People, Locations, Episodes

The Convention People’s Party is Formed

*The Convention People’s Party (C.P.P.) was formed on this date in 1949.  The C.P.P. is a socialist political party in Ghana based on the ideas of Ghana’s first President, Kwame Nkrumah. The Convention People’s Party is descended from a line of political movements formed in the early half of the 20th century to spearhead the anti-colonial […]

Bobby Hutton, Black Panther Activist born

*Bobby Hutton was born on this date in 1950.  He was also known as “Lil’ Bobby,” a Black activist.  Robert James Hutton was one of three children, born in Jefferson County, Arkansas, to John D. Hutton and Dolly Mae Mitchner-Hutton. When he was three years old, his family moved to Oakland, California, during the second […]

Gloria Wekker, Academic and Writer born

*Gloria Wekker was born on this date in 1950. She is an Afro Surinamese Dutch gender activist, emeritus professor, and writer. Gloria Daisy Wekker was born in Paramaribo, Suriname. Her family migrated to the Netherlands when she was a one-year-old infant and lived in a neighborhood in Amsterdam that had formerly been predominantly Jewish before WWI. […]

Drum, South African Magazine is Published

*The publication of DRUM is celebrated on this date in 1951. This is a South African (now) online family magazine. Drum is noted chiefly for its early 1950s and 1960s reportage of township life under apartheid. In 2005 it was described as “the first black lifestyle magazine in Africa” from July 2020, the magazine became an online […]

Sojourners For Truth And Justice are Organized

*On this date (International Women’s Day) in 1951, we celebrate Sojourners for Truth and Justice.  Sojourners for Truth and Justice was a radical protest organization formed by African American women from 1951 to 1952. It was led by activists such as Louise Thompson Patterson, Shirley Graham Du Bois, and Charlotta Bass.   That year, a group of 14 African American women […]

Marcus W. Chenault Jr., Murderer born

*Marcus Wayne Chenault Jr. was born on this date in 1951.  He was a Black college dropout and murderer. His parents were Marcus Chenault and Henda Lee (Arnold) Chenault, Dayton, Ohio. As a youth, he adopted the theology of the Black Hebrew Israelites. Chenault’s mentor, Rev. Hananiah E. Israel of Cincinnati, castigated black civil rights […]

Olive Morris, Activist, and Feminist born

*Olive Morris was born on this date in 1952.  She was a Black Jamaican, British-based community feminist, Black nationalist, and squatters’ rights activist.   Olive Elaine Morris was born in 1952 in Harewood, St Catherine, Jamaica, to Doris Lowena (née Moseley) and Vincent Nathaniel Morris.  As part of the Windrush Generation, the family emigrated to […]

Marsha Coleman-Adebayo, Environmentalist born

*Marsha Coleman-Adebayo was born on this date in 1952. She is a Black administrator and activist for environmental justice. From Detroit, MI., she went to Mumford High School. Coleman received her BA degree from Barnard College/Columbia University and her doctorate from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). She is a (former) senior policy analyst for the […]

Sabrina Sojourner, Activist born

*Sabrina Sojourner was born on this date in 1952.  She is a Black lesbian activist, former politician, and author.  From California, married when she was 18, and having a single son, Sojourner was subject to physical abuse by her former husband before they separated two years later.  She earned her Bachelor of Arts in Theatre […]

Cornel West, Scholar, and Educator born

Cornel West, an African American scholar and activist, was born on this date in 1953.

Born in Tulsa, OK, he is one of America’s most prominent Black intellectuals. West earned a BA from Harvard University and his MA and PhD degrees from Princeton University. His first book, Prophesy Deliverance! An Afro-American Revolutionary Christianity (1982), sought to fuse Christianity and Marxism. He taught religion and directed the Afro-American Studies Department at Princeton prior to joining the Harvard faculty in 1994. There, West is the Alphonse Fletcher Jr., University Professor.

The Federation of South African Women is Formed

*The Federation of South African Women (FEDSAW) was formed on this date in 1954. FEDSAW was a multi-racial women’s organization and lobby group that organized and protested the institutional Apartheid Regime that was present throughout South Africa. FEDSAW became part of the Congress Alliance, an anti-apartheid coalition led by the African National Congress (ANC). The organization is also most […]

Mumia Abu-Jamal, Activist, and Writer born

*Mumia Abu-Jamal was born on this date in 1954. He is an African American activist and writer.

The Japanese Black Studies Association is Founded

*The Japanese Black Studies Association (JBSA) began on this date in 1954. It is a society founded under the “Black Research Society.”   Nukina Yoshitaka, a scholar in American literature, was one of the group’s founders.   He wrote that he was motivated to create the Black Studies Association because he believed the Japanese under the […]

Ruby Bridges, Children’s Education Advocate born

Ruby Bridges was born on this date in 1954. She is an African American activist.

Bridges was born in a little cabin around Tylerton, Mississippi to a very poor family. Her father, Abon, and mother, Lucille, were determined to get their daughter an education and take a stand. Because of their forthright and courageous actions, her father was fired from his job, and her grandparents were forced to leave a farm where they had been sharecroppers for 25 years.

Ophelia Garmon-Brown, Physician, and Community Activist born

*Ophelia Garmon-Brown was born on this date in 1954. She was a doctor (family medicine specialist), minister, author, and community activist. Ophelia Garmon was a Detroit native moving to eastern North Carolina with her family. Her interest in medicine began when her father died from encephalitis. She earned a degree in biology from North Carolina Central […]