1930
Pan-African Chronology
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September
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September
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September 3
*A hurricane struck the Dominican Republic, killing over 8,000 people and doing millions of dollars in damage.
Hurricanes are so important to the history of the Dominican Republic, the word itself has its origins there. The native Taino people called the the fierce tropical storms passing through the Caribbean, "hurakans" which is believed to have been derived from the Inca word for their God of Evil. When the Spaniards arrived in the late 15th century, they had never encountered such a fierce and mighty storm so they had no name for it in their own vocabulary. Thus, the native work "hurakan", quickly became incorporated into the Spanish language. The Taino had no written language so the Spaniards just sounded it out phonetically. The word "hurricane" is the anglicized spelling of the Spanish version of the word.
On September 3, 1930, the hurricane named San Zenon struck the Dominican Republic. San Zenon was a Category 4 hurricane. It is widely considered one of the deadliest Atlantic hurricanes on record. It hit Puerto Rico first bu the brunt of the damage was to the Dominican Republic. It was a Category 4 that was just under a Category 5 in terms of wind speed with 150 mph winds. San Zenon basically leveled Santo Domingo. All communications were lost and there was heavy looting. San Zenon was a very wide hurricane and its aftermath spread out over a twenty mile radius. Everything in sight was devastated. This was before modern hurricane proof buildings so almost every structure in Santo Domingo fell.
The path of destruction that San Zenon left behind was a reminder that when the Taino people referred to a "hurakan" they were not just referring to the actual physical event but also to the devastation that it leaves in its wake. The lost lives, the injuries, the downed trees, the destroyed crops, the destroyed structures, the flooding ... all of this would have been included in the Taino definition of the word "hurricane". So, to the Taino, a hurricane included the effects of a hurricane that one after the hurricane passes over.
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September 4
*Josiah Ransome-Kuti, a Nigerian clergyman and music composer, died. He was known for setting Christian hymns to indigenous music, and for writing Christian hymns in Yoruba.
Josiah Jesse Ransome-Kuti (b. June 1, 1855, Igbein, Abeokuta, Ogun State, Nigeria - d. September 4, 1930) was born into an Egba family. His parents belonged to the Egba Yoruba ethnic group, his father being a weaver, soldier and Egba diplomat. His mother was an early convert to Christianity and from an early age he was influenced by her deep religious beliefs despite opposition from the family and her husband.
He was baptized in 1859 and, at the age of nine, he began to attend the Church Missionary Society (CMS) Training Institution at Abeokuta. He did very well in his studies, excelling particularly in music. In 1871 he continued his education at the CMS Training Institute in Lagos. He successfully completed his studies there in December 1876 and then became a teacher at St. Peter’s School in Ake, Abeokuta. After three years he went to teach music at the CMS Girl’s School Lagos. He remained in this position for seven years and during that period he married Bertha Anny Erinade Olubi on May 2, 1882. They had two daughters and three sons.
Throughout this time his religious beliefs had deepened and in 1891 he was appointed catechist at the Gbagura Church Parsonage at Abeokuta. One of his first tasks was to found the Gbagura Church. Initially the services were held in the open air, but later, with the help of the village people, he was able to construct a building for the church. By this time he was an accomplished musician and singer. He improved the quality of the church music and was able to attract many people, some of whom were converted to Christianity. He also carried out much charitable work and although he was often short of money he refused an offer of a job in the big Lagos commercial ventures.
In 1895 he became a deacon and the following year he was transferred by the church authorities to the Sunren-Ifo district, an area of 60 square miles where law and order had virtually broken down after a recent war. Initially the people were suspicious of him and his ideas, particularly after he refused their welcoming gifts, suggesting that they should be sold and the proceeds put into a common fund for the needy. Meanwhile the Egba District government, impressed by his intelligence and capacities, increased his administrative responsibilities in the district.
He was ordained a priest in 1897 and between 1902 and 1906 he was appointed district judge. His sense of fairness and justice greatly increased the people’s respect for him. In 1903 he became superintendent of the Abeokuta church mission and was also granted a mandate from the Egba District government to act as its representative in cases of emergency in the area. Gradually success in his administrative position enhanced respect for his religious activities and led to increased church attendance. He spent much time trying to overcome resistance to changing traditional forms of worship. He took many boys and girls into his house to provide them with elementary training.
By 1906 he had established 25 new churches in the Sunren-Ifo district, initially superintending them all and later helped by an assistant. He secured permission from Olu of Ilaro for Christians to use umbrellas, a right that had previously been reserved for the Olu. This caused widespread discontent among the people and some Christians left the church as they felt it was abrogating royal tradition. Ill feeling towards Reverend Ransome-Kuti grew and on his next visit to Ilaro he was attacked and severely wounded. On being arrested, the attackers said that they had mistaken him for a burglar. At the same time 100 armed men from Ifo decided to avenge this attack and marched on Ilaro. On their arrival, Reverend Ransome-Kuti persuaded them to return home in peace. Shortly afterwards another force of 200 armed men under British command arrived at Ilaro with the same intent and once again, after lengthy negotiations, he was able to convince the soldiers to desist from violence. His diplomacy in dealing with these incidents so as to avoid bloodshed greatly enhanced his reputation, both in Ilaro where a church was constructed on the spot where he was attacked, and in Nigeria generally.
In 1911 he was appointed pastor of St. Peter’s Church, the leading church in Ake, while remaining a government official. At this time the church authorities began to apply their rules more strictly and Reverend Ransome-Kuti was later suspended from his duties for three months after baptizing children whose parents had not been married either in church or in court without first gaining special permission from the bishop. His parishioners were very angry about this and wanted to break away but Ransome-Kuti calmed the situation.
The Egba state lost its independence in 1914 when British rule was imposed. In the resulting upheavals Ransome-Kuti played a major role in mediating between various opposing elements. Although the situation stabilized, in 1918 there was an indigenous uprising against the British and also against literate Africans and Christians. Once again Ransome-Kuti played a mediating role and visited the troubled area at great risk to himself to perform services for the Christians there.
In 1922, after returning from a visit to the Holy Land, Ransome-Kuti was made a canon of the Lagos Cathedral Church of Christ. He also resumed his position as pastor of St. Peter’s Church, remaining there until his death on September 4, 1930 at the age of 75.
From an early age he had been deeply committed to Christianity and through his life’s work became a prominent African missionary of his time. He was deeply interested in African history and customs and used this understanding combined with his musical talents, in his religious work. He composed and sang many indigenous songs to increase awareness of Christian beliefs, several of which were recorded on gramophone and compiled into hymnbooks. In 1925, he became the first Nigerian to release a record album after he recorded several Yoruba language hymns on gramophone through Zonophone Records.
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September 5*****
*Ibrahm El-Salahi, a Sudanese painter, was born in El-Abbasyia, a neighborhood of Omdurman, Sudan.
Ibrahim El-Salahi (b. September 5, 1930, El-Abbasyia, Omdurman, Sudan). A Sudanese painter, former public servant and diplomat. He was one of the foremost visual artists of the Khartoum School, considered as part of African Modernism and the pan-Arabic Hurufiyya art movement, that combined traditional forms of Islamic calligraphy with contemporary artworks. On the occasion of the Tate Modern gallery's first retrospective exhibition of a contemporary artist from Africa in 2013, El-Salahi's work was characterized as "a new Sudanese visual vocabulary, which arose from his own pioneering integration of Islamic, African, Arab and Western artistic traditions."
Ibrahim El-Salahi was born on September 5, 1930, in El-Abbasyia, a neighborhood of Omdurman, Sudan, to a Muslim family and is considered to be one of the most important contemporary African artists. His father was in charge of a Qur'anic school, where El-Salahi learned to read and write and to practice Arabic calligraphy, that later became an important element in his artwork. He also is a distant cousin of Sudanese human rights lawyer Amin Mekki Medani.
From 1949 to 1950, he studied Fine Art at the School of Design of the Gordon Memorial College, which later became the University of Khartoum. Supported by a scholarship, he subsequently went to the Slade School of Fine Art in London from 1954 to 1957. At this art school, El-Salahi was exposed to European schooling, modern circles, and the works of artists that gradually influenced his art. Studying in London also allowed him to take formal and ideological cues from modernist painting, which helped him to achieve a balance between pure expression and gestural freedom. In 1962, he received a UNESCO scholarship to study in the United States, from where he visited South America. From 1964 to 1965, he returned to the United States with the support of the Rockefeller Foundation, and in 1966, he led the Sudanese delegation during the first World Festival of Black Arts in Dakar, Senegal. In addition to representing Sudan in the World Festival of Black Arts, El-Salahi was part of the Sudanese delegation at the first Pan-African Cultural Festival in 1969. Both of these events were important and significant in modern African art movements.
After the completion of his education, he returned to Sudan. During this period, he used Arabic calligraphy and other elements of Islamic culture that played a role in his everyday life. Trying to connect to his heritage, El-Salahi began to fill his work with symbols and markings of small Arabic inscriptions. As he became more advanced with incorporating Arabic calligraphy into his work, the symbols began to produce animals, humans, and plant forms, providing new meaning to his artwork. El-Salahi learned to combine European artistic styles with traditional Sudanese themes, which resulted in an African-influenced kind of surrealism. From 1969 until 1972, El-Salahi was assistant cultural cultural attache at the Sudanese Embassy in London. After that, he returned to Sudan as Director of Culture in Jaafar Nimeiri's government, and then was Undersecretary in the Ministry of Culture and Information until September 1975.
In 1975, El-Salahi was imprisoned for six months and eight days without trial for being accused of participating in an anti-government coup. At the time of El-Salahi's period of incarceration, many intellectuals and some members of the Sudanese Communist Party were sent to prison. El-Salahi's freedom was stripped in Kober Prison in Khartoum. Prisoners were not allowed to write or draw, and if a prisoner was to be caught with paper or pencil, he would be punished with solitary confinement for fifteen days. Despite this, El-Salahi was able to find a pencil and often used the brown paper bags that food was distributed with to draw on. El-Salahi would tear the bag into numerous pieces and could use the 25 exercise minutes he received everyday to sketch out ideas for huge paintings. He would also secretly sketch and bury small drawings into the sand to maintain his ideas.
El-Salahi was released on March 16, 1976. He did not keep any of the drawings he made in prison. He left them all buried. After his release, he rented a house in the Banat region of Omdurman for a short period of time. Two years after his release from prison, he exiled himself from Sudan and for some years worked and lived in Doha, Qatar, before finally settling in Oxford, United Kingdom.
El-Salahi's work has developed through several phases. His first period during the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s is dominated by elementary forms and lines. During the next two decades, El-Salahi used more subtle, earthy tones in his color palette. In Ibrahim El-Salahi's own words: "I limited my color scheme to sombre tones, using black, white, burnt sienna, and yellow ochre, which resembled the colors of earth and skin color shades of people in our part of the Sudan. Technically, it added depth to the picture". The color selection that El-Salahi chose in this formative period reflected the landscape of Sudan, trying to attempt to connect larger concerns of society, whilst creating a unique Sudanese aesthetic through his work. After this period, his work became meditative, abstract and organic, using new warm, brilliant colors and abstract human and non-human figures, rendered through geometric shapes. Much of his work has been characterized by lines, while he mainly uses white and black paint. As El-Salahi has summarized, "There is no painting without drawing and there is no shape without line ... in the end all images can be reduced to lines." Also, his artworks often include both Islamic calligraphy and African motifs, such as elongated mask shapes. Some of his works like "Allah and the Wall of Confrontation" (1968) and "The Last Sound"(1964) show elements characteristic of Islamic art, such as the shape of the crescent moon.
In the late 1970s and early 1980s, El-Salahi lived in exile in Qatar, where he focused on drawing in black and white. Many of his admirers were unaware of his residence in Qatar, and El-Salahi found this distance to be "relieving", as he could use the time to become more experimental.
El-Salahi is considered a pioneer in Sudanese modern art and was a member of the "Khartoum School of Modern Art", founded by Osman Waqialla, Ahmad Mohammed Shibrain, Tag el-Sir Ahmed and Salahi himself. Other members of this artistic movement in Sudan were poets, novelists, and literary critics of the "Desert School", that also sought to establish a new Sudanese cultural identity. One of the main areas of focus for the Khartoum School was to create a modern Sudanese aesthetic style and not relying only on Western influences. In the 1960s, El-Salahi was briefly associated with the Mbari Club in Ibadan, Nigeria. In an interview with Sarah Dwider, a curator at the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, El-Salahi commented about his time spent in Nigeria and the impact it had on his work: "My short visit to Nigeria in the early 1960s gave me the chance to connect artistically with a dynamic part of the African continent, opening myself to influence and be influenced."
He began by exploring Coptic manuscripts, which led him to experiment with Arabic calligraphy. Ultimately, he developed his own style and was among the group of artists to elaborate Arabic calligraphy in his modernist paintings, in a style that became known as Hurufiyya art movement.
In an interview with The Guardian in 2013, El-Salahi explained how he came to use calligraphy in his artworks. Following his return to Sudan in 1957, he was disappointed at the poor attendance at his exhibitions and reflected on how to generate public interest:
- "I organised an exhibition in Khartoum of still-lifes, portraits and nudes. People came to the opening just for the soft drinks. After that, no one came. [It was] as though it hadn't happened. I was completely stuck for two years. I kept asking myself why people couldn't accept and enjoy what I had done. [After reflecting on what would allow his work to resonate with people], I started to write small Arabic inscriptions in the corners of my paintings, almost like postage stamps, and people started to come towards me. I spread the words over the canvas, and they came a bit closer. Then I began to break down the letters to find what gave them meaning, and a Pandora's box opened. Animal forms, human forms and plant forms began to emerge from these once-abstract symbols. That was when I really started working. Images just came, as though I was doing it with a spirit I didn't know I had."
Even at more than 90 years of age, El-Salahi continued his artistic production. As a new form of expression, he created tree-like sculptures for Regent's Park in London, which are modeled on the haraz trees of his homeland. An exhibition titled "Pain Relief Drawings", which opened in New York in October 2022, featured his experimental drawings on scraps of paper, envelopes, and drug packaging, an activity he used to distract himself from his chronic back pain.
El-Salahi's works have been shown in numerous exhibitions and are represented in collections such as the Tate Modern, the Museum of Modern Art and the Sharjah Art Foundation. In 2001, he was honored with a Prince Claus Award from the Netherlands. In the summer of 2013, a major retrospective exhibition of one hundred works was presented at the Tate Modern gallery, London, - the Tate's first retrospective dedicated to an African artist.
From November 2016 to January 2017, El-Salahi's work was featured prominently in the first comprehensive exhibition dedicated to the Modernist art movement in Sudan, entitled The Khartoum School: The Making of the Modern Art Movement in Sudan (1945 –present) at the Sharjah Art Foundation in the United Arab Emirates.
In 2018, the Ashmolean Museum in his adopted home in Oxford, United Kingdom, presented a solo exhibition of El-Salahi's work. This exhibition allowed the viewers to appreciate early works, as well as some of his more recent works. This exhibition also combined his works with ancient Sudanese objects from the museum's main collection as examples of traditional artworks. One of the key aspects of this exhibition was El-Salahi's use of the Haraz tree. This tree is a native acacia species found commonly in the Nile valley that symbolizes 'the Sudanese character' for the artist. As scholar Salah M. Hassan pointed out: "The 'Trees' series has demonstrated not only El-Salahi's resilience and productivity, it also reveals the artist's ability to reinvent himself while remaining on the forefront of exploration and creativity."
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September 7
*Sonny Rollins, an American jazz tenor saxophonist, widely recognized as one of the most important and influential jazz musicians, was born in New York, New York. A number of his compositions, including "St. Thomas", "Oleo", "Doxy", "Pent-Up House", and "Airegin", became jazz standards.
September 8
*Walter Benton, an African American jazz tenor saxophonist, was born in Los Angeles, California.
September 9
After Johnson's death, Lucas traveled around and came to the realization that, to be successful, he would have to break the monopoly that the Italian Mafia held in New York. Traveling to Bangkok, Thailand, he eventually made his way to Jack's American Star Bar, an R&R hangout for black soldiers. It was here that he met former United States Army Sergeant Leslie "Ike" Atkinson, a country boy from Goldsboro, North Carolina, who happened to be married to one of Lucas' cousins.
September 10
*Sonny Rollins, an American jazz tenor saxophonist, widely recognized as one of the most important and influential jazz musicians, was born in New York, New York. A number of his compositions, including "St. Thomas", "Oleo", "Doxy", "Pent-Up House", and "Airegin", became jazz standards.
Sonny Rollins, byname Newk, original name Theodore Walter Rollins (b. September 7, 1930, New York City, New York) was a tenor saxophonist who was among the finest improvisers on the instrument to have ever been.
Rollins grew up in a neighborhood where Theolonius Monk, Coleman Hawkins (his early idol), and Bud Powell were playing. After recording with the latter in 1949, Rollins began recording with Miles Davis in 1951. During the next three years, he compose three of his best-known tunes, "Oleo", "Doxy", and "Airegin", and continued to work with Davis, Charlie Parker, and others. Following his withdrawal from music in 1954 to overcome a heroin addiction, Rollins re-emerged with the Clifford Brown-Max Roach quintet in 1955, and the next four years proved to be his most fertile.
Beginning with a style drawn primarily from Charlie Parker, Rollins became a master of intelligent and provocative spontaneity that was combined with an excellent command of the tenor sax. The clarity of thought evident in his improvisations stands out in jazz history. Rollins displayed an interest in unaccompanied saxophone improvisation and gross manipulations of tone color long before such techniques became common in modern jazz. He was also one of the first to successfully improvise when alternately ignoring tempo and swinging within a single solo while his accompanists adhered to a preset tempo and chord progression. In these respects, he was particularly influential with avant-garde saxophonists of the 1960s and 1970s. Rollins was the recipient of numerous honors, including several Grammy Awards. In 2010, Sonny Rollins was awarded the National Medal of Arts. The following year, Rollins received a Kennedy Center Honor.
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*Walter Benton, an African American jazz tenor saxophonist, was born in Los Angeles, California.
Walter Benton (b.September 8, 1930, Los Angeles, California - d. August 14, 2000, Los Angeles, California) first began playing saxophone as a high schooler in Los Angeles. After three years of service in the Army in the early 1950s, Benton played with Perez Prado, including on a tour of Asia. He worked with Quincy Jones in 1957 and Victor Feldman in 1958-59. He led his own group from 1959, recording under his own name in 1960 with Freddie Hubbard, Wynton Kelly, Paul Chambers, and Tootie Heath. That same year he worked with Max Roach and Julian Priester. In 1961, he recorded with Abbey Lincoln, Roach again, Eric Dolphy, and Slide Hampton. Later in the 1960s, he worked with Gerald Wilson and John Anderson.
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*Frank Lucas, a former heroin dealer, who operated in Harlem during the late 1960s and early 1970s, was born in La Grange, North Carolina. He was particularly known for cutting out middlemen in the drug trade and buying heroin directly from his source in the Golden Triangle. Rather than hide the drugs in the coffins, Lucas hid drugs in the pallets underneath the coffins of dead American servicemen as depicted in the 2007 feature film American Gangster in which Lucas was played by Denzel Washington, although the film fictionalized elements of Lucas' life for dramatic effect.
Frank Lucas (b. September 9, 1930, La Grange, North Carolina - d. May 30, 2019, Cedar Grove, New Jersey) raised in Greensboro, North Carolina. He was the son of Mahalee (nee Jones 1909-2003) and Fred Lucas. He drifted through a life of petty crime until one particular occasion when, after a fight with a former employer, he fled to New York on the advice of his mother. In Harlem, he indulged in petty crime and pool hustling before he was taken under the wing of gangster Bumpy Johnson.
Atkinson, nicknamed "Sergeant Smack" by the Drug Enforcement Administration, shipped drugs in furniture, not caskets. Whatever method he used, Lucas smuggled the drugs into the country with this direct link from Asia.
Lucas only trusted relatives and close friends from North Carolina to handle his various heroin operations. Lucas thought relatives and close friends were less likely to steal from him and be tempted by various vices in the big city. His product -- his heroin -- "Blue Magic", was 98–100% pure when shipped from Thailand and, by selling it, enabled Lucas to accumulate over $50 million.
The huge profit margin from his drug trade allowed Lucas to buy property all over the country, including office buildings in Detroit, and apartments in Los Angeles and Miami. He also bought a several-thousand-acre ranch in North Carolina on which he ranged 300 head of Black Angus cattle, including a breeding bull worth $125,000.
Lucas rubbed shoulders with the elite of the entertainment, politics, and crime worlds. Though he owned several mink and chinchilla coats and other accessories, Lucas much preferred to dress casually and corporately so as not to attract attention to himself. When he was arrested in the mid-1970s, all of Lucas' assets were seized.
In January 1975, Lucas' house in Teaneck, New Jersey, was raided by a task force consisting of 10 agents from Group 22 of the United States Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and 10 New York Police Department detectives attached to the Organized Crime Control Bureau (OCCB). In his house authorities found $584,683 in cash. He was later convicted of both federal and New Jersey state drug violations. The following year he was sentenced to 70 years in prison. Once convicted, Lucas provided evidence that led to more than 100 further drug-related convictions. For his safety, in 1977, Lucas and his family were placed in the witness protection program. In 1981, after 5 years in custody, his 40-year Federal term and 30-year state term were reduced to time served plus lifetime parole. In 1984, he was caught and convicted of trying to exchange one ounce of heroin and $13,000 for one kilogram of cocaine. He was defended by his former prosecutor Richie Roberts and received a sentence of seven years. He was released from prison in 1991.
Lucas married Julianna Farrait, a homecoming queen from Puerto Rico. The two often bought each other expensive gifts, including a coat for which she paid $125,000 and a matching hat for which she paid $40,000 cash.
Farrait was also jailed for her role in her husband's criminal enterprise, and spent five years behind bars. After she came out of prison they lived separately for some years, and Farrait moved back to Puerto Rico. However, they reconciled in 2006 and were married for more than 40 years.
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*Martha Jean Steinberg, the first African American woman to own a radio station, was born in Memphis, Tennessee
Martha Jean "The Queen" Steinberg (b. September 9, 1930, Memphis, Tennessee – d. January 29, 2000, Detroit, Michigan) was an influential African American radio broadcaster and later was also the pastor of her own church.
Steinberg was born Martha Jean Jones in Memphis, Tennessee. Her first radio job was on Memphis's WDIA starting in 1954. There, she was one of the first female disc jockeys in the United States, with a program that included the latest R&B hits along with the typical "household hints" programming that was de rigueur at the time for female radio personalities.
In 1963, Steinberg moved to Detroit, Michigan, where she was heard on WCHB and then throughout the late 1960s and 1970s on WJLB. On July 23, 1967, Steinberg convinced WJLB to cancel its normal evening programming and she did an on-air program calling for people to calm down and stop rioting. It has been suggested that this prevented the 1967 Detroit Riot from being worse than it was.
During her time at WJLB, Steinberg also led the station's on-air staff in protest of the fact that the station, at the time, had no African American employees outside of the air staff.
Steinberg had a cameo role as a television show host in the 1973 film Detroit 9000.
In 1980, WJLB converted from AM to the FM dial, and Steinberg's show was dropped in the process. The former WJLB-AM became WMZK with an ethnic format. In 1982, Steinberg purchased WMZK-AM and changed the call letters to WQBH in order to offer more gospel music-oriented programming. Steinberg remained on the air at WQBH (1400 on the AM dial) until her death.
Martha Jean Steinberg died on January 29, 2000, in Detroit, Michigan.
In 2017, she was inducted into Rhythm & Blues Hall of Fame.
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*Rene Rebuffat, a French historian and archaeologist specializing in ancient Africa, was born.
René Rebuffat (b. September 10, 1930 – d. November 30, 2019) was a French historian and archaeologist, specializing in ancient Africa. He conducted archaeological excavations at Thamusida in Morocco; Bu-Njem Gholaia in Libya; and in the Sebiou basin in Morocco. He also worked on archaeological sites of Aleria and Jublains. A student of the Ecole normale superieure (class 1952), then a member of the Ecole francaise de Rome (1959), he was detached to the service of Antiquities of Morocco (1961) where he began his scientific career. He entered the CNRS (Centre national de la recherche scientifique - French National Centre for Scientific Research). In 1963, which he left in 1998 with the title of Emeritus Research Director. In historical linguistics, he contributed to research on linguistic practices of ancient North Africa, and among others to research on Numidian language inscriptions.
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*Moraima Secada, a Cuban singer known by her admirers as La Mora, was born in Santa Clara, Cuba.
Moraima Secada (b. Maria Micaela Secada Ramos, September 10, 1930, Santa Clara, Cuba – d. December 30, 1984, Havana, Cuba), known to her admirers as La Mora (the moor), was a temperamental singer who created a special style of interpretation within the Cuban music genre of filin (feeling). Secada started her career in the 1950s and was a member of the first female orchestra of America Anacaona, which made many international tours. She was also in the vocal groups Cuarteto Los Meme and Cuarteto D'Aida. Secada died of liver disease in Havana. Secade was the aunt of the singer the singer Jon Secada.
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September 11
*Saleh Selim, a president of the Egyptian Al Ahly Sporting Club, was born in Dokki, Giza, Kingdom of Egypt.
Saleh Selim (b. September 11, 1930, Dokki, Giza, Kingdom of Egypt - d. May 6, 2002, London, United Kingdom) was the 10th president of the Egyptian Al Ahly Sporting Club. He also was a famous Egyptian football player and actor. He was nicknamed El Maestro because of his way of leading the Al Ahly football team to many victories. He then became the manager of the team, then member of the board of directors of the club. He finally became one of the most successful presidents of the club.
Saleh was born on September 11, 1930, in Dokki, Giza, and his father was Mohamed Selim, one of the pioneers of anesthesiology in Egypt. Selim's father knew his mother, Zein El Sharaf, when she was undergoing surgery at his hospital. He married her and she gave birth to three males. Saleh was the eldest, followed by Abdel Wahab and Tareq. Saleh Selim has been a footballer since childhood. In Dokki, Giza, he joined the Orman junior high school team, then the high school team during his studies at the Saadia school in the same district. In 1944, he joined the junior ranks of Al Ahly club after being discovered by Hassan Kamel, supervisor of the club's team. He quickly succeeded in proving his presence and talent and was promoted to the first team at the age of seventeen. He played his first game (a friendly) in front of the Al Masry club in 1948, and Al Ahly won two goals to one with Saleh scoring the winning goal. Though his first official game was against Alexandria in the third week of the Egyptian league championship season of 1948 and Al Ahly achieved victory.
Selim joined the Al Ahly club in 1944 as a football player. Later, he became the club's football team manager, then a member of the board of directors. Due to the fame he gained as a football player, Saleh was dragged into show business and starred in three movies. He co-starred in the 1962 film titled "Black Candles" directed by Ezz El-Dine Zulficar, with Nagat El-Sagheera in the leading role where she sang in her widely known song "Do not lie". In 1980, he was elected the president of Al Ahly. He was then re-elected five successive times.
During his presidency, Al-Ahly was elected the African club of the century. On May 22, 2001, Saleh received the award in Johannesburg. He died in 2002 of liver cancer.
Saleh Selim was the first Egyptian soccer player in Austria and it was a "transfer-sensation" when he joined Grazer AK and scored 3 goals in 6 championship-games (10/6 with friendly-games included) for the oldest Styrian football club during the 1962–63 season.
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September 12
*William Stewart, an American linguist specializing in African American Vernacular English (aka Ebonics), was born in Honolulu, Hawaii.
William Alexander Stewart (b. September 12, 1930, Honolulu, Hawaii – d. March 25, 2002, Manhattan, New York) was an American linguist specializing in creoles, known particularly for his work on African American Vernacular English, aka Ebonics.
Stewart was born in Honolulu, Hawaii to Scottish parents, and grew up speaking four languages (English, Spanish, Portuguese and Hawaiian). At the age of 8, Stewart moved with his family to California. His parents were killed in a car crash one year later, and he was raised by his father's parents -- his paternal grandparents. Stewart served as an army translator before enrolling at the University of California, Los Angeles, where he obtained his Bachelor's and Master's degrees.
Working for the Center for Applied Linguistics, Stewart undertook pioneering work on creoles in the Caribbean in the early 1960s. In 1965, he discovered that reading problems of some African-American children were caused not by vocabulary or pronunciation, but by differences between the grammar of African American Vernacular English and standard English. In the late 1960s, Stewart explored the sociolinguistics of multilingualism, introducing the notions of polycentric languages, autonomy and heteronomy.
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September 13
*Bola Ige, a Nigerian lawyer and politician, was born in Esa Oke, Osun State, Nigeria.
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*Bola Ige, a Nigerian lawyer and politician, was born in Esa Oke, Osun State, Nigeria.
James Ajibola Idowu Adegoke Ige (b. September 13, 1930, Esa Oke, Osun State, Nigeria – d. December 23, 2001, Ibadan, Nigeria), simply known as Bola Ige, was born the son of Yoruba natives of Esa-Oke town, in the old Oyo State (now in Osun State). Bola Ige left Kaduna and headed south to the Western region at the age of 14. He studied at Ibadan Grammar School (1943–48), and then at the University of Ibadan. From there, he went to the University College London where he graduated with a Law degree in 1959. He was called to the bar in London's Inner Temple in 1961.
Bola Ige established Bola Ige & Co in 1961, and later became a Senior Advocate of Nigeria. He became well known in the country for his oratory prowess, as well as his advocacy work on civil rights and democracy. Bola Ige's faith was Christianity. Uncommonly, Bola Ige spoke all the three major Nigerian languages, Yoruba, Ibo and Hausa fluently. He wrote several books, and an anthology of articles and tributes about him was published shortly after his death.
During the First Republic (1963–1966), at age 31 he was at the center of the Action Group crisis, when Chief Obafemi Awolowo was pitted against his deputy, Chief Samuel Ladoke Akintola. He became a rival of Olusola Olaosebikan for succession to Obafemi Awolowo. Bola Ige was a Commissioner for Agriculture in the now-defunct Western Region of Nigeria (1967–1970) under the military government of General Yakubu Gowon. In 1967, he became a friend of Olusegun Obasanjo, who was a commander of the army brigade in Ibadan.
In the early 1970s, during the first period of military rule, he devoted his time to the anti-racism campaign of the World Council of Churches.
Towards the end of the 1970s he joined the Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN), the successor to the Action Group. When General Olusegun Obasanjo initiated the Second Republic, he was elected as governor of Oyo State from October 1979 to October 1983. Adebisi Akande, later to be governor of Osun State after it was split off from Oyo State, was his deputy governor during this period. In the 1983 elections, when he ran for re-election as the UPN candidate, he was defeated by Victor Omolulu Olunloyo. Ige unsuccessfully challenged the election in court. However, Olunloyo lost the seat three months later to a coup staged by Generals Muhammadu Buhari and Tunde Idiagbon.
Ige Bola was detained after the coup, accused of enriching party funds. He was released in 1985, after the next coup, by Ibrahim Babangida, and returned to his legal practice and to writing. In 1990, he published People, Politics And Politicians of Nigeria: 1940–1979, a book that he had begun while imprisoned. He was a founder member of the influential Yoruba pressure group, Afenifere. Although critical of the military rule of General Sani Abacha, Bola Ige avoided political difficulties during this period.
Following the restoration of democracy in 1999, Bola Ige sought the nomination of the Alliance for Democracy party as a presidential candidate, but was rejected. President Obasanjo appointed Bola Ige as minister of Mines and Power (1999–2000). He was not able to make significant improvements to service provided by the monopoly National Electric Power Authority (NEPA).
Bola Ige then became Minister of Justice and Attorney General of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (2000–2001). In September 2001 Bola Ige said that the Federal government had initiated a program to re-arrange and consolidate the laws of the Federation, publish them in digital form, and make them available on the website of his ministry. He campaigned ardently against the imposition of the Sharia law in the northern states of Nigeria. In November 2001 he said that the Federal government would not allow the Sokoto State government to execute the judgment of a verdict passed by a Gwadabawa sharia court to stone a woman, Safiya Hussaini to death for committing adultery.
Bola Ige was about to take up a new position as Africa's Representative on the United Nations International Law Commission when he was gunned down in Ibadan, the Oyo State capital.
On December 23, 2001, Bola Ige was shot dead at his home in the south-western city of Ibadan. He had been entangled in squabbles within his Alliance for Democracy party in Osun State. The previous week, the long-running feud between Osun state Governor Bisi Akande and his deputy, Iyiola Omisore, had apparently contributed to the death of an Osun State legislator, Odunayo Olagbaju. The government of President Olusegun Obasanjo deployed troops in south-western Nigeria to try to prevent a violent reaction to the murder. Although various people were arrested and tried for involvement in Bola Ige's murder, including Iyiola Omisore, all were acquitted.
September 14
*Bill Berry, a jazz trumpeter best known for playing with the Duke Ellington Orchestra in the early 1960s and for leading his own big band, was born in Benton Harbor, Michigan.
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*Bill Berry, a jazz trumpeter best known for playing with the Duke Ellington Orchestra in the early 1960s and for leading his own big band, was born in Benton Harbor, Michigan.
William Richard Berry (b. September 14, 1930, Benton Harbor, Michigan – d. November 13, 2002, ), known as Bill Berry, was born in Benton Harbor, Michigan, the son of a bass player in a touring dance band. He spent his early years traveling with his parents. From the age of five, he took piano lessons at his parents' home in South Bend, Indiana. In high school in Cincinnati, he switched to trumpet, which he played in a Midwest band led by Don Strickland, then served four years in the Air Force. He studied at the Cincinnati College of Music and Berklee College of Music in Boston and played trumpet with the Woody Herman and Maynard Ferguson orchestra. In 1961, he became one of the Duke Ellington orchestra's first white members.
After his working with Ellington, he played with the Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Jazz Orchestra and led his own big band in New York. In 1965, he joined The Merv Griffin Show, where he remained for fifteen years, moving to Los Angeles with Griffin and reforming his group as the L.A. Big Band in 1971. Among the most successful of his own recordings was Shortcake (Concord, 1978), an album of jazz for small group in the Ellington style. He appeared on many albums by other musicians, including Rosemary Clooney (Everything's Coming Up Rosie), Scott Hamilton (Scott Hamilton Is a Good Wind Who Is Blowing Us No Ill), Jake Hanna (Live at Concord), and Coleman Hawkins (Wrapped Tight).
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*Carmen Richardson, a Puerto Rican actress and comedian of African descent, was born in Santurce, Puerto Rico.
Carmen Belén Richardson (b. September 14, 1930, Santurce, Puerto Rico − d. August 9, 2012, Caguas, Puerto Rico) was a Puerto Rican actress and comedian.
Richardson was born in Santurce. Her parents felt that she had a special talent for acting at an early age and in 1939 when she was nine years old they had her audition for a child's role in a radio soap opera on the WNEL Radio Station. The people at the station were so impressed with her that they hired her on the spot. She attended the Central High School of Santurce where she actively participated in her school plays. On one occasion when she was 14 years old, Juan Ramon Jimenez, the Spanish poet and Nobel Prize recipient, was present for one of her presentations. He was impressed by what he saw to the point that he offered to pay Richardson's university tuition.
Richardson enrolled at the University of Puerto Rico where she studied Dramatic Arts. In 1954, after she graduated, Puerto Rican television pioneer and producer Tommy Muniz, offered her a role in his new program El Colegio de la Alegria. She played the part of "Lirio Blanco", a funny, extremely tall girl who could open her eyes wide in amazement. Thus, Richardson became the second black Puerto Rican actress in Puerto Rico's television industry, after Rita Delgado, in 1955. She also acted as a comedian in other television shows such as La Criada Malcriada in the role of Jazmín, Hogar Dulce Hogar as María Antonieta de los Ángeles Monroig López and in Esto No Tiene Nombre. In Esto No Tiene Nombre, she made comical imitations of many personalities. Among those who she imitated were Angela Davis and Roberta Flack.
During the 1970s, Richardson worked in comedies Black Power and Ja, ja, ji, ji, jo, jo con Agrelot alongside comedian Jose Miguel Agrelot. During that decade, Puerto Rico witnessed one of the largest labor disputes between the Actors Union and Tommy Muniz Productions. The lack of work forced Richardson to leave Tommy Muniz Productions. She then joined and worked for ASTRA Productions. With ASTRA Productions Richardson found work in the televised programs Ahí va eso and Sin ton ni son.
A new opportunity, outside of comedy, presented itself when the local television stations once again began to produce soap operas. Among the soap operas in which Richardson participated are:
- Anacaona as Belen,
- El Idolo as Caridad Carvajal,
- Rojo Verano as Sor Teresa and
- Marta Llorens as Mama Luz.
In 1980, Richardson went to Mexico and was hired by Chilean director Valentin Pimstein, to work in soap operas. During the three years that she spent in Mexico, she acted in:
- El Maleficio (1983),
- Guadalupe (1984) as Dominga,
- Soledad (1981),
- Amalia Batista (1983) and
- El Hogar que yo Robe (1981) as Fernanda, alongside Mexican actors Juan Ferrara and Angelica Maria.
Richardson returned to Puerto Rico and in 1985 went to work in local theater productions. She took part in Cecilia Valdes, Clemente (the musical), Cuando él es Guadalupe, Flor de Pesidio, and Sirena.
The 1989 Festival of Art "El Cemi" in Puerto Rico was dedicated to Carmen Richardson and in recognition of her 40 years in the world of entertainment she was awarded the Carlos Busquets award. Richardson joined Producciones MECA, founded by actresses Camille Carrion and Angela Meyer. With this new company she actively participated in the following shows and soap operas, Ellas al Mediodia, Ave de Paso (1988), La Isla and Yara Prohibida (1988). Richardson imitated American actress and comedian Whoopi Goldberg in the theatre presentation of Múltiples ellas.
Carmen Belén Richardson retired from acting after being diagnosed with fibromyalgia. She founded a fibromyalgia support group in Puerto Rico called "Fundación Carmen Belén Richardson".
Richardson died on August 9, 2012, at HIMA hospital in Caguas, Puerto Rico, at the age of 81. She was buried at Borinquen Memorial Park in Carolina, Puerto Rico.
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September 16
*Jerry Donal Jewell, the first African American to serve as governor of Arkansas, was born in Chatfield, Arkansas. A dentist who was the president pro tem of the state senate, Jewell held the post of Governor of Arkansas for three days, as Governor Jim Guy Tucker attended the Presidential inauguration of former Governor Bill Clinton.
Jerry Donal Jewell (b. September 16, 1930, Chatfield, Arkansas - d. August 17, 2002, Little Rock, Arkansas) was the first African American to serve in the Arkansas Senate in the twentieth century. He was also Arkansas' first ever African American acting governor, albeit for only a temporary four day period during Bill Clinton's presidential inauguration in 1993. Jewell moved his dental practice from North Little Rock (Pulaski County) to Little Rock (Pulaski County) in 1978, where he continued to work during his political career and up until his death in 2002.
Jewell was born on September 16, 1930, in Chatfield (Crittenden County). His parents, James M. Jewell and Ruth Lee Taylor Jewell, who were both sharecroppers, came from Mississippi. He had four sisters, only two of who survived past infancy. Around 1936, Jewell and his family moved to West Memphis (Crittenden County), where his father worked for a while for the Works Progress Administration (WPA) and then an oil company.
While growing up in West Memphis, Jewell attended segregated schools in two different districts. He then attended a boarding school in west Tennessee, where he completed his high school education. He made the honor roll at all of the schools and was active in sports teams.
In 1949, Jewell attended the Agricultural, Mechanical, and Normal College (AM&N) in Pine Bluff (Jefferson County), now the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff (UAPB). He majored in pre-medical and pre-dental. Jewell then studied dentistry at Meharry Medical College in Nashville, Tennessee, graduating in 1957. He then joined the Army Dental Corps and served in Texas and Missouri for two years. Jewell married Ometa Payne. They had five children.
In 1959, Jewell moved to North Little Rock, where he set up a dental practice. The practice was later relocated to Little Rock. The same year, Jewell became a member of the Little Rock branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). In 1963, he became branch president, taking over from the Reverend J. C. Crenchaw. Jewell held the office until 1967. In 1965, Jewell became president of the NAACP Arkansas State Conference of branches.
Jewell was elected to the Arkansas Senate in 1972, making him the first African American state senator in the twentieth century. He was a member of the Senate until 1994. During his Senate career, Jewell served as chair and vice chair of the Legislative Affairs Committee, chair of the Agricultural Economic Development Committee, chair of the Retirement Committee, chair of the Education Committee, and vice chair of the Insurance and Commerce Committee. He also served on the Energy Committee. In 1992, Jewel was elected president pro tempore of the Arkansas Senate. In that capacity, when Governor Jim Guy Tucker went to Washington, D. C. to attend President Bill Clinton's inauguration in January 1993, Jewell became acting governor of Arkansas from Sunday, January 17, at 7:00 a.m. until Wednesday, January 21, at 4:00 p.m. (there being no lieutenant governor since Tucker assumed the office of governor upon Clinton's election to the presidency). He was the first African American ever to hold that position.
However, the four days were not without controversy. Jewell pardoned two convicts and extended clemency to three others. The most notable of those pardons was that of Tommy McIntosh, the son of Robert "Say" McIntosh, who was convicted in 1987 of cocaine possession and intent to distribute, and sentenced to fifty years in prison and a fine of $250,000. Upon release, Tommy McIntosh failed to make his monthly payments, paying less than $4,000 of his fine before it was canceled in 2003. Many believe that Jewell lost his Senate seat in the 1994 Democratic primary elections to Bill Walker in part because of these pardons.
Jerry Jewell died on August 17, 2002.
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September 16
*Jerry Donal Jewell, the first African American to serve as governor of Arkansas, was born in Chatfield, Arkansas. A dentist who was the president pro tem of the state senate, Jewell held the post of Governor of Arkansas for three days, as Governor Jim Guy Tucker attended the Presidential inauguration of former Governor Bill Clinton.
Jerry Donal Jewell (b. September 16, 1930, Chatfield, Arkansas - d. August 17, 2002, Little Rock, Arkansas) was the first African American to serve in the Arkansas Senate in the twentieth century. He was also Arkansas' first ever African American acting governor, albeit for only a temporary four day period during Bill Clinton's presidential inauguration in 1993. Jewell moved his dental practice from North Little Rock (Pulaski County) to Little Rock (Pulaski County) in 1978, where he continued to work during his political career and up until his death in 2002.
Jewell was born on September 16, 1930, in Chatfield (Crittenden County). His parents, James M. Jewell and Ruth Lee Taylor Jewell, who were both sharecroppers, came from Mississippi. He had four sisters, only two of who survived past infancy. Around 1936, Jewell and his family moved to West Memphis (Crittenden County), where his father worked for a while for the Works Progress Administration (WPA) and then an oil company.
While growing up in West Memphis, Jewell attended segregated schools in two different districts. He then attended a boarding school in west Tennessee, where he completed his high school education. He made the honor roll at all of the schools and was active in sports teams.
In 1949, Jewell attended the Agricultural, Mechanical, and Normal College (AM&N) in Pine Bluff (Jefferson County), now the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff (UAPB). He majored in pre-medical and pre-dental. Jewell then studied dentistry at Meharry Medical College in Nashville, Tennessee, graduating in 1957. He then joined the Army Dental Corps and served in Texas and Missouri for two years. Jewell married Ometa Payne. They had five children.
In 1959, Jewell moved to North Little Rock, where he set up a dental practice. The practice was later relocated to Little Rock. The same year, Jewell became a member of the Little Rock branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). In 1963, he became branch president, taking over from the Reverend J. C. Crenchaw. Jewell held the office until 1967. In 1965, Jewell became president of the NAACP Arkansas State Conference of branches.
Jewell was elected to the Arkansas Senate in 1972, making him the first African American state senator in the twentieth century. He was a member of the Senate until 1994. During his Senate career, Jewell served as chair and vice chair of the Legislative Affairs Committee, chair of the Agricultural Economic Development Committee, chair of the Retirement Committee, chair of the Education Committee, and vice chair of the Insurance and Commerce Committee. He also served on the Energy Committee. In 1992, Jewel was elected president pro tempore of the Arkansas Senate. In that capacity, when Governor Jim Guy Tucker went to Washington, D. C. to attend President Bill Clinton's inauguration in January 1993, Jewell became acting governor of Arkansas from Sunday, January 17, at 7:00 a.m. until Wednesday, January 21, at 4:00 p.m. (there being no lieutenant governor since Tucker assumed the office of governor upon Clinton's election to the presidency). He was the first African American ever to hold that position.
However, the four days were not without controversy. Jewell pardoned two convicts and extended clemency to three others. The most notable of those pardons was that of Tommy McIntosh, the son of Robert "Say" McIntosh, who was convicted in 1987 of cocaine possession and intent to distribute, and sentenced to fifty years in prison and a fine of $250,000. Upon release, Tommy McIntosh failed to make his monthly payments, paying less than $4,000 of his fine before it was canceled in 2003. Many believe that Jewell lost his Senate seat in the 1994 Democratic primary elections to Bill Walker in part because of these pardons.
Jerry Jewell died on August 17, 2002.
*****
*Gertrude Roberts, a Dominican educator and politician, was born in Delices, Dominica.
Gertrude Roberts (b. September 16, 1930, Delices, Dominica – November 6, 2019) was an educator and politician in Dominica. She was born in Delices, Dominica, and received her national teacher's certificate in 1952. She pursued further studies, completing an advanced certificate at the Leeward Islands Teacher's College and earning a certificate in educational studies from the University of Newcastle upon Tyne's Institute of Education. She taught and was principal at various schools across Dominica. She also served as program coordinator for the National Council of Women for Dominica.
Roberts received a National Service Award in 1973. In 1979, she helped form the "Pickaxe Brigade" to assist with reconstruction following Hurricane David.
Roberts was elected in the district of Morne Jaune/?Riviere Cyrique in 1990, in 1995 and in 2000. When the United Workers' Party won the 1995 general election, she was named Minister of Community Development and Women's Affairs, a post she held until 2000.
She had six children, and her daughter Gretta Roberts was elected to represent her former district in December 2019.
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*Muhal Abrams, the founder of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians, was born in Chicago, Illinois.
September 20
*Eddie Bo, a singer and pianist known for his blues,soul and folk recordings, was born in New Orleans, Louisiana.
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*Kenneth Mopeli, the Chief Minister of the South African bantustan of QwaQwa from 1975 to 1994, was born in Namahadi.
Muhal Richard Abrams (b. September 19, 1930, Chicago, Illinois - d. October 29, 2017, Manhattan, New York City, New York) is an American educator, administrator, composer, arranger, clarinetist, cellist, and jazz pianist in the free jazz medium.
Abrams attended DuSable High School in Chicago. By 1946, he enrolled in music classes at Roosevelt University, but did not stay. He then decided to study independently. The books of Joseph Schillinger were very influential in Abrams' development.
Abrams' first gigs were playing the blues, R&B, and hard bop circuit in Chicago and working as a sideman with everyone from Dexter Gordon and Max Roach to Ruth Brown and Woody Shaw. In 1950 he began writing arrangements for the King Fleming Band, and in 1955 played in the hard-bop band Modern Jazz Two + Three, with tenor saxophonist Eddie Harris. After this group folded he kept a low profile until he organized the Experimental Band in 1962, a contrast to his earlier hard bop venture in its use of free jazz concepts. This band, with its fluctuating lineup, evolved into the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM), emerging in May 1965 with Abrams as its president. Rather than playing in smoky night clubs, AACM members often rented out theaters and lofts where they could perform for attentive and open-minded audiences. The album Levels and Degrees of Light (1967) was the landmark first recording under Abrams' leadership. On this set, Abrams was joined by the saxophonists Anthony Braxton, Maurice McIntyre, vibraphonist Gordon Emmanuel, violinist Leroy Jenkins, bassist Leonard Jones and vocalist Penelope Taylor. Abrams also played with saxophonists Eddie Harris, Gordon, and other more bop-oriented musicians during this era.
Abrams moved to New York permanently in 1975 where he was involved in the local Loft Jazz scene. In 1983, he established the New York chapter of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians.
In the 1970s, Abrams composed for symphony orchestras, string quartets, solo piano, voice, and big bands in addition to making a series of larger ensemble recordings that included harp and accordion. He is a widely influential artist, having played sides for many musicians early in his career, releasing important recordings as a leader, and writing classical works such as his "String Quartet No. 2", which was performed by the Kronos Quartet, on November 22, 1985, at the Carnegie Recital Hall in New York. He has recorded extensively under his own name (frequently on the Black Saint label) and as a sideman on others' records. Notably regarding the latter he has recorded with Anthony Braxton (Duets 1976 on Arista Records), Marion Brown and Chico Freeman.
Abrams recorded and toured the United States, Canada and Europe with his orchestra, sextet, quartet, duo and as a solo pianist. His musical affiliations is a "who's who" of the jazz world, including Max Roach, Dexter Gordon, Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis, Art Farmer, Sonny Stitt, Anthony Braxton,The Art Ensemble of Chicago, Eddie Harris and many others. In 1990 Abrams won the Jazzpar Prize, an annual Danish prize within jazz. In 1997 he was awarded a grant from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grants to Artists Award. In May 2009 the National Endowment for the Arts announced that Abrams would be one of the recipients of the 2010 NEA Jazz Masters Award. In June 2010, Abrams was given the Lifetime Achievement Award by New York City's premier jazz festival, known as the Vision Festival.
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*****
*Jean Fagan Yellin, the American historian who uncovered the story of Harriet Jacobs, was born in East Lansing, Michigan.
Jean Fagan Yellin (b. September 19, 1930, East Lansing, Michigan – b. July 19, 2023, Sarasota, Florida) was an American historian specializing in women's history and African-American history, and Distinguished Professor Emerita of English at Pace University. She is best known for her scholarship on escaped slave, abolitionist, and author Harriet Jacobs.
Yellin was born to Sarah and Peter Fagan in East Lansing, Michigan, in September 19, 1930. She was married to Ed Yellin and together they published a memoir entitled In Contempt, Defending Free Speech, Defeating HUAC, which documented the effect upon their lives of his legal battle for First Amendment rights, even after he had been exonerated by the Supreme Court of the United States.
Yellin received her B.A. from Roosevelt University and an M.A. and a Ph.D. from the University of Illinois. She began teaching at Pace University in 1968. Her dissertation was published in 1972 as The Intricate Knot: Black Figures in American Literature. She was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in 1990 for Women and Sisters: The Anti-Slavery Feminists in American Culture and won the 2004 Frederick Douglass Prize. and the Modern Language Association's William Sanders Scarborough Prize for Harriet Jacobs: A Life.
Yellin is best known for her research on the former slave Harriet Jacobs and her autobiography, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. Although Incidents had been quite popular at the time of the American Civil War, by the twentieth century both Jacobs and her book were forgotten.
Prior to Yellin's work in the 1970s-1980s, the accepted academic opinion, voiced by such historians as John Blassingame, was that Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl was a fictional novel written by Lydia Maria Child. While re-reading Incidents in the 1970s as part of a project to educate herself in the use of gender as a category of analysis, Yellin became interested in the question of the text's true authorship. Over the course of a six-year effort, Yellin found and used a variety of historical documents, including from the Amy Post papers at the University of Rochester, state and local historical societies, and the Horniblow and Norcom papers at the North Carolina state archives, to establish both that Harriet Jacobs was the true author of Incidents, and that the narrative was her autobiography, not a work of fiction. At the suggestion of historian Herbert Gutman, she contacted Harvard University Press regarding publication, and her edition of Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl was published in 1987 with the endorsement of Professor John Blassingame.
After the publication of Incidents, Yellin engaged in further research which revealed that Jacobs had been well-known in her own time and was very involved in the abolitionist and feminist movements and in relief and education efforts in the South during and after the Civil War. Yellin decided that a biography of Jacobs was needed to embed her appropriately in American cultural history, and Harriet Jacobs: A Life was published in 2004.
While working on the biography, Yellin also conceived of the idea of the Harriet Jacobs Papers Project, a collection of documents by and about Jacobs. In 2000, an advisory board for the project was established, and after funding was awarded, the project began on a full-time basis in September 2002. Sources of funding included the Carolina State Archives, the University of North Carolina Press, Pace University, the Gladys Delmas Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), and the Center for the Study of the American South. The project won endorsement, and later a grant, from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission, and was named by the NEH as one of its "We the People" projects. The Harriet Jacobs Papers Project amassed approximately 900 documents by, to, and about Harriet Jacobs, her brother John S. Jacobs, and her daughter Louisa Matilda Jacobs, more than 300 of which were published in 2008 in a two-volume edition entitled The Harriet Jacobs Family Papers.
Jean Fagan Yellin died on July 19, 2023, in Sarasota, Florida, at the age of 92.
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*Eddie Bo, a singer and pianist known for his blues,soul and folk recordings, was born in New Orleans, Louisiana.
Edwin Joseph Bocage (b. September 20, 1930, New Orleans, Louisiana – d. March 18, 2009, Picayune, Mississippi), known as Eddie Bo, debuted on Ace Records in 1955 and released more single records than anyone else in New Orleans other than Fats Domino.
Eddie Bo worked and recorded for more than 40 different record labels, including Ace, Apollo Records, Arrow, At Last, Blue-Jay, Bo-Sound, Checker, Chess, Cinderella, Nola, Ric (for which business his carpentry skills were used to build a studio), Scram, Seven B, and Swan.
Eddie Bo grew up in Algiers, Louisiana, and in the Ninth Ward of New Orleans. He came from a long line of ship builders with the male members of his family being bricklayers, carpenters and masons by day and musicians by night. Eddie's mother was a self-taught pianist in the style of friend, Professor Longhair. The Bocage family was involved in the traditional jazz community with cousins Charles, Henry and Peter, who played with Sidney Bechet, contributing to jazz orchestras before World War II.
Eddie graduated from Booker T. Washington High School before going into the army. After his army stint, he returned to New Orleans to study at the Grunewald School of Music. There he learned piano, music theory and to sight read, and arrange music. It was at this time that he was influenced by Russian classical pianist Vladimir Horowitz and was introduced to bebop pianists Art Tatum and Oscar Peterson. He began playing in the New Orleans jazz scene but made a switch to R&B after deciding it was more popular and brought in more money. Like a lot of other local musicians Eddie frequented the premier blues venue in town, the Dew Drop Inn on LaSalle Street. He played at the Club Tijuana under the name of Spider Bocage, later forming the Spider Bocage Orchestra, which toured the country supporting singers Big Joe Turner, Earl King, Guitar Slim, Johnny Adams, Lloyd Price, Ruth Brown, Smiley Lewis, and The Platters.
Bo's first released record in 1955 was "Baby", recorded for Johnny Vincent's Ace Records. His next release, in 1956 on Apollo Records, was "I'm Wise" which Little Richard later recorded as "Slippin' and Slidin'". After several releases on Ace, he recorded "My Dearest Darling" in 1957 for Chess Records, the song, co-written by Bo and Paul Gayten, became a national chart hit in 1960 when recorded by Etta James. From 1959, he recorded for Ric Records, and had regional hits including "Every Dog Has Its Day" and "Tell It Like It Is", and in 1961 recorded the novelty dance song "Check Mr Popeye", reissued nationally by Swan Records, which became one of his best-known recordings though not a national hit.
During the 1960s, Bo continued to release singles on a string of local record labels, including Rip, Cinderella, and Blue Jay, though only a few achieved national distribution. On these records, his style got funkier, and he used more of his jazz training, helping to create a distinctively different and influential New Orleans piano style. He recorded the renowned "Pass The Hatchet" under the nom de disque, Roger and the Gypsies for Joe Banashak's Seven B label as well as "Fence of Love" and "SGB" (Stone Graveyard Business) under his own name. He either wrote or produced most of the titles on Seven B records. He also worked as a record producer, with musicians including Irma Thomas, Chris Kenner, Johnny Adams, Al "Carnival Time" Johnson, Art Neville, Chuck Carbo, Mary Jane Hooper, Robert Parker, and The Explosions. In 1969, at the height of funk, he had his only national chart hit, "Hook and Sling, Pts. 1 & 2," which reached number 13 on the Billboard R&B chart and number 73 on the pop chart. The song, on the Scram label, was recorded in just one take. He then formed his own label, Bo-Sound, and had another regional hit with "Check Your Bucket."
From the early 1970s Bo worked in the music business only sporadically, after setting up his own renovation business. In 1977 he released two albums, The Other Side of Eddie Bo and Watch for the Coming, which he produced himself. In the late 1980s and 1990s, he recorded with the Dirty Dozen Brass Band with whom he toured Europe and resurrected his Bo-Sound label. He joined Willy DeVille to play on two DeVille records, Victory Mixture, and Big Easy Fantasy, and he toured with DeVille as well. He later joined up with Raful Neal and Rockin' Tabby Thomas playing and recording under the names The Louisiana Legends, The District Court and The Hoodoo Kings. He continued to perform frequently in New Orleans and at festivals elsewhere and toured intermittently. He also bought a doctor's office and salon on Banks Street which he and his manager converted into an eatery for fans called "Check Your Bucket" after his 1970 hit. Like his home and recording studio it was hit by Hurricane Katrina while Bo was on tour in Paris. Due to Bo's carpentry and bricklaying skills, he took on the task of completing the hurricane damage repairs himself.
Eddie Bo died on March 18, 2009, in Picayune, Mississippi, United States, of a heart attack.
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*Kenneth Mopeli, the Chief Minister of the South African bantustan of QwaQwa from 1975 to 1994, was born in Namahadi.
Tsiame Kenneth Mopeli (b. September 20, 1930, Namahadi, Union of South Africa - d. October 1, 2014, Phuthaditjhaba, Republic of South Africa) was the former Chief Minister of the South African bantustan of QwaQwa. Mopeli built 350 schools in Qwa Qwa along with three teachers' colleges. The soccer stadium Charles Mopeli Stadium and the Setsing Shopping Complex were also developed by him.
Born in Namahadi, Mopeli earned a Bachelor of Arts degree at the University of South Africa in 1954 and worked as a teacher and radio announcer for the South African Broadcasting Corporation before being nominated for membership in the QwaQwa Territorial Authority.
Mopeli founded and led the Dikwankwetla Party to victory at the May 19, 1975 QwaQwa elections and subsequently became Chief Minister of QwaQwa. He spent much of his time as Chief Minister confronting the South African government over various issues, most significantly over demands for more territory to be annexed to QwaQwa, and could boast of South Africa acquiescing to his demands, with some adjoining land (albeit small) added to the bantustan.
During his period as Chief Minister, Mopeli oversaw the foundation of the University of Qwa Qwa which in 2003 was incorporated as a campus of the University of the Free State, the soccer stadium Charles Mopeli Stadium and the Mofumahadi Manapo Mopeli Hospital was built and opened during his time in office.
Described as "rotund, avuncular and unbending" by one observer, Mopeli ruled QwaQwa until April 26, 1994 when the bantustan was reintegrated into South Africa.
Tsiame Kenneth Mopeli died at the age of 84 on October 1, 2014, at Mofumahadi Manapo Mopeli Hospital after a long struggle with cancer.
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September 23
*Ray Charles, a jazz, soul, and pop singer, was born in Albany, Georgia. Blind by the age of six, he would become one of America's most-beloved performing artists.
Ray Charles (also known as Ray Charles Robinson) (b. September 23, 1930, Albany, Georgia - d. June 10, 2004, Beverly Hills, California) was an pianist, singer, composer, and bandleader, a leading African American entertainer billed as "the Genius." Charles was credited with the early development of soul music, a style based on a melding of gospel, rhythm and blues, and jazz music.
When Charles was an infant his family moved to Greenville, Florida, and he began his musical career at age five on a piano in a neighborhood cafe. He began to go blind at six, possibly from glaucoma, and had completely lost his sight by age seven. He attended the St. Augustine School for the Deaf and Blind, where he concentrated on musical studies, but left school at age 15 to play the piano professionally after his mother died from cancer (his father had died when the boy was 10). Charles built a remarkable career based on the immediacy of emotion in his performances. After emerging as a blues and jazz pianist indebted to Nat King Cole's style in the late 1940s. Charles recorded the boogie-woogie classic "Mess Around" and the novelty song "It Should've Been Me" in 1952-53. His arrangement for Guitar Slim's "The Things That I Used To Do" became a blues million-seller in 1953. By 1954, Charles had created a successful combination of blues and gospel influences and signed on with Atlantic Records. Propelled by Charles' distinctive raspy voice,"I've Got a Woman" and "Hallelujah I Love You So" became hit records. "What'd I Say" led the rhythm and blues sales charts in 1959 and was Charles' own first million-seller.
Charles' rhythmic piano playing and band arranging revived the "funky" quality of jazz, but he also recorded in many other musical genres. He entered the pop market with the best-sellers "Georgia on My Mind" (1960) and "Hit the Road Jack" (1961). His album Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music (1962) sold more than a million copies, as did its single "I Can't Stop Loving You." Thereafter, his music emphasized jazz standards and renditions of pop and show tunes. From 1955, Charles toured extensively in the United States and elsewhere with his own big band nd in gospel-style female backup quartet called the Raeletts. He also appeared on television and worked in films such as Ballad in Blue (1964) and The Blues Brothers (1980) as a featured act and sound track composer. He formed his own custom recording labels, Tangerine in 1962 and Crossover Records in 1973. The recipient of many national and international awards, he received 13 Grammy Awards, including a lifetime achievement award in 1987. In 1986, Charles was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and received a Kennedy Center Honor. He published an autobiography, Brother Ray, Ray Charles' Own Story (1978), written with David Ritz.
In 2003, Charles had successful hip replacement surgery and was planning to go back on tour, until he began suffering from other ailments. On June 10, 2004, as a result of acute liver disease, Charles died at his home in Los Angeles, California, surrounded by family and friends. He was 73 years old. His funeral took place on June 18, 2004, at the First AME Church in Los Angeles, with musical peers such as Little Richard in attendance. B. B. King, Glen Campbell, Stevie Wonder and Wynton Marsalis each played a tribute at Charles' funeral. Charles was interred in the Inglewood Park Cemetery.
Ray Charles Robinson was sometimes referred to as "The Genius". He pioneered the genre of soul music during the 1950s by combining rhythm and blues, gospel, and blues styles into the music he recorded for Atlantic Records. He also contributed to the racial integration of country and pop music during the 1960s with his crossover success on ABC Records, most notably with his two Modern Sounds albums. While he was with ABC, Charles became one of the first African-American musicians to be granted artistic control by a mainstream record company.
Charles was blind from the age of seven. Charles cited Nat King Cole as a primary influence, but his music was also influenced by jazz, blues, rhythm and blues, and country artists of the day, including Art Tatum, Louis Jordan, Charles Brown and Louis Armstrong. Charles' playing reflected influences from country blues, barrelhouse and stride piano styles. His best friend in music was South Carolina-born James Brown, the "Godfather of Soul".
Frank Sinatra called him "the only true genius in show business", although Charles downplayed this notion. In 2004, Rolling Stone ranked Charles at number ten on their list of the "100 Greatest Artists of All Time", and number two on their November 2008 list of the "100 Greatest Singers of All Time".
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See also Appendix 44: Ray Charles, The Genius, The Legend, The Icon
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*Irene Reid, an American jazz singer, was born in Savannah, Georgia.
Irene Reid (b. September 23, 1930, Savannah, Georgia – d. January 5, 2008, Bronx, New York), American jazz singer was born and raised in Savannah, Georgia. She sang in church and in high school in Georgia, and moved to New York City in 1947 after her mother died.
Toward the end of 1947, she tried out for an amateur contest at the Apollo Theater in Harlem, and won the competition for five straight weeks. Soon after she was offered a slot as the featured vocalist with Dick Vance at the Savoy Ballroom, which she held from 1948 to 1950.
In 1961–62, Reid sang with Count Basie's Count orchestra, and recorded for Verve Records. Her debut for Verve, Room for One More (1965), arranged and conducted by Oliver Nelson and engineered by Rudy Van Gelder.
Reid later performed in a Broadw.ay production of the musical The Wiz. where she briefly joined the cast as the wicked witch Evillene, the role originated by Mabel King. Additionally, she sang with Carmen, Sarah Vaughan, Aretha Franklin, and B. B. King. Reid receded from fame in the 1970s and 1980s, but launched a comeback near the end of that decade. She appeared at the Savannah Jazz Festival in 1991, 1994, and 1996.
In 1997, after two decades spent largely under the show-business radar, Ms. Reid began recording for the small Savant label with the organist Charles Earland. Her album “Million Dollar Secret” was the first of six she released as a leader in her last years — more than she had in her entire career up to that time. She also worked frequently at Smoke, the Lenox Lounge and other New York nightclubs until a few years before her death, when health problems forced her to stop performing.
She died on January 5, 2008, from a cardiac arrest, in the Bronx, New York, at the age of 77.
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September 24
*Cardiss Robertson Collins was born in St. Louis, Missouri. In 1973, she would be elected to the United States House of Representatives.
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September 29
*National Guardsmen in Huntsville, Alabama, attacked a crowd around the Madison County jail with tear gas bombs. The mob was trying to storm the jail where an African-American man was being held in connection with the murder of a businessman.
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September 30
*Students at the University of Havana held a demonstration against president Gerardo Machado. Police blocked the streets and during the ensuing clashes, a student leader by the name of Rafael Trejo was killed. Trejo was later held up to be a martyr and a hero in Cuban history.
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*Marcel Antoine Lihau, a Congolese politician and law professor who served as the President of the Supreme Court of Justice of the Congo and was involved in the creation of two functional constitutions for the Democratic Republic of the Congo, was born in Lisala, Equateur Province, Belgian Congo.
Cardiss Hortense Collins, (née Robertson) (b. September 24, 1931, St. Louis, Missouri – d. February 3, 2013, Alexandria, 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.
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*Jessie Carney Smith, a librarian and educator known for her research guides on African American history, was born in Greensboro, North Carolina.
Jessie Carney Smith (b. September 24, 1930, Greensboro, North Carolina) was an American librarian and educator, formerly Dean of the Fisk University Library and the Camille Cosby Distinguished Chair in the Humanities. She was the first African American to earn a doctorate degree in library science from the University of Illinois. She is also a scholar and author of research guides and reference books focusing on notable African American people.
Jessie Carney Smith was born on September 24, 1930, in Greensboro, North Carolina, to James Ampler and Vesona Bigelow Carney. Smith attended James B. Dudley High School in Greensboro.\ She graduated from North Caroliona A&T State University with her Bachelor of Science degree in home economics in 1950. Smith received her Master of Arts degree in child development from Michigan State University in 1956, and her Master of Arts in Library Sciences (M.A.L.S.) degree from the George Peabody College of Vanderbilt University. She served as consultant to the United States Office for Civil Rights, the United States Office of Education, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools. She was awarded Fisk University's Camille Cosby Distinguished Chair in the Humanities in 1992.
Smith published numerous research guides and reference books, specifically exploring the gaps in scholarship around African-Americans. She published three separate volumes of Notable Black American Women (in 1991, 1996, and 2003) and two separate volumes of Notable Black American Men (in 1999 and 2006). Her other books include Black Heroes of the Twentieth Century, Freedom Facts and Firsts: 400 Years of the African American Civil Rights Experience, and Black Firsts: 4000 Groundbreaking and Pioneering Historical Events, among others.
Smith is best known for her work as an African-American studies scholar and has received a number of awards for her work in libraries and as an author. She was awarded the Martin Luther King Black Authors Award in 1982 and the Women's Book Association Award in 1992. She received the Candace Award for excellence in education in 1992, and distinguished alumni awards from both the Peabody College of Vanderbilt University and the University of Illinois. Smith was named the Academic/Research Librarian of the Year from the Association of College and Research Libraries in 1985, and in 1997 Smith received the key to the city of Oak Ridge, Tennessee. In 2020, upon her retirement, Smith was granted the title of Librarian Emerita by Fisk University.
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*National Guardsmen in Huntsville, Alabama, attacked a crowd around the Madison County jail with tear gas bombs. The mob was trying to storm the jail where an African-American man was being held in connection with the murder of a businessman.
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September 30
*Students at the University of Havana held a demonstration against president Gerardo Machado. Police blocked the streets and during the ensuing clashes, a student leader by the name of Rafael Trejo was killed. Trejo was later held up to be a martyr and a hero in Cuban history.
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*Marcel Antoine Lihau, a Congolese politician and law professor who served as the President of the Supreme Court of Justice of the Congo and was involved in the creation of two functional constitutions for the Democratic Republic of the Congo, was born in Lisala, Equateur Province, Belgian Congo.
Marcel Antoine Lihau or Ebua Libana la Molengo Lihau (b. September 29, 1930, Lisala, Equateur Province, Belgian Congo – d. April 9, 1999, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States) was the eldest of eight children. Circumventing regular colonial restrictions on education of Congolese, sociologist Willy De Craemer actively prepared Lihau for the Jury Central exam for admission to the Universite catholique de Louvain. For tutoring Lihau in Latin, Greek, and Flemish, De Craemer was blacklisted by the Governor General of the Congo. Regardless, Lihau passed the exam with an exceptionally high score and was enrolled in the university to study Roman philology. In reality, he took courses related to law (then not offered to Congolese students) with the help of De Craemer and Jesuit educators. For the duration of his studies he stayed with the family of Karel Theunissen, the former director of Leopoldville Radio. Lihau served as president of the small Congolese-Ruanda-Urundi student association in Belgium.
In 1958, a conference of Belgian missionaries was held to discuss expansion of tertiary education in the Congo. Lihau was invited to give a speech in which he encouraged Belgian clergy to join the side of Congolese activists and abandon the attitude of "clerical paternalism". In 1962, restrictions on Congolese education were loosened and Lihau became a PhD law student. By January 1963 he had earned his degree with distinction, being the very first Congolese to study law in Belgium.
Lihau married Sophie Kanza on December 26, 1964. They had six daughters: Elisabeth, Anne, Irene, Catherine, Rachel and Sophie. Due to his political activities and flight from persecution they spent most of their later lives separated.
Marcel Lihau died on April 9, 1999, seven days after the death of his wife. He was buried in Gombe, Kinshasa.
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