1930
Pan-African Chronology
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November 1
*James Campbell Matthews, the first African American law school graduate in New York, died in Albany, New York.
James Campbell Matthews (b. November 6, 1844, New Haven, Connecticut — d. November 1, 1930, Albany, New York) was an attorney and judge. He was notable as the first African American law school graduate in New York. He was elected a municipal judge in the late 1890s, which was the highest judicial office attained by an African-American up to that time.
James Campbell Matthews was born in New Haven, Connecticut, on November 6, 1844. His father was a barber, and the family moved to Albany, New York, when James Matthews was a boy. His parents died in 1861, and Matthews was then raised by Lydia Mott and Phebe Jones, two Albany anti-slavery activists who later worked in support of racial integration.
Although Albany's schools were segregated, Matthews succeeded in attending the public schools attended by white students. He then won a scholarship to The Albany Academy, and succeeded in winning acceptance despite objections "by canting hypocrytes in the Republican fold." Matthews was a stellar student who won Best English Essay and the Beck Literary Medal, graduating in 1864.
Matthews worked initially as a clerk at Albany's Congress Hotel, and was later employed as a bookkeeper. After deciding on a legal career, Matthews began studies at Albany Law School. He graduated in 1870, was admitted to the bar, and practiced in Albany.
In 1875 Matthews married Adella Duplessis of New York City. They were the parents of a son, Charles D. Matthews.
Most African-Americans of the 1800s who were able to vote and participate in the political process joined the Republican Party, which was viewed favorably as having eliminated slavery during the American Civil War. Matthews was initially active as a Republican, but later became notable for his decision to join Albany's Democratic Party.
In 1885, President Grover Cleveland nominated Matthews to serve as Recorder of Deeds for the District of Columbia, a position previously held by Frederick Douglass. Matthews held the position by virtue of a recess appointment, but the U.S. Senate, then controlled by Republicans, refused to confirm him, claiming that he had attempted to coerce other African-Americans in Albany to switch their allegiance to the Democratic party in local elections.
Matthews won the election for Judge of Albany's Recorder’s Court in 1895. At the time he took office, Matthews held the highest judicial position of any African-American up to that time. He served until 1899, when Albany's Republicans won the city elections and reclaimed control of the municipal government.
After leaving the bench Matthews resumed the practice of law, and remained active until he retired in the early 1920s.
Matthews died in Albany on November 1, 1930. He was buried at Albany Rural Cemetery, Section 28, Lot 95.
In tribute to James Matthews, Albany Law School's faculty includes an endowed professorship, the James Campbell Matthews Distinguished Professor of Jurisprudence and, in 2013, Albany Law School inaugurated the James Campbell Matthews Lecture Series.
*Ras Tafari, who took the name Haile Selassie when he was proclaimed Negus (King) in 1928, was crowned King of Kings at Addis Adaba. He would reign until 1974 and be regarded by Jamaican Rastafarians as the living God. He was seen as fulfilling a prophecy of Marcus Garvey, "Look to Africa, where a black king shall be crowned, for the day of deliverance is near."
Haile Selassie I, original name Tafari Makonnen, (b. July 23, 1892, near Harar, Ethiopia — d. August 27, 1975, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia), was Emperor of Ethiopia from 1930 to 1974. As Emperor, he sought to modernize his country and steered it into the mainstream of post-World War II African politics. He brought Ethiopia into the League of Nations and the United Nations and made Addis Adaba the major center for the Organization of African Unity (now the African Union).
Tafari was a great-grandson of Sahle Selassie of Shewa (Shoa) and a son of Ras (Prince) Makonnen, a chief adviser to Emperor Menilek II. Educated at home by French missionaries, Tafari at an early age favorably impressed the emperor with his intellectual abilities and was promoted accordingly. As governor of Sidamo and then of Harar province, Tafari followed progressive policies, seeking to break the feudal power of the local nobility by increasing the authority of the central government. He thereby came to represent politically progressive elements of the population. In 1911, he married Wayzaro Menen, a great-granddaughter of Menilek II.
When Menilek II died in 1913, his grandson Lij Yasu succeeded to the throne, but the latter’s unreliability and his close association with Islam made him unpopular with the majority Christian population of Ethiopia. Tafari became the rallying point of the Christian resistance, and he deposed Lij Yasu in 1916. Zauditu, Menilek II’s daughter, thereupon became empress in 1917, and Ras Tafari was named regent and heir apparent to the throne.
While Zauditu was conservative in outlook, Ras Tafari was progressive and became the focus of the aspirations of the modernist younger generation. In 1923, he had a conspicuous success with the admission of Ethiopia to the League of Nations. In the following year, he visited Jerusalem, Rome, Paris, and London, becoming the first Ethiopian ruler ever to go abroad.
In 1928, Ras (Prince) Tafari assumed the title of negus (“king”), and, two years later, when Zauditu died, he was crowned emperor, on November 2, 1930, and took the name of Haile Selassie (“Might of the Trinity”).
In 1931, Haile Selassie promulgated a new constitution, which strictly limited the powers of Parliament. From the late 1920s on, Haile Selassie in effect was the Ethiopian government, and, by establishing provincial schools, strengthening the police forces, and progressively outlawing feudal taxation, he sought to both help his people and increase the authority of the central government.
When Italy invaded Ethiopia in 1935, Haile Selassie led the resistance, but in May 1936 he was forced into exile. He appealed for help from the League of Nations in a memorable speech that he delivered to that body in Geneva on June 30, 1936. With the advent of World War II, he secured British assistance in forming an army of Ethiopian exiles in Sudan. British and Ethiopian forces invaded Ethiopia in January 1941 and recaptured Addis Ababa several months later. Although he was reinstated as emperor, Haile Selassie had to recreate the authority he had previously exercised. He again implemented social, economic, and educational reforms in an attempt to modernize Ethiopian government and society on a slow and gradual basis.
The Ethiopian government continued to be largely the expression of Haile Selassie’s personal authority. In 1955, he granted a new constitution giving him as much power as the previous one. Overt opposition to his rule surfaced in December 1960, when a dissident wing of the army secured control of Addis Ababa and was dislodged only after a sharp engagement with loyalist elements.
Haile Selassie played a very important role in the establishment of the Organization of African Unity in 1963. His rule in Ethiopia continued until 1974, at which time famine, worsening unemployment, and the political stagnation of his government prompted segments of the army to mutiny. They deposed Haile Selassie and established a provisional military government, the Derg, which espoused Marxist ideologies. Haile Selassie was kept under house arrest in his own palace, where he spent the remainder of his life. Official sources at the time attributed his death to natural causes, but evidence later emerged suggesting that he had been strangled on the orders of the military government.
Haile Selassie was regarded as the messiah of all Black people by the Rastafarian movement.
*****
*Getulio Vargas became President of Brazil.
Getulio Vargas, in full Getulio Dorneles Vargas, (b. April 19, 1882, Sao Borja, Brazil — d. August 24, 1954, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil), was twice the President of Brazil (1930–45 and 1951–54). As President, Vargas brought social and economic changes that helped modernize the country. Although denounced by some as an unprincipled dictator, Vargas was revered by his followers as the “Father of the Poor,” for his battle against big business and large landowners. His greatest accomplishment was to guide Brazil as it weathered the far-reaching consequences of the Great Depression and the accompanying polarization between communism and fascism during his long tenure in office.
Vargas was born in the state of Rio Grande do Sul, into a family prominent in state politics. Contemplating a military career, he joined the army when he was sixteen but soon decided to study law. In 1908, shortly after graduating from the Porto Alegre Law School, he entered politics. By 1922, Vargas had risen rapidly in state politics and was elected to the National Congress, in which he served for four years. In 1926, Vargas became minister of finance in the Cabinet of President Washington Luis Pereira de Sousa, a post he retained until his election as governor of Rio Grande do Sul in 1928. From his position as state governor, Vargas campaigned unsuccessfully as reform candidate for the presidency of Brazil in 1930. While appearing to accept defeat, Vargas in October of that year led the revolution, organized by his friends, that overthrew the oligarchical republic.
For the next 15 years, Vargas assumed largely dictatorial powers, ruling most of that time without a congress. He held sole power as provisional president from November 3, 1930, until July 17, 1934, when he was elected president by the constituent assembly. During this time, he survived a Sao Paulo-led revolt in 1932 and an attempted communist revolution in 1935. On November 10, 1937, Vargas presided over a coup d'etat that set aside the constitutional government and set up the populist authoritarian Estado Novo (“New State”). In 1938, Vargas, along with members of his family and staff, personally resisted an attempt to overthrow his government by Brazilian fascists.
Prior to 1930 the federal government had been in effect a federation of autonomous states, dominated by rural landholders and financed largely by the proceeds of agricultural exports. Under Vargas this system was destroyed. The tax structure was revised to make state and local administrations dependent upon the central authority, the electorate was quadrupled and granted the secret ballot, women were enfranchised, extensive educational reforms were introduced, social-security laws were enacted, labor was organized and controlled by the government, and workers were assured a wide range of benefits, including a minimum wage, while business was stimulated by a program of rapid industrialization. Vargas, however, did not change the private-enterprise system, nor did his social reforms extend in practice to the rural poor.
On October 29, 1945, Vargas was overthrown by a coup d’état in a wave of democratic sentiment sweeping postwar Brazil. He still, however, retained wide popular support. Although elected as senator from Rio Grande do Sul in December 1945, he went into semi-retirement until 1950, when he emerged as the successful presidential candidate of the Brazilian Labor Party. He took office on January 31, 1951.
As an elected president restrained by congress, a profusion of political parties, and public opinion, Vargas was unable to satisfy his labor following or to placate mounting middle-class opposition. Thus, he resorted increasingly to ultra-nationalistic appeals to hold popular support and incurred the animosity of the United States government, which encouraged intransigent opposition from his enemies. By mid-1954, criticism of the government was widespread, and the armed forces, professing shock over scandals within the regime, joined in the call for Vargas’s withdrawal.
Vargas' political adversaries initiated a crisis which culminated in the murder of an Air Force officer, Major Rubens Vaz, killed during an assassination attempt in the street outside 180 Rua Tonelero, the home of Vargas' main adversary, publishing executive and politician, Carlos Lacerda. Lieutenant Gregorio Fortunato, chief of Vargas' personal guard, also called "Black Angel", was implicated in the crime. This aroused anger in the military against Vargas, following which the generals demanded Vargas' resignation. In a last-ditch effort Vargas called a special cabinet meeting on the eve of 24 August 24, 1954, but rumors spread that the armed forces officers were implacable.
At 8:45 am (11:45 GMT) on Tuesday, August 24, 1954, at the Catete Palace, Vargas' presidential palace in Rio de Janeiro, Vargas, unable to manage the situation, shot himself in the chest with a pistol. His suicide note was found and read out on radio within two hours of his son discovering the body. The famous last lines read,
"Serenely, I take my first step on the road to eternity. I leave life to enter History."
Vargas' suicide has been interpreted in various ways. His death by suicide simultaneously traded on the image of a valiant warrior selflessly fighting for the protection of national interests, alongside the image of a crafty and calculating statesman, whose political machinations reeked of demagoguery and self-interest. The same day as his suicide, riots broke out in Rio de Janeiro and Porto Alegre.
The Vargas family refused a state funeral, but his successor, Cafe Filho, declared official days of mourning. Vargas' body was placed on public view in a glass-topped coffin. The route of the cortege carrying the body from the Presidential Palace to the airport was lined with tens of thousands of Brazilians. The burial and memorial service were in his hometown of Sao Borja, Rio Grande do Sul.
The Museo Historico Nacional (MHN) was given the furnishings of the bedroom where Vargas committed suicide. A museum gallery recreates the scene and is a site of remembrance. On exhibit in the Palace is his nightshirt with a bullet hole in the chest. The popular outrage caused by his suicide had supposedly been strong enough to thwart the ambitions of his enemies, among the rightists, anti-nationalists, pro-U.S. elements and even the pro-Prestes Brazilian Communist Party, for several years.
History regards Getulio Vargas as being the most influential Brazilian politician of the 20th century, as well as the first to draw widespread support from the masses. Having fought against the influence of the elite, Vargas guided Brazil through the Great Depression, and he was nicknamed "the Father of the Poor" for his economic reforms.
***
(See also Appendix 10: The Old Republic)
***
(See also Appendix 11: Coffee with Milk Politics)
***
(See also Appendix 14: The Revolution of 1930)
***
November 6
*Derrick Albert Bell, Jr., the first tenured African American Professor of Law at Harvard Law School who is largely credited as one of the originators of critical race theory (CRT), was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He was a visiting professor at New York University School of Law from 1991 until his death. He was also a dean of the University of Oregon School of Law.
Derrick Albert Bell Jr. (b. November 6, 1930, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania – d. October 5, 2011, New York City, New York) was an American lawyer, legal scholar, and civil rights activist. Bell first worked for the United States Justice Department, then the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, where he supervised over 300 school desegregation cases in Mississippi.
After a decade as a civil rights lawyer, Bell moved into academia where he spent the second half of his life. He started teaching at the University of Southern California, then moved to Harvard Law School where he became the first tenured African American professor of law in 1971. From 1991 until his death in 2011, Bell was a visiting professor at New York University School of Law, and a dean of the University of Oregon School of Law. While he was a visiting, he was a professor of constitutional law.
Bell developed important scholarship, writing many articles and multiple books, using his practical legal experience and his academic research to examine racism, particularly in the legal system. Bell questioned civil rights advocacy approaches, partially stemming from frustrations in his own experiences as a lawyer. Bell is often credited as one of the originators of critical race theory.
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See also Appendix 45: Derrick Bell and Critical Race Theory.
*****
*Leslie Lee, a Tony Award-nominated playwright, was born in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania.
Leslie Lee (b. November 6, 1930, Byrn Mawr, Pennsylvania – d. January 20, 2014, Manhattan, New York City, New York) was an American playwright, director and professor of playwriting and screenwriting.
Leslie Lee grew up in West Conshohocken, Pennsylvania. He earned a bachelor's degree from the University of Pennsylvania and a master's degree from Villanova University.
Lee's early theatre experience was at Ellen Stewart's La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club in the East Village, Manhattan. His play Elegy for a Down Queen was produced at La MaMa in 1970 and in 1972 by John Vaccaro's Playhouse of the Ridiculous. Cops and Robbers was produced at La MaMa in 1971 by La MaMa GPA Nucleus Company.
1997 marked the beginning of Lee's theatre collaboration (spanning twenty years) with Sophia Romma (nee Murashkovsky), his Dramatic Writing Student from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts whom he deemed his protégé. Lee directed Sophia Murashkovsky's play, Love, In the Eyes of Hope, Dies Last which was produced at La MaMa in 1997, and he also directed Sophia Murashkovsky's critically acclaimed play, Coyote Take Me There! at La MaMa in 1999.
In 2004, Leslie Lee directed Ms. Murashkovsky's epic, mystic play, Defenses of Prague at La MaMa. Mr. Lee continued to successfully collaborate in the theatre with Dr. Sophia Romma (Ms. Murashkovsky) and in 2006, directed her heart-wrenching émigré saga, Shoot Them In the Cornfields! which premiered at the American Theatre of Actors. Mr. Lee, who seldom took on the role of director, believed that Dr. Romma's unique staccato lyrical voice, her poignant themes of advocating for multicultural tolerance, religious, ethnic and minority acceptance, and most importantly her stark depictions of the trials and tribulations of immigration/assimilation were well worth exploring on the theatrical stage. Ms. Murashkovsky (Romma) in turn, directed Lee's short play, We're Not Here to Talk About Beethoven at John McTiernan's New York Performance Works.
Lee also worked with the Negro Ensemble Company (NEC) along with Sophia Romma who served as Literary Manager of the NEC.
Lee's significant work includes his history play Colored People's Time, a production of which featured Angela Bassett and Samuel L. Jackson, and Hannah Davis. He received a 1975 Obie Award for Best Play, a 1976 Tony Award nomination for Best Play, and an Outer Circle Critics Award for his play, First Breeze of Summer. In 2006, the Negro Ensemble Company produced his play Sundown Names and Night Gone Things, based on Richard Wright's life in 1930s Chicago, featuring Stephen Tyrone Williams and Dewanda Wise. In 2008, the Signature Theatre Company produced a revival of First Breeze of Summer, directed by Ruben Santiago-Hudson and starring Leslie Uggams, Brandon J. Dirden, Jason Dirden, and Yaya Dacosta.
Lee's film credits include Almos' A Man, an adaptation starring LeVar Burton of a Richard Wright story; The Killing Floor, which won first prize at the National Black Film Consortium; and an adaptation (with Gus Edwards) of James Baldwin's novel Go Tell It On The Mountain, starring Paul Winfield and Rosalind Cash.
Lee taught playwriting at the College of Old Westbury on Long Island, New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, The New School's Eugene Lang College of Liberal Arts, and the Frederick Douglass Creative Arts Center in Manhattan, where he and Sophia Romma taught playwriting and screenwriting workshops under the leadership of Ray Gaspard, Kermit Frazier, and Marc Henry Johnson.
Leslie Lee died on January 20, 2014, due to complications of heart failure. The Negro Ensemble Company and Signature Theatre Company held a memorial celebration of his life and work in March of 2014.
*****
November 7
*Greg Bell, a long jumper who won the gold medal in the long jump at the 1956 Summer Olympics in Melbourne, Australia, was born in Terre Haute, Indiana.
Gregory Curtis Bell (b. November 7, 1930, Terre Haute, Indiana) was a track and field athlete who won the Gold Medal in the Long Jump at the 1956 Summer Olympics in Melbourne, Australia. He was born in Terre Haute, Indiana.
He won three national AAU championships, two NCAA Championships, earned NCAA All-American status three times and was a four-time national AAU All-American. From 1956–1958, he was ranked first in the world in the long jump. He set an NCAA record in the long jump, which stood for seven years, and is a charter member of both the Indiana Track and Field and Indiana University Athletic halls of fame.
Bell was inducted into the United States of America Track and Field Hall of Fame in 1988. Following his appearance in the Summer Olympics, he worked as director of dentistry at Logansport State Hospital for over 50 years and retired on May 30, 2020.
Bell was born November 7, 1930, on a 36-acre truck farm 10 miles south of Terre Haute. His mother, the former Essa Manual Bradshaw, had six children from a previous marriage. His father, Curtis Bell, had built a house on the property, but it was destroyed by fire.
Without insurance to replace the house, the father modified the 20- by 30-foot chicken house into living quarters. Children slept three to a bed. Until Greg was 7, there was no electricity. One year, the family subsisted on almost nothing but potatoes.
Bell said he was a shy child, hiding behind his mother’s apron. Speaking was a struggle into adulthood.
The farm produced vegetables, strawberries and melons. A horse-drawn plow tilled the soil, and there were cows to milk, hogs to butcher and livestock to feed. Bell’s father did own an old model-T Ford truck. If young Greg wanted a toy, he had to be imaginative enough to make one himself. That is, until a friend of his mother donated a scooter.
That was not his only entertainment. An uncle gave him the complete works of Paul Laurence Dunbar, a black poet who wrote in Negro dialect. Bell said he “just got hooked on Dunbar,” leading to a lifetime love of poetry. Bell was known for being able to recite 21 Dunbar poems from memory, and in dialect.
An old Philco radio broadcast drama such as “The Lone Ranger” and “Mr. District Attorney.” Nearly 80 years later, Bell could recite the lead-in for “Mr. District Attorney.” Bell’s father listened to broadcasts of boxing matches featuring Joe Louis, an icon to African Americans in the 1930s. Young Greg was mesmerized by the delivery of sportscaster Don Dunphy from New York’s Madison Square Garden. As a child, Greg would dream of one day being at Madison Square Garden. Years later, he would be.
For school, Greg took a nine-mile bus trip to the unincorporated town of Pimento. However, in 1942, everything changed for the Bells. World War II had begun, and the government wanted Indiana farmland to build a weapons depot. The Bell farm was on that land, and the government purchased the land but only for $1,500. Greg was 12 that year, and would recall with great sadness how guards on horseback came to the house daily to say they had to leave.
The Bell family was the last farm family to leave because they had no place to go. Ultimately, the family moved to what was known as the Underwood neighborhood, just north of the city limits of Terre Haute, in a house at 2913 North 14th Street. It could have been called a ghetto, Bell recalled, if there had been enough residents to make it a ghetto.
As a sophomore, he enrolled at Garfield. He conceded there was racism there but did not allow that to scar him.
“I accepted it for what it was,” Bell said. “That was the way times were. But I detested it.”
That was especially so in an English class in which the teacher said colored children could never be awarded higher than a “C.” He said he always wanted to return to Garfield and show the teacher he earned A’s at Indiana University in English composition and literature.
Bell had always been a fast runner, beating children two or three years older, but had never participated in organized sports. He was drawn to the pole vault because “Tarzan” was his new favorite radio show, and that event seemed closest to swinging from a jungle vine. Using a bamboo pole and sawdust or sand landing pit, he could vault as high as 11 feet.
“I had no idea what I was doing.” Bell would later recall.
He once wrenched his back in practice, knocking him out of the pole vault. The principal, James Conover, asked him if he had ever done the broad jump, as the event was then called. Again, Bell had never heard of it.
“What is it?”, he asked.
You run and then jump, the principal replied. Bell tried it, and the jump was measured. It was longer than the school record.
Bell began running sprints and relays, too, but long jump was his signature event. As a senior, in 1948, he finished second at the state meet with a distance of 22 feet, 2 inches, or four inches from first. And Bell figured that it would be it. The state meet was to be the end of Bell's track career.
But destiny figured otherwise.
He knew about the Olympics — they were held in London that year after a 12-year hiatus caused by World War II — but that is all.
He remained home, taking odd jobs to contribute to the family’s income. He cleaned mortar from bricks, pulled nails from used lumber, cut weeds with a scythe, worked in a feed mill, cleaned a poultry house, shucked corn. He moved to Chicago and roomed with his brother, taking a job at meatpacking company. He shook salt from cowhides in what he said was the worst job he ever had, “maybe that anyone ever had.”
He was an apprentice truck driver, hauling eggs, paper and cotton. Then fate intervened again. He was drafted into the Army in 1950. Not that he minded, really. He did not have a decent job, he said, and “at least they’re going to pay me.”
After basic training, he speculated he would be sent to war in Korea. Instead, he was among the occupying U.S. forces in Western Europe. He awaited orders in Sonthofen, Germany, which was bombed twice during World War II because that is where Adolf Hitler organized training for boys in the Nazi Party. Bell was eventually deployed to Captieux, France, in wine country about 60 miles south of Bordeaux. Coincidentally, an ammunition depot changed his life again, because one was located in Captieux.
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November 8
*The United States and Britain extended formal recognition to the new Brazilian government.
*****
*Joan Scott Wallace, a trailblazing African American administrator and diplomat, was born in Chicago, Illinois.
Joan Scott Wallace (b. November 8, 1930, Chicago, Illinois - d. March 15, 2018) was the first Black female leader of the United States Department of Agriculture, serving as Assistant Secretary. Wallace also served as a diplomat, and outside of government service was a psychologist and educator.
Joan Edaire Scott Wallace was born in Chicago to painter and muralist William Edouard Scott and social worker Esther Fulks Scott on November 8, 1930. Wallace graduated from Englewood High School as the first Black salutatorian in 1948. She completed a bachelor's degree in sociology at Bradley University in 1952, a master's in social work from Columbia University in 1954, and a doctorate from Northwestern University in experimental social psychology. Wallace also attended the Harvard Institute for Educational Management in Boston, Massachusetts.
In 1954, Wallace married John H. Wallace with whom she had three sons, Eric, Victor, and Marc. They later divorced and Wallace married pastor and activist Maurice Dawkins in 1979. The two remained married until Dawkins' death in 2001 and in 2003, Wallace remarried her first husband.
From 1967 to 1973, Wallace was the associate professor of Psychology and Social Work and Director of Undergraduate School of Social Work and Department of Psychology at the University of Illinois, Chicago. In 1970, while on leave from the University of Illinois, Chicago, Wallace served as Director of Afro-American Studies and associate professor of Sociology and Psychology at Barat College. Then, in 1973, Wallace was named Dean of Howard University's School of Social Work. Between 1975 and 1976, she served at the National Urban League as Deputy Executive Director for Programs. The following year, Wallace was named Vice President of Administration at Morgan State University and then became Director of the Western Michigan University School of Social Work.
In 1977, Wallace was appointed Assistant Secretary for Administration in the Department of Agriculture by President Jimmy Carter, the third woman and the first African American to hold the position. She was in the position until 1981, when she became head of the International Cooperation and Development Agency (ICDA). At ICDA, Wallace sent specialists to provide technical assistance in agriculture to 100 foreign countries and managed over 500 research programs. In 1989, President George H. W. Bush appointed her to the Inter-American Institute for Co-operation on Agriculture (IICA) Diplomatic Representative in the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago; she held the position until 1993. Wallace retired from Government service in 1995 and became chairman of Americans for Democracy in Africa, an organization that monitors elections. In 1999, Wallace joined the faculty of Florida International University as Professor and associate director of the School of Social Work. The following year, she served as Commissioner of Volunteer Florida.
Wallace was awarded honorary degrees from the University of Maryland, Eastern Shore, Bowie State College and Alabama A&M University.
Joan Scott Wallace passed away on March 15, 2018.
*****
November 10
*Clarence Pendleton, Jr. was born in Louisville, Kentucky. Pendleton would become the first African American chairperson of the United States Civil Rights Commission in 1981.
Clarence McClane Pendleton Jr. (b. November 10, 1930, Louisville, Kentucky – d. June 5, 1988, San Diego, California) was the politically conservative African American chairman of the United States Commission on Civil Rights, a position that he held from 1981 until his death during the administration of United States President Ronald W. Reagan.
Born in Louisville, Kentucky, Pendleton was raised in Washington, D. C., where he graduated from the historically black Dunbar High School and then, the also historically black Howard University. Pendleton also had a family connection with Howard University where his father, Clarence Pendleton, was the first swimming coach at the institution, and where his grandfather and father before him matriculated before him. Pendleton enrolled at Howard and earned a Bachelor of Science degree in 1954. After a three-year tour of duty in the United States Army during the Cold War, Pendleton returned to Howard, where he was on the physical education faculty and pursued his master's degree in professional education. Pendleton succeeded his father as the Howard swimming coach, and the team procured ten championships in eleven years. He also coached rowing, football, and baseball at Howard.
From 1968 to 1970, Pendleton was the recreation coordinator under the Model Cities Program in Baltimore, Maryland. In 1970, he was named director of the urban affairs department of the National Recreation and Park Association. In 1972, Mayor Pete Wilson, later a United States Senator and the Governor of California, recruited Pendleton to head the Model Cities program in San Diego, California. In 1975, Pendleton was named director of the San Diego branch of the National Urban League.
A former liberal Democrat, Pendleton switched to the Republican Party in 1980 and supported Ronald Reagan for President. Pendleton claimed that minorities had become dependent on government social programs which create a cycle of dependence. Pendleton advocated that African Americans build strong relations with the private sector and end ties to liberal bureaucrats and philosophies.
In his first year in office, President Reagan named Pendleton to the United States Commission on Civil Rights to replace the liberal Republican commission chairman, Arthur Sherwood Flemming, who had been the United States Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare during the final years of the Eixenhower administration. The Republican-majority United States Senate approved the nomination, and Pendleton became the first black chairman of the commission. He supported the Reagan social agenda and hence came into conflict with long-established civil rights views. He opposed the use of cross-town school busing to bring about racial balance among pupils. He challenged the need for affirmative action policies because he claimed that African Americans could succeed without special consideration being written into law.
Pendleton was as outspoken on the political right as was the later Democratic chairperson Mary Frances Berry would be on the left. Pendleton made headlines for saying black civil rights leaders were "the new racists" because they advocated affirmative action, racial quotas, and set-asides. He likened the feminist issue of equal pay for equal work, written into law in the Equal Pay Act of 1963, to be "like reparations for white women."
Pendleton denounced the feminist concept of comparable worth in the establishment of male and female pay scales as "probably the looniest idea since Looney Tunes came on the screen."
Under Pendleton's chairmanship, congressional funding for the agency was reduced. This prompted some staff members either to lose their positions or to leave the agency in discouragement. Pendleton was considered acerbic by his liberal critics. William Bradford Reynolds, Reagan's Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights, described his friend Pendleton as "a man of candor who felt very deeply that the individuals in America should deal with one another as brothers and sisters totally without regard to race and background."
On December 23, 1983, with two Democratic Congressmembers dissenting, Pendleton was re-elected to a second term as commission chairman.
Under Pendleton's tenure, the commission was split by an internal debate over fundamental principles of equality under the law. The commission narrowed the description of legal and political rights at the expense of social and economic claims. The debate centered principally between Pendleton and Berry, an original appointee of President Jimmy Carter. Democrat Morris B. Abram, also a Reagan appointee, was vice chairman under Pendleton. He described "an intellectual sea change" at the agency with the conservative view dominant at that time. Authorized under the Civil Rights Act of 1957, the commission was reconstituted by a 1983 law of Congress after Reagan dismissed three commissioners critical of his policies.
On June 5, 1988, Pendleton collapsed while working out at the San Diego Hilton Tennis Club. He died an hour later of a heart attack at a hospital.
A memorial bench dedicated in Clarence Pendleton's honor is located in the De Anza Cove section of Mission Bay Park in San Diego.
*****
*Guillermo Erazo, an Afro-Ecuadorian musician, singer, and marimba player better known as Papa Roncon, was born in Borbon, Esmeraldas, Ecuador.
Guillermo Ayoví Erazo (b. November 10, 1930, Borbon, Esmeraldas, Ecuador - September 10, 2022, Borbon, Esmeraldas, Ecuador) better known as Papá Roncón was an Afro-Ecuadorian musician, singer, and marimba player.
Papá Roncón was born in Borbón, Esmeraldas, Ecuador, on November 10, 1930. He learned to play the marimba at an early age with the Chachi people. He began to make himself known in the 1970s, first in his village, and then at national and international levels, with tours in the United States, Venezuela, Colombia and Japan. In 2001, he received the Premio Eugenio Espejo for his contribution to the Ecuadorian culture through the practice and teaching of the marimba and traditional dances. He also directed several films, including documentaries.
In July 2007, Erazo and Petita Palma were invited to Ecuador's National Assembly where a plenary session was conducted in honor of the two of them.
Erazo was the founder of the school of traditional culture 'La Catanga', through which he taught dozens of children and youth to play and dance marimba in the province of Esmeraldas.
Erazo was married to his wife Grimalda for over 50 years, and they had ten children.
Papa Roncón died on September 30, 2022, in Borbón, Esmeraldas.
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November 13
*Cuban President Gerardo Machado suspended the Constitution for 25 days as rioting in Havana killed seven.
*Benny Andrews, a painter, printmaker, creator of collages and an educator, was born in Plainview, Georgia.
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Benny Andrews (b. November 13, 1930, Plainview, Georgia – d. November 10, 2006, Brooklyn, New York) was an African American artist, activist and educator.
Born in Plainview, Georgia, Andrews earned a BFA in painting from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1958, and soon after moved to New York. He is known for his expressive, figurative paintings that often incorporate collaged fabric and other material. Andrews helped found the Black Emergency Cultural Coalition, which agitated for greater representation of African American artists and curators in New York’s major art museums in the late 1960s and 70s. He also led the group in founding an arts education program in prisons and detention centers.
Andrews taught art at Queens College for three decades, and from 1982 to 1984, served as the Director of the Visual Arts Program for the National Endowment for the Arts. He received many awards, including the John Hay Whitney Fellowship (1965–66), the New York Council on the Arts fellowships (1971–81), and the National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship (1974–81).
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See Appendix 46: The Artistic Life of Benny Andrews.
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*René Philombé (René Philombe), pen name of Philippe Louis Ombedé (b. November 13, 1930 – d. October 25, 2001), a Cameroonian writer, journalist, poet, novelist and playwright who mostly wrote in French was born in the city of Ngaoundere, Cameroon. He was one of the founders of the Association of Cameroonian Poets and Writers (APEC) of which he was the secretary for 20 years. He received the Mottart Prize from the Academie Francaise and the Fonlon-Nichols prize from the African Literature Association.
René Philombe (b. November 13, 1930, Ngaoundere, Cameroon — d. October 25, 2001, Yaoundé) was a Cameroonian novelist, poet, playwright, and journalist. The Cameroon Tribune called him “one of the most influential personalities in the new wave of creative writing in Cameroon.”
Philombe, a cultural and political activist from his teens, became a policeman in 1949. He unionized the police and became their union secretary in Douala. In the mid-1950s, after he was permanently crippled by spinal disease, he began writing seriously. His Lettres de ma cambuse (1964; Tales from My Hut, 1977), which he had written in 1957, won the Prix Mottard of the Academie Francaise. His other published works include Sola, ma chérie (1966; “Sola, My Darling”), a novel about seemingly unjust marriage customs; Un Sorcier blanc à Zangali (1970; “A White Sorcerer in Zangali”), a novel about the effect of a missionary’s clash with the colonial administration in a small village; Choc anti-choc (1978), “a novel made of poems”; and Africapolis (1978), a tragedy. The latter two are both thinly veiled allegories of life under a malevolent dictatorship.
In 1960 Philombe was a co-founder of the National Association of Cameroonian Poets and Writers, and he remained its general secretary until 1981. Many of his patriotic literary activities earned him long periods in prison, in spite of his infirmities. In 1981 he was once again released under house arrest, but all of his manuscripts were retained.
November 16
*Chinua Achebe, a Nigerian novelist whose first novel, Things Fall Apart, became the most widely read book in modern African literature, was born in Ogidi, Nigeria Protectorate.
Chinua Achebe (b. Albert Chinụalụmọgụ Achebe; November 16, 1930, Ojidi, Colonial Nigeria – d. March 21, 2013, Boston, Massachusetts) was a Nigerian novelist, poet, and critic who is regarded as a central figure of modern African literature. His first novel and magnum opus, Things Fall Apart (1958), occupies a pivotal place in African literature and remains the most widely studied, translated, and read African novel. Along with Things Fall Apart, his No Longer at Ease (1960) and Arrow of God (1964) complete the "African Trilogy". Later novels include A Man of the People (1966) and Anthills of the Savannah (1987). In the West, Achebe is often referred to as the "father of African literature", although he vigorously rejected the characterization.
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See Appendix 47: Chinua Achebe and "Things Fall Apart"
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*Thomas Barnes, the first African American Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force, was born in Chester, Pennsylvania.
Thomas Nelson Barnes (b. November 16, 1930, Chester, Pennsylvania – d. March 17, 2003, Sherman, Texas) was an airman in the United States Air Force who served as the 4th Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force from October 1973 to July 1977, the first African American in that position. He was also the first African American Senior Enlisted Advisor in any of the Armed Forces of the United States. He was key in bringing many African American related issues to the attention of senior military leaders.
Barnes enlisted in the United States Air Force in April 1949 and received his basic training at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas. He later attended Aircraft and Engine School and Hydraulic Specialist School at the Chanute Technical Training Center in Illinois. In October 1950, he was assigned to the 4th Troop Carrier Squadron of the 62nd Troop Carrier Group at McChord Air Force Base, Washington.
In November 1950, aged 20, Barnes transferred with the 4th Troop Carrier Squadron to Ashiya, Japan, in support of American troops engaged in the Korean War. Shortly after arrival in Japan, he completed on-the-job training for flight engineer duties. Then, due to low unit manning, he performed both flight engineer and hydraulic specialist duties. In September 1951 he transferred to Tachikawa, Japan, and continued flight engineer duties.
Barnes transferred in June 1952 to the 30th Air Transport Squadron, Westover Air Force Base, Massachusetts, where he attended C-118 school and continued his flight engineer duties in that aircraft. In September 1952, he volunteered for temporary duty with the 1708th Ferrying Group at Kelly Air Force Base, Texas, and participated in ferrying aircraft from various depots to Air Force organizations in Hawaii, Japan and Northeast Air Command. Upon completion of temporary duty, he returned to Westover.
Barnes transferred to Andrews Air Force Base in December 1952 and served as crew chief and flight engineer on B-25, T-11, C-45 and C-47 aircraft in support of various requirements of Headquarters United States Air Force, Headquarters Military Air Transport Service, and the Air Research and Development Command. It was during this time that Barnes applied for commissioning and was accepted but had to turn down the opportunity because the pay cut which officer candidates experience while undergoing training would not allow him to continue to support his wife and children.
Barnes transferred in June 1958 to the 42nd Bombardment Wing at Loring Air Force Base, Maine, in June 1958 and served as a B-52 crew chief, flight chief and senior controller. In September 1965 he went to Fairchild Air Force Base, Washington, and continued duties as senior controller. In October 1966, he entered the F-4 Field Training Detachment at George Air Force Base, California, and in December 1966 went to Southeast Asia. There he served with the 8th Tactical Fighter Wing as noncommissioned officer in charge, reparable processing center; senior controller; and noncommissioned officer in charge, maintenance control.
Barnes returned from Southeast Asia to Laughlin Air Force Base, Texas, in December 1967, where his duties were T-38 section line chief; noncommissioned officer in charge, maintenance control; and senior enlisted advisor to the commander of the 3646th Pilot Training Wing. He was promoted to the grade of chief master sergeant on December 1, 1969, and was transferred to Headquarters Air Training Command in October 1971 to assume duties as command senior enlisted adviser.
On October 1, 1973, Barnes was appointed Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force. At the expiration of the initial two-year tenure, he was extended for an additional year by the Chief of Staff. In February 1976 he was selected by the Chief of Staff to serve an unprecedented second year extension. He retired on July 31, 1977. He flew for nine years as a flight engineer on a variety of aircraft, seeing duty in Korea, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and Vietnam.
Following his retirement from the Air Force, Barnes worked at the First National Bank of Fort Worth as an Employee Relations Officer for seven years. He was then hired by the Associates Corporation of North America and promoted to Vice President/Director of Employee Relations at the corporate headquarters in Las Colinas. After retiring to Fannin County, Texas, he raised Longhorn cattle and two years in a row won the team penning at the Kueckelhan Rodeo.
Barnes died from cancer on March 17, 2003, in Sherman, Texas, where he had been undergoing treatment.
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November 17
*Benjamin Leroy Wigfall, an African American abstract-expressionist artist, was born in Richmond, Virginia.
Benjamin Leroy Wigfall (b. November 17, 1930, Richmond, Virginia – d. February 9, 2017, New Paltz, New York) was an American abstract-expressionist painter, printmaker, teacher, gallery owner, and collector of African art. He was the founder of a community art space called Communications Village as a hub for residents in a Black neighborhood in Kingston, New York. At the age of 20, he was the youngest artist ever to have a painting purchased by the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts.
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(See also Appendix 32: Benjamin Leroy Wigfall, An Abstract-Expressionist Artist.)
November 18
*Stenio Vincent was elected President of Haiti by the National Assembly.
November 20
*Bertin Borna, a Beninese politician who served as Benin's minister of finance, was born in Tanguieta, Benin.
November 21
*Eliaba Surur, the founder and chairman of the Union of Sudan African Parties, was born in Mongalla, Uganda.
Eliaba James Surur (b. November 21, 1930, Mongalla, Uganda - d. August 17, 2014, Kampala, Uganda) was a politician in Sudan. He was the founder and chairman of the now defunct political party, the Union of Sudan African Parties 2 (USAP 2).
Surur was born in Mukaya Payam in Lainya County in Central Equatoria State. He was a member of the Pojulu tribe. He was a secondary school teacher before becoming a politician. Elioba was a participant in the First Sudanese Civil War, fighting with the Anyanya movement from 1955 to 1972. He also fought in the Second Sudanese Civil War on the side of the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) from 1983 to 2005. He was a leader of the Union of Sudan African Parties before splintering off to form the USAP 2.
Surur founded the party in 1984. After the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement in Nairobi, Kenya, the party supported the Sudan People's Liberation Army/Movement (SPLA/M) in their vision of a new Sudan. The USAP represented the main support to the government during 21 years and, therefore, they played a major role in resolving the conflict through participating in the peacemaking and peace-building processes of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement. Before it was dissolved, the party was represented by four seatss in the government of South Sudan.
During July 2010, Surur announced that the Union of Sudan African Parties 2 would become part of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement. His explanation for the merge was a desire for Southern Sudan to be united for the upcoming Southern Sudanese independence referendum scheduled for January 2011.
November 22
*Melvin Wanzo, an American trombonist known for his longtime association with the Count Basie Orchestra, was born in Cleveland, Ohio.
Melvin "Mel" Wanzo, also known as Melvin Wahid Muhammad (b. November 22, 1930, Cleveland, Ohio - d. September 9, 2005, Detroit, Michigan) was an American jazz trombonist. He is best known for his longtime association with the Count Basie Orchestra.
Wanzo received formal education in music at Youngstown University in Youngstown, Ohio, graduating in 1952. He then joined the United States Army and played in a band whose leader was Cannonball Adderley. In the 1950s, he worked in bands behind blues and R&B singers such as Ruth Brown and Big Joe Turner, then studied music once more, at the Cleveland Institute of Music. In the 1960s, he worked with Woody Herman and Ray McKinley (then leading the Glenn Miller Orchestra), and in 1969 became a member of the Count Basie Orchestra, where he played trombone until 1980. In the early 1980s he played with Frank Capp and Nat Pierce, then re-joined Basie's orchestra after Basie died and leadership passed to Thad Jones and Frank Foster.
November 28
*John Oladipo Oladitan (b. November 28, 1930 – d. June 17, 2002), a Nigerian track athlete who competed in the men's long jump at the 1960 Summer Olympics, was born.
November 30
*Jim Boyd, the winner of an Olympic boxing gold medal in the Light Heavyweight (173 pound) Division at the 1956 Melbourne Olympic Games, was born in Rocky Mount, North Carolina.
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