* Today in Black History – October 8 *
1775 – A council of general officers decides to bar slaves and
free African Americans from serving in the Continental
Army.
1930 – Faith Ringgold is born in New York City. She will become
a multimedia artist whose paintings, face masks, fabric
and soft sculptures, and quilts will earn her praise for
her reaffirmation of African American women’s values and
unique perspective.
1941 – Rev. Jesse L. Jackson is born in Greenville, South
Carolina. He will be a civil rights leader and founder
of Operation PUSH (People United to Save Humanity) in
1971, an organization that will focus attention on the
economic disparity between whites and African Americans.
In 1988, he will be a candidate for the Democratic
presidential nomination.
1950 – Robert “Kool” Bell is born. He will become a Rhythm and
Blues singer and will become the leader of his own group,
“Kool & the Gang.”
1963 – The Sultan of Zanzibar cedes his mainland possessions to
Kenya.
1969 – Police officers and African Americans exchange sniper
fire on Chicago’s West Side. One youth is killed and
nine policemen are injured.
1992 – The Nobel Prize for literature is awarded to West Indies
poet, Derek Walcott.
1993 – The U.N. General Assembly lifted almost all its remaining
economic sanctions against South Africa, begun in the
1960s and built up in subsequent years because of
Pretoria’s policy of racial apartheid.
1999 – Laila Ali, the 21-year-old daughter of Muhammad Ali,
makes her professional boxing debut by knocking out
opponent April Fowler 31 seconds after the opening bell
in Verona, New York.
2009 – Abu Talib, bluesman who recorded and toured with Ray Charles
and Little Walter under his given name, Freddy Robinson,
joins the ancestors in Lancaster, California after
succumbing to cancer.
Information retrieved from the Munirah Chronicle and is edited by Rene’ A. Perry.
The CamaraIfe Maktaba 