*Joshua Nkomo was born on this date in 1917. He was a Black African revolutionary and politician. Joshua Mqabuko Nyongolo Nkomo was born in Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) to a poor Ndebele family, one of eight children. His father (Thomas Nyongolo Letswansto Nkomo) was a preacher and a cattle rancher for the London Missionary Society. […]
learn more*The Pan Africanist Congress of Azania was formed on this date in 1959. Often shortened to the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC), it is a South African pan-Africanist national liberation movement that has evolved into a political party. It was founded by an Africanist group, led by Robert Sobukwe, that broke away from the African National […]
learn more*Jewel Thais-Williams was born on this date in 1939. She was a Black Queer businesswoman and LGBTQI+ activist. Originally from Arkansas, Thais-Williams’ father, in search of employment and educational opportunities, moved their family to Gary, Indiana, where Thais-Williams was born. She was the fifth born of eight children. During World War II, several of her […]
learn more*The birth of Henrique Dias is celebrated on July 3, 1590. He was an Afro Brazilian Portuguese soldier and militia leader. From Bahia, Brazil, there is no agreement among historians whether he was born free or as a slave. He led a military regiment composed of enslaved and freed slaves and was known as “Governor […]
learn more*The birth of Dorothy Pizer is celebrated on July 3, c.1906. She was a white British working-class anti-racist activist, secretary, publishing worker, and collaborator of a Pan-Africanist. The daughter of a tailor who had left school at 15, Dorothy Pizer grew up in a household without books in London’s East End. Since she had been […]
learn more*Edward Toppins was born on this date in 1915. He was a Black U.S. Army Air Force pilot and commanding officer. Edward Lucien Toppins was born in Mississippi to Martha E. Toppins Davis, a dressmaker. He was the only brother of three sisters: Henrietta, Delphine, and Naomi. After living in Louisiana in the 1930s, Toppins […]
learn more*Joseph D. Elsberry was born on this date in 1921. He was a Black U.S. Army Air Force officer and fighter pilot. Joseph Dubois Elsberry was born in Langston, Oklahoma. Elsberry was the youngest child and only son of Joseph Dean Elsberry, a teacher and civic leader, and Beulah Earle Meeks Elsberry, also a teacher. […]
learn more*Brick Junior College was established on this date in 1895. This Black school, founded after the American Civil War, was the first accredited African American school in North Carolina. The American Missionary Association founded the Joseph Keasley Brick Agricultural, Industrial, and Normal School. Land and money for buildings came from Julia Brick, a wealthy Brooklyn […]
learn more*Black history and the Women’s Air Force Service Pilots (WASP) are affirmed on this date in 1943. Also known as the Women’s Army Service Pilots or Women’s Auxiliary Service Pilots, the WASP was a civilian women pilots’ organization whose members were United States federal civil service employees. Although most WASP pilots were white, they were […]
learn more*Harry Stewart Jr. was born on this date in 1924. He was a Black soldier and fighter pilot. Harry Thaddeus Stewart Jr. was born in Newport News, Virginia. When he was two years old, after living near Langley Field Air Force Base between Hampton and Newport News, Virginia, Stewart and his family moved to Queens […]
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