National Association of Black Journalists

The NABJ rolled out its red carpet on January 27, 2011 at Washington D.C.'s Newseum, inducting five legendary journalists into the 2011 Hall of Fame and presenting the Ida B. Wells Award Recipient.

NABJ Hall of Fame Inductees 

& Ida B. Wells Award Recipient 

Ed Bradley � CBS News �60 Minutes�

Before his passing in 2006, Bradley spent nearly his entire 39-year career with CBS News. At CBS, the man once described as "the coolest guy in the business� rose to the pinnacle of journalistic achievement.

Merri Dee � WGN-TV Chicago

Dee�s 30-year career in Chicago broadcasting and her charitable efforts on behalf of children and victims� rights make her a standout honoree.

JC Hayward � WUSA-TV Washington

Hayward, reporter and anchor of 39 years at Washington, D.C.'s WUSA-TV holds the national record for a woman anchoring the same evening newscast at the same station.

Eugene Robinson � The Washington Post

Robinson is a columnist and former assistant managing editor at The Washington Post who won the Pulitzer Prize for Commentary in 2009. He won for a selection of columns on the 2008 presidential campaign, and also serves as political analyst for MSNBC.

Ray Taliaferro � KGO Newstalk 810, San Francisco

Ray was the first black talk show host on a major market radio station in the country. Taliaferro has literally owned the Bay Area's overnight radio listening audience since 1986 when his talk show moved to the 1 to 5 a.m. time slot. 


IDA B. WELLS AWARD RECIPIENT: 

Walterene Swanston � National Public Radio (NPR)

The annual Ida B. Wells Award honor highlights the achievement of a media executive who has demonstrated a commitment to diversifying the nation's newsrooms and improving the coverage of people and communities of color. Walterene Swanston is the NABJ's 2011 Ida B. Wells Award Recipient. Swanston is a diversity consultant and a retired director of diversity management for National Public Radio. Swanston has a decades-long professional track record as a champion of media diversity. For more than 25 years, she has worked with newspapers, television and radio stations to recruit, promote, train and retain people of color and women.

Information source: Nabj.org

February's Black History Month in the United States

Photo: Black History Heroes Jack Johnson T-Shirt Design

As Black History Month in the United States gets underway, expect more frequent posts during the month of February. We will highlight the life and times of some of our favorite public heroes like Toussaint L'Ouverture, Marie Da Silva, Julius Kmbarage Nyerere and Sojourner Truth. Become a subscribers to the BHH blog and receive free notices of new blog posts during February. For teachers, use theses blogs for ideas to help you develop engaging Black history school projects and programs.

 

 

The blog recently underwent some major design changes to increase its readibility and navigational ease. Hope that you find the changes refreshing. Also, we have partnered with Zazzle.com to bring you quality Black History Heroes t-shirt designs. Check out the first BHH t-shirt design which features Jack Johnson. T-shirt designs are available in both men and women styles. Order one today! 

 

Happy Black History Month 2011!

 

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. - Atlanta Speech

The public address by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. repritned here was made to the Tenth Anniversary Convention of the S.C.L.C. in Atlanta, Georgia on August 16, 1967.

'Where Do We Go From Here'

Southern Christian Leadership Conference

DR. MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.
(born: January 15, 1929 � died: April 4, 1968)

N ow, in order to answer the question, "Where do we go from here?" which is our theme, we must first honestly recognize where we are now. When the Constitution was written, a strange formula to determine taxes and representation declared that the Negro was 60 percent of a person. Today another curious formula seems to declare he is 50 percent of a person. Of the good things in life, the Negro has approximately one half those of whites. Of the bad things of life, he has twice those of whites. Thus half of all Negroes live in substandard housing. And Negroes have half the income of whites. When we view the negative experiences of life, the Negro has a double share. There are twice as many unemployed. The rate of infant mortality among Negroes is double that of whites and there are twice as many Negroes dying in Vietnam as whites in proportion to their size in the population.

In other spheres, the figures are equally alarming. In elementary schools, Negroes lag one to three years behind whites, and their segregated schools receive substantially less money per student than the white schools. One twentieth as many Negroes as whites attend college. Of employed Negroes, 75 percent hold menial jobs.

This is where we are. Where do we go from here? First, we must massively assert our dignity and worth. We must stand up amidst a system that still oppresses us and develop an unassailable and majestic sense of values. We must no longer be ashamed of being black. The job of arousing manhood within a people that have been taught for so many centuries that they are nobody is not easy.

DEPICTION OF BLACKNESS AND NEGRO CONTRIBUTIONS

Photo of Martn Luther King, Jr.

Even semantics have conspired to make that which is black seem ugly and degrading. In Roget's Thesaurus there are 120 synonyms for blackness and at least 60 of them are offensive, as for example, blot, soot, grim, devil and foul. And there are some 134 synonyms for whiteness and all are favorable, expressed in such words as purity, cleanliness, chastity and innocence. A white lie is better than a black lie. The most degenerate member of a family is a "black sheep." Ossie Davis has suggested that maybe the English language should be reconstructed so that teachers will not be forced to teach the Negro child 60 ways to despise himself, and thereby perpetuate his false sense of inferiority, and the white child 134 ways to adore himself, and thereby perpetuate his false sense of superiority.

The tendency to ignore the Negro's contribution to American life and to strip him of his personhood, is as old as the earliest history books and as contemporary as the morning's newspaper. To upset this cultural homicide, the Negro must rise up with an affirmation of his own Olympian manhood. Any movement for the Negro's freedom that overlooks this necessity is only waiting to be buried. As long as the mind is enslaved, the body can never be free. Psychological freedom, a firm sense of self-esteem, is the most powerful weapon against the long night of physical slavery. No Lincolnian Emancipation Proclamation or Johnsonian Civil Rights Bill can totally bring this kind of freedom. The Negro will only be free when he reaches down to the inner depths of his own being and signs with the pen and ink of assertive manhood his own Emancipation Proclamation. And, with a spirit straining toward true self-esteem, the Negro must boldly throw off the manacles of self-abnegation and say to himself and to the world, "I am somebody. I am a person. I am a man with dignity and honor. I have a rich and noble history. How painful and exploited that history has been. Yes, I was a slave through my foreparents and I am not ashamed of that. I'm ashamed of the people who were so sinful to make me a slave." Yes, we must stand up and say, "I'm black and I'm beautiful," and this self-affirmation is the black man's need, made compelling by the white man's crimes against him.

BASIC CHALLENGES

Another basic challenge is to discover how to organize our strength in terms of economic and political power. No one can deny that the Negro is in dire need of this kind of legitimate power. Indeed, one of the great problems that the Negro confronts is his lack of power. From old plantations of the South to newer ghettos of the North, the Negro has been confined to a life of voicelessness and powerlessness. Stripped of the right to make decisions concerning his life and destiny he has been subject to the authoritarian and sometimes whimsical decisions of this white power structure. The plantation and ghetto were created by those who had power, both to confine those who had no power and to perpetuate their powerlessness. The problem of transforming the ghetto, therefore, is a problem of power--confrontation of the forces of power demanding change and the forces of power dedicated to the preserving of the status quo. Now power properly understood is nothing but the ability to achieve purpose. It is the strength required to bring about social, political and economic change. Walter Reuther defined power one day. He said, "Power is the ability of a labor union like the U.A.W. to make the most powerful corporation in the world, General Motors, say 'Yes' when it wants to say 'No.' That's power."

Now a lot of us are preachers, and all of us have our moral convictions and concerns, and so often have problems with power. There is nothing wrong with power if power is used correctly. You see, what happened is that some of our philosophers got off base. And one of the great problems of history is that the concepts of love and power have usually been contrasted as opposites - polar opposites, so that love is identified with a resignation of power, and power with a denial of love.

It was this misinterpretation that caused Nietzsche, who was a philosopher of the will to power, to reject the Christian concept of love. It was this same misinterpretation which induced Christian theologians to reject the Nietzschean philosophy of the will to power in the name of the Christian idea of love. Now, we've got to get this thing right. What is needed is a realization that power without love is reckless and abusive, and love without power is sentimental and anemic. Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice, and justice at its best is power correcting everything that stands against love. And this is what we must see as we move on. What has happened is that we have had it wrong and confused in our own country, and this has led Negro Americans in the past to seek their goals through power devoid of love and conscience.

This is leading a few extremists today to advocate for Negroes the same destructive and conscienceless power that they have justly abhorred in whites. It is precisely this collision of immoral power with powerless morality which constitutes the major crisis of our times.

DEVELOPING A PROGRAM?

We must develop a program that will drive the nation to a guaranteed annual income. Now, early in this century this proposal would have been greeted with ridicule and denunciation, as destructive of initiative and responsibility. At that time economic status was considered the measure of the individual's ability and talents. And, in the thinking of that day, the absence of worldly goods indicated a want of industrious habits and moral fiber. We've come a long way in our understanding of human motivation and of the blind operation of our economic system. Now we realize that dislocations in the market operations of our economy and the prevalence of discrimination thrust people into idleness and bind them in constant or frequent unemployment against their will. Today the poor are less often dismissed, I hope, from our consciences by being branded as inferior or incompetent. We also know that no matter how dynamically the economy develops and expands, it does not eliminate all poverty.

The problem indicates that our emphasis must be twofold. We must create full employment or we must create incomes. People must be made consumers by one method or the other. Once they are placed in this position we need to be concerned that the potential of the individual is not wasted. New forms of work that enhance the social good will have to be devised for those for whom traditional jobs are not available. In I879 Henry George anticipated this state of affairs when he wrote in Progress and Poverty:

"The fact is that the work which improves the condition of mankind, the work which extends knowledge and increases power and enriches literature and elevates thought, is not done to secure a living. It is not the work of slaves driven to their tasks either by the task, by the taskmaster, or by animal necessity. It is the work of men who somehow find a form of work that brings a security for its own sake and a state of society where want is abolished."

Work of this sort could be enormously increased, and we are likely to find that the problems of housing and education, instead of preceding the elimination of poverty, will themselves be affected if poverty is first abolished. The poor transformed into purchasers will do a great deal on their own to alter housing decay. Negroes who have a double disability will have a greater effect on discrimination when they have the additional weapon of cash to use in their struggle.

Beyond these advantages, a host of positive psychological changes inevitably will result from widespread economic security. The dignity of the individual will flourish when the decisions concerning his life are in his own hands, when he has the means to seek self-improvement. Personal conflicts among husbands, wives and children will diminish when the unjust measurement of human worth on the scale of dollars is eliminated.

Now our country can do this. John Kenneth Galbraith said that a guaranteed annual income could be done for about twenty billion dollars a year. And I say to you today, that if our nation can spend thirty-five billion dollars a year to fight an unjust, evil war in Vietnam, and twenty billion dollars to put a man on the moon, it can spend billions of dollars to put God's children on their own two feet right here on earth.

COMMITMENT TO NONVIOLENCE? 

Now, let me say briefly that we must reaffirm our commitment to nonviolence. I want to stress this. The futility of violence in the struggle for racial justice has been tragically etched in all the recent Negro riots. Yesterday, I tried to analyze the riots and deal with their causes. Today I want to give the other side. There is certainly something painfully sad about a riot. One sees screaming youngsters and angry adults fighting hopelessly and aimlessly against impossible odds. And deep down within them, you can even see a desire for self-destruction, a kind of suicidal longing.

Occasionally Negroes contend that the 1965 Watts riot and the other riots in various cities represented effective civil rights action. But those who express this view always end up with stumbling words when asked what concrete gains have been won as a result. At best, the riots have produced a little additional antipoverty money allotted by frightened government officials, and a few water-sprinklers to cool the children of the ghettos. It is something like improving the food in the prison while the people remain securely incarcerated behind bars. Nowhere have the riots won any concrete improvement such as have the organized protest demonstrations. When one tries to pin down advocates of violence as to what acts would be effective, the answers are blatantly illogical. Sometimes they talk of overthrowing racist state and local governments and they talk about guerrilla warfare. They fail to see that no internal revolution has ever succeeded in overthrowing a government by violence unless the government had already lost the allegiance and effective control of its armed forces. Anyone in his right mind knows that this will not happen in the United States. In a violent racial situation, the power structure has the local police, the state troopers, the National Guard and, finally, the Army to call on all of which are predominantly white. Furthermore, few if any violent revolutions have been successful unless the violent minority had the sympathy and support of the nonresistant majority. Castro may have had only a few Cubans actually fighting with him up in the hills, but he could never have overthrown the Batista regime unless he had the sympathy of the vast majority of Cuban people.

It is perfectly clear that a violent revolution on the part of American blacks would find no sympathy and support from the white population and very little from the majority of the Negroes themselves. This is no time for romantic illusions and empty philosophical debates about freedom. This is a time for action. What is needed is a strategy for change, a tactical program that will bring the Negro into the mainstream of American life as quickly as possible. So far, this has only been offered by the nonviolent movement. Without recognizing this we will end up with solutions that don't solve, answers that don't answer and explanations that don't explain.

And so I say to you today that I still stand by nonviolence. And I am still convinced that it is the most potent weapon available to the Negro in his struggle for justice in this country. And the other thing is that I am concerned about a better world. I'm concerned about justice. I'm concerned about brotherhood. I'm concerned about truth. And when one is concerned about these, he can never advocate violence. For through violence you may murder a murderer but you can't murder. Through violence you may murder a liar but you can't establish truth. Through violence you may murder a hater, but you can't murder hate. Darkness cannot put out darkness. Only light can do that.

And I say to you, I have also decided to stick to love. For I know that love is ultimately the only answer to mankind's problems. And I'm going to talk about it everywhere I go. I know it isn't popular to talk about it in some circles today. I'm not talking about emotional bosh when I talk about love, I'm talking about a strong, demanding love. And I have seen too much hate. I've seen too much hate on the faces of sheriffs in the South. I've seen hate on the faces of too many Klansmen and too many White Citizens Councilors in the South to want to hate myself, because every time I see it, I know that it does something to their faces and their personalities and I say to myself that hate is too great a burden to bear. I have decided to love. If you are seeking the highest good, I think you can find it through love. And the beautiful thing is that we are moving against wrong when we do it, because John was right, God is love. He who hates does not know God, but he who has love has the key that unlocks the door to the meaning of ultimate reality.

I want to say to you as I move to my conclusion, as we talk about "Where do we go from here," that we honestly face the fact that the Movement must address itself to the question of restructuring the whole of American society. There are forty million poor people here. And one day we must ask the question, "Why are there forty million poor people in America?" And when you begin to ask that question, you are raising questions about the economic system, about a broader distribution of wealth. When you ask that question, you begin to question the capitalistic economy. And I'm simply saying that more and more, we've got to begin to ask questions about the whole society. We are called upon to help the discouraged beggars in life's market place. But one day we must come to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring. It means that questions must be raised. You see, my friends, when you deal with this, you begin to ask the question, "Who owns the oil?" You begin to ask the question, "Who owns the iron ore?" You begin to ask the question, "Why is it that people have to pay water bills in a world that is two thirds water?" These are questions that must be asked.

ABOUT COMMUNISM

Now, don't think that you have me in a "bind" today. I'm not talking about Communism.

What I'm saying to you this morning is that Communism forgets that life is individual. Capitalism forgets that life is social, and the Kingdom of Brotherhood is found neither in the thesis of Communism nor the antithesis of capitalism but in a higher synthesis. It is found in a higher synthesis that combines the truths of both. Now, when I say question the whole society, it means ultimately coming to see that the problem of racism, the problem of economic exploitation, and the problem of war are all tied together. These are the triple evils that are interrelated.

If you will let me be a preacher just a little bit - One night, a juror came to Jesus and he wanted to know what he could do to be saved. Jesus didn't get bogged down in the kind of isolated approach of what he shouldn't do. Jesus didn't say, "Now Nicodemus, you must stop lying." HE didn't say, "Nicodemus, you must stop cheating if you are doing that." He didn't say, "Nicodemus, you must not commit adultery." He didn't say, "Nicodemus, now you must stop drinking liquor if you are doing that excessively." He said something altogether different, because Jesus realized something basic - that if a man will lie, he will steal. And if a man will steal, he will kill. So instead of just getting bogged down in one thing, Jesus looked at him and said, "Nicodemus, you must be born again."

He said, in other words, "Your whole structure must be changed." A nation that will keep people in slavery for 244 years will "thingify" them - make them things. Therefore they will exploit them, and poor people generally, economically. And a nation that will exploit economically will have to have foreign investments and everything else, and will have to use its military might to protect them. All of these problems are tied together. What I am saying today is that we must go from this convention and say, "America, you must be born again!"

CONCLUSION

So, I conclude by saying again today that we have a task and let us go out with a "divine dissatisfaction." Let us be dissatisfied until America will no longer have a high blood pressure of creeds and an anemia of deeds. Let us be dissatisfied until the tragic walls that separate the outer city of wealth and comfort and the inner city of poverty and despair shall be crushed by the battering rams of the forces of justice. [,et us be dissatisfied until those that live on the outskirts of hope are brought into the metropolis of daily security. Let us be dissatisfied until slums are cast into the junk heaps of history, and every family is living in a decent sanitary home. Let us be dissatisfied until the dark yesterdays of segregated schools will be transformed into bright tomorrows of quality, integrated education. Let us be dissatisfied until integration is not seen as a problem but as an opportunity to participate in the beauty of diversity. Let us be dissatisfied until men and women, however black they may be, will be judged on the basis of the content of their character and not on the basis of the color of their skin. Let us be dissatisfied. Let us be dissatisfied until every state capitol houses a governor who will do justly, who will love mercy and who will walk humbly with his God. Let us be dissatisfied until from every city hall, justice will roll down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream. Let us be dissatisfied until that day when the lion and the lamb shall lie down together. and every man will sit under his own vine and fig tree and none shall be afraid. Let us be dissatisfied. And men will recognize that out of one blood God made all men to dwell upon the face of the earth. Let us be dissatisfied until that day when nobody will shout "White Power!" - when nobody will shout "Black Power!" - but everybody will talk about God's power and human power.

I must confess, my friends, the road ahead will not always be smooth. There will still be rocky places of frustration and meandering points of bewilderment. There will be inevitable setbacks here and there. There will be those moments when the buoyancy of hope will be transformed into the fatigue of despair. Our dreams will sometimes be shattered and our ethereal hopes blasted. We may again with tear-drenched eyes have to stand before the bier of some courageous civil-rights worker whose life will be snuffed out by the dastardly acts of bloodthirsty mobs. Difficult and painful as it is, we must walk on in the days ahead with an audacious faith in the future. And as we continue our charted course, we may gain consolation in the words so nobly left by that great black bard who was also a great freedom fighter of yesterday, James Weldon Johnson:

Stony the road we trod,
Bitter the chastening rod
Felt in the days
When hope unborn had died.
Yet with a steady beat,
Have not our weary feet
Come to the place
For which our fathers sighed?
We have come over the way
That with tears hath been watered.
We have come treading our paths
Through the blood of the slaughtered,
Out from the gloomy past,
Till now we stand at last
Where the bright gleam
Of our bright star is cast.

Let this affirmation be our ringing cry. It will give us the courage to face the uncertainties of the future. It will give our tired feet new strength as we continue our forward stride toward the city of freedom. When our days become dreary with low hovering clouds of despair, and when our nights become darker than a thousand midnights, let us remember that there is a creative force in this universe, working to pull down the gigantic mountains of evil, a power that is able to make a way out of no way and transform dark yesterdays into bright tomorrows. Let us realize the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice.

Let us realize that William Cullen Bryant is right: "Truth crushed to earth will rise again." Let us go out realizing that the Bible is right: "Be not deceived, God is not mocked. Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." This is our hope for the future, and with this faith we will be able to sing in some not too distant tomorrow with a cosmic past tense, "We have overcome, we have overcome, deep in my heart, I did believe we would overcome."

World Music: African Soul Compilation

African Soul Compilation
including music of Wanda Gimbya-Bobotie of Namibia


















Further references:

Black Music of Two Worlds: African, Caribbean, Latin, and African-American Traditions

World Music: African

Black Women in Europe: Power List 2010

Courtesy of Adrianne George, Integrated Marketing Communications Consultant at AG Communications Group (Stockholm, Sweden)

Black Women in Europe: Power List 2010

View more presentations from Adrianne George.

Annie Turnbo Malone: A Black Philanthropist and Entrepreneur

Photo of Annie Turnbo Malone (1869-1957)

Before Oprah Winfrey and Madame C.J. Walker there was Annie Turnbo Malone (aka Annie Minerva Turnbo Pope Malone and Annie Minerva Turnbo Malone), an African American entrepreneur and philanthropist during the early 20th century. Malone is reportedly the U.S.'s first black millionaire based on reports of $14 million in assets held in 1920 from her beauty and cosmetic enterprises.

Early Life of Annie Turnbo

On August 9, 1869, Robert Turnbo and Isabella Cook became parents to Annie in Metropolis, Illinois. Annie attended school in Illinois where she apprentenced with her sister as a hairdresser. By 1889, Malone had developed her own scalp and hair products that she demonstrated and sold from a buggy throughout Illinois.

Launches the "Poro" Brand in St. Louis, MO

Image of Poro College, St. Louis

By 1902, Malone's business growth led her to St. Louis, Missouri, which at the time held the fourth largest population of African Americans. In St. Louis she copyrighted her Poro brand beauty products. In 1914, in a St. Louis wedding, Malone married the school principal Aaron Eugene Malon.

Photo of Poro College Administrative Building

By 1917, Malone opened the doors of Poro College, a beauty college which was later attended by Madam C.J. Walker. The school reportedly graduated about 75,000 agents world-wide, including the Caribbean. By 1930, the first full year of the Great Depression, Malone had moved from Missouri after divorcing her second husband and settled on Chicago's South Side.

The Black Philanthropist

From 1919 to 1943, Malone served as board president of the St. Louis Colored Orphan's Home.  She had donated the first $10,000 to build the orphanage's new building in 1919. During the 1920s, Malone's philanthropy included financing the education of two full-time students in every historically black college and university. Her $25,000 donation to Howard University was among the largest gifts the university had received by a private donor of African descent.

Photo of Annie Turnbo Malone

On May 10, 1957, Annie Turnbo Malone was treated for a stroke at Provident Hospital in Chicago where she died. At the time of her death Poro beauty colleges were in operation in more than thirty U.S. cities.

St. Louis honors her memory with the Annie Malone Children and Family Service Center whose mission is "is to improve the quality of life for children, families, elderly and the community by providing social services, educational programs, advocacy and entrepreneurship."

Further reference: Annie Malone Children and Family Service Center: www.anniemalone.com/about-us.html

Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela: First Black President of South Africa

Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela was the first black president of the 
Republic of South Africa, serving from 1994 to 1999

On July 18, 1918, Mandela was born along the Mbashe River in the village of Mvezo, in the Umtata district. AllAfrica.com and the BBC both report that Mandela was "born Rolihlahla Dalibhunga." Mandela explains in his 1994 autobiography, Long Walk to Freedom, that he was given the English name "Nelson" by his teacher Miss Mdingane on his first day at school, which he explains was a common practice within white South African institutions, where whites were unable or unwilling to pronounce African names.

In Long Walk to Freedom, Mandela writes that "[a]part from life, a strong constitution, and an abiding connection to the Thembu royal house, the only thing my father bestowed upon me at birth was a name, Rolihlahla. In Xhosa, Rolihlahla literally means 'pulling the branch of a tree,' but its colloquial meaning more accurately would be 'troublemaker.'"

Mandela's father, Gadla Henry Mphakanyiswa, was chief of Mvezo in the Transkeiean territories, and from the African indigenous Thembu royal family line. His mother was Nosekeni Fanny, the third of his father's four wives. Mandela was one of thirteen children and had three older brothers.

The Education of Nelson Mandela

In 1930, when Mandela was nine years old, his father died. He was adopted by the paramount chief Jongintaba Dalindyebo. Under the Regent Jongintaba's guardianship, Mandela attended Wesleyan Mission School, where he was trained for leadership. He also studied at Clarkebury Boarding Institute and Wesleyan College. He also studied at Fort Hare University before he and Oliver Tambo were expelled in 1940 after boycotting against university policies. In a turn of history, the University of Hare would later establish the Nelson R. Mandela School of Law.

Mandela began his law studies at the University of Witwatersrand, but would earn his law degree in 1942 from the University of South Africa. Mandela's political activism made his legal studies a challenge; he initially failed the exams required for his LLB law degree in 1948. This was the same year the apartheid promoting National Party won its political victory. Along with Sisulu, Tambo, and others, Mandela organized the African National Congress Youth League (ANCYL) in Johannesburg.

By 1952, Mandela opened his law office, teaming up with Oliver Tambo to create the first black legal practice in South Africa. Mandela became the ANCYL's deputy national president. Here, he challenged institutional apartheid and fought for civil rights through land redistribution, trade union rights, and free and compulsory education for all children. The same year, the apartheid government banned Mandela's attendance at any political meetings or from holding an office within the ANC under the Suppression of Communism Act. In response, Mandela and Tambo initiated the M-plan (M for Mandela), which broke the ANC down into cells that could operate underground if necessary.

The Treason Trial and the Start of an Armed Struggle

On December 5, 1956, in response to the adoption of the Freedom Charter at the Congress of the People, Nelson Mandela and Chief Albert Luthuli, then ANC President, were among the 156 people arrested and charged with high treason for their political activism. Punishment for high treason was death. Those arrested included most of the leadership of the ANC, Southern African Indian Congress, Coloured People's Congress, Congress of Democrats, and the South African Congress of Trade Unions, known collectively as the Congress Alliance. Eventually acquitted, during the treason trial Nelson Mandela met and eventually married his second wife Nomzamo Winnie Madikizela (aka Winnie Mandela, Winnie Madikizela Mandea and Nomzamo Winifred Madikizela). She would be his champion during his 27 years of incarceration as a political prisoner.

Photo of Nelson Mandela with Winnie Mandela

South African Apartheid and the Sharpeville Massacre

While Mandela was formerly committed to non-violent protest, he began to believe that armed struggle was the only way to achieve change. He co-founded Umkhonto we Sizwe, also known as MK, an offshoot of the ANC dedicated to an armed struggle, including sabotage and guerrilla war tactics to end apartheid. By 1959, however, the ANC lost much of its militant support when the Africanists broke away to form the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC).

On March 21, 1960, 69 black Africans were killed and about 180 were injured when the South African police opened fire on demonstrators at Sharpeville. This transformed the ANC's strategy from a nonviolent movement using civil unrest techniques such as boycott, strike, civil disobedience and non-cooperation, to that of an armed struggle using guerrilla warfare against the apartheid regime.

As a brief history of European settlement, the Portuguese explorer Bartolomeu Dias was among the first Europeans to reach the region in 1487. The two major groups were the Xhosa and Zulu peoples at the time of European contact in Southern Africa. By 1652, Dutchman Jan van Riebeeck established a settlement at the Cape of Good Hope at Cape Town on behalf of the Dutch East India Company. Dutch is the primary origin of the Afrikaan language, with an estimated 90 to 95 percent of Afrikaans vocabulary being of Dutch origin.

South Africa commemorates the 50th Anniversary of the Sharpeville Massacre

Nelson Mandela: From Prison to Presidency

In 1964, Mandela was arrested again, this time on a charge of sabotage. This time, however, he was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment. He was incarcerated on Robben Island, near Cape Town, as prisoner 46664 for 18 of his 27 years in prison. Mandela imprisonment became a symbol of black oppression and a world-wide symbol of the resistance to racism. It sparked Pan Africanist responses from the Americas through support of organizations like TransAfrica under the efforts of the African American lawyer Randall Robinson. Mandela gained world-wide support, even from Europe. He was allowed to study for a Bachelor of Laws through a University of London correspondence program.

Mandela may have become the most revered prisoner in modern history. He would indeed be the trouble-maker, using his life to help dismantle apartheid to form a new multiracial democracy. In 1990, Nelson Mandela was released from prison under then leadership of his country's president Frederik Willem de Klerk. By July 1991, he was elected president of the ANC. In 1993, Mandela and de Klerk were both awarded Nobel Peace Prizes.

Photo of Nelson Mandela and Frederik de Klerk at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting Davos 1992

On May 10, 1994, Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela was elected the first black South African president as a result of its first multiracial elections. The same year he married Evelyn Mase, Walter Sisulu's cousin. He served as president until 1999 before retiring from active politics. He maintained a busy schedule of fund-raising for his Mandela Foundation, which aims to build schools and medical clinics in South Africa�s rural regions. In 2001, he was diagnosed and treated for prostate cancer. June 2004, at age 85, he announced his formal retirement from public life.

 

Photo of Nelson Mandela in his native South Africa

Kwame Nkrumah: Ghanaian Pan Africanist

Photo of Osagyefo Kwame Nkrumah (born: September 21, 1909 - died: April 27, 1972).

First President of Ghana and a founding member of the Organization of African Unity.

Kwame Nkrumah was born September 21, 1909 at Nkroful, Gold Coast (now Ghana). He was originally named after Francis Nwia-Kofi, an honored family personality. Son of goldsmith Kofi Ngonloma of the Asona Clan and Elizabeth Nyanibah of the Anona Clan, Nkrumah showed an early thirst for education. In 1930, Nkrumah completed studies at the acclaimed Prince of Wales� Achimota School in Accra. Dr. Kwegyir Aggrey, Assistant Vice Principal and the first African staff member at the college, became his mentor.

Kwame Nkrumah U.S. Studies

By 1935, Nkrumah undertook advance studies in the United States at Lincoln University, Pennsylvania. In 1939,  he earned an BA in Economics and Sociology. By 1942, he earned an BA in Theology. By 1943, Nkrumah had earned an M.Sc. (Education), an MA (Philosophy), and completed course work for a Ph. D. degree at the University of Pennsylvania.

During his U.S. undergraduate studies, Nkrumah also pledged the predominately African-American Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity, an academic honor society. He is said to have introduced African traditional steps to the fraternity's stepping tradition, including cane stepping. 

Kwame Nkrumah Organizes Pan-Africans in Europe

Arriving in London in May of 1945, Nkrumah organized the 5th Pan-African Congress in Manchester, England and began networking through organizations like the West African Students' Union, where he served as vice-president. This same year he officially changed his name from Francis Nwia-Kofi to Kwame Nkrumah.

Image of the West African nation of Ghana

By December 1947, Nkrumah had returned to his homeland as a teacher, scholar, and political activist. He became General Secretary of the United Gold Coast Convention (UGCC), which explored strategies for gaining independence from colonial England. Under Nkrumah's leadership, the UGCC attracted local political support from farmers and women. Women did not have the right to vote in many traditional patriarchial societies and farmers who were not land-owners also did not have the suffrage. In 1948, Accra, Kumasi, and other areas of the Gold Coast were experiencing general social unrest, which the British colonial government accredited to the UGCC. By 1949, Nkrumah had galvanized wide support and reorganized his efforts under the Convention People's Party (CPP).

Nkrumah advocated for constitutional changes. This included self-government, universal franchise without property qualifications, and a separate house of chiefs. Jailed by the colonial administration in 1950 for his political activism, the CPP's 1951 election sweep was followed by Nkrumah's release. Ghana was declared an independent state on March 6, 1957.

Photo of Kwame Nkrumah and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

A devout Pan-Africanist, Nkrumah supported African federation under the auspices of the United States of African. He also had meaningful dialogue with African intellectuals from the diaspora, including W.E.B. DuBois, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Marcus Mosiah Garvey. He also corresponded with Trinidadian C.L.R. James, whom he credited with teaching him how an "underground movement worked." Nkrumah played a pivotal role in developing the Organization of African Unity (OAU) in 1963, the same year he was awarded the Lenin Peace Prize.

Photo of Nkrumah Hall at the University of Dar es Salaam

in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania

President of Ghana in West Africa

By 1964, Ghana was operating as a one-party state with Nkrumah as life president. Often criticized for developing non-participatory governance, by 1966 the Ghanaian military overthrew Nkrumah's administration. Nkrumah died in exile on April 27, 1972 in Bucharest, Romania. Nkrumah authored over 20 books and publications. For further references, Panaf Books has a list of Nkrumah's writings at their on-line website.
 

Photo of Kwame Nkrumah Mausoleum and Memorial Park is located

in downtown Accra, the capital of Ghana

Here is a video dedicated to Kwame Nkrumah by Ghana's very own musician Obrafour:

Charles Hamilton Houston: Legal Social Engineer for a Just Society

As scholar, educator, and lawyer, Charles Hamilton Houston dedicated his life to fighting racism with the rule of law as an instrument for justice and social change.

Early Life of Charles Hamilton Houston

Charles Houston owed much of his early success to his remarkably dedicated parents. He was born on September 3, 1895. His mother was Mary Hamilton Houston a stylist (seamstress and hairdresser) to Washington D.C. politicians. His father was William Le Pre Houston Houston, a general practice attorney for more than four decades in D.C. who also taught law practice management tat Howard University's law school.

Photo of Charles Hamilton Houston (center) with his mother and father

Houston graduated from high school at 15 years old. In 1915, he was one of six valedictorians graduating from Amherst College in Massachusetts. He was also the only black student in his class. By 1917, Houston started teaching "Negro Literature" and English at Howard University in D.C., the same year the U.S. government entered World War I. Houston enlisted in the war in 1919 as a second lieutenant in field artillery where he served in France.

Photo of Lieutenant Charles Hamilton Houston

Houston understood racism and its impact on African Americans. As an U.S. officer in France, Houston endured the double fight of the black U.S. soldiers in Europe. Black soldiers fought on two fronts against both Nazi aggression and white racist aggression that was a great part of military life.

Houston Returns from War and Studies Law

After an honorable discharge from the military, Houston returned to D.C. He applied to Harvard Law School and was accepted. He graduated in 1922 with a Bachelor of Laws. By 1923, he had earned a doctorate, distinguished himself as a scholar at Harvard where he became the first black editor of the Harvard Law Review.

Photo of Attorney William Le Pre Houston Houston,

father of Charles Hamilton Houston, in his law office

In 1924, after his return from studying at the University of Madrid, Houston joined his father's D.C. law firm. In addition to starting a civil rights law practice, in 1924 Houston began teaching at Howard University School of Law, then a part-time night school.

Houston Mentors Other Lawyers

Hamilton believed that a lawyer was "either a social engineer or a parasite on society" and saw his role as a legal educator as part of his social responsibility. By 1929, Howard University had developed into a full-time law school under his encouragement and was the training ground for about a quarter of the nation's black law students.

Photo of Thurgood Marshall (standing) with

a seated Charles Hamilton Houston (center)

Houston's pupils at Howard University included Thurgood Marshall, the nation's first African American U.S. Supreme Court Justice. Marshall was also part of the legal team in the 1954 U.S. Supreme Court landmark case of Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 347 U.S. 483 (1954) -- which comprised many of his fellow Howard Law School alums. Other former students of Houston was A. Leon Higginbotham, William Hastie, James Nabrit, Robert Carter, George E.C. Hayes, Jack Greenberg, Oliver Hill, and Spottswood Robinson. In Brown, the U.S. Supreme Court made the historic ruling that racial segregation in primary and seconary public school was unconstitutional.

Houston's Legal Attack on the "Separate But Equal" Doctrine

Photo of Charles Hamilton Houston in the courtroom

As a constitutional scholar, Houston knew that the "separate but equal" doctrine accepted by the U.S. Supreme Court in the landmark case of Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537 (1896) was contrary to a sound rule of law. In 1934, Houston became special counsel with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People's (NAACP). He surrounded himself with a select group of young lawyers, many of his aforementioned former Howard Law School students. Houston soon became "senior counsel" to the young legal strategists that would end legalized racial segregation in the United States.

As the NAACP's special counsel, Houston traveled throughout the U.S. South with a camera and a typewriter. He and his team of lawyers recorded conditions at public facilities for blacks and whites, reasoning that segregationist states were not even meeting the Plessy "separate but equal" standard.

Developing Important Early Civil Rights Case Law

 By 1935, Charles Hamilton Houston and Thurgood Marshall prevailed in Murray v. Pearson, 182 A. 590, 169 Md. 478, 103 A.L.R. 706  (1936), a Maryland Court of Appeals decision where the black plaintiff challenged his denied entry into the then segregated University of Maryland law school. Legal counsel for the university argued that their client's met the separate but equal requirement when it granted qualified black applicants scholarships to enroll in law schools out-of-state.

The Maryland state courts rejected this argument, holding that Maryland�s out-of-state option was not an equal opportunity for law students who wanted to practice law in Maryland as Maryland lawyers. In 1936, the law school was ordered to admit qualified black students. Thurgood Marshall was among the previously qualified students denied entry into the Maryland law school, making the legal victory an especially sweet one for the Houston legal team.

In 1939, another of Houston's important civil rights cases was ruled upon in State of Missouri ex rel. Gaines v. Canada, 305 U.S. 337 (1938).  In Gaines, the reasoning in the Pearson state case was adopted by the U.S. Supreme Court and applied nationwide. In essence, the Court held that Missouri law school faculty's unique curriculum made "separate but equal" unattainable in legal education.

Houston on the Role of Lawyers as Social Engineers

Photo of attorney Charles Hamilton Houston

According to Houston, "[the] Negro lawyer must be trained as a social engineer and group interpreter. Due to the Negro's social and political condition . . . the Negro lawyer must be prepared to anticipate, guide and interpret his group advancement. . . . [Moreover, he must act as] business advisor . . . for the protection of the scattered resources possessed or controlled by the group. . . . He must provide more ways and means for holding within the group the income now flowing through it."

McNeil, Groundwork at 71 (1983), quoting Charles Hamilton Houston, "Personal Observations on the Summary of Studies in Legal Education as Applied to the Howard University School of Law," (May 28, 1929).

In 1940, ill health led Houston to retire from the NAACP as special counsel. On April 22, 1950, Houston died, four years after the U.S. Supreme Court's 1954 ruling in Brown v. Board of Education. In 1950, the NAACP posthumously awarded him the Spingarn Medal. In 1958, Howard University School of Law's main building was dedicated as Charles Hamilton Houston Hall.

 Charles Hamilton Houston's words continues to guide Howard University School of Law's mission:

"'A lawyer's either a social engineer or he's a parasite on society'. . . . A social engineer was a highly skilled, perceptive, sensitive lawyer who understood the Constitution of the United States and knew how to explore its uses in the solving of 'problems of . . . local communities' and in 'bettering conditions of the underprivileged citizens.'"

McNeil, Groundwork at 84 (1983), quoting Charles Hamilton Houston (McNeil cites Thurgood Marshall as quoted in Geraldine Segal, In Any Fight Some Fall at 34 (Mercury Press 1975)).

Thurgood Marshall is reported as having remarked that �[w]e owe it all to Charlie.

FURTHER READING:

Books:

• Greenberg, Jack, "Crusaders in the Courts: How a Dedicated Band of Lawyers Fought for the Civil Rights Revolution," Basic Books (1994)
• Kruger, Richard, "Simple Justice: The History of Brown v. Board of Education and Black America's Struggle for Equality," Vintage Books (1977)
• McNeil, Genna Rae McNeil, "Groundwork: Charles Hamilton Houston and the Struggle for Civil Rights," U. of Pa. Press (1983)
• Smith, Jr., J. Clay, "Emancipation: The Making of the Black Lawyer, 1844-1944," U. of Pa. Press (1993) 
• Tushnet, Mark V., "The NAACP's Legal Strategy Against Segregated Education, 1925-1950," Univ. of North Carolina Press (1987)

Law Review Articles:

• Charles Hamilton Houston Commemorative Issue, 32 How. L. J. (1989) 
• Charles Hamilton Houston Symposium, 27 New England L. Rev. (1993)
• Brittain, John C., The Culture of Civil Rights Lawyers: A Tribute to Justice Thurgood Marshall, 61 Conn. L. Rev. 1 (1992) (including copious discussion of Charles Hamilton Houston)
• Higgonbotham Jr., A. Leon, Reflections on the Impact of Charles Hamilton Houston - from a Unique Perspective, 27 New England L. Rev. 605 (1993)
• Hobbs, Steven H., From the Shoulders of Houston: a Vision for Social and Economic Justice, 32 How. L. J. 505 (1989)
• Jones, Nathaniel R., The Sisyphean Impact on Houstonian Jurisprudence (attorney Charles Hamilton Houston), 69 U. Cincinnati L. Rev. 435 (2001)
• Levi, Jennifer L., Paving the Road: A Charles Hamilton Houston Approach to Securing Trans Rights, 7 Wm & Mary J. Women & the Law 5 (2000)
• Reed, Michael Wilson, The Contribution of Charles Hamilton Houston to American Jurisprudence, 30 How. L. J. 1095 (1987)
• Tushnet, Mark, The Politics of Equality in Constitutional Law: The Equal Protection Clause, Dr. Du Bois, and Charles Hamilton Houston, 74 J. Am. History 884 (1987)
• Walter J. Leonard, Charles Hamilton Houston and the Search for a Just Society, 22 N. Carolina Central L. J. 1 (1996)
• Ware, Leland, A Difference in Emphasis: Charles Houston's Transformation of Legal Education, 32 How. L. J. 479 (1989)

Johannes Leo Africanus and the Recorded Legacy of Timbuktu

Title page of A Geographical Historie of Africa by

Johannes Leo Africanus (1600)

Johannes Leo Africanus (c. 1494 - 1554) was a Moorish diplomat, traveler, historian, and writer best known for his book Description of Africa (Descrittione dell�Africa) which described North African geography, including the famed city of Timbuktu (Timbuctoo) in Mali, West Africa.

In about 1494, Leo Africanus was born in Granada, a city at the foot of the Sierra Nevada mountains in Spain. This was a major city on the Spanish (Iberian) peninsula. It had been conquered by the Moors of Africa for nearly 800 years. After Leo Africanus' birth, his family moved from Spain to Fez, Morocco in North Africa. In Morocco, he studied at the University of Al Karaouines and started the intellectual journey that would lead him on diplomatic missions across Africa and Europe. This included the Maghreb (Also Maghrib, Berber: Tamazgha, Arabic: ????? ?????? ,) and the Timbuktu region (c. 1510), then part of the Songhai (Songhay) Empire.

Fifteen kilometers north of the Niger River, Timbuktu is a historic city whose very name conjures a sense of mystery. Known as the City of Wisdom, the legacy of the muslim king Mansa Musa and the recorded history of the Songhai and Mali Empires are part of Timbuktu's rich historical heritage.

The Kingdom of Mali

By the 11th Century, Mali's rulers had been converted to Islam in the West African region of Timbuktu, a city in the Tombouctou Region of Mali. Three centuries later, commentators note from Arab travelers that the religion of Islam practiced in this region of Africa is somewhat Africanized from that practiced by their Arabian brethren. Mansa Musa was known in his time as the richest king in Africa because of the wealth he acquired in his Empire's wide network of commercial trade.

Untitled woodcut map of Africa from Leo Africanus,

Historiale description de l'Afrique, tierce partie dv monde

Illustration f Mansa Musa depicted holding

a gold nugget (cir. 1375 Catalan Atlas)

The earliest full account of Timbuktu came from Africanus in the 16th Century. He described the city's splendent court life, its scholars, noted as "bountifully maintained at the king's cost." Timbuktu had a reputation for its learned universities, pomp royal palace ceremonies, architectural glories, and busy markets that included international traders.

Once a central center of Islamic teaching in Africa, Timbuktu�s architectural glories, including many mosques, have been reclaimed in part by the desert. By 1828, French adventurer Ren� Cailli�'s pilgrimage to Timbuktu found the city ravished by the raids of neighboring tribes. Populated by the Fulani, Mande, Songhai, and Tuareg, the people and the historical romance of scholarship and trade within Timbuktu remains.

Video of lost libraries of Timbuktu - City of Scholars (BBC)