1932 The Americas

The Americas

Brazil

*Brazil gave women the right to vote (February 24).

*In Brazil, Manoel dos Reis Machado, commonly called Mestre Bimba, founded the first capoeira school in 1932, the Academia-escola de Cultura Regional, at the Engenho de Brotas in Salvador, Bahia. 

Capoeira is a Brazilian martial art with its roots originating in Angola and the Congo, that combines elements of dance, acrobatics, and music.  It is usually referred to as a game. It was developed in Brazil mainly by West Africans, beginning in the 16th century. It is known for quick and complex moves, using mainly power, speed, and leverage for a wide variety of kicks, spins, and highly mobile techniques.

The most widely accepted origin of the word capoeira comes from the Tupi words ka'a ("jungle") e pûer ("it was"), referring to the areas of low vegetation in the Brazilian interior where fugitive slaves would hide. Practitioners of the art are called capoeiristas. 

Previously, capoeira was only practiced and played on the streets. However, capoeira was still heavily discriminated against by upper-class Brazilian society. In order to change the pejorative reputation of capoeira and its practitioners as devious, stealthy and malicious, Bimba set new standards for the art.

Cuba

*Hundreds were jailed in Havana, Cuba, for what police reported to be a plot to overthrow the government of Gerardo Machado (May 18).

*The Supreme Court of Cuba ordered President Gerardo Machado to reopen the University of Havana and reinstate 350 faculty members with full pay, ruling that Machado's indefinite closure of the university in 1930 was unconstitutional (June 7). University student council released a statement saying, "The reopening of the university means nothing and the students will not again step into the university until Machado is ousted."

*3 students in Havana threw a bomb at President Machado's automobile, but it failed to explode (June 10). All three were chased down and arrested.

*In Havana, 9 were killed and 55 wounded in Cuban police raids on communist headquarters (July 24).

*Four Cuban political leaders were killed in a wave of assassinations (September 27). The most prominent death was President of the Senate Clemente Vazquez Bello, who was assassinated in a drive-by shooting as his car was leaving a country club.

*500 university students rioted in Havana on the second anniversary of the death of martyred student leader Rafael Trejo, who was killed by police in anti-government student demonstrations (September 30).

*The Liberal Party won mid-term parliamentary elections in Cuba (November 1).

*The Cuba hurricane killed over 3,000 people (November 9).

*80 political prisoners were released in Cuba. Government opponents said the move was made in response to pressure from the United States, but President Gerardo Machado said he was "acting spontaneously without interference either from the United States or any other country." Another 66 were released the following day.

Jamaica

*Clement Dodd, a Jamaican record producer known for "finding" Bob Marley, was born in Kingston, Jamaica (January 26).

Clement Seymour "Sir Coxsone" Dodd (b. January  26, 1932, Kingston, Jamaica – d. May 5,  2004) was a Jamaican record producer who was influential in the development of ska and reggae in the 1950s, 1960s and beyond.  He received his nickname "Coxsone" at school: because of his teenage talent as a cricketer, his friends compared him to Alec Coxon, a member of the 1940s Yorkshire County Cricket Club team. 

Mexico

*The town of San Lorenzo was renamed Yanga for the African slave leader who led a slave resistance against the Spanish.

Yanga Municipality is a municipality located in the southern area of the State of Veracruz, Mexico, about 80 km from the state capital of Xalapa. It was formerly known as San Lorenzo de los Negros (after a colony of cimarrones in the early 17th century) or San Lorenzo de Cerralvo (after a 17th-century Spanish colonial priest). In 1932 it was renamed after Yanga, the cimarron leader who in 1609 resisted an attack by Spanish forces trying to regain control of the area. Captured in the area of present-day Guinea in West Africa before 1570, he was a chief of the Yang-Bara tribe before being sold into slavery.

Gaspar Yanga had been in the highlands since leading escape by a band of slaves in 1570. After fighting off the Spanish forces in 1609, and having a series of bloody skirmishers over nearly a decade, in 1618, he finally obtained an agreement with Spanish officials to grant freedom to the fugitive slaves and independence to their village, a few kilometers from the city of Cordoba, Veracruz. It became known as San Lorenzo de los Negros (named after the cimarrones) or San Lorenzo de Cerralvo (named after Juan Laurencio, a Jesuit friar who had accompanied the 1609 expedition sent by the Viceroy). 

The inhabitants of African descent of San Lorenzo proclaimed their loyalty to the Church and the King of Spain, but refused to pay tribute to the Spanish government. They also agreed to capture fugitive slaves and return them to their masters in return for a fee. They were among the many free blacks of Mexico, which had the second-highest slave population of the Americas after Brazil. 

Europe

France 

*The manifesto "Murderous Humanitarianism" was signed by prominent Surrealists including the Martiniquans Pierre Yovotte and J. M. Monnerot. 

Surrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early 1920s, and is best known for its visual artworks and writings. The aim was to "resolve the previously contradictory conditions of dream and reality." Artists painted unnerving, illogical scenes with photographic precision, created strange creatures from everyday objects and developed painting techniques that allowed the unconscious to express itself.

Surrealist works feature the element of surprise, unexpected juxtapositions and non sequitur.  However, many Surrealist artists and writers regard their work as an expression of the philosophical movement first and foremost, with the works being an artifact. Leader Andre Breton was explicit in his assertion that Surrealism was, above all, a revolutionary movement.

Surrealism developed largely out of the Dada activities during World War I and the most important center of the movement was Paris. From the 1920s onward, the movement spread around the globe, eventually affecting the visual arts, literature, film, and music of many countries and languages, as well as political thought and practice, philosophy, and social theory.The anti-colonial revolutionary and proletarian politics of "Murderous Humanitarianism" (1932) which was drafted mainly by Rene Crevel, signed by Andre Breton, Paul Eluard, Benjamin Peret, Yves Tanguy, and the Martiniquan Surrealists Pierre Yoyotte and J. M. Monnerot perhaps makes it the original document of what is later called 'black Surrealism', although it is the contact between Aime Cesaire and Breton in the 1940s in Martinique that really lead to the communication of what is known as 'black Surrealism'.

Great Britain

*Buddy (Clarence) Bradley became the first African American to choreograph a show of white dancers.  He was hired to prepare the London production of Evergreen for which he was in charge of sixty-four dancers. Bradley received full-credit in the program.  His career from this time on was mainly in Europe, where he was an important figure in popular dance.

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Africa

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Nnamdi Azikiwe

*Nnamdi Azikiwe, the future first president of Nigeria, received a master's degree in religion from Lincoln University, a historically black university located in Chester County, Pennsylvania.


Ethiopia

(Abyssinia) 

*In 1932, the Sultanate of Jimma was formally absorbed into Ethiopia following the death of Sultan Abba Jifar II of Jimma.

*Haile Selassie announced an anti-slavery law in Abyssinia (April 17). 

*Abebe Bikila, the 1960 and 1964 Olympic marathon champion, was born in Jato, Abyssinia (August 7). 

Abebe Bikila (b. August 7, 1932, Jato, Abyssinia – d. October 25, 1973, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia) was a double Olympic marathon champion from Ethiopia, most famous for winning a marathon gold medal in the 1960 Summer Olympics while running barefoot, was born in Jato, Ethiopia.

Namibia

(South-West Africa)

*German was made an official language in South-West Africa (Namibia) alongside English and Afrikaans (December 17).

Nigeria

*Yaba Higher College was established.

Yaba Higher College the brainchild of E.R.J. Hussey, who became Director of Education in Nigeria in 1929. Soon after arriving, he proposed a higher college at Yaba similar to the Makerere College in Uganda, his previous posting. The goal was at first to train assistants for government departments and private firms, with a gradual increase in standards until eventually the college would reach the level of a British university. Hussey gained acceptance of the plan, starting with a special medical school at King's College. By 1932 the school had its own building - a temporary hut - and other courses were added.

The college at Yaba was an all-male residential institute. It was officially opened in January 1934. It provided vocational training in subjects that included agriculture, forestry, medicine, veterinary science, surveying and civil and mechanical engineering. It also provided training for secondary school teachers, mainly science teachers. Yaba was affiliated with the University of London. The college offered limited diplomas, so Nigerians who wanted higher education either had to go abroad or earn external degrees from the University of London through correspondence courses.

Educated Nigerians were vocally critical of Yaba College. Four days after the college opening, the Nigerian Daily Times described it as "a grand idea, and imposing structure, resting on rather weak foundations". Noting the low standards of the Middle Schools, whose graduates would enter Yaba, the Daily Times said "..we wish to declare emphatically that this country will not be satisfied with an inferior brand [of education] such as the present scheme seems to threaten". The Nigerian Youth Movement, formed by members of the Lagos intelligentsia who were protesting the plan for Yaba College, soon became an important nationalist organization.

Sierra Leone

*Alhaji Ahmad Kabbah, the President of Sierra Leone from 1996 to 1997 and from 1998 to 2007, was born. 

Ahmad Tejan Kabbah,   (b. February 16, 1932, Pendembu, Kailahun district, British Protectorate of Sierra Leone - d. March 13, 2014, Freetown, Sierra Leone),  was a Sierra Leonean politician who served twice as his country’s president (March 29, 1996–May 25, 1997, and Feb. 13, 1998–Sept. 17, 2007).   He was ultimately compelled to call on foreign military assistance to quash Sierra Leone’s decadelong civil war (1991–2002) and bring peace to the country. Kabbah was born into a Muslim family but attended a Christian school in Freetown before matriculating in economics at the University College of Wales, Aberystwyth (B.Sc., 1959), and being called to the bar (1969) at Gray’s Inn, London. He joined the civil service in Sierra Leone, but a military coup in 1967 prompted him to work for the United Nations Development Programme in other African countries for more than two decades. He returned home in the early 1990s, became leader of the Sierra Leone People’s Party, and was elected president in March 1996. After a coup toppled his administration the following year, Kabbah called on the United Nations, troops from the Economic Community of West African States Monitoring Group, and eventually (in 2000) British forces to restore him to office. He was overwhelmingly re-elected in 2002 to another five-year term. Although he failed to build a strong national economy, Kabbah maintained political stability, and in 2007 he oversaw a peaceful transfer of power to his elected successor from the opposition All People’s Congress.

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South Africa

*South Africa forbade all export of gold (December 27).

*South Africa abandoned the gold standard.

Although the use of gold as currency is as old as recorded history, the modern gold standard began in 1816 when Britain passed the Gold Standards Act, which ensured that gold coins became the only real measure of value.  Five years later, in 1821, Britain adopted the gold bullion standard, making it possible for Britons to convert their money into gold on demand.  It was very much a measure of the wealth of Britain and its growing dominance at the center of the world trade.  The United States, for example, did not join the growing number of nations on the gold standard until 1879.

The gold standard remained more or less intact throughout the first quarter of the 20th century, except for a few years during World War I when the normal flow of international trade was interrupted by warfare.  South Africa, however, did not re-adopt the gold standard -- this time based on gold coin rather than bullion -- until 1925.

During the days of the gold standard, the price of gold was generally fixed by international agreement -- so that gold could be used as an international currency for the settling of debts.  Consequently, the gold standard among major trading countries until after World War I provided an automatic mechanism for adjusting a nation's balance of payments (the difference between the amount of goods, imported and exported, either surplus or deficit) and regulating its internal economy.  A balance of payments surplus naturally led to an inflow of gold, which allowed interest rates to fall and economic activity to accelerate, including employment.  However, over time, more money led to increased prices and imports from other countries -- and so the opposite began to happen and the balance of payments deteriorated.  Once a deficit appeared, the outflow of gold slowed down the economy and unemployment rose.

As history shows, the gold standard proved to be particularly harsh on nations -- and people -- with a continuing balance of payments deficit, being more concerned with the debits between nations than the internal economy.  The terrible unemployment that flowed from the Wall Street crash in the 1930s made governments (including the government of South Africa) realize that sticking to the gold standard was too costly when measured against the misery of unemployment it caused at home.

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*Miriam Makeba, a South African singer and civil rights activist, was born in Prospect Township, Johannesburg, South Africa (March 4). 

Zenzile Miriam Makeba (b. March 4, 1932, Prospect Township, Johannesburg, South Africa – d. November 9, 2008, Castel Volturno, Italy), nicknamed Mama Africa, was a South African singer and civil rights activist. 

In the 1960s, Makeba was the first artist from Africa to popularize African music around the world. She is best known for the song "Pata Pata", first recorded in 1957 and released in the United States in 1967. She recorded and toured with many popular artists, such as Harry Belafonte, Paul Simon, and her former husband Hugh Masekela. 

Makeba campaigned against the South African system of apartheid. The South African government responded by revoking her passport in 1960 and her citizenship and right of return in 1963. As the apartheid system crumbled, she returned home for the first time in 1990.

Makeba died of a heart attack on November 9, 2008 after performing in a concert in Italy organized to support writer Roberto Saviano in his stand against the Camorra, a mafia-like organization local to the region of Campania. 

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Uganda

 *Bernard Bourdillon was appointed Governor and Commander-in-Chief of Uganda. {See 1935.}