This Week In Black History October 2 – 8, 2024

CARL STOKES

OCTOBER 2

1800—Nat Turner is born on this day in South Hampton, Va. The spiritually inspired Turner would organize and carry out one of the deadliest slave revolts in Ameri­can history. His rebellion led to the deaths of 57 Whites including men, women and children.

1937—Famed attorney John­nie Cochran is born on this day in Shreveport, La. He was the lead-at­torney in the 1995 murder trial which resulted in the not guilty verdict for football legend O.J. Simpson. In ad­dition to Simpson, Cochran was in­volved in several other high profile cases. He died on March 29, 2005 at the age of 67.

1967—Thurgood Marshall is sworn in as the first Black justice on the United States Supreme Court. President Lyndon Johnson had nominated him in part because of his distinguished career in the NAACP fighting to desegregate American institutions. Marshall had been the lead attorney in the histor­ic Brown v. Board of Education case which led to the desegregation of the nation’s schools.

1986—The U.S. Senate imposes economic sanctions on the then White minority government in South Africa. The sanctions were imposed only after the Senate over­rode a veto of the measure by Pres­ident Ronald Reagan. Reagan had angered Blacks and progressive Whites by favoring a policy he re­ferred to as “constructive engage­ment” with the racist South African regime. Black majority rule was not achieved in South Africa until 1994.

• OCTOBER 3

1856—Journalist and fiery advo­cate for Black rights T. Thomas For­tune is born in Marianna, Jackson County, Fla. He was an orator, jour­nalist and militant civil rights advo­cate. He attended school at Howard University in Washington, D.C., but later moved to New York City where he founded the New York Age news­paper. Fortune died in Philadelphia at the age of 71 in 1928.

 

ADAM CLAYTON POWELL SR.

1935—The then-independent East African nation of Ethiopia is invad­ed by fascist Italy in an attempt to join other European nations which had used military force to estab­lish colonies in Africa and exploit its economic resources. Blacks throughout the world rallied to Ethi­opia’s defense, in part, because the nation was viewed by many as the place on Earth where human life began. The U.S. effort was led by prominent Harlem, N.Y., minister Adam Clayton Powell Sr.

1949—One of the first Black-owned radio stations in America begins broadcasting in Atlanta, Ga. The principal organizing force be­hind WERD was businessman J.B. Blayton.

1995—Former professional foot­ball great O.J. Simpson is found not guilty of the murders of his ex-wife Nicole and her friend Ron­ald Goldman. The trial had been a national sensation. The verdict an­gered a majority of Whites. Polls showed that better than 80 percent of Whites surveyed felt Simpson got away with murder.

• OCTOBER 4

1864—What was to become the nation’s first Black daily newspa­per began publishing on this day in New Orleans, La. Amazingly, the New Orleans Tribune began distri­bution while slavery still existed. It was founded by Dr. Louis C. Reu­danez. It began as a tri-weekly but soon became a daily published in both French and English.

 

CHARLES EVERS

1969—Howard Lee and Charles Evers became the first Black may­ors of Chapel Hill, N.C., and Fay­ette, Miss., respectively. Evers was the brother of civil rights legend Medgar Evers who was murdered by Ku Klux Klan member Byron De La Beckwith on June 12, 1963.

1988—The Martin Luther King Jr. federal building is dedicated in At­lanta, Ga. It thus became the first federal building to bear the name of the slain civil rights leader.

• OCTOBER 5

1867—The first Black mayor of any American city takes office. His name was Monroe Baker. The prominent businessman was appointed mayor of St. Martin, La., two years after the end of slavery.

• OCTOBER 6

1847—The first National Black Convention takes place in Troy, N.Y. There were more than 100 del­egates in attendance from at least nine states. Top items on the agen­da included determining ways to help end slavery and encouraging free Blacks to refuse to purchase products produced by slave la­bor. Frederick Douglass frequently makes note of the convention be­cause one of its aims was to orga­nize independent Black power and “not depend on Whites and hope” to free Blacks.

1871—The now world famous Fisk Jubilee Singers begin their first na­tional tour. The tours helped raise funds for Nashville, Tenn.’s, pre­dominately Black Fisk University as well as give the school an inter­national reputation.

1917—Activist Fannie Lou Ham­er is born in Montgomery County, Miss. She goes on to become one of the major female figures in the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. Nevertheless, she remains one of the movement’s most effective un­sung heroes. As to why she became involved in the movement for Black freedom, dignity and political rights, she would often say in reference to injustice, “I’m sick and tired of be­ing sick and tired.”

1971—The first legal interracial marriage takes place in North Car­olina. A Black man, John Wilkinson, marries a White woman, Lorraine Mary Turner. The marriage came a few years after the 1967 U.S. Su­preme Court ruling in Loving v. Vir­ginia, that ruled legal barriers to interracial marriage, which existed in most Southern states, were un­constitutional.

• OCTOBER 7

1821—One of the most prominent Blacks in the Underground Railroad, William Still, is born near Bedford, Mass. The “Underground Railroad” was the name given to a series of secret trails and safe houses used to help Blacks escape from slav­ery in the South to freedom in the North.

1897—The founder of the Nation of Islam Elijah Muhammad is born Elijah Poole in Sandersville, Ga., as one of 13 children. Muhammad would build his religious sect into the largest independent Black sep­aratist organization in America. The group is currently headed by Min. Louis Farrakhan. Muhammad died in February 1975.

1934—Activist, writer and poet Imamu Baraka is born Everett Le­Roi Jones in Newark, N.J. Baraka was one of the leading intellectu­al figures in the Black Power and Black Nationalist movements of the 1960s and early 1970s.

1967—Carl Stokes is elected the first Black mayor of a major Amer­ican city—Cleveland, Ohio. Inter­estingly, he won by defeating Seth Taft—the grandson of a former Unit­ed States president—Howard Taft.

1993—Writer Toni Morrison is awarded the Nobel Prize in Litera­ture.

• OCTOBER 8

1775—Slaves and free Blacks are officially barred by the Council of Officers from joining the Conti­nental army to help fight for Amer­ican independence from England. Nevertheless, a significant number of Blacks had already become in­volved in the fight and would dis­tinguish themselves in battle. Ad­ditional Blacks were barred out of fear, especially in the South, that they would demand freedom for themselves if White America be­came free from Britain.

1941—National Black political leader and two-time candidate for president of the United States Rev. Jesse Jackson was born on this day in Greenville, S.C. After the 1968 assassination of Civil Rights Move­ment icon Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Jackson, who was one of his top aides, would become the nation’s most prominent and influential civil rights leader.