* Today in Black History - February 4 *
1794 - Slavery is abolished by France. France will have a very lukewarm
commitment to abolition and will, under Napoleon, reestablish
slavery in 1802, along with the reinstitution of the "Code
Noir," prohibiting blacks, mulattos and other people of color
from entering French colonial territory or intermarrying with
whites.
1822 - The American Colonization Society founds the African colony for
free African Americans that will become the country of Liberia,
West Africa.
1898 - Harry Haywood is born in South Omaha, Nebraska. After relocating
to Minneapolis, Minnesota with his family, he will join the U.S.
Army. He will serve with the 370th Infantry in France during
World War I. Returning to Chicago, Illinois after the war, he
will be active as a Black Nationalist, becoming a member of the
African Blood Brotherhood and the Communist Party of the USA.
He will be a leading proponent of Black Nationalism, self-
determination, and the idea that American Blacks are a colonized
people who should organize themselves into a nation. From 1926 to
1930, he will study in the Soviet Union, where he will meet
several anti-colonial revolutionaries, including Vietnam's Ho Chi
Minh. On his return to the U.S. in 1931, he will be chosen to lead
the Communist Party's Negro Department, and in 1934 will be was
elected a member of its politburo. The Spanish Civil War will take
him to Spain in 1937, where he will fight in a volunteer Communist
brigade against General Francisco Franco's fascist regime. During
World War II, his belief in black self-determination and
territorial autonomy will put him at odds with Communist Party
policy, which had gravitated away from support for a Black nation
in the American south. His agitation on "The Negro Question" led to
his expulsion from the Party in 1959. He will remain in Chicago,
supporting Black Nationalist movements such as the Nation of Islam.
He will join the ancestors in 1985.
1913 - Rosa Parks is born in Tuskegee, Alabama. When the seamstress
and NAACP member refuses to yield her seat to a white man on
a Montgomery, Alabama bus in 1955, her actions will spark a
382-day boycott of the buses in Montgomery, halting business
and services in the city and become the initial act of non-
violent disobedience of the American Civil Rights movement.
She will be honored with the NAACP's Spingarn Medal for her
heroism and later work with Detroit youth(1979) and be called
the "Mother of the Civil Rights Movement."
1926 - John Hearne is born in Montreal, Quebec, Canada to Jamaican
parents. He will move with his parents back to Jamaica at the
age of two. He will join the Royal Air Force during World War
II, primarily to leave the island and will serve as a gunner.
After the war, he will attend Edinburgh University in Scotland
and graduate with a Masters' degree in history in 1950. He will
become a novelist and playwright, publishing five novels between
1955 and 1961. He will publish several plays during the 1960's
and 1970's. He will teach at the University of the West Indies
in Kingston, Jamaica from 1962 to 1992 and will publish his
sixth novel in 1981.
1947 - Sanford Bishop is born in Mobile, Alabama. He will graduate from
Morehouse College and Emory University Law School. He will
specialize in civil rights law and will become a member of the
Georgia Legislature from 1977 to 1993 (House and Senate). In
1993, he will be elected a member of the United States House of
Representatives from Georgia.
1952 - Jackie Robinson is named Director of Communication for WNBC in
New York City, becoming the first African American executive
of a major radio-TV network.
1965 - Joseph Danquah joins the ancestors in Nsawam Prison in Ghana at
the age of 69. He had been a Ghanaian scholar, lawyer and
nationalist. He had led the opposition against Kwame Nkrumah
who had him imprisoned.
1969 - The Popular Liberation Movement Of Angola begins an armed
struggle against Portugal.
1971 - The National Guard is mobilized to quell rioting in Wilmington,
North Carolina. Two persons are killed.
1971 - Major League Baseball announces a special Hall of Fame wing for
special displays about the Negro Leagues. These exhibits will
provide information on these most deserving but rarely
recognized contributors to Baseball.
1974 - The Symbionese Liberation Army kidnaps nineteen-year-old
newspaper heiress Patricia Hearst from her apartment in
Berkeley, California.
1980 - Camara Laye joins the ancestors in Senegal at the age of 52. He
was a Guinean novelist considered a pioneer of West African
literature.
1986 - A stamp of Sojourner Truth is issued by the United States Postal
Service as part of its Black Heritage USA commemorative series.
Truth was an abolitionist, woman's rights activist and a famous
"conductor" on the Underground Railroad.
1996 - Congressman J.C. Watts (R-Oklahoma) becomes the first African
American selected to respond to a State of the Union address.
1997 - Sixteen months after O.J. Simpson was cleared of murder charges,
a civil trial jury blames him for the killings of his ex-wife
and her friend and orders him to pay millions in compensatory
damages.
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