*On this date in 1967, Aborigines were formally counted in Australia’s census for the first time. Ninety percent of white Australians voted in this referendum for a proposal to count Aborigines in the census and to allow the federal government to make special laws for them. Until then, their affairs had been administered solely by […]
learn more*Biafra was founded on this date in 1967. Officially, the Republic of Biafra was a partially recognized state in West Africa that declared independence from Nigeria and existed from 1967 until 1970. Early modern maps of Africa from the 15th to the 19th centuries, drawn from accounts written by explorers and slave traders, show references. According […]
learn moreOn this date in 1967, leading Black athletes gathered to hear Muhammad Ali (formerly Cassius Clay) give his reasons for rejecting the United States military draft.
Muhammad Ali was among the first African Americans to refuse to fight in the Vietnam War. This incident took place at a meeting of the Negro Industrial and Economic Union to hear Ali’s wisdom for rejecting the Vietnam War draft. These fellow men, and athletes, endorsed and supported Ali’s decision and rallied to his defense.
learn moreOn this date in 1967, the U.S. Supreme Court decided Loving v. Virginia.
learn more*On this date in 1967, Black history in the Vietnam War is briefly written about. The Vietnam War was the first American war in which Black and white troops were not formally segregated, though de facto segregation still occurred. American troops arrived in 1961. Blacks were more likely to be drafted than whites. Though 11% […]
learn moreOn this date in 1967, Muhammad Ali (Cassius Clay) was stripped of his heavyweight title for five years.
His “transgression was the result of Ali speaking out against the Vietnam War and refusing to join the army. Succinct but unmistakable, he said, “I ain’t got no quarrel with them Viet Cong.” It spoke volumes, but the media vilified him. The government prosecuted him for draft dodging, and the boxing commission took away his license.
He was idle for what would have been the peak of his career.
learn moreOn this date in 1967, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., had gone to Chicago, and found that no church would let him preach.
These houses of worship said he was too a radical a minister. Friendship Baptist Church, 5200 W. Jackson, on Chicago’s West side, did allow King to speak, where he addressed civil rights! Reverend Shelvin J. Hall was the church’s minister at the time.
learn more*The Nigerian Civil War, also known as the Biafran War, began on this date in 1967. It was a civil war fought between Nigeria and the Republic of Biafra. This secessionist state had declared its independence from Nigeria earlier in 1967. General Yakubu Gowon and Biafra led Nigeria by Lieutenant Colonel Chukwuemeka Ojukwu. The conflict […]
learn more*On this date in 1967, the Newark Race Riots occurred. The four-day riot left 26 people dead including Edward Moss, a 10-year-old boy.
Over 1,000 others were injured, and the city incurred more than $10 million in property damaged. In 1967, Newark, NJ had the nation’s highest percentage of substandard housing, and the second highest rates of crime and infant mortality. That July, purported police brutality involving the arrest of an African American cab driver charged with assaulting a police officer plunged the city into four days of violence and destruction.
learn moreOn this date in 1967, three days of riots and protests occurred in Cairo, Illinois.
The incident began with a so-called jail house suicide of Pvt. Robert Hunt. He was a young Black soldier on leave in his hometown of Cairo. The alleged suicide fired up the town’s African American community. The police said Hunt had hanged himself with his T-shirt, but Cairo’s Black residents had the evidence to challenge that story.
learn more*On this date in 1967, the Minneapolis Riot occurred. This uprising was one of the 159 riots that swept across cities in the United States during the “long, hot summer of 1967”. The reported origins vary from the police mishandling a teen dispute over a wig to a pre-meditated plot by Stokely Carmichael. Widespread violence, including […]
learn moreOn this date we mark the assembly in Newark of the first Black Power Conference. In the tradition of the antebellum African American convention movement and the early Pan-African congresses, the National Conference on Black Power was a gathering of more than 1,000 delegates representing 286 organizations and institutions from 126 cities in 26 states, Bermuda, and Nigeria.
learn moreOn this date in 1967, the Detroit rebellion occurred. The summer of that year was a turbulent time in American history, “the worst year for riots in the United States,” with 165 uprisings taking place.
learn moreOn this date in 1967, Milwaukee joined the list of cities that erupted into violence, joining hundreds of other American cities in the nation’s civil rights battle in the late 1960s.
Police and city officials faced anger and frustration from Watts to Detroit to Milwaukee in city after city as African Americans raised the consciousness of the country to the dangers of racial discrimination and segregation. President Johnson had called for a national day of prayer, but before the day was out, Milwaukee had exploded.
learn moreOn this date in 1967, Thurgood Marshall was sworn in and became the first African American judge on the U.S. Supreme Court.
It was a signal moment in U. S. history when African Americans everywhere realized that one of their own was seated on the highest court in the land. Thurgood Marshall, who had been in the forefront of legal battles on behalf of civil rights and the destruction of segregation, was now going to have a direct role in influencing and interpreting the country’s laws.
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