1944) as a founder of the National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons (NCNC), which became increasingly identified with the Igbo people of southern Nigeria after 1951. In 1948, with the backing of the NCNC, Azikiwe was elected to the Nigerian Legislative , and he later served as premier of the Eastern region (1954–59).

Azikiwe led the NCNC into the important 1959 federal elections, which preceded Nigerian independence. He was able to form a temporary government with the powerful Northern People’s Congress, but its deputy leader, Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, took the key post of prime minister. Azikiwe received the largely honorary posts of president of the Senate, governor-general, and, finally, president.

In the conflict over Biafra (1967–70), Azikiwe first backed his fellow Igbo, traveling extensively in 1968 to win recognition of Biafra and help from other African countries. In 1969, however, realizing the hopelessness of the war, he threw his support to the federal government. After Olusegun Obasanjo turned the government over to civilian elections in 1979, Azikiwe ran unsuccessfully for president as the candidate of a newly formed Nigerian People’s Party (NPP). Prior to the 1983 elections, the NPP became part of an unofficial coalition of opposition parties known as the Progressive Parties Alliance (PPA). The coalition, which was tenuous at best, could not agree on one presidential candidate and decided to field two — Azikiwe, representing the NPP, and Obafemi Awolowo, representing the United Party of Nigeria (UPN). Awolowo, the leader of the UPN, was a political rival of Azikiwe, with whom he was often at odds. The coalition had largely deteriorated by the time of the election, and neither Azikiwe nor Awolowo won.

An important figure in the history of politics in Nigeria, Azikiwe had broad interests outside that realm. He served as chancellor of the University of Nigeria at Nsukka from 1961 to 1966, and he was the president of several sports organizations for football, boxing, and table tennis. Among his writings are Renascent Africa (1937) and an autobiography, My Odyssey (1970).

Central African Republic

*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).

David Dacko  (b. March 24,1930 – d. November 20, 2003) was the first President of the Central African Republic from August 14, 1960 to January 1, 1966, and the third President from September 21,1979 to  September 1, 1981. After his second removal from power in a coup d'etat led by General Andre Kolingba, he pursued an active career as an opposition politician and presidential candidate with many loyal supporters. Dacko was an important political figure in the country for over 50 years.

Democratic Republic of the Congo

(Belgian Congo)

(Zaire)

*Mobutu Sese Seko, a President of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, was born in Lisala, Belgian Congo (October 14).

Mobutu Sese Seko (aka Mobutu Sese Seko Kuku Ngbendu Wa Za Banga, b. Joseph-Desiré Mobutu, October 14, 1930, Lisala, Belgian Congo – d. September 7, 1997, Rabat, Morocco), the military dictator and President of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (which Mobutu renamed Zaire in 1971) from 1965 to 1997, was born in Lisala, Belgian Congo. He also served as Chairperson of the Organization of African Unity from 1967–1968.

Once in power, Mobutu formed an  authoritarian regime, amassed vast personal wealth, and attempted to purge the country of all colonial cultural influence, while enjoying considerable support from the United States due to his anti-communist stance.

During the Congo Crisis (1960-65), Belgian forces aided Mobutu in a coup against the nationalist government of Patrice Lumumba in 1960 to take control of the government. Lumumba was the first leader in the country to be democratically elected, but he was subsequently deposed in a coup d’état organized by Colonel Mobutu and executed by a Katangese firing squad led by Julien Gat, a Belgian mercenary. Mobutu then assumed the role of army chief of staff, before taking power directly in a second coup in 1965. As part of his program of "national authenticity," Mobutu changed the Congo's name to Zaire in 1971 and his own name to Mobutu Sese Seko in 1972.

Mobutu established a single-party state in which all power was concentrated in his hands. He also became the object of a pervasive cult of personality. During his reign, Mobutu built a highly centralized state and amassed a large personal fortune through economic exploitation and corruption, leading some to call his rule a "kleptocracy". The nation suffered from uncontrolled inflation, a large debt, and massive currency devaluations. By 1991, economic deterioration and unrest led him to agree to share power with opposition leaders, but he used the army to thwart change until May 1997, when rebel forces led by Laurent Kabila expelled him from the country. Already suffering from advanced prostate cancer, he died three months later in Morocco. 

Mobutu became notorious for corruption, nepotism, and the embezzlement of between $4 billion and $15 billion (United States Dollars) during his reign, as well as extravagances such as Concorde-flown shopping trips to Paris. Mobutu presided over the country for over three decades, a period of widespread human rights violations. He has been described as the "archetypal African dictator."

Ethiopia

In early 1930, Gugsa Welle, the husband of the empress Zewditu and the Shum (Governor) of Begemder Province, raised an army and marched it from his governorate at Gondar towards Addis Adaba. On March 31, 1930, Gugsa Welle 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. News of Gugsa Welle's defeat and death had hardly spread through Addis Ababa when the empress died suddenly on April 2, 1930. Although it was long rumored that the empress was poisoned upon the defeat of her husband, or alternately that she died from shock upon hearing of the death of her estranged yet beloved husband, it has since been documented that the Empress succumbed to a flu-like fever and complications from diabetes. 

With the passing of Zewditu, Tafari himself rose to emperor and was proclaimed Neguse Negest ze-'Ityopp'ya, "King of Kings of Ethiopia". He was crowned on November 2, 1930, at Addis Adaba's Cathedral of Saint George.  The coronation was attended by royals and dignitaries from all over the world. Among those in attendance were George V's son the Duke of Gloucester, Marshal Franchet d'Esperey of France, and the Prince of Udine representing the King of Italy. Emissaries from the United States, Egypt, Turkey, Sweden, Belgium, and Japan were also present. British author Evelyn Waugh was also present, penning a contemporary report on the event, and American travel lecturer Burton Holmes shot the only known film footage of the event. One newspaper report suggested that the celebration may have incurred a cost in excess of $3,000,000. Many of those in attendance received lavish gifts. In one instance, the Christian emperor even sent a gold-encased Bible to an American bishop who had not attended the coronation, but who had dedicated a prayer to the emperor on the day of the coronation.

*On March 31, 1930, Gugsa Welle, the husband of the 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. 

*Zewditu (also spelled Zawditu or Zauditu; April 29, 1876 – April 2, 1930), the Empress of Ethiopia from 1916 to 1930, died.  

The first female head of an internationally recognized state in Africa in the 19th and 20th centuries, and the first Empress regnant of the Ethiopian Empire perhaps since the legendary Makeda, the Queen of Sheba, her reign was noted for the reforms of her Regent and designated heir Ras Tafari Makonnen (who succeeded her as Emperor Haile Selassie I), about which she was at best ambivalent and often stridently opposed, due to her staunch conservatism and strong religious devotion.

*Ras Tafari, who took the name Haile Selassie when he was proclaimed Negus (King) two years ago, was crowned King of Kings at Addis Adaba (November 2).  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."

On November 2, 1930, after the death of Empress Zewditu (on April 2), Ras Tafari was crowned Negusa Nagast, literally King of Kings, rendered in English as "Emperor". Upon his ascension, he took as his regnal name Haile Selassie I. Haile means in Ge'ez "Power of" and Selassie means trinity — therefore, Haile Selassie roughly translates to "Power of the Trinity".  Haile Selassie's full title in office was "By the Conquering Lion of the Tribe of Judah, His Imperial Majesty Haile Selassie I, King of Kings of Ethiopia, Elect of God". This title reflects Ethiopian dynastic traditions, which hold that all monarchs must trace their lineage to Menelik I, who in the Ethiopian tradition was the offspring of King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba. 

Haile Selassie I, original name Tafari Makonnen (b. July 23, 1892, near Harer, Abyssinia (Ethiopia).— d. August 27, 1975, Addis Adaba, Ethiopia), was the emperor of Ethiopia from 1930 to 1974 who sought to modernize his country and who steered it into the mainstream of post-World War II African politics. He brought Ethiopia into the League of Nations and the United Nations and made Addis Ababa the major center for the Organization of African Unity (now the African Union). 

Tafari was a great-grandson of Sahle Selassie of Shewa (Shoa) and a son of Ras (Prince) Makonnen, a chief adviser to Emperor Menelik II.  Educated at home by French missionaries, Tafari at an early age favorably impressed the emperor with his intellectual abilities and was promoted accordingly. As governor of Sidamo and then of Harer province, he followed progressive policies, seeking to break the feudal power of the local nobility by increasing the authority of the central government — for example, by developing a salaried civil service. He thereby came to represent politically progressive elements of the population. In 1911 he married Wayzaro Menen, a great-granddaughter of Menelik II.

When Menelik II died in 1913, his grandson Lij Yasu succeeded to the throne, but the latter’s unreliability and his close association with Islam made him unpopular with the majority Christian population of Ethiopia. Tafari became the rallying point of the Christian resistance, and he deposed Lij Yasu in 1916. Zewditu (Zauditu), Menelik II’s daughter, thereupon became empress in 1917, and Ras Tafari was named regent and heir apparent to the throne.

While Zewditu was conservative in outlook, Ras Tafari was progressive and became the focus of the aspirations of the modernist younger generation. In 1923, he had a conspicuous success in the admission of Ethiopia to the League of Nations.  In the following year, he visited Rome, Paris, and London, becoming the first Ethiopian ruler ever to go abroad. In 1928 he assumed the title of negus (“king”), and two years later, when Zewditu died, he was crowned emperor (November 2, 1930) and took the name of Haile Selassie (“Might of the Trinity”). In 1931 he promulgated a new constitution, which defined the limits of the Parliament. From the late 1920s on, Haile Selassie in effect was the Ethiopian government, and, by establishing provincial schools, strengthening the police forces, and progressively outlawing feudal taxation, he sought to both help his people and increase the authority of the central government.

When Italy invaded Ethiopia in 1935, Haile Selassie led the resistance, but in May 1936 he was forced into exile. He appealed for help from the League of Nations in a memorable speech that he delivered to that body in Geneva on June 30, 1936. With the advent of World War II, he secured British assistance in forming an army of Ethiopian exiles in the Sudan. British and Ethiopian forces invaded Ethiopia in January 1941 and recaptured Addis Ababa several months later. Although he was reinstated as emperor, Haile Selassie had to recreate the authority he had previously exercised. He again implemented social, economic, and educational reforms in an attempt to modernize Ethiopian government and society on a slow and gradual basis.

The Ethiopian government continued to be largely the expression of Haile Selassie’s personal authority. In 1955 he granted a new constitution giving him as much power as the previous one. Overt opposition to his rule surfaced in December 1960, when a dissident wing of the army secured control of Addis Ababa and was dislodged only after a sharp engagement with loyalist element.

Haile Selassie played a very important role in the establishment of the Organization of African Unity in 1963. His rule in Ethiopia continued until 1974, at which time famine, worsening unemployment, and the political stagnation of his government prompted segments of the army to mutiny. They deposed Haile Selassie and established a provisional military government that espoused Marxist ideologies. Haile Selassie was kept under house arrest in his own palace, where he spent the remainder of his life. 

Haile Selassie was regarded as the messiah of the African race by  the Rastafarian movement.

*Italy built a fort at the Welwel oasis (also Walwal, Italian: Ual-Ual) in the Ogaden and garrisoned it with Somali Ascari (dubats) (irregular frontier troops commanded by Italian officers).

The Italo-Ethiopian Treaty of 1928 stated that the border between Italian Somaliland and Ethiopia was twenty-one leagues parallel to the Benadir coast (approximately 118.3 kilometres [73.5 miles]).  The fort at Welwel was well beyond the twenty-one league limit and the Italians were encroaching on Ethiopian territory.

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Liberia

*A United States and League of Nations commission reported that Liberia still had slavery (March 8).

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Nigeria

*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 (November 16).

Chinua Achebe (b. Albert Chinualumogu Achebe, November 16, 1930,  Ogidi, Nigeria Protectorate – d. March 21, 2013, Boston, Massachusetts) was a Nigerian novelist, poet, professor, and critic. His first novel Things Fall Apart (1958) was considered his magnum opus, and is the most widely read book in modern African literature. 

Raised by his parents in the Igbo town of Ogidi in South-Eastern Nigeria, Achebe excelled at school and won a scholarship for undergraduate studies. He became fascinated with world religions and traditional African cultures, and began writing stories as a university student. After graduation, he worked for the Nigerian Broadcasting Service (NBS) and soon moved to the metropolis of Lagos. He gained worldwide attention for Things Fall Apart in the late 1950s; his later novels include No Longer at Ease (1960), Arrow of God (1964), A Man of the People (1966), and Anthills of the Savannah (1987). Achebe wrote his novels in English and defended the use of English, a "language of colonisers", in African literature. In 1975, his lecture An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad's "Heart of Darkness" featured a famous criticism of Joseph Conrad as "a thoroughgoing racist". It was later published in The Massachusetts Review amid some controversy.

When the region of Biafra broke away from Nigeria in 1967, Achebe became a supporter of Biafran independence and acted as ambassador for the people of the new nation. The war ravaged the populace, and as starvation and violence took its toll, he appealed to the people of Europe and the Americas for aid. When the Nigerian government retook the region in 1970, he involved himself in political parties but soon resigned due to frustration over the corruption and elitism he witnessed. He lived in the United States for several years in the 1970s, and returned to the United States in 1990 after a car accident left him partially disabled.

A titled Igbo chieftain himself, Achebe's novels focus on the traditions of Igbo society, the effect of Christian influences, and the clash of Western and traditional African values during and after the colonial era. His style relies heavily on the Igbo oral tradition, and combines straightforward narration with representations of folk stories, proverbs, and oratory. He also published a number of short stories, children's books, and essay collections. From 2009 until his death, he served as David and Marianna Fisher University Professor and Professor of Africana Studies at Brown University in the United States.

*Adebayo Adedeji (b. Ijebu-Ode, December 21, 1930), 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.

*Bola Ige (b. James Ajibola Idowu Ige, September 13, 1930 –  d. December 23, 2001), a Nigerian lawyer and politician, was born in Zaria, Kaduna. He became Federal Minister of Justice for Nigeria. He was murdered in December 2001.

*Nnamdi Azikiwe, the future President of Nigeria, graduated from Lincoln University, an historically black university located in Chester County, Pennsylvania in the United States.

Nnamdi Azikiwe,  (b. November 16, 1904, Zungeru, Nigeria  — d. May 11, 1996, Enugu), first president of independent Nigeria (1963–66) and prominent nationalist figure.

Azikiwe attended various primary and secondary mission schools in Onitsha, Calabar, and Lagos. He arrived in the United States in 1925, where he attended several schools. Azikiwe earned multiple certificates and degrees, including bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Lincoln University in Pennsylvania and a second master’s degree from the University of Pennsylvania. In 1934 he went to the Gold Coast (now Ghana), where he founded a nationalist newspaper and was a mentor to Kwame Nkrumah (later the first president of Ghana) before returning to Nigeria in 1937. There he founded and edited newspapers and also became directly involved in politics, first with the Nigerian Youth Movement and later (1944) as a founder of the National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons (NCNC), which became increasingly identified with the Igbo people of southern Nigeria after 1951. In 1948, with the backing of the NCNC, Azikiwe was elected to the Nigerian Legislative , and he later served as premier of the Eastern region (1954–59).

Azikiwe led the NCNC into the important 1959 federal elections, which preceded Nigerian independence. He was able to form a temporary government with the powerful Northern People’s Congress, but its deputy leader, Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, took the key post of prime minister. Azikiwe received the largely honorary posts of president of the Senate, governor-general, and, finally, president.

In the conflict over Biafra (1967–70), Azikiwe first backed his fellow Igbo, traveling extensively in 1968 to win recognition of Biafra and help from other African countries. In 1969, however, realizing the hopelessness of the war, he threw his support to the federal government. After Olusegun Obasanjo turned the government over to civilian elections in 1979, Azikiwe ran unsuccessfully for president as the candidate of a newly formed Nigerian People’s Party (NPP). Prior to the 1983 elections, the NPP became part of an unofficial coalition of opposition parties known as the Progressive Parties Alliance (PPA). The coalition, which was tenuous at best, could not agree on one presidential candidate and decided to field two — Azikiwe, representing the NPP, and Obafemi Awolowo, representing the United Party of Nigeria (UPN). Awolowo, the leader of the UPN, was a political rival of Azikiwe, with whom he was often at odds. The coalition had largely deteriorated by the time of the election, and neither Azikiwe nor Awolowo won.

An important figure in the history of politics in Nigeria, Azikiwe had broad interests outside that realm. He served as chancellor of the University of Nigeria at Nsukka from 1961 to 1966, and he was the president of several sports organizations for football, boxing, and table tennis. Among his writings are Renascent Africa (1937) and an autobiography, My Odyssey (1970).

South Africa

*South Africa's white women received the vote (May 19).  However, blacks of both sexes remained disenfranchised.

The Women's Enfranchisement Act, 1930, was an act of the Parliament of South Africa which granted white women aged 21 and older the right to vote and to run for office. It also had the effect of diluting the limited voting power of non-white people (in the Cape Province) by effectively doubling the number of white voters. It was enacted by the National Party government of Prime Minister J. B. M. Hertzog. 

The first general election at which women could vote was the election of May 17, 1933. At that election Leila Reitz (wife of Deneys Reitz) was elected as the first female Member of Parliament, representing Parktown for the South African Party. 

The act enfranchised all white women, while certain property qualifications still applied to men. In June 1931 the Franchise Laws Amendment Act, 1931 enfranchised all white men while retaining the property qualifications for non-white voters, thus further diluting the non-white vote. The delimitation of electoral divisions was still based on the white male population until April 1937, when the Electoral Quota Act, 1937 altered it to be based on the whole white population.

The Women's Enfranchisement Act was repealed in 1946 when the franchise laws were consolidated into the Electoral Consolidation Act, 1946. 

*An African National Congress executive resigned in protest against President Josiah Gumede's close ties with communists (January).

In 1928, the Communisty Party departed from its fruitless efforts to promote solidarity between black and white workers.  Instead, it chose to concentrate on the concept of black liberation and the formation of a 'black republic.'  This followed a successful campaign to expand its African membership.  But although the party was predominantly black by 1929, few of their recruits -- many of whom were young and ill-educated -- were well versed in doctrine.  Indeed, Eddie Roux, a prominent member of the party at that time, wrote:  "It began to seem that the Party might be swamped by members who had little knowledge of Marxist principles and theory."

However, in a move aimed at preserving the "purity" of their doctrine.  Moscow suggested that the party should remain a small and select body of trained revolutionaries who could give a clear lead to the masses on all questions. 

The idea of a popular front for black liberation led to the establishment of the African League of Rights (ALR) in 1929.  Drawing on the memberships of existing black political and labor organizations, the league succeeded in persuading ANC president Josiah Gumede to become its first president.  It was a major coup for the communists -- especially when the new movement seemed set to grab the imagination of Africans -- in particular those who had been left without a political home after the virtual collapse of the Industrial and Commercial Workers' Union (ICU).

League activities began on a high note -- with the launch of a major anti-discrimination petition aimed at taking a million signatures to parliament.  But just as the campaign began to get off the ground, Moscow did an about-turn: convinced that the capitalist system was about to collapse -- as a result of the Great Depression -- Communist Parties everywhere were ordered to terminate alliances with non-Marxist organizations.  A telegram ordered the immediate dissolution of the ALR.  

As petitions rolled in, they were thrown into the wastepaper basket.

The existence of the ALR, however, was viewed with consternation by a section of the ANC's membership.  Amid fears that it would undermine the ANC's claims to the leadership of the African nationalist movement, and also dissatisfaction by the ANC's conservative faction over Gumede's continued romance with the communists, the ANC executive resigned in January 1930 in protest at Gumede's role as president of the ALR.

*Pixley Seme replaced Josiah Gumede as President of the African National Congress (April).

Josiah Gumede was challenged for the leadership of the African National Congress by Pixley Seme and, at a conference in April, the inevitable showdown came.  Gumede - backed by the Transvaal communists, George Champion of the ICU yase  Natal, and Bransby Ndobe and Elliot Tonjeni of the western Cape branch of the ANC -- reaffirmed his support for the communists, adding that the ANC's demands were too mild and that its appeals for justice to Britain were in vain.  

Pixley Seme, on the other hand, cautioned against "the humbug of communism."  He and his supporters felt that only the ANC should be permitted to articulate African political demands, and that equality of opportunity and participation in the system was what they sought.  Their weapons were persuasion, moral force and consultation.  They were not prepared to go over to mass confrontation.  Seme won by 39 votes to 14.

*Kenneth Mopeli, the Chief Minister of the South African bantustan of QwaQwa from 1975 to 1994, was born in Namahadi (September 20).

Tsiame Kenneth Mopeli (b. September 20, 1930, Namahadi - October 1, 2014) was the former Chief Minister of the South African bantustan of QwaQwa.  Mopeli built 350 schools in Qwa Qwa along with 3 teachers' colleges. The soccer stadium Charles Mopeli Stadium and the Setsing Shopping Complex were also developed by him.

*African National Congress "radicals" in the Western Cape formed an independent African National Congress (December).

The victory of the ANC "moderates" with the election of Pixley Seme as president led within eight months to the expulsion of Bransby Ndobe and Elliot Tonjeni and the formation in the Western Cape of the Independent African National Congress to continue the spirited, although losing battle against Boland farmers and police who regularly harassed their organizers and members.

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

During 1930, together with what remained of the Industrial and Commercial Workers' Union (ICU), the Communist Party began to canvass support for a new Pass-burning campaign scheduled to begin in the main centers on December 16, 1930 -- a day on which Afrikaners commemorated their victory over Dingane, but which had also become a regular occasion for black political activities. 

In Bloemfontein, hundreds of Africans joined the party and pledged their support.  At a conference in Johannesburg. the ANC, the local ICU and other unions all endorsed the Pass-burning campaign and called for strikes.  In Durban, the young African communist Johannes Nkosi, helped by the ICU yase Natal, was drumming up widespread support.  

On December 7, 1930, in Bloemfontein, Kadalie, in a controversial return to the public spotlight, warned ICU followers not to take part in the Pass-burning.

The campaign in Natal was poorly supported, with only Durban giving any real backing.  However, despite this, police and white vigilantes moved in on a protest meeting at Cartwright's Flats, and in the ensuing fracas Johannes Nkosi and three others were killed. 

*****

Zambia

*Daniel Muchiwa Lisulo, the Prime Minister of Zambia from June 1978 until February 1981, was born in Mongu, Zambia (December 6). 

Born in Mongu, Zambia, Daniel Muchiwa Lisulo (b. December 6, 1930, Mongu, Zambia - d. August 21, 2000, Johannesburg, South Africa) married Mary Mambo in 1967.  She died in 1976, leaving Lisulo with two daughters. Lisulo served as the director of the Bank of Zambia from 1964 to 1977 before becoming Prime Minister. He was a member of Parliament from 1977 to 1983. After this, he went into private law practice. He died in Johannesburg, South Africa.