Pan-African Chronology IV: 1931 Pan-African Chronology

1931

Pan-African Chronology

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January 5

*Dancer and choreographer Alvin Ailey was born in Rogers, Texas.

January 6

*Arnold Pinkney, a political strategist and civil rights activist, was born in Youngstown, Ohio.

January 17

*Tony Award winning actor James Earl Jones was born in Arkabutla, Mississippi.

January 22

*Sam Cooke, a popular singer during the 1960s, was born in Clarksdale, Mississippi.

January 31

*Ernie Banks, "Mr. Cub", a Hall of Fame baseball player, was born in Dallas, Texas.

February 18

*Toni Morrison, the first African American to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature, was born in Lorain, Ohio,

March 5

*Dancer Carmen de Lavallade was born in Los Angeles.

April

*Marcus Garvey launched the Edelweiss Amusement Company.

April 6

*Nine African American youths accused of raping two European American women of dubious reputation on a freight train went on trial for their lives in Scottsboro, Alabama. The case became a cause celebre, with African American organizations, liberal European Americans, and the Communist Party all vying to defend "the Scottsboro Boys." The defendants were hastily convicted, but by 1950 all were free by parole, appeal, or escape.

April 11

*Luís Severino de Almeida Cabral, the first President of Guinea-Bissau, was born in Bissau, Portuguese Guinea.

April 29

*The Negro Art Theater Dance Group gave its first concert.

April 30

*William Lacy Clay, a congressman from Missouri, was born in St. Louis, Missouri.

May 5

*Artist Edwin A. Harleston died in Charleston, South Carolina.

May 6

*Willie Howard Mays, Jr., nicknamed "The Say Hey Kid", a Major League Baseball (MLB) center fielder who spent almost all of his 22 season career playing for the New York and San Francisco Giants before finishing with the New York Mets was born in Westfield, Alabama (May 6). He was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1979, his first year of eligibility.

May 7

*Darwin Turner, a literary critic, was born in Cincinnati, Ohio.

May 8

*A Sayville, New York deputy arrested and charged Father Divine with disturbing the peace.

May 31

*Soprano and mezzo-soprano Shirley Verrett, who would become known for her performance in the title role of Bizet's Carmen, was born in New Orleans.

June

*In South Africa, the Franchise Laws Amendment Act was passed.

June 7

*David C. Driskell, an artist and art historian, was born in Eatonton, Georgia.

June 14

*Marla Gibbs, an actress, singer, writer and producer, was born in Chicago, Illinois.

*Junior Walker (b. Autry DeWalt Mixon, Jr.), a musician known for the song "Shotgun" was born in Blytheville, Arkansas.

June 18

*Fernando Henrique Cardoso (also known by his initials FHC), a Brazilian sociologist, professor and politician who served as President of Brazil from January 1, 1995 to January 1, 2003, was born in Rio de Janeiro (June 18). Cardoso was the first President of Brazil to have been re-elected for a subsequent term.

July 1

*Seyni Kountché, a military officer who led a 1974 coup d'etat that deposed the government of Niger's first president Hamani Diori, was born in Damana Fandou, Niger, French West Africa. He ruled the country as military head of state from 1974 to 1987. Stade General Seyni Kountche, Niger's national stadium in Niamey, is named after him.

July 4

*Buddie Petit, a highly regarded early jazz cornetist, died.

July 6

*Singer and actress Della Reese was born in Detroit, Michigan.

July 16

*The first Constitution of Ethiopia was promulgated.

July 25

*Vincent Harding, a historian and scholar, was born in Harlem, New York.

August 2

*Child prodigy pianist Philippa Schuyler was born

August 4

*Daniel Hale Williams, a heart surgeon and founder of Chicago's Provident Hospital died in Chicago, Illinois.

August 17

*A'Lelia Walker Robinson, the daughter of millionaire Madame C. J. Walker, died in New York City. Robinson created Harlem's celebrated "Dark Tower," a salon where African American writers, artists, and philosophers mingled with members of New York society.

August 20

*Donald "Don" King, a boxing promoter whose career highlights include promoting "The Rumble in the Jungle" and the "Thrilla in Manila", was born in Cleveland, Ohio. King promoted some of the most prominent names in boxing, including Muhammad Ali, Joe Frazier, George Foreman, Larry Holmes, Mike Tyson, Evander Holyfield, Julio Cesar Chavez, Ricardo Mayorga, Andrew Golota, Bernard Hopkins, Felix Trinidad, Roy Jones, Jr., and Marco Antonio Barrera.

August 30

*Carrie Saxon Perry was born in Hartford, Connecticut. In 1987, she would become the first African American female mayor of a major city in the Northeast.

September 19

*Pop and soul singer Brook Benton was born in Camden, South Carolina. His 16 gold records include "A Rainy Night in Georgia."

September 24

*Cardiss Collins, the first African American woman to represent Illinois in Congress, was born in St. Louis, Missouri.

October 7

*Desmond Mpilo Tutu, a South African social rights activist and Anglican bishop who rose to worldwide fame during the 1980s as an opponent of apartheid, was born in Klerksdorp, Western Transvaal, South Africa. Tutu received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984.

October 29

*William Grant Still became the first African American to compose a symphony that was performed by a major orchestra, the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra, which presented the Afro-American Symphony, his first symphony.

November 3

*On the anniversary of the Emperor's own coronation, Haile Selassie convened the first parliament of the new Ethiopian constitution.

November 4

*Buddy Bolden, considered to be the first man to play jazz, died in a segregated Louisiana mental institution in Jackson, Louisiana.

November 5

*Izear Luster "Ike" Turner, Jr., a musician, bandleader, songwriter, arranger, talent scout, and record producer, was born in Clarksdale, Mississippi (November 5). An early pioneer of fifties rock and roll, he is most popularly known for his work in the 1960s and 1970s with his then-wife Tina Turner in the Ike & Tina Turner Revue.

November 15

*Mwai Kibaki, a Kenyan politician who was the third President of Kenya, serving from December 2002 to April 2013, was born in Gatuyaini, Kenya Colony (November 15).

November 16

*Hubert Charles Sumlin (b. November 16, 1931, Greenwood, Mississippi – d. December 4, 2011, Wayne, New Jersey), a Chicago blues guitarist and singer, best known for his "wrenched, shattering bursts of notes, sudden cliff-hanger silences and daring rhythmic suspensions" as a member of Howlin' Wolf's band, was born in Greenwood, Mississippi (November 16). Sumlin was listed as number 43 in the Rolling Stone 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time.

December 1

*Jimmy Lyons (December 1, 1931 – May 19, 1986), an alto saxophone player, was born in Jersey City, New Jersey. He is best known for his long tenure in the Cecil Taylor Unit, being the only constant member of the pianist's group from the mid-1960s to his death, after which Taylor never worked with another musician as frequently. Lyons's playing, which usually retained a strong influence from bebop pioneer Charlie Parker, helped keep Taylor's often wildly avant garde music tethered to the jazz tradition.

December 5

*James Cleveland, the "King of Gospel, was born in Chicago, Illinois. After singing with Mahalia Jackson and groups such as "The Caravans", Cleveland formed his own group, "The Gospel Chimes."

December 7

*Comer Cottrell was born in Mobile, Alabama. In 1973, he would found the Pro-Line Corporation, and in 1989 he would become co-owner of the Texas Rangers.

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The United States

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In 1931, Scottsboro, Alabama, made headlines as a shouting mob surrounded the county courthouse where nine African American youths were being tried on charges of having raped two European American women aboard a freight train on March 25 after the African Americans allegedly threw some European American hoboes off the train. A European American mob pulled the African Americans from the train when it arrived at Paint Rock, Alabama. The defendants, Harwood Patterson, Olen Montgomery, Clarence Norris, Ozie Powell, Willie Robertson, Charlie Weems, Eugene Williams, Andy Wright, and Roy Wright were transferred to Scottsboro to prevent their being represented by counsel. They were defended only by a reluctant lawyer who has been assigned to the case by the presiding judge and given no preparation, the jury discounted testimony by a physician, and the three day trial ended April 9 with eight of the defendants sentenced to death and the ninth to life imprisonment. The physician testified that he examined Victoria Price, 21, and Ruby Bates, 17, of Huntsville shortly after the alleged rape and that while he found dried semen he found no live spermatozoa and no blood.

In October of 1932, the Supreme Court would reverse the Scottsboro convictions in a landmark ruling that defendants in capital cases in state courts must have adequate legal representation.

The "Scottsboro Boys" would have a new trial in Alabama in 1933. The new trial would end in conviction, and the United States Supreme Court would again reverse the convictions with a landmark ruling that African Americans may not be systematically excluded from grand and trial juries. New York civil rights lawyers Shad Polier, 25, and Samuel S. Leibowitz, 38, would take up the cause, a third trial with one African American on the jury also ended in conviction, but some indictments were dropped, the sentences would be commuted to life imprisonment, and the defendants would serve a total of 130 years behind bars (one not being paroled until 1951).

*****

Father Divine

On May 8, 1931, a Sayville deputy arrested and charged Father Divine with disturbing the peace. Remarkable during the Depression, Father Divine submitted his $1000 bail in cash. The trial, not as speedy as the neighbors wanted, was scheduled for late fall, allowing Father Divine's popularity to snowball for the entire Sayville vacation season.

Father Divine held banquets for as many as 3000 people that summer. Cars clogging the streets for these gatherings bolstered some neighbors' claims that Father Divine was a disturbance to the peace and furthermore was hurting their property values.

On Sunday, November 15, at 12:15 am, a police officer was called to Father Divine's raucously loud property. By the time state troopers, deputies and prison buses were called in, a mob of neighbors had surrounded the compound. Fearing a riot, the police informed Father Divine and his followers that they had fifteen minutes to disperse. Father Divine had them wait in silence for ten minutes, and then they filed into police custody. Processed by the county jail at 3:00 am, clerks were frustrated, because the followers often refused to give their usual names and stubbornly offered the "inspired" names they adopted in the movement. Seventy-eight people were arrested altogether, including fifteen whites. Forty-six pled guilty to disturbing the peace and incurred $5 fines, which Father Divine paid with a $500 bill, which the court was embarrassingly unable to make change from. Penninah, Father Divine, and thirty followers resisted the charges.

Father Divine's arrest and heterodox doctrines were sensationally reported. The New York frenzy made this event and its repercussions the single most famous moment of Father Divine's life. Although mostly inaccurate, articles on Father Divine propelled his popularity. By December, his followers began renting buildings in New York City for Father Divine to speak in. Soon, he often had several engagements on a single night. On December 20, he spoke to an estimated 10,000 in Harlem's Rockland Palace, a spacious former casino.

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W. E. B. DuBois

A rivalry emerged in 1931 between the NAACP and the Communist Party, when the Communists responded quickly and effectively to support the Scottsboro Boys, nine African-American youth arrested in 1931 in Alabama for rape. Du Bois and the NAACP felt that the case would not be beneficial to their cause, so they chose to let the Communist Party organize the defense efforts. Du Bois was impressed with the vast amount of publicity and funds the Communists devoted to the partially successful defense effort, and he came to suspect that the Communists were attempting to present their party to African Americans as a better solution than the NAACP. Responding to criticisms of the NAACP from the Communist Party, Du Bois wrote articles condemning the party, claiming that it unfairly attacked the NAACP, and that it failed to fully appreciate racism in the United States. The Communist leaders, in turn, accused Du Bois of being a "class enemy", and claimed that the NAACP leadership was an isolated elite, disconnected from the working-class blacks they ostensibly fought for.

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Marcus Garvey

In April 1931, Marcus Garvey launched the Edelweiss Amusement Company. He set the company up to help artists earn their livelihood from their craft. Several Jamaican entertainers—Kidd Harold, Ernest Cupidon, Bim & Bam, and Ranny Williams—went on to become popular after receiving initial exposure that the company gave them.

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Civil Rights

*The Commission on Interracial Cooperation organized the Association of Southern Women for the Prevention of Lynching.

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The Labor Movement

*The Sharecroppers Union was organized in Tallapoosa, Alabama, to aid African American tenants and sharecroppers. Direction of the movement came from the Communist Party headquarters in Birmingham, Alabama. Attempts of law enforcement officials and European American vigilantes to stamp out the organization drove it underground. It continued to operate in Tallapoosa and Chambers Counties. By 1933, it claimed 3,000 members, including a few European American sharecroppers. In 1934, the union undertook its first strike in Tallapoosa County. In some areas, the striking cotton pickers involved in the strike were successful and received the 70 cents per hundredweight the union demanded. The union was dissolved in 1936, and its members were advised to join other organizations.

*The urban African American was much harder hit by unemployment than the European American worker. In January, 1931, in 19 major cities with substantial African American population, at least 25% of all male and female African American workers were unemployed. In Detroit, 60% of male African American workers and 75% of the female African American workers were unemployed.

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The Law

*Police in Scottsboro, Alabama, arrested nine African American youths for allegedly raping two European American women who, like them, were riding a freight train. The subsequent conviction of the "Scottsboro Boys," based on hearsay evidence caused national and international protest and resulted in several appeals and retrials. Only by 1951 would all nine men be free, as a result of appeal, parole, or escape.

On March 25, 1931, on a freight train traveling from Chattanooga to Memphis were several boys, European American and African American, and two European American girls, all hitching rides on the freight. Near Stevenson, Alabama, a fight broke out among the European Americans and the African Americans and five European American boys were thrown from the train. These boys aroused the townspeople of Stevenson telling them that African American boys were riding the trains with two European American girls. The station telegraphed ahead and, when the train pulled into Paint Rock, Alabama, an angry posse was waiting.

The African American boys fled, but nine were captured: Andy Wright, Roy White, Haywood Patterson, Eugene Williams, Clarence Norris, Charley Weems, Ozzie Powell, Willie Roberson and Olen Montgomery. These nine became the Scottsboro Boys. Although they were captured at random, all nine were charged with the rape of the two European American girls, Victoria Price and Nancy Bates. Eugene Williams was only 13 years old; Willie Roberson was practically crippled with a severe case of venereal disease; and Olen Montgomery was almost completely blind.

The testimony of the two European American girls who claimed they had been raped was sufficient evidence for the Southern jury. By April 9, 1931, eight of the nine were sentenced to death, and Roy White was given a life sentence.

At this point, the International Labor Defense, a Communist Party organ, entered the case. At the same time the NAACP, which had not been previously involved, wanted to take over the defense of the Scottsboro Boys. A vicious propaganda campaign against the NAACP by the ILD convinced the boys' parents to let the ILD handle the defense. With the entry of the ILD into the case, it became a cause celebre. The ILD sent "Mother" Wright to Europe. There she led demonstrations in 28 countries. A world-wide protest was coordinated by the ILD. American embassies and consulates were picketed and stoned all over Europe and Latin America. Mass demonstrations were held in major American cities. Telegrams and letters poured in on the United States President, the Governor of Alabama and the presiding judge. It has been estimated that some $1,000,000 was raised by the Communist Party, although it has been charged that not all the money went to the boys' defense.

The ILD hired one of the most prominent lawyers in the country, Samuel Liebowitz of New York. On November 7, 1932, the United States Supreme Court ordered a new trial. Thus began a long, complicated legal battle. The most dramatic event of 1933 was Nancy Bates' withdrawal of her testimony. It had become clear that both girls' reputations were questionable. When they had been examined by Paint Rock doctors after the train had been stopped, the examinations had revealed only dead spermatozoa, signifying, not the rape they claimed, but intercourse that had taken place previously. Lester Carter, a European American companion, claimed that the girls had had relations with hobos in Chattanooga, with whom they had stayed the night before the train ride. Furthermore, although Victoria Price testified that she had been cut and was bleeding from various wounds that occurred during the rape, the doctors who examined her found no such cuts and no blood. In spite of this and of the fact that Nancy Bates withdrew her testimony and, on April 17, 1933, the jury rendered a verdict of guilty.

The death sentence was mandatory. Judge Horton, the presiding judge, was so outraged that he wrote a brief condemning the verdict and granted the defense request for a new trial.

The third trial was held in November 1933. Again, the verdict was guilty. Liebowitz next carried the fight to the United States Supreme Court, and on April 1, 1935, the convictions were reversed. The court stated that a fair trial was denied the Scottsboro Boys because African Americans were excluded from the jury.

New warrants were sworn out by Victoria Price, and in November a grand jury returned new indictments for rape. It was now apparent that although the ILD had been able to save the boys, it could not free them. In December 1935, the Scottsboro Defense Committee was formed. It was a coalition of the ILD, the NAACP, the American Civil Liberties Union, the League for Industrial Democracy and the Episcopal Federation for Social Service. The National Urban League was an unofficial member. C. I. Watts, of Huntsville, Alabama, and Allan Chalmers were added to the defense team. Watts was an important addition, for he was a local man. Liebowitz, a New Yorker and a Jew, had met with much hostility from the jury. From this time on, the NAACP assumed most of the burden of legal costs. In addition, several prominent attorneys such as Clarence Darrow aided the defense committee.

By 1937, realizing the hopelessness of any attempt to execute the nine boys, the prosecution offered seven year sentences if the boys would plead guilty. The deal was rejected. The prosecution then offered to free four and to prosecute five for assault. The committee agreed, and Roberson, Montgomery, White and Williams were freed. The prosecution, however, had now discredited itself by saying it was all a mistake and the boys were innocent, after maintaining for six and a half years their guilt. The defense committee helped those freed with jobs and education. Meanwhile the prosecution went back on its word concerning the penalties of the five remaining boys. Norris was condemned to death. Andy Wright was sentenced to 95 years in prison, Weems and Patterson to 75, and Powell to 20.

The defense committee then negotiated with Governor Graves. He promised to pardon the boys in November, 1938, but he too went back on his word. In 1939, the Defense Committee directed its efforts to the parole board, in an attempt to free them. The work went very slowly. On November 18, 1943, Weems and Norris (whose death sentence had been commuted to life imprisonment) were freed. Not until 1948 was Powell released. In 1948, Patterson escaped from Kilby prison. Allan Chalmers, who for some years had been the principal lawyer, aided him by refusing to divulge his whereabouts. In 1950, Patterson was arrested by the FBI in Detroit. The NAACP pressured Michigan Governor G. Mennen Williams not to extradict Patterson and the Governor agreed. At last Patterson was freed.

Patterson's book, Scottsboro Boy, was published in 1950 by the Civil Rights Congress, a Communist organization. The book detailed the horrible prison conditions that prevailed in the South. Finally, on June 9, 1950, Andy Wright, the last of the Scottsboro Boys, was freed.

Literature

*George Schuyler published two books: Slaves Today: A Story of Liberia, comparing conditions in present-day Liberia to those in the antebellum South, and Black No More, a satire on United States race relations.

*Jessie Fauset's novel The Chinaberry Tree was published.

*Arna Bontemps published his novel God Sends Sunday.

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Medicine

*Daniel Hale Williams, a heart surgeon and founder of Chicago's Provident Hospital died in Chicago, Illinois.

Williams was born in Philadelphia to an African American woman and a European American man. He received a medical education at the Chicago Medical College through the generosity of a former surgeon on General Ulysses S. Grant's staff. In 1913, Williams became the first African American member of the American College of Surgeons. After withdrawing from Provident Hospital because of internal bickerings, Williams became the only African American doctor on the staff of Chicago's St. Luke Hospital. His withdrawal from Provident Hospital and his marriage to a European American woman subjected him to bitter attacks from fellow African Americans in the latter years of his life. Prior to his death, Williams was seen as a bitter and frustrated man.

Music

*Thomas Dorsey (1899-1993), the "Father of Gospel," founded the first gospel choir in the world with Theodore Frye at Chicago's Ebenezer Baptist Church in 1931.

*William Grant Still became the first African American to compose a symphony that was performed by a major orchestra, the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra, which presented the Afro-American Symphony, his first symphony (October 29).

Born in Woodville, Mississippi, William Grant Still (1895-1978) studied at Wilberforce University, Oberlin Conservatory of Music, and the New England Conservatory of Music. Still worked in a great variety of musical settings, from playing in dance and theater orchestras, to supplying arrangements of popular music for African American show people, and was a prolific composer in the art-music tradition. In 1936, Still was the first African American to conduct a major symphony orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and became the first African American to have an opera performed by a major opera company in 1949, when New York City Opera put on Troubled Island.

*Buddy Bolden, considered to be the first man to play jazz, died in a segregated Louisiana mental institution (November 4).

Charles (Buddy) Bolden (1877-1931) was the first African American to form what may have been a real jazz band, in New Orleans, Louisiana. Bolden has been called the patriarch of jazz, and because of his fierce, driving tone, he became "King Bolden." His band incorporated blues and ragtime. A plasterer by trade, Bolden developed a coronet style that influenced musicians such as King Oliver and Dizzy Gillespie. Diagnosed as paranoid in 1907, he was committed to East Louisiana State Hospital, where he spent the rest of his life.

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The NAACP

*Walter F. White was named executive secretary of the NAACP. Roy Wilkins was appointed assistant secretary.

*W. E. B. DuBois emphatically rejected Communism in an article entitled "The Negro and Communism" in the NAACP journal, Crisis. However, DuBois did become a Communist at the age of 93.

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The Nation of Islam

*The Black Muslims had their beginnings at Detroit where local Baptist teacher Elijah Poole, 34, became an assistant to Wali Farad who founded the Nation of Islam. Poole changed his name to Elijah Muhammad. He would establish Muhammad's Temple of Islam No. 2 at Chicago in 1934. Afterwards, Farad would mysteriously disappear. Elijah Muhammad would then assume command of the growing sect as the Messenger of Allah, and by 1962 there would be at least 49 Temples of Islam with an estimated 250,000 followers.

Notable Births

*Dancer Alvin Ailey was born in Rogers, Texas (January 5).

Alvin Ailey, Jr., (b. January 5, 1931, Rogers, Texas — d. December 1, 1989, New York, New York), American dancer, choreographer, and director of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater.

Having moved with his family to Los Angeles in 1942, Ailey became involved with the Lester Horton Dance Theater there in 1949. Following Horton’s death in 1953, Ailey was director of the company until it disbanded in 1954. He moved to New York City that year. There he performed in various stage productions and studied acting with Stella Adler and dance with Martha Graham, Hanya Holm, Charles Weidman, and others.

In 1958, Ailey formed his own dance company. The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, composed primarily of African Americans, toured extensively both in the United States and abroad. In addition to works by Ailey, the company performed the works of several pioneer choreographers of modern dance, including Horton, Pearl Primus, and Katherine Dunham. The company’s signature piece is Revelations (1960), a powerful, early work by Ailey that is set to African American spirituals.

Ailey subsequently continued to choreograph works for his own and other modern-dance companies. The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, through its highly successful tours on every continent, made him the best-known American choreographer abroad from the 1960s through the ’80s.

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*Ernie Banks, "Mr. Cub", a Hall of Fame baseball player, was born in Dallas, Texas (January 31).

Ernie Banks, byname of Ernest Banks (b. January 31, 1931, Dallas, Texas — d. January 23, 2015, Chicago, Illinois), was American professional baseball player, regarded as one of the finest power hitters in the history of the game. Banks starred for the Chicago Cubs from 1953 to 1971. An 11-time All-Star, Banks was named the National League’s (NL) Most Valuable Player for two consecutive seasons (1958–59). He hit more than 40 home runs in five different seasons, leading the NL in that category in 1958 and 1960. He also led the league in 1958–59 in runs batted in.

Banks excelled in football, basketball, track and field, and baseball at his Dallas high school. At age 17 he joined a barnstorming Negro League team at a salary rate of $15 per game. In 1950 legendary Negro League star Cool Papa Bell signed him to the Kansas City Monarchs. Soon after, Banks spent two years in the United States Army, after which he returned to the Monarchs. His stay there was short-lived, however, as the major leagues, recently integrated, were eager to take advantage of the wealth of talent in the Negro leagues.

Signed by the Chicago Cubs in 1953, Banks soon established himself as one of the league’s leading power hitters. In addition to his potent bat, he proved to be a skilled defensive player, setting a single-season mark for fielding percentage for a shortstop in 1959. After injuries limited his mobility, Banks moved to first base in 1962.

Banks was known for his enthusiasm and love of the game, his trademark cry of “let’s play two!” reflecting the pure enjoyment he took in baseball. When he retired in 1971, he was the holder of most of the Chicago Cubs’ offensive records and had earned the nickname “Mr. Cub” among the team’s fans. In his career Banks totaled 512 home runs and 1,636 runs batted in. He was elected into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1977; he was the eighth player to be elected in his first year of eligibility. In 2013 Banks was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

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*Pop and soul singer Brook Benton was born in Camden, South Carolina. His 16 gold records include "A Rainy Night in Georgia" (September 19).

Brook Benton, born Benjamin Franklin Peay, (b. September 19, 1931, Lugoff, South Carolina – d. April 9, 1988, Queens, New York) was an American singer and songwriter who was popular with rock and roll, rhythm and blues, and pop music audiences during the late 1950s and early 1960s, when he scored hits such as "It's Just A Matter of Time" and "Endlessly", many of which he co-wrote.

He made a comeback in 1970 with the ballad "Rainy Night in Georgia." Benton scored over 50 Billboard chart hits as an artist, and also wrote hits for other performers.

When Benton was young he enjoyed gospel music, wrote songs, and sang in a Methodist church choir in nearby Camden, where his father, Willie Peay, was choir master. So in 1948 he went to New York to pursue his music career. He went in and out of gospel groups such as The Langfordaires, The Jerusalem Stars, and The Golden Gate Quartet. Returning to his home state, he joined a R&B singing group, The Sandmen, and went back to New York to get a big break with his group. The Sandmen had limited success, and their label, Okeh Records, decided to push Peay as a solo artist, changing his name to Brook Benton, apparently at the suggestion of label executive Marv Halsman.

Brook earned a good living writing songs and co-producing albums. He wrote songs for artists such as Nat King Cole, Clyde McPhatter (for whom he co-wrote the hit "A Lover's Question"), and Roy Hamilton. Soon he released his first minor hit, "A Million Miles from Nowhere". Later he went on to the Mercury label, which would eventually bring him larger success. Also he appeared in the 1957 film Mr Rock And Roll with Alan Freed.

In 1959, Benton made his breakthrough with his hits "It's Just a Matter of Time" and "Endlessly". "It's Just a Matter of Time" peaked at #3 on the United States Billboard Hot 100 chart, while "Endlessly" made it to #12. Both of the first two hits were written by Benton with Clyde Otis. They were originally offered to Nat King Cole, but when Otis became an A&R official at Mercury, he convinced Benton to sign with the label and record them himself, while asking Cole not to record the songs as planned. He followed this success with a series of hits, including "So Many Ways" (#6), "Hotel Happiness" (#3), "Think Twice" (#11), "Kiddio" (#7), and "The Boll Weevil Song" (#2). In 1960, Benton had two top 10 hit duets with Dinah Washington: "Baby (You've Got What It Takes)" (#5) and "A Rockin' Good Way (To Mess Around and Fall in Love)" (#7).

Benton also recorded his own version of "Take Good Care of Her" in 1962. In the mid- and late 1960s, Benton recorded for RCA Records and Reprise Records with minimal commercial success. In 1969, he signed with Cotillion Records, a subsidiary of Atlantic Records, where the next year he had his last major hit with "Rainy Night in Georgia".

Weakened from spinal meningitis, Benton died of pneumonia in Queens, New York City, at the age of 56 on April 9, 1988. He was survived by his wife, Mary Benton, and five children, Brook Jr., Vanessa, Roy, Chandra E W, Gerald and Benjamin, all of Queens.

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*William Lacy Clay, a congressman from Missouri, was born in St. Louis, Missouri (April 30).

William Lacy "Bill" Clay, Sr. (b. April 30, 1931) was a politician from Missouri. As a Congressman from Missouri's First District, he represented portions of St. Louis in the United States House of Representatives for 32 years.

Clay was born in St. Louis, Missouri, the son of Luella S. (Hyatt) and Irving Charles Clay. He graduated from Saint Louis University. Clay served in the United States Army from 1953 to 1955, and he was a St. Louis alderman from 1959 to 1964. Clay served 105 days in jail for participating in a civil rights demonstration in 1963. Prior to entering Congress, Clay held jobs first as a real estate broker and later as a labor coordinator. He worked for the union of St. Louis city employees from 1961 to 1964 and then with a Steamfitters Union until 1967.

Clay was elected to the House of Representatives as a Democrat in 1968. He became an advocate for environmentalism, labor issues, and social justice. In 1993, Clay helped to pass the Family and Medical Leave Act.

From 1991 until the Democrats lost control of Congress in 1995, Clay chaired the House Committee on the Post Office and Civil Service. In 2000, he retired from the House and his son William Lacy Clay, Jr. succeeded him.

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*James Cleveland, the "King of Gospel, was born in Chicago, Illinois (December 5). After singing with Mahalia Jackson and groups such as "The Caravans", Cleveland formed his own group, "The Gospel Chimes."

James Edward Cleveland (December 5, 1931 - February 9, 1991) was a gospel singer, musician, and composer. Known as the King of Gospel music, Cleveland was a driving force behind the creation of the modern gospel sound by incorporating traditional black gospel, modern soul, pop, and jazz in arrangements for mass choirs. Throughout his career, Cleveland appeared on hundreds of recordings, won 4 Grammy Awards, and received a star along the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Born in Chicago, Illinois, Cleveland began singing as a boy soprano at Pilgrim Baptist Church where Thomas A. Dorsey was minister of music and Roberta Martin was pianist for the choir. He strained his vocal cords as a teenager while part of a local gospel group, leaving the distinctive gravelly voice that was his hallmark in his later years. The change in his voice led him to focus on his skills as a pianist and later as a composer and arranger. For his pioneering accomplishments and contributions, he is regarded by many to be one of the greatest gospel singers that ever lived.

In 1950, Cleveland joined The Gospelaires, a trio led by Norsalus McKissick and Bessie Folk. His arrangements modernized such traditional standards as "(Give Me That) Old Time Religion" and "It's Me O Lord". After the trio disbanded, an associate of the group, Roberta Martin, hired him as a composer and arranger.

Cleveland subsequently went to work for Albertina Walker, popularly referred to as the "Queen of Gospel" and The Caravans as a composer, arranger, pianist, and occasional singer/narrator. In November 1954, Albertina Walker provided him the opportunity to do his very first recording. By staying out of the studio for a while, she convinced States Records to allow him to record with her group. He continued to record with The Caravans until States closed down in 1957.

Throughout this period, Cleveland recorded with other groups like The Gospel All-Stars and The Gospel Chimes, mixing pop ballad influences with traditional shouting.

In 1959, he recorded a version of Ray Charles' hit, "Hallelujah I Love Her So", as a solo artist.

Cleveland signed with Savoy Records in 1962, going on to release a huge catalog of black gospel recordings, many of which were recorded in a live concert setting.

He became known by more than just the professionals within gospel music with his version of the Soul Stirrers' song, "The Love of God", backed by the Voices of Tabernacle from Detroit, Michigan. Cleveland moved to Los Angeles, California, to become Minister of Music at Grace Memorial Church of God in Christ where he attained even greater popularity working with keyboardist Billy Preston and the Angelic Choir of Nutley, New Jersey. His 1963 recording of "Peace Be Still", an obscure 18th-century piece, sold hundreds of thousands of copies. He would then return to the touring with the newly organized James Cleveland Singers which included Odessa McCastle, Georgia White, Eugene Bryant, and Billy Preston, among others.

In 1964, Cleveland re-organized The James Cleveland Singers which included Odessa McCastle, Roger Roberts, and Gene Viale.

In 1965, Cleveland added Clyde Brown and Charles Barnett to his group which by then was traveling extensively throughout the United States and abroad into the late 1960s, performing in all major venues. This collaboration produced such recordings as "Heaven That Will Be Good Enough For Me", "Two Wings", and "The Lord Is Blessing Me Right Now".

From the 1970s until 1990, Cleveland would bring together a number of artists to back him on appearances and records. Additionally, he himself backed other acts, contributing to the recordings of such well known artists as Aretha Franklin and Elton John. He also continued to appear and record with some of the most notable gospel choirs of the time.

The documentary film "Gospel" (1983) features James Cleveland and the Southern California Community Choir, Walter Hawkins and the Mighty Clouds of Joy, Shirley Caesar, Twinkie Clark and the Clark Sisters. The film was directed by David Leivick and Frederick A. Ritzenberg.

Cleveland capitalized on his success by founding his own choir, the Southern California Community Choir, as well as Cornerstone Institutional Baptist Church which grew from ten to thousands of members throughout the remainder of his life. During this time, he taught others how to achieve the modern gospel sound through his annual Gospel Singers Workshop Convention put on by the Gospel Music Workshop of America (or, the GMWA), an organization that Cleveland co-founded with Albertina Walker. The GMWA has produced, among others, John P. Kee, Kirk Franklin, and Yolanda Adams.

On February 9, 1991, James Cleveland died in Culver City, California.

During his career, James Cleveland won the following Grammy Awards:

Grammy Award won for Best Soul Gospel Performance 1974:
James Cleveland & The Southern California Community Choir: In the Ghetto

Grammy Award won for Best Soul Gospel Performance, Traditional 1977:
James Cleveland: James Cleveland Live at Carnegie Hall

Grammy Award won for Best Soul Gospel Performance, Traditional 1980:
James Cleveland & The Charles Fold Singers: Lord, Let Me Be an Instrument

Grammy Award won for Best Gospel Album by a Choir or Chorus 1990: The Southern California Community Choir: Having Church

*****

*Cardiss Collins, the first African American woman to represent Illinois in Congress, was born in St. Louis, Missouri (September 24).

Cardiss Hortense Collins, (née Robertson) (b. September 24, 1931, St. Louis, Missouri – d. February 3, 2013, Arlington, Virginia), was a Democratic politician from Illinois who served in the United States House of Representatives from 1973 to 1997. She was the first African American woman to represent the Midwest in Congress. Collins was elected to Congress in the June 5, 1973 special election to replace her husband, George, who had died in the December 8, 1972 United Airlines Flight 553 plane crash. The seat had been renumbered from the 6th district to the 7th when she took the seat. She had previously worked as an accountant in various state government positions.

Throughout her political career, she was a champion for women’s health and welfare issues. In 1975, she was instrumental in prompting the Social Security Administration to revise Medicare regulations to cover the cost of post-mastectomy breast prosthesis, which before then had been considered cosmetic. In 1979, she was elected as president of the Congressional Black Caucus, a position she used to become an occasional critic of President Jimmy Carter. She later became the caucus vice chairman. In the 1980s, Collins warded off two primary challenges from Alderman Danny K. Davis, who would finally be elected to replace her in 1996. In 1990, Collins, along with 15 other African-American women and men, formed the African-American Women for Reproductive Freedom. In 1991, Collins was named chair of the Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations. Her legislative interests were focused on establishing universal health insurance, providing for gender equity in college sports, reforming federal child care facilities. Collins gained a brief national prominence in 1993 as the chairwoman of a congressional committee investigating college sports and as a critic of the NCAA. During her last term (1995–1997), she served as ranking member of the Government Reform and Oversight Committee. She also engaged in an intense debate with Representative Henry Hyde over Medicaid funding of abortion that year.

Collins did not seek re-election in 1996, citing her age and the Republican majority in the House. In 2004, she was selected by Nielsen Media Research to head a task force examining the representation of African Americans in TV rating samples. Collins lived in Alexandria, Virginia until her death on February 3, 2013, at the age of 81.

*****

*Sam Cooke, a popular singer during the 1960s, was born in Clarksdale, Mississippi (January 22).

Sam Cooke, byname of Samuel Cook (b. January 22, 1931, Clarksdale, Mississippi.—d. December 11, 1964, Los Angeles, California), American singer, songwriter, producer, and entrepreneur. Cooke was a major figure in the history of popular music and, along with Ray Charles, one of the most influential African American vocalists of the post-World War II period. If Charles represented raw soul, Cooke symbolized sweet soul. To his many celebrated disciples — Smokey Robinson, James Taylor, and Michael Jackson among them—he was an icon of unrivaled stature.

Cooke’s career came in two phases. As a member of the groundbreaking Soul Stirrers, a premier gospel group of the 1950s, he electrified the African American church community nationwide with a light, lilting vocal style that soared rather than thundered. “Nearer to Thee” (1955), “Touch the Hem of His Garment” (1956), and “Jesus, Wash Away My Troubles” (1956) were major gospel hits and, in the words of Aretha Franklin, “perfectly chiseled jewels.”

Cooke’s decision to turn his attention to pop music in 1957 had tremendous implications in the African American musical community. There long had been a taboo against such a move, but Cooke broke the mold. He reinvented himself as a romantic crooner in the manner of Nat King Cole. His strength was in his smoothness. He wrote many of his best songs himself, including his first hit, the ethereal "You Send Me," which shot to number one on all charts in 1957 and established Cooke as a superstar.

While other rhythm-and-blues artists stressed visceral sexuality, Cooke was essentially a spiritualist, even in the domain of romantic love. When he did sing dance songs—“Twistin’ the Night Away” (1962), “Shake” (1965)—he did so with a delicacy theretofore unknown in rock music. Cooke also distinguished himself as an independent businessman, heading his own publishing, recording, and management firms. He broke new ground by playing nightclubs, such as the Copacabana in New York City, previously off-limits to rhythm-and-blues acts.

The tragedy of his demise in 1964—he was shot to death at age 33 by a motel manager—is shrouded in mystery. But the mystery has done nothing to damage the strength of his legacy. “A Change Is Gonna Come” (1965) remains his signature song, an anthem of hope and boundless optimism that expresses the genius of his poetry and sweetness of his soul. Cooke was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1986.

*****

*Comer Cottrell, the founder of Pro Line Corporation and a co-owner of the Texas Rangers, was born in Mobile, Alabama (December 7).

Comer Joseph Cottrell (b. December 7, 1931, Mobile, Alabama - d. October 3, 2014, Dallas, Texas) was the founder of Pro-Line Corporationand philanthropist Comer Joseph Cottrell was born December 7, 1931 in Mobile, Alabama. His parents, Comer J., Sr. and Helen Smith Cottrell were Catholics. As a youngster, Cottrell and his brother, Jimmy, turned a pair of bunnies into a business, including selling their progeny as Easter bunnies, meat and fur. Cottrell attended Heart of Mary Elementary and Secondary Schools. At age seventeen, Cottrell joined the United States Air Force where he attained the rank of First Sergeant and managed an Air Force PX in Okinawa. Cottrell attended the University of Detroit before leaving the service in 1954. He joined Sears Roebuck in 1964 and rose to the position of division manager in Los Angeles, California.

In 1968, with an initial investment of $600.00, Cottrell and a friend got into the black hair care business. Then, with his brother, Jimmy, Cottrell manufactured strawberry scented oil sheen for Afro hairstyles and founded Pro-Line Corporation in 1970. By 1973, he made his first million dollars in sales. In 1979, Cottrell took the $200.00 “Jerry Curl” out of the beauty shop and into black homes with his $8.00 Pro-Line “Curly Kit”, which increased his sales from one million dollars a year to ten million dollars in the first six months. Shortly thereafter Cottrell moved Pro-Line to Dallas, Texas. At the top of the ethnic hair care business, Cottrell became a part owner, with George W. Bush of the Texas Rangers professional baseball team in 1989; turning a $3 million dollar profit on a $500,000.00 investment. He recently founded FCC Investment Corporation.

In 1990, he purchased and restored the 131-acre, HBCU, Bishop College campus for $1.5 million and transferred it to A.M.E. Paul Quinn College. Cottrell is a trustee of Northwood University and a member of the Dallas Chamber of Commerce, the North Texas Commission, and the Dallas Citizens Council. He is the former chairman of the Texas Cosmetology Commission and vice chair of the Texas Youth Commission. He has been a board member or officer of NAACP, National Urban League, YMCA, Dallas Family Hospital, Better Business Bureau, Compton College Foundation, Paul Quinn College and Baylor University Foundation. Cottrell was former vice chair of the Dallas Black Chamber of Commerce. Recipient of scores of awards, Cottrell hosted a yearly “Taste of Cottrell” event in Dallas.

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*David C. Driskell, an artist and art historian, was born in Eatonton, Georgia (June 7).

David C. Driskell (born June 7, 1931) is a scholar in the field of African-American art and an artist. Driskell is an emeritus professor at the University of Maryland, College Park.

Driskell holds a Master of Fine Arts degree from Catholic University and nine Honorary Doctorate degrees. In 2000, Driskell was honored by President Bill Clinton as one of 12 recipients of the National Humanities Medal.

*****

*Marla Gibbs, an actress, singer, writer and producer, was born in Chicago, Illinois (June 14).

Marla Gibbs (b. Margaret Theresa Bradley, June 14, 1931, Chicago, Illinois) is best known for her role as Louise and George Jefferson's feisty maid, Florence Johnston, in the long-running CBS sitcom, The Jeffersons (1975–85), for which she received five nominations (1981-85) for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstancing Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series. She also starred in the show's spin-off Checking In (1981). From 1985 to 1990, Gibbs had the leading role as Mary Jenkins in the NBC sitcom, 227, which she also co-produced and sang on the theme song. Gibbs won a total of seven NAACP Image Awards.

In later years, Gibbs played supporting roles in films The Meteor Man (1993), Lost & Found (1999), The Visit (2000), The Brothers (2001), and Madea's Witness Protection (2012).

*****

*Vincent Harding, a historian and scholar, was born in Harlem, New York (July 25).

Vincent Gordon Harding (July 25, 1931 – May 19, 2014) was an African-American historian and a scholar of various topics with a focus on American religion and society. A social activist as well, he was perhaps best known for his work with and writings about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., whom Harding knew personally. Besides having authored numerous books such as There Is A River and Wade in the Water: The Wisdom of the Spirituals, he served as co-chairperson of the social unity group Veterans of Hope Project and as Professor of Religion and Social Transformation at Illiff School of Theology in Denver, Colorado.

Harding was born in Harlem, New York, and attended New York public schools, graduating from Morris High School in the Bronx in 1948. After finishing high school, he enrolled in the City College of New York, where he received a B.A. in History in 1952. The following year he graduated from Columbia University, where he earned an M.S. in Journalism. Harding served in the United States Army from 1953-1955. In 1956 he received an M.A. in History at the University of Chicago. In 1965 he received his Ph.D. in History from the University of Chicago, where he was advised by Martin E. Marty.

In 1960, Harding and his wife, Rosemarie Freeney Harding, moved to Atlanta, Georgia to participate in the Southern Freedom Movement (also known as the American civil rights movement) as representatives of the Mennonite Church. The Hardings co-founded Mennonite House, an interracial voluntary service center and Movement gathering place in Atlanta. The couple traveled throughout the South in the early 1960s working as reconcilers, counselors and participants in the Movement, assisting the anti-segregation campaigns of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE). Vincent Harding occasionally drafted speeches for Martin Luther King, including King's famous anti-Vietnam speech, "A Time to Break Silence" which King delivered on April 4, 1967 at Riverside Church in New York City, exactly a year before he was assassinated.

Harding taught at the University of Pennsylvania, Spelman College, Temple University, Swarthmore College, and Pendle Hill Quaker Center for Study and Contemplation. He was the first director of the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Center and of the Institute of the Black World, both located at Atlanta. He also became senior academic consultant for the PBS television series Eyes on the Prize.

Harding served as Chairperson of the Veterans of Hope Project: A Center for the Study of Religion and Democratic Renewal, located at the Iliff School of Theology in Denver, Colorado. Harding taught at Iliff as Professor of Religion and Social Transformation from 1981 to 2004.

*****

*Tony Award winning actor James Earl Jones was born in Arkabutla, Mississippi (January 17).

James Earl Jones, (b. January 17, 1931, Arkabutla, Mississippi) leading stage roles in Shakespeare's Othello and in The Great White Hope, a play about the tragic career of the first African American heavyweight boxing champion, loosely based on the life of Jack Johnson. Beginning in the 1970s, he appeared frequently on television and in film.

His father, the actor Robert Earl Jones, left his family before James Earl Jones was born, and the youth was raised largely by his grandparents in Michigan. He attended the University of Michigan (B.A., 1953), majoring in drama, and, after a brief stint in the U.S. Army, went to New York City, studying at the American Theatre Wing with Lee Strasberg. He acted in his first Off-Broadway production in 1957 and subsequently with the New York Shakespeare Festival in 1961–73. He won a Tony Award for his boxer role in Howard Sackler’s The Great White Hope (1968) and later starred in the film version (1970). He received critical acclaim for the two-character stage play Paul Robeson (1978) and in the title role of Othello (1981), opposite Christopher Plummer's Iago. In 1987, Jones starred in the Broadway premiere of August Wilson's Fences. His later Broadway credits include a 2008 production of Tennessee Williams' Cat on a Hot Tin Roof that featured an all-black cast, as well as productions of Driving Miss Daisy (2010), Gore Vidal's The Best Man (2012), and George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart's You Can’t Take It with You (2014).

A part in the film Dr. Strangelove (1964) began a prolific career in pictures for Jones, whose roles included an evil ruler in the fantasy film Conan the Barbarian (1982), a coal miner fighting for the right to form a union in John Sayles' Matewan (1987), an African king who lets his son (played by Eddie Murphy) travel to the United States in the comedy Coming to America (1988), and the author of Terence Mann in Field of Dreams (1989). He appeared as Admiral James Greer in the film adaptations of Tom Clancy's novels about CIA agent Jack Ryan: The Hunt for Red October (1990), Patriot Games (1992), and Clear and Present Danger (1994). In 1995, he portrayed the Reverend Stephen Kumalo in the film version of Alan Paton's classic novel Cry, the Beloved Country. Jones next starred opposit Robert Duvall in A Family Thing (1996). His big-screen appearances diminished in the 21st century, though he did take occasional supporting roles. Jones received an honorary Academy Award in 2011.

Known for his deep, resonant voice, Jones was cast in many voice-over roles in television advertising and in films, both as a narrator and for animated characters. He is perhaps best known for giving voice to the villain Darth Vader in the Star Wars series of movies, which began in 1977. In 1994 he provided the voice of the wise Mufasa in Disney’s The Lion King. Jones’s television work also includes a role as a private detective in Gabriel’s Fire (1990–91; retitled Pros and Cons, 1991–92), for which he won an Emmy Award for outstanding lead actor in a drama series. He continued to make guest appearances on television into the 21st century.

*****

*Donald "Don" King, a boxing promoter whose career highlights include promoting "The Rumble in the Jungle" and the "Thrilla in Manila", was born in Cleveland, Ohio (August 20).. King promoted some of the most prominent names in boxing, including Muhammad Ali, Joe Frazier, George Foreman, Larry Holmes, Mike Tyson, Evander Holyfield, Julio Cesar Chavez, Ricardo Mayorga, Andrew Golota, Bernard Hopkins, Felix Trinidad, Roy Jones, Jr., and Marco Antonio Barrera.

*****

*Dancer Carmen de Lavallade was born in Los Angeles (March 5).

^{Carmen de Lavallade (born March 6, 1931), American actress, dancer and choreographer,}
was born in Los Angeles, California, on March 6, 1931, to Creole parents from New Orleans, Louisiana. She was raised by her aunt, Adele, who owned one of the first African American history bookshops on Central Avenue. De Lavallade's cousin, Janet Collins, was the first African-American prima ballerina at the Metropolitan Opera.

De Lavallade began studying ballet with Melissa Blake at the age of 16. After graduation from Thomas Jefferson High School in Los Angeles was awarded a scholarship to study dance with Lester Horton.

De Lavallade became a member of the Lester Horton Dance Theater in 1949 where she danced as a lead dancer until her departure for New York City with Alvin Ailey in 1954. Like all of Horton's students, de Lavallade studied other art forms, including painting, acting, music, set design and costuming, as well as ballet and other forms of modern and ethnic dance. She studied dancing with ballerina Carmelita Maracci and acting with Stella Adler. In 1954, de Lavallade made her Broadway debut partnered with Alvin Ailey in Truman Capote's musical House of Flowers (starring Pearl Bailey).

In 1955, de Lavallade married dancer/actor Geoffrey Holder, whom she had met while working on House of Flowers. It was with Holder that de Lavallade choreographed her signature solo Come Sunday, to a black spiritual sung by Odetta. The following year, de Lavallade danced as the prima ballerina in Samson and Delilah, and Aida at the Metropolitan Opera.

She made her television debut in John Butler's ballet Flight, and in 1957, she appeared in the television production of Duke Ellington's A Drum Is a Woman. She appeared in several off-Broadway productions including Othello and Death of a Salesman. An introduction to 20th Century Fox executives by Lena Horne led to more acting roles between 1952 and 1955. She appeared in several films including Carmen Jones (1954) with Dorothy Dandridge and Odds Against Tomorrow (1959) with Harry Belafonte.

De Lavallade was a principal guest performer with the Alvin Ailey Dance Company on the company's tour of Asia and in some countries the company was billed as de Lavallade-Ailey American Dance Company. Other performances included dancing with Donald McKayle and appearing in Agnes de Mille's American Ballet Theatre productions of The Four Marys and The Frail Quarry in 1965. She joined the Yale School of Drama as a choreographer and performer-in-residence in 1970. She staged musicals, plays and operas, and eventually became a professor and member of the Yale Repertory Theater. Between 1990 and 1993, de Lavallade returned to the Metropolitan Opera as choreographer for Porgy and Bess and Die Meistersinger.

In 2003, de Lavallade appeared in the rotating cast of the off-Broadway staged reading of Wit & Wisdom. In 2010, she appeared in a one-night-only concert semi-staged reading of Evening Primrose by Stephen Sondheim. Truman Capote's musical House of Flowers (starring Pearl Bailey).

De Lavallade had resided in New York City with her husband Geoffrey Holder until his death on October 5, 2014. Their lives were the subject of the 2005 Linda Atkinson and Nick Doob documentary Carmen and Geoffrey. The couple had one son, Léo. De Lavallade's brother-in-law was Boscoe Holder.

In 2004 de Lavallade received the Black History Month Lifetime Achievement Award and the Rosie Award (named for Rosetta LeNoire and "given to individuals who demonstrate extraordinary accomplishment and dedication in the theatrical arts and to corporations that work to promote opportunity and diversity"), the Bessie Award in 2006, and the Capezio Dance Award in 2007,as well as an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degree from the Julliard School in 2008.

*****

Willie Howard Mays, Jr. (b. May 6, 1931, Westfield, Alabama) won two National League (NL) Most Valuable Player (MVP) awards and shares with Hank Aaron and Stan Musial the record of most All-Star Games played (24). Ted Williams said, "They invented the All-Star Game for Willie Mays." Mays ended his career with 660 homeruns, third at the time of his retirement, and currently fifth all-time. He also won a record-tying 12 Gold Glove awards beginning in 1957 when the award was introduced.

Mays' career statistics and longevity in the pre-PED (pre-Performance Enhancing Drugs) era, recent acknowledgements of Mays as perhaps the finest five-tool player ever, and the overwhelming consensus of many surveys and other expert analyses carefully examining Mays' relative performance have led to a growing opinion that Mays was possibly the greatest all-around baseball player of all time. In 1999, Mays placed second on The Sporting News' "List of the 100 Greatest Baseball Players", making him the highest-ranking living player. Later that year, he was also elected to the Major League Baseball All-Century Team. Mays is one of five National League players to have had eight consecutive 100-RBI seasons, along with Mel Ott, Sammy Sosa, Chipper Jones and Albert Pujols. Mays hit over 50 home runs in 1955 and 1965, representing the longest time span between 50-plus home run seasons for any player in Major League Baseball history. His final Major League Baseball appearance came on October 16 during game 3 of the 1973 World Series.

*****

*Toni Morrison, the first African American to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature, was born in Lorain, Ohio (February 18).

Toni Morrison, original name Chloe Anthony Wofford (b. February 18, 1931, Lorain, Ohio), was a writer noted for her examination of African American experience (particularly the African American female experience) within the African American community. She received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1993.

Morrison grew up in the American Midwest in a family that possessed an intense love of and appreciation for black culture. Storytelling, songs, and folktales were a deeply formative part of her childhood. She attended Howard University (B.A., 1953) and Cornell University (M.A., 1955). After teaching at Texas Southern University for two years, she taught at Howard from 1957 to 1964. In 1965, she became a fiction editor. From 1984, she taught writing at the State University of New York at Albany, leaving in 1989 to join the faculty of Princeton University.

Morrison's first book, The Bluest Eye (1970), is a novel of initiation concerning a victimized adolescent black girl who is obsessed by white standards of beauty and longs to have blue eyes. In 1973, a second novel, Sula, was published. It examines (among other issues) the dynamics of friendship and the expectations for conformity within the community. Song of Solomon (1977) is told by a male narrator in search of his identity; its publication brought Morrison to national attention. Tar Baby (1981), set on a Caribbean island, explores conflicts of race, class, and sex. The critically acclaimed Beloved (1987), which won a Pulitzer Prize for fiction, is based on the true story of a runaway slave who, at the point of recapture, kills her infant daughter in order to spare her a life of slavery. Jazz (1992) is a story of violence and passion set in New York City’s Harlem during the 1920s. Subsequent novels are Paradise (1998), a richly detailed portrait of a black utopian community in Oklahoma, and Love (2003), an intricate family story that reveals the myriad facets of love and its ostensible opposite. A Mercy (2008) deals with slavery in 17th-century America. In the redemptive Home (2012), a traumatized Korean War veteran encounters racism after returning home and later overcomes apathy to rescue his sister.

A work of criticism, Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination, was published in 1992. Many of her essays and speeches were collected in What Moves at the Margin: Selected Nonfiction (edited by Carolyn C. Denard), published in 2008. Additionally, Morrison released several children’s books, including Who’s Got Game?: The Ant or the Grasshopper? and Who’s Got Game?: The Lion or the Mouse?, both written with her son and published in 2003. Remember (2004) chronicles the hardships of black students during the integration of the American public school system; aimed at children, it uses archival photographs juxtaposed with captions speculating on the thoughts of their subjects. She also wrote the libretto for Margaret Garner (2005), an opera about the same story that inspired Beloved.

The central theme of Morrison’s novels is the black American experience; in an unjust society her characters struggle to find themselves and their cultural identity. Her use of fantasy, her sinuous poetic style, and her rich interweaving of the mythic gave her stories great strength and texture.

In 2010 Morrison was made an officer of the French Legion of Honour. Two years later she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

*****

*Carrie Saxon Perry was born in Hartford, Connecticut (August 30). In 1987, she would become the first African American female mayor of a major city in the Northeast.

*****

*Arnold Pinkney, a political strategist and civil rights activist, was born in Youngstown, Ohio (January 6).

Arnold Pinkney (January 6, 1931, Youngstown, Ohio - January 13, 2014, Cleveland, Ohio) was a political strategist and civil rights activist who helped elect Ohio's first black congressman and managed Jesse Jackson's unsuccessful 1984 presidential campaign.

Pinkney was born in Youngstown, Ohio, on January 6, 1931. His father died three months before he finished high school, so he worked in steel mills to help his family make ends meet.

Pinkney graduated from Albion College in Michigan, where he won letters in football, track, baseball and basketball. During a stint in the Army, he played baseball with major leaguers. Paul O’Dea, a scout for the Cleveland Indians, told him that he had a shot at making the big leagues by his late 20s, but advised him to go to law school instead. “Your race needs more lawyers than baseball players,” Mr. Pinkney recalled Mr. O’Dea saying.

Pinkney took the advice and attended what is now Case Western Reserve University School of Law, but he dropped out for financial reasons. He then became one of the first black agents hired by the Prudential Insurance Company of America and later opened a successful insurance agency. As a civil rights activist, he led a membership drive for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (N.A.A.C.P.) and joined the picketing of a Cleveland supermarket that had refused to hire blacks.

Pinkney began his political career by helping out on local campaigns for judges, then volunteered for Carl Stokes’s mayoral campaign. Louis Stokes tapped him to be his paid campaign manager in 1968. Pinkney was later president of the Cleveland Board of Education and twice sought the city’s mayoralty, losing in a three-man race in 1971 and again in 1975. After the second defeat, he moved to Shaker Heights, a Cleveland suburb.

Mr. Jackson said he had chosen Mr. Pinkney to run his 1984 campaign because he was experienced in national campaigns as a “voice of pragmatism.”

Arnold Pinkney had a long career in Democratic political campaigns including the 1968 campaign of Louis Stokes, who became Ohio's first black member of Congress. He also advised Jackson, Cleveland Mayor Carl Stokes and Gov. Richard Celeste.

He was special adviser to the Ohio Legislative Black Caucus and was co-founder of Pinkney-Perry Insurance Agency, Ohio's oldest and largest minority-owned insurance company.

*****

*Singer and actress Della Reese was born in Detroit, Michigan (July 6).

Della Reese (b. Delloreese Patricia Early, July 6, 1931, Detroit, Michigan), an American singer, actress, game show panelist of the 1970s, one-time talk-show hostess and ordained minister. She started her career in the 1950s as a gospel, pop and jazz singer, scoring a hit with her 1959 single "Don't You Know?". In the late 1960s, she hosted her own talk show, Della, which ran for 197 episodes. Through four decades of acting, she is best known for playing Tess, the lead role on the 1994–2003 television show Touched by an Angel. In later years, she became an ordained New Thought minister in the Understanding Principles for Better Living Church in Los Angeles, California.

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*Child prodigy pianist Philippa Schuyler was born (August 2).

Philippa Duke Schuyler (b. August 2, 1931, New York City, New York – d. May 9, 1967, Vietnam) was a noted American child prodigy and pianist who became famous in the 1930s and 1940s as a result of her talent, mixed-race parentage, and the eccentric methods employed by her mother to bring her up.

Schuyler was the daughter of George S. Schuyler, a prominent African American essayist and journalist Josephine Cogdell, a European American Texan and one-time Mack Sennett bathing beauty, from a former slave-owning. Her parents believed that inter-racial marriage could "invigorate" both races and produce extraordinary offspring. They also advocated that mixed-race marriage could help to solve many of the United States' social problems.

Cogdell further believed that genius could best be developed by a diet consisting exclusively of raw foods. As a result, Philippa grew up in her New York City apartment eating a diet predominantly comprised of raw carrots, peas and yams and raw steak. She was given a daily ration of cod liver oil and lemon slices in place of sweets. "When we travel," Cogdell said, "Philippa and I amaze waiters. You have to argue with most waiters before they will bring you raw meat. I guess it is rather unusual to see a little girl eating a raw steak."

Recognized as a prodigy at an early age, Schuyler was reportedly able to read and write at the age of two and a half, and composed music from the age of five. At nine, she became the subject of "Evening With A Gifted Child", a profile written by Joseph Mitchell, correspondent for The New Yorker, who heard several of her early compositions and noted that she addressed both her parents by their first names.

Schuyler began giving piano recitals and radio broadcasts while still a child and attracted significant press coverage. New York mayor Fiorello La Guardia was one of her admirers and visited her at her home on more than one occasion. By the time she reached adolescence, Schuyler was touring constantly, both in the US and overseas.

Her talent as a pianist was widely acknowledged, although many critics believed that her forte lay in playing vigorous pieces and criticized her style when tackling more nuanced works. Acclaim for her performances led to her becoming a role model for many children in the United States of the 1930s and 1940s, but Schuyler's own childhood was blighted when, during her teenage years, her parents showed her the scrapbooks they had compiled recording her life and career. The books contained numerous newspaper clippings in which both George and Josephine Schuyler commented on their beliefs and ambitions for their daughter. Realization that she had been conceived and raised, in a sense, as an experiment, robbed the pianist of many of the illusions of her youth.

In later life, Schuyler grew disillusioned with the racial and gender prejudice she encountered, particularly when performing in the United States, and much of her musical career was spent playing overseas. In her thirties, she abandoned the piano to follow her father into journalism.

Schuyler's personal life was frequently unhappy. She rejected many of her parents' values, increasingly becoming a vocal feminist, and made many attempts to pass herself off as a woman of Iberian (Spanish) descent named Felipa Monterro. Although she engaged in a number of affairs, and on one occasion endured a dangerous late-term abortion after a relationship with a Ghanaian diplomat, she never married.

Philippa Schuyler and her father, George Schuyler, were members of the John Birch Society.

In 1967, Schuyler traveled to Vietnam as a war correspondent. During a helicopter mission near Da Nang to evacuate a number of Vietnamese orphans, the helicopter crashed into the sea. While she initially survived the crash, her inability to swim caused her to drown. A court of inquiry found that the pilot had deliberately cut his motor and descended in an uncontrolled glide – possibly in an attempt to give his civilian passengers an insight into the dangers of flying in a combat zone – eventually losing control of the aircraft.

Her mother was profoundly affected by her daughter's death and committed suicide on its second anniversary.

*****

*Ashton Springer, a Broadway producer, was born.

Ashton Springer (1931- July 15, 2013, Mamaroneck, New York). Broadway producer who produced plays ranging from “No Place to Be Somebody” to the Tony-nominated “Bubbling Brown Sugar.”

Springer was one of the first African-Americans to bring plays and musicals by black artists to Broadway, and his 1977 all-black revival of “Guys and Dolls” was also Tony-nominated.

“Bubbling Brown Sugar” ran for just 12 performances at its first in 1975, featuring the music of Harlem Renaissance artists like Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington and Billie Holiday. In 1976 it moved to the ANTA Theater for a nearly two year run.

Among other productions he shepherded were the 1978 revue “Eubie!” about the music of Eubie Blake; the musical “Going Up,” the comedy “Unexpected Guests” and the Ronald Ribman play “Cold Storage.” His other Broadway productions included “Whoopee!,” Athol Fugard’s “A Lesson From Aloes” and “Inacent Black.”

Off-Broadway, he staged “Rollin’ on the TBS” and general managed a 2000 revival of “For Colored Girls…”

Springer began his career as a musician with the Four Aces before starting out on Broadway with a revival of “No Place to Be Somebody,” which led him to become interested in the audience potential for black-oriented plays.

Springer died of pneumonia on July 15, 2013, in Mamaroneck, N.Y. He was 82. He was survived by a sister and two sons.

*****

*Darwin Turner, a literary critic, was born in Cincinnati, Ohio (May 7).

Darwin Theodore Troy Turner (b. May 7, 1931, Cincinnati, Ohio - d. February 11, 1991, Iowa City, Iowa) was an African American literature critic, a poet, and an English professor who was born in Cincinnati, Ohio on May 7, 1931. His grandfather, Charles H. Turner, was the first African American psychologist; his father, Darwin Romanes Turner, was a pharmacist; and his mother, Laura Knight, was a school teacher. Considered a boy genius, Turner enrolled into the University of Cincinnati at the age of 13 and received his undergraduate degree within three years with Phi Beta Kappa honors as the youngest student ever to graduate from the school. In 1949, at the age of 18, he received his Masters degree in English and American Drama from the University of Cincinnati. By the time he was twenty-five years old, he received his PhD degree from the University of Chicago.

In 1949, the same year Turner earned his Master's degree, he married Edna Bonner and started his teaching career at Clark College in Atlanta, Georgia teaching English. He then accepted an assistant professorship position at Morgan State College in Baltimore, Maryland in 1952, balancing both a teaching career and earning his doctorate degree. A year after receiving his PhD, he held various administration positions at various colleges. From 1957 to 1959 he was the chair of the English department at Florida A&M. From 1959 to 1966 he worked at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University and then accepted the Dean position at their Graduate School from 1966 to 1970 until he left for a position at the University of Michigan. During that time, he divorced Bonner in 1961 and remarried in 1968. His new wife was Maggie Jean Lewis, a school teacher.

Turner became the chair of the Afro-American Studies Department at the University of Iowa in 1972 and was a professor there for nearly two decades. In 1981, he was made the University of Iowa Foundation Distinguished Professor of English.

Turner edited more than a dozen works of African American literature and published his own writing, including a collection of his poems in Katharsis in 1964, a book on American writer Nathaniel Hawthorne's novel The Scarlet Letter in 1967, and a literary critique, In a Minor Chord: Three Afro-American Writers and Their Search for Identity in 1971. In a Minor Chord was an analysis on the writings of Jean Toomer, Countee Cullen, and Zora Neale Hurston. Turner edited The Wayward and the Seeking: A Collection of Writings by Jean Toomer in 1980, co-edited The Art of the Slave Narrative: Original Essays in Criticism and Theory in 1982, and wrote for Haki R Madhubuti's Earthquakes and Sun Rise Missions in 1982. His other major edited anthologies include Black Dramas in America and Black American Literature. Turner wrote dozens of articles for academic journals and anthologies as a literary critic of African American literature.

Darwin Turner died from a heart attack at the age of 59 on February 11, 1991 at Mercy Hospital in Iowa City, Iowa.

*****

Izear Luster "Ike" Turner, Jr. (b. November 5, 1931, Clarksdale, Mississippi – d. December 12, 2007, San Marcos, California) began playing piano and guitar when he was eight, forming his group, the Kings of Rhythm, as a teenager. He employed the group as his backing band for the rest of his life. His first recording, "Rocket 88", credited to "Jackie Brenston and His Delta Cats", in 1951 is considered a contender for "first rock and roll song". Relocating to St. Louis, Missouri, in 1954, he built the Kings into one of the most renowned acts on the local club circuit. There he met singer Anna Mae Bullock, whom he renamed Tina Turner, forming The Ike & Tina Turner Revue, which over the course of the sixties became a soul/rock crossover success.

Turner recorded for many of the key R&B record labels of the 1950s and 1960s, including Chess, Modern, Trumpet, Flair and Sue. With the Ike & Tina Turner Revue, he graduated to larger labels Blue Thumb and United Artists. Throughout his career, Turner won two Grammy Awards and was nominated for three others. With his former wife, Turner was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1991 and in 2001 was inducted into the St. Louis Walk of Fame.

Allegations by Tina Turner of abuse by Ike, published in her autobiography I, Tina and included in the film adaptation of the book, coupled with his cocaine addiction, damaged Ike Turner's career in the 1980s and 1990s. Addicted to cocaine and crack for at least 15 years, Turner was convicted of drug offenses, serving seventeen months in prison between July 1989 and 1991. He spent the rest of the 1990s free of his addiction but relapsed in 2004. Near the end of his life, he returned to live performance as a front man and, returning to his blues roots, produced two albums that were critically well received and award-winning. Turner has frequently been referred to as a 'great innovator' of Rock and Roll by contemporaries such as Little Richard and Johnny Otis.

*****

*Soprano and mezzo-soprano Shirley Verrett, who would become known for her performance in the title role of Bizet's Carmen, was born in New Orleans (May 31).

Shirley Verrett, (b. May 31, 1931, New Orleans, Louisiana - d. November 5, 2010, Ann Arbor, Michigan), an opera singer who was a mezzo-soprano who had a regal onstage presence and a colorful vocal range, she was best known in the United States and Europe for her roles as Georges Bizet's fiery Carmen, as both Dido and Cassandra in Hector Berlioz's Les Troyens, and as Azucena in Giuseppe Verdi's Il trovatore.

Verrett studied (1955) singing in Los Angeles before continuing her education at the Juilliard School, New York City. She made her operatic debut in Ohio in 1957 in Benjamin Brittens The Rape of Lucretia. Two years later she made her European debut in Cologne, Germany, where she portrayed the gypsy in Nicolas Nabokov's Rasputin's End. Her first appearance at La Scala, in Milan, came in 1966, and she continued to perform there until 1984. Italians dubbed her "La Nera Callas" ("The Black Callas"). By the late 1980s, however, her vocal quality was becoming inconsistent. From 1996 to 2010, Verrett taught at the University of Michigan School of Music. Her autobiography, I Never Walked Alone (written with Christopher Brooks), was published in 2003.

*****

*Junior Walker (b. Autry DeWalt Mixon, Jr.), a musician known for the song "Shotgun" was born in Blytheville, Arkansas (June 14).

Born Autry DeWalt Mixon, Jr., Mixon was known by the stage name Junior Walker, styled as Jr. Walker. His group, Jr. Walker & the All Stars, were signed to Motown's Soul label in the 1960s, and became one of the company's signature acts. Their first and signature hit was "Shotgun", written and composed by Walker and produced by Berry Gordy, which featured the Funk Brothers' James Jamerson on bass and Benny Benjamin on drums. "Shotgun" reached No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100 and No. 1 on the R&B chart in 1965. Walker's "Shotgun" was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2002.

*****

Notable Deaths

*There were twelve recorded lynchings in 1931.

*Ida B. Wells Barnett, a journalist, an anti-lynching crusader, and a founder of the NAACP, died in Chicago (March 25).

Ida B. Wells Barnett (also known as Ida Bell Wells) (b. July 16, 1862, Holly Springs, Mississippi - d. March 25, 1931, Chicago, Illinois) was an African American journalist who led an anti-lynching crusade in the United States in the 1890s.

Ida Wells was born into slavery. She was educated at Rust University, a freedmen's school in her native Holly Springs, Mississippi, and at age 14 began teaching in a country school. She continued to teach after moving to Memphis, Tennessee, in 1884 and attended Fisk University in Nashville during several summer sessions. In 1887, the Tennessee Supreme Court, reversing a Circuit Court decision, ruled against Wells in a suit she had brought against the Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad for having been forcibly removed from her seat after she had refused to give it up for one in a "colored only" car. Using the pen name Iola, Wells in 1891 also wrote some newspaper articles critical of the education available to African American children. Her teaching contract was not renewed. She thereupon turned to journalism, buying an interest in the Memphis Free Speech. In 1892, after three friends of hers had been lynched by a mob. Wells began an editorial campaign against lynching that quickly led to the sacking of her newspaper's office. She continued her anti-lynching crusade, first as a staff writer for the New York Age and then as a lecturer and organizer of anti-lynching societies. She traveled to speak in a number of major United States cities and twice visited Great Britain for the cause. In 1895, she married Ferdinand L.Barnett, a Chicago lawyer, editor, and public official, and adopted the name Wells-Barnett. From that time she restricted her travels, but she was very active in Chicago affairs. Wells-Barnett contributed to the Chicago Conservator, her husband's newspaper, and to other local journals; published a detailed look at lynching in A Red Record (1895); and was active in organizing local African American women in various causes, from the anti-lynching campaign to the suffrage movement. She founded what may have been the first black woman suffrage group, Chicago's Alpha Suffrage Club.

From 1898 to 1902, Wells-Barnett served as secretary of the National Afro-American Council, and in 1910 she founded and became the first president of the Negro Fellowship League, which aided newly arrived migrants from the South. From 1913 to 1916 she served as a probation officer of the Chicago municipal court. She was militant in her demand for justice for African Americans and in her insistence that it was to be won by their own efforts. Although she took part in the 1909 meeting of the Niagara Movement, she would have nothing to do with the less radical National Association for the Advancement of Colored People that sprang from it. Her autobiography, Crusade for Justice, was published posthumously in 1970.

*****

*Buddy Bolden, considered to be the first man to play jazz, died in a segregated Louisiana mental institution (November 4).

Buddy Bolden, byname of Charles Joseph Bolden (b. September 6, 1877, New Orleans, Louisiana - d. November 4, 1931, Jackson, Louisiana), was a cornetist and is a founding father of jazz. Many jazz musician, including Jelly Roll Morton and the great trumpeter Louis Armstrong acclaimed him as one of the most powerful musicians ever to play jazz.

Little is known about the details of Bolden's career, but it is documented that by about 1895 he was leading a band. The acknowledged king of New Orleans lower musical life, Bolden often worked with six or seven different bands simultaneously. In 1906, Bolden's emotional stability began to crumble, and the following year he was committed to the East Louisiana State Hospital, from which he never emerged.

*****

*Artist Edwin A. Harleston died in Charleston, South Carolina (May 5).

Edwin A. Harleston (b. 1882, Charleston, South Carolina - d. May 5, 1931, Charleston, South Carolina) was one of the most distinguished artists and civil rights leaders of his generation. Born in 1882, in Charleston, South Carolina, he graduated from Avery Institute in 1900 and Atlanta University in 1904. He studied at Howard University with the intention of becoming a physician, but instead set his sights on art. From 1906 to 1912, he attended the School Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.

In 1913, Harleston returned to Charleston to help with the family funeral business. He soon became an active artist, businessman, and civil rights leader. Harleston founded the Charleston NAACP in 1916 and was successful in its efforts toward educational reform for Black schools, teachers and principals. He was a firm believer in civil rights for all Americans. By the 1920's Harleston's reputation as an artist had flourished. An active participant in the Harlem Renaissance, he received portrait commissions from all over the United States. Even though his primary mode of art was portraiture, his work also showed the people and culture of the era.

In 1931, Harleston joined the Harmon Foundation at International House in New York. The House had presented the first all African American exhibition in the United States. Harleston created sensitive humanistic portraits of mostly African American civic leaders, businessmen, and their families. He always captured the strength and depth of his subjects' personalities. The Gibbes Museum and Art Gallery and the Avery Institute in his native Charleston co-hosted an exhibition of his work, Edwin Harleston: Painter of An Era, on the 101st anniversary of his birth.

Among the portraits displayed was his painting of Aaron Douglas, one of the most significant African-American artists of the 20th century. This portrait was purchased by the Gibbes Museum. Many of Harleston's famous works, including "Mending Sock" and "The Old Servant" are in anthologies of African American Art. Edwin Harleston died in 1931 at the age of 49.

*****

*Buddie Petit, a highly regarded early jazz cornetist, died (July 4).

Buddie Petit or Buddy Petit (ca. 1890? – July 4, 1931) was a highly regarded early jazz cornetist.

His early life is somewhat mysterious, with dates of his birth given in various sources ranging from 1887 to 1897; if the later date is correct he was evidently a prodigy, regarded as one of the best in New Orleans, Louisiana, in his early teens. He was said to have been born in White Castle, Louisiana.

His given name was Joseph Crawford, but he was adopted by the trombonist Joseph Petit, whose name he took.

By the early 1910s, he was one of the top horn players in the new style of music not yet generally known as "jazz". He took Freddie Keppard's place in the Eagle Band (a place earlier held by Buddy Bolden) when Keppard left town.

Buddie Petit was known as a hard-drinking, fun-loving man who played cornet with great virtuosity and inventiveness. He was briefly lured to Los Angeles, California, by Jelly Roll Morton and Bill Johnson in 1917, but objected to being told to dress and behave differently from what he was accustomed to back home, and promptly returned to New Orleans. He spent the rest of his career in the area around greater New Orleans and the towns north of Lake Pontchartrain like Mandeville, Louisiana, not venturing further from home than Baton Rouge and the Mississippi Gulf Coast.

Okeh Records offered him a chance to record on their 1925 field trip to New Orleans, but Petit held out for more money and was never recorded. Musicians such as Danny Barker and Louis Armstrong noted that it is a great loss to jazz history that there are no recordings of Petit.

Some of his contemporaries said that Louis Armstrong's record "Cornet Chop Suey" is the closest to Petit's style and sound of anything put on record.

*****

*A'Lelia Walker Robinson, the daughter of millionaire Madame C. J. Walker, died in New York City (August 17). Robinson created Harlem's celebrated "Dark Tower," a salon where African American writers, artists, and philosophers mingled with members of New York society.

A'Lelia Walker, original name Lelia McWilliams (b. June 6, 1885, Vicksburg, Mississippi —d. August 16, 1931, Long Branch, New Jersey), was a businesswoman associated with the Harlem Renaissance as a patron of the arts who provided an intellectual forum for the African American literati of New York City during the 1920s.

Walker grew up in St. Louis, Missouri, and attended Knoxville College in Tennessee before going to work for her mother, Madame C.J. Walker (Sarah Breedlove Walker), who had made a fortune in the hair-care business. When her mother died in 1919, Walker inherited the business and the lavish family estate, Villa Lewaro, in Irvington, NewYork. In the 1920s, Walker entertained writers and artists at Villa Lewaro and at her apartment and her town house in New York City. Her regular guests at the town house -- which she named The Dark Tower after Countee Cullen's column by that name --included Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, James Weldon Johnson, Jean Toomer, and other writers associated with the Harlem Renaissance.

*****

*Daniel Hale Williams, a heart surgeon and founder of Chicago's Provident Hospital died in Chicago (August 4).

Daniel Hale Williams, (b. January 18, 1858, Hollidaysburg, Pennsylvania — d. August 4, 1931, Idlewild, Michigan), American physician and founder of Provident Hospital in Chicago, credited with the first successful heart surgery.

Williams graduated from Chicago Medical College in 1883. He served as surgeon for the South Side Dispensary (1884–92) and physician for the Protestant Orphan Asylum (1884–93). In response to the lack of opportunity for African Americans in the medical professions, he founded (in 1891) the nation’s first interracial hospital, Provident, to provide training for black interns and the first school for black nurses in the United States. He was a surgeon at Provident (1892–93, 1898–1912)
and surgeon in chief of Freedmen's Hospital, Washington, D. C. (1894-98), where he established another school for African American nurses.

It was at Provident Hospital that Williams performed daring heart surgery on July 10, 1893. Although contemporary medical opinion disapproved of surgical treatment of heart wounds, Williams opened the patient’s thoracic cavity without aid of blood transfusions or modern anesthetics and antibiotics. During the surgery he examined the heart, sutured a wound of the pericardium (the sac surrounding the heart), and closed the chest. The patient lived at least 20 years following the surgery. Williams’ procedure is cited as the first recorded repair of the pericardium; some sources, however, cite a similar operation performed by H.C. Dalton of St. Louis in 1891.

Williams later served on the staffs of Cook County Hospital (1903–09) and St. Luke’s Hospital (1912–31), both in Chicago. From 1899 he was professor of clinical surgery at Meharry Medical College in Nashville, Tennessee, and was a member of the Illinois State Board of Health (1889–91). He published several articles on surgery in medical journals. Williams became the only African American charter member of the American College of Surgeons in 1913.

*****

Performing Arts

*The Harlem Experimental Theater Group launched its first season at the Saint Philip's Parish House.

*In Chicago, Thomas Dorsey and Theodore Frye established their gospel choir.

*William Grant Still's Afro-American Symphony was performed by the Rochester Philharmonic Symphony.

*Duke Ellington's Mood Indigo (with lyrics by Albany Bigard and Irving Mills) was one of the more popular songs of the year.

*The Negro Art Theater Dance Group gave its first concert (April 29).

*Dancer and choreographer Alvin Ailey was born in Rogers, Texas (January 5).

The Alvin Ailey Dance Theater founded by Alvin Ailey wa the first African American modern dance troupe to perform in the Metropolitan Opera House. Founded in 1968 by Alvin Ailey (1931-1989), the troupe performed before more than an estimated fifteen million people throughout the world. Ailey's best known work, "Revelations," based on his childhood experiences in African American Baptist churches, was created in 1961.

*****

Publications

*Slaves Today, a Story of Liberia, by George Schuyler, was published. Schuyler's book deals with the descendants of the original founders of Liberia and their exploitation of the native Africans. The irony, Schuyler points out, is that the old antebellum South still lived in Liberia, only now the sons of freed slaves have assumed the role of plantation masters.

*George Schuyler also published Black No More, an original satiricial fantasy about the race problem in the United States. It ridicules virtually the whole spectrum of American society, from the KKK to the NAACP, the Southern aristocrats to the New York City liberals.

*****

Sports

*Gorilla Jones, a middleweight, became champion of his division.

*Young Jack Thompson, a welterweight, became champion of his division.

*****

Statistics

*In 19 major United States cities with large African American populations, at least twenty-five percent (25%) of all African American men and women were unemployed. In Detroit, sixty percent (60%) of African American men and seventy-five percent (75%) of African American women were unemployed.

*****

Visual Arts

*Painter Horace Pippin finished The End of the War: Starting Home, which was burned into an oak panel.

*****

The Americas
Brazil

*Fernando Henrique Cardoso (also known by his initials FHC), a Brazilian sociologist, professor and politician who served as President of Brazil from January 1, 1995 to January 1, 2003, was born in Rio de Janeiro (June 18). Cardoso was the first President of Brazil to have been re-elected for a subsequent term.

Fernando Henrique Cardoso (b. June 18, 1931, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil) was descended from wealthy Portuguese immigrants. Some of his ancestors were politicians during the Empire of Brazil. Cardoso was also of Black African descent, through a Black great-great-grandmother and a COTW great-grandmother.

An accomplished scholar, Cardoso was awarded in 2000 with the prestigious Prince of Asturias Award for International Cooperation.

Cuba

*The population of Cuba included 437,769 people of African descent, or 11% of the total population.

Jamaica

*****

Europe

France

*Paulette Nardal and the Haitian Dr. Leo Sajou initiated La revue du Monde Noir (1931–32), a literary journal published in English and French, which attempted to appeal to African and Caribbean intellectuals in Paris.

*Josephine Baker scored her most successful song, "J'ai deux amours".

Josephine Baker, original name Freda Josephine McDonald (b. June 3, 1906, St. Louis, Missouri — d. April 12, 1975, Paris, France) was an American-born French dancer and singer who symbolized the beauty and vitality of black American culture, which took Paris by storm in the 1920s.

Baker grew up fatherless and in poverty. Between the ages of 8 and 10 she was out of school, helping to support her family. As a child, Baker developed a taste for the flamboyant that was later to make her famous. As an adolescent, she became a dancer, touring at 16 with a dance troupe from Philadelphia. In 1923 she joined the chorus in a road company performing the musical comedy Shuffle Along and then moved to New York City, where she advanced steadily through the show Chocolate Dandies on Broadway and the floor show of the Plantation Club.

In 1925 she went to Paris to dance at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in La Revue Nègre and introduced her danse sauvage to France. She went on to become one of the most popular music-hall entertainers in France and achieved star billing at the Folies-Bergere, where she created a sensation by dancing semi-nude in a G-string ornamented with bananas. She became a French citizen in 1937. She sang professionally for the first time in 1930, made her screen debut as a singer four years later, and made several more films before World War II curtailed her career.

During the German occupation of France, Baker worked with the Red Cross and the Resistance, and as a member of the Free French forces she entertained troops in Africa and the Middle East. She was later awarded the Croix de Guerre and the Legion of Honour. with the rosette of the Résistance. After the war much of her energy was devoted to Les Milandes, her estate in southwestern France, from which she began in 1950 to adopt babies of all nationalities in the cause of what she defined as “an experiment in brotherhood” and her “rainbow tribe.” She retired from the stage in 1956, but to maintain Les Milandes she was later obliged to return, starring in Paris in 1959. She traveled several times to the United States to participate in civil rights demonstrations. In 1968 her estate was sold to satisfy accumulated debt. She continued to perform occasionally until her death in 1975, during the celebration of the 50th anniversary of her Paris debut.

*****

*Ada "Bricktop" Smith opened Bricktop's cafe in Paris.

Ada "Bricktop" Smith (b. August 14,1894, Alderson, West Virginia - d. January 31, 1984 New York City, New York) was a vaudevillian, saloon entertainer, and nightclub owner whose clientele and friends included royalty, the wealthy, and the artistic elite.

Bricktop, born Ada Beatrice Queen Victoria Louisa Virginia Smith, was the third daughter and youngest of the five children of Thomas Smith, an African American barber, and Harriet ("Hattie") Elizabeth (Thompson) Smith. Her mother, seven-eighths white and of Irish descent, had been born a slave. Ada's lengthy name was an attempt to please many acquaintances. After her father died in 1898, the family moved to Chicago, where Hattie was a housekeeper and ran rooming houses. At the age of four or five, Ada made her stage debut in Uncle Tom's Cabin at the Haymarket Theatre in Chicago. She attended Keith public school and appeared in shows there. She also was fascinated with the saloons on State Street. When she was fourteen or fifteen, Ada joined the chorus at the Pekin Theatre but was forced to return to school.

At age sixteen, Ada left school and began singing in vaudeville with Miller and Lyles. Later she toured the Theatre Owners' Booking Association and Pantage vaudeville circuits with McCabe's Georgia Troubadours, Ten Georgia Campers, the Kinky-Doo Trio, and the Oma Crosby Trio. The following year, in New York City, Ada met Barron Wilkins, the owner of Barron's Exclusive Club in Harlem; he nicknamed her "Bricktop" because of her flame-red hair. Later that year she performed at Roy Jones' saloon in Chicago and met the boxer Jack Johnson, for whom she worked at the Cabaret de Champion until it closed in 1912. Over the following years, she appeared in many saloons, including the Panama Club, where she, Florence Mills, and Cora Green were known as the Panama Trio.

In 1917 Bricktop left the trio and went to Los Angeles. While working at the Watts Country Club she met Walter Delaney. They lived together until Delaney's history of arrests for selling drugs, gambling, and promoting prostitution forced them to move to San Francisco during a crackdown on vice in Los Angeles. Rather than drag her down with him, Delaney left Bricktop in San Francisco. She later moved to Seattle.

In 1922 Bricktop convinced Barron Wilkins to hire Elmer Snowden's Washingtonians, with pianist Duke Ellington, for his New York City Club. In 1924 she performed at the Cafe Le Grand Duc in Paris. One of her first acquaintances there was a busboy and struggling author named Langston Hughes. Visitors to Le Grand Duc included Zelda and F. Scott Fitzgerald, Fred Astaire, Ernest Hemingway, Man Ray, Pablo Picasso, John Steinbeck, Josephine Baker, Elsa Maxwell, and Cole and Linda Porter. In 1925 Bricktop taught the Charleston at the Porters' lavish Charleston parties, and they introduced her to the Paris elite. In the fall of 1926, after returning from the Porters' palazzo in Venice, Bricktop opened the Music Box saloon in Paris. It closed the same year, and she then took over Le Grand Duc. Wanting a more chic place, before the end of 1926 she opened Bricktop's, where guests such as Jascha Heifetz, Duke Ellington, Noel Coward, the Prince of Wales, and Paul Robeson, gave impromptu performances.

In 1927 Bricktop met saxophonist Peter Duconge. They were married on December 19. 1929 and separated in 1933 but never divorced; they had no children. In 1931 Bricktop opened a bigger cafe, also named Bricktop's, with Mabel Mercer as her assistant. Following the custom of Montmartre cafes, Bricktop's closed for the summer; she opened another cafe during the summer in the resort of Biarritz. In 1934, the effects of the Great Depression forced her to move her cafe to a smaller location. By the fall of 1936 she could not afford to open for the season, so she and Mercer entertained at nightspots in Paris and Cannes.

From 1938 to 1939 Bricktop did radio broadcasts for the French government. In October 1939, at the insistence of the Duchess of Windsor and Lady Elsie de Wolfe Mendl, she fled the advancing war and returned to the United States, where she was reintroduced to American racial prejudice and segregation absent from her life in Paris. In New York City she worked at many cafes and attracted refugees from Paris. In 1940, when her following moved on, Bricktop helped open the Brittwood Cafe on 140th Street in Harlem. At first it was a success, drawing such celebrities and entertainers as Earl "Fatha" Hines, Anna Jones, Willie Grant, Minnie Hilton, and Robert Taylor. In 1943 Bricktop moved to Mexico City, where she lived for six years and was part owner of the Minuit and Chavez's clubs.

In 1949 Bricktop returned to Paris, and in May 1950 she opened a new Bricktop's on the Rue Fontaine. By Christmas it was closed. She then went to Rome, where in 1951 she opened Bricktop's on the Via Veneto, drawing Italian high society and royalty. While in Italy, Bricktop, who had converted to Catholicism in 1943, was involved with Catholic charity and fund-raising projects and became a friend of Bishop Fulton J. Sheen.

On March 6, 1964 Bricktop announced her retirement from the nightclub business because of poor health--she had arthritis and a heart condition. She returned to Chicago in 1965 to live with her sister Blonzetta. After Blonzetta's death in 1967, Bricktop settled in New York City. In 1972 she made her only recording, "So Long, Baby," with Cy Coleman. She also worked with Josephine Baker, a longtime friend, who was attempting a comeback, in 1973. In the same year Bricktop made the film documentary Honeybaby, Honeybaby! In 1975 she was awarded an honorary doctor of arts degree by Columbia College in Chicago. She continued to perform, but made few *after 1979 because of declining health. In 1983, on her last birthday, she was presented with the seal of New York City and a certificate of appreciation by Mayor Ed Koch. Just a few months later Bricktop died in her sleep at her Manhattan apartment. More than 300 people attended her funeral at St. Malachy's Church in Manhattan. She was buried at Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx.

*****

Africa

*****

Ethiopia

(Abyssinia)

*The first Constitution of Ethiopia was promulgated (July 16).

The 1931 Constitution of Ethiopia was the first modern constitution for Ethiopia, and was intended to officially replace the Fetha Negest, which had been the supreme law since the Middle Ages. It was promulgated in "an impressive ceremony" held on July 16, 1931 in the presence of Emperor Haile Selassie, who had long desired to proclaim one for his country. It is noteworthy that this was the first instance in history where an absolute ruler had sought voluntarily to share sovereign power with the subjects of his realm.

While still Regent, Haile Selassie had wanted Empress Zawditu to proclaim such a document, but some of the great nobles, to whose advantage it was to rule the country without a constitution, had pretended that it would diminish the dignity and authority of Queen Zawditu if a constitution were set up. Once he became Emperor, Haile Selassie then appointed a commission to draft the document. The commission's leading members included the Europeans Gaston Jèze and Johannes Kolmodin, but most prominently Ethiopian intellectuals such as Tekle Hawariat Tekle Mariyam and Gedamu Woldegiorgis.

Haile Selassie introduced Ethiopia's first written constitution on July 16, 1931, providing for a bicameral legislature. The constitution kept power in the hands of the nobility, but it did establish democratic standards among the nobility, envisaging a transition to democratic rule. The constitution limited the succession to the throne to the descendants of Haile Selassie, a point that met with the disapprobation of other dynastic princes, including the princes of Tigrai and even the emperor's loyal cousin, Ras Kassa Haile Darge.

This constitution was based on the Meiji Constitution of Japan, a country that educated Ethiopians considered a model for its successful grafting of Western learning and technology onto the framework of a non-Western culture. However, unlike its Japanese model, the Ethiopian Constitution was a simple document of 55 articles arranged in seven chapters. It asserted the Emperor's own status, reserved imperial succession to the line of Haile Selassie, and declared that "the person of the Emperor is sacred, his dignity inviolable, and his power indisputable." All power over central and local government, the legislature, the judiciary, and the military was vested in the emperor. The constitution was essentially an effort to provide a legal basis for replacing the traditional provincial rulers with appointees loyal to the emperor. It was not intended to be a representative democracy, as the Emperor alone had the power to designate senators.

According to Haile Selassie, the importance of this legal innovation was not understood "on the side of the officials and the people". To educate them on constitutional theory, he called the leading members of both groups to an assembly where its principal author, Tekle Hawariat, delivered a lengthy speech which not only described the contents of the document, but expounded a theory of constitutional law.

The 1931 Constitution consists of the Decree proclaiming the constitution and seven chapters divided into 55 articles. The contents of the chapters are:

The Ethiopian Empire and the Succession to the Throne. Five articles stating that Ethiopia is the domain of the Emperor, who shall be a descendant "of his Majesty Haile Selassie I, descendant of King Sahle Selassie, whose line descends without interruption from the dynasty of Menelik I, son of King Solomon of Jerusalem and of the Queen of Ethiopia, known as the Queen of Sheba.
The Power and Prerogatives of the Emperor. Twelve articles setting forth the powers of the Emperor.
The Rights Recognized by the Emperor as belonging to the Nation, and the Duties Incumbent on the Nation. Twelve articles stating that "The Law" will define the conditions to become a subject of Ethiopia, and the duties of these subjects. This chapter also sets forth some rights subjects enjoy "except in the cases provided by law" (Articles 25, 26, 27) and while they "in no way limit the measures which the Emperor, by virtue of his supreme power, may take in the event of war or of public misfortunes menacing the interests of the nation" (Article 29).
The Deliberate Chambers of the Empire. Eighteen articles which established a bicameral parliament for Ethiopia. Until this document, there had never been a formal legislative body in Ethiopia. The lower chamber would temporarily be chosen by the Nobility (Mekuanent) and the local chiefs (Shumoch) "until the people are in a position to elect them themselves" (Article 32), while the upper chamber would be appointed by the Emperor.
The Ministers of the Empire. Two articles on the duties of government ministers, a system of executive officers which Menelik II had established in 1908.
Jurisdiction. Five articles setting forth the judicial system. Article 54 establishes Special Courts, required by the Klobukowski agreement of 1906, which gave foreigners extraterritoriality in Ethiopia, exempting them from both Ethiopian law and her justice system.
The Budget of the Imperial Government. One article requiring the Government Treasury to set an annual budget, which directs how the government will spend its money.

A few months later, on November 3, 1931, the day after the anniversary of the Emperor's own coronation, Haile Selassie convened the first parliament of the new constitution. The Emperor hoped that the institution would stimulate nationalism and unity and that its members would popularize socio-political change in the provinces.

Following the restoration of Haile Selassie in 1941, Emperor Haile Selassie re-established the 1931 constitution, convening the parliament on November 2, 1942. This body included a chamber of deputies which was double its pre-war size, who were selected by an election to elect a group of 20 for each of the 12 provinces, who would then meet at the provincial capitals to select five of their numbers to be deputies.

Despite the resurrection of the parliament, Haile Selassie promulgated a number of laws in the form of proclamations and decrees. It was not until his proclamation 34/1943 that the authority of the parliament was included. Laws were issued under the authority of the Emperor and the parliament until the end of February 1944, when the sole authority of the Emperor again was used, which continued until the beginning of November of that year, when the parliament was again in session.

The Constitution of 1931 was superseded at the time of Emperor Haile Selassie's Silver Jubilee in 1955, when a new constitution was promulgated.

*On November 3, 1931, the anniversary of the Emperor's own coronation, Haile Selassie convened the first parliament of the new Ethiopian constitution.

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Guinea-Bissau

*Luís Severino de Almeida Cabral, the first President of Guinea-Bissau, was born in Bissau, Portuguese Guinea (April 11).

Luís Severino de Almeida Cabral (b. April 11, 1931, Bissau, Portuguese Guinea – d. May 30, 2009, Torres Vedras, Portugal) served as President from 1974 to 1980, when a military coup d'etat led by Joao Bernardo "Nino" Vieira deposed him. Luís Cabral was a half-brother of Amilcar Cabral, with whom he co-founded the African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde (PAIGC) in 1956.

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Kenya

*Mwai Kibaki, (b. November 15, 1931, Gatuyaini, Kenya Colony), a Kenyan politician who was the third President of Kenya, serving from December 2002 to April 2013, was born in Gatuyaini, Kenya Colony (November 15).

Kibaki was previously Vice-President of Kenya for ten years from 1978 to 1988 under President Daniel arap Moi. He also held cabinet ministerial positions in the Kenyatta and Moi governments, including time as minister for Finance (1969–1981) under Kenyatta, and Minister for Home Affairs (1982–1988) and Minister for Health (1988–1991) under Moi.

Kibaki served as an opposition Member of Parliament from 1992 to 2002. He unsuccessfully stood as a presidential candidate in 1992 and 1997. He served as the Leader of the Official Opposition in Parliament from 1998 to 2002. In the 2002 presidential election, he was elected as President of Kenya.

Niger

*Seyni Kountché (b. July 1, 1931, Damana Fandou, Niger, French West Africa – d. November 10, 1987, Paris, France), a military officer who led a 1974 coup d'etat that deposed the government of Niger's first president Hamani Diori, was born in Damana Fandou, Niger, French West Africa. He ruled the country as military head of state from 1974 to 1987. Stade General Seyni Kountche, Niger's national stadium in Niamey, is named after him.

South Africa

*The Franchise Laws Amendment Act was passed (June).

The Franchise Laws Amendment Act, 1931, was an act of the Parliament of South Africa which removed all property and educational franchise qualifications applying to white men. It was passed a year after the Women's Enfranchisement Act, 1930, which extended the franchise to all white women. The consequence of these two acts was that all white people over the age of 21 (except for those convicted of certain crimes and those declared mentally unsound by a court) were entitled to vote in elections of the House of Assembly.

The act retained the property and educational qualifications for black and coloured men, who were in any case only eligible to vote in the Cape Province. The result was a further dilution of the electoral power of the non-white population.

The act was repealed in 1946 when the franchise laws were consolidated into the Electoral Consolidation Act, 1946.

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Desmond Mpilo Tutu (b. October 7, 1931, Klerksdorp, Western Transvaal, South Africa) was the first black Archbishop of Cape Town and bishop of the Church of the Province of Southern Africa (now the Anglican Church of Southern Africa).

Tutu campaigned to fight HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, poverty racism, sexism, the imprisonment of Chelsea Manning, homophobia and transphobia. He received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984; the Albert Schweitzer Prize for Humanitarianism in 1986; the Pacem in Terris Award in 1987; the Sydney Peace Prize in 1999; the Gandhi Peace Prize in 2007, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2009. He also compiled several books of his speeches and sayings.

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Pan-African Chronology IV

Monday, December 14, 2015

1931 Pan-African Chronology

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