09/21/2024
On This Day In TCXPI History
Kwame Nkrumah, The First Prime Minister and President of the Republic Of Ghana
Kwame Nkrumah, the First Prime Minister (1957-1960) and President (1960-1966) of the Republic of Ghana, was the leader of the First sub-Saharan African nation to gain its independence. He subsequently became a leading figure in the campaign for the United States of Africa. Nkrumah was born on September 21, 1909 in Nkroful, Gold Coast. The son of a goldsmith, he attended mission schools at Accra and government training colleges at Achimota (1926-1930) where he prepared to be a teacher.
In 1935, Nkrumah left for the United States where he attended Lincoln University (1935-1939) and the University of Pennsylvania (1939-1943). A gifted student, by 1943 Nkrumah had earned multiple bachelor’s and master’s degrees in economics, sociology, education, theology, and philosophy. Then, in May of 1945 Nkrumah departed for London, England, where he studied as a PhD student at the London School of Economics. While in London Nkrumah held key positions in anti-colonialist and black-nationalist organizations, and authored controversial papers calling for African independence and unity. In 1945 Nkrumah co-founded the Pan African Congress, which became an influential voice against colonialism in Africa.
In 1947 Nkrumah returned to the Gold Coast and became general secretary of the newly-founded United Gold Coast Convention. However, in 1949 Nkrumah split with the organization over its political objectives and formed the Convention People’s Party (CPP). During his tenure as head of the CPP, Nkrumah protested British rule and led numerous petitions for self government. Imprisoned by the British in 1950 for his political activities, Nkrumah was released in 1951 when his party won the general election in a landslide victory. He subsequently was elected Prime Minister in 1952.
As Prime Minister, Nkrumah led an aggressive campaign for independence and achieved it in 1957. Three years later he formed a new government, the Republic of Ghana. A devoted Pan-Africanist, Nkrumah forged alliances with both Guinea and Mali, and sought to create a league of African states with its own government. To help achieve this goal, in 1963 he and other African leaders formed the Organization of African Unity. Choosing to remain neutral in political affairs outside of the African continent, Nkrumah initially gained tentative support from both the United States and Soviet Union, receiving economic and technical aid from both countries.
Vigorously suppressing political dissidents, Nkrumah almost immediately was branded a dictator by his political opponents. Then, in 1961 a firestorm of protest erupted after he appointed himself supreme commander of the armed forces and absolute head of the CPP. Nkrumah subsequently outlawed all other political parties.
In 1966 Nkrumah’s government was overthrown by a coup d’état while he was on a trip to Beijing, China. Taking refuge in Guinea, Nkrumah spent the rest of his life in exile. He died in Bucharest, Romania on April 27, 1972.
Source:
BlackPast.org
http://www.blackpast.org/gah/nkrumah-kwame-1909-1972
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09/16/2024
On This Day In TCXPI History
The Sixteenth Street Church Bombing, September 15, 1963
Four young girls, Denise McNair, Cynthia Wesley, Carole Robertson, and Addie Mae Collins, were killed in the racially motivated attack by the Ku Klux Klan against an African American church active in the ongoing civil rights campaign in Birmingham, Alabama.
The Sixteenth Street Baptist Church Bombing took place on September, 15 1963.
The attack was meant to disrupt black community activists who had been demonstrating for weeks for an end to segregation in the city. It had the opposite effect. Because the four young girls killed were on their way to a basement assembly hall for closing prayers on a Sunday morning, the national public’s anger and revulsion at the slaughter of children at a place of worship helped build support in the John Kennedy administration for civil rights legislation. Twenty-two others were injured, many of them children that had been in the same group as the girls.
Sixteenth Street Baptist Church had been a rallying point for civil rights activists throughout the spring and summer leading up to the bombing. The activists had finally reached an agreement with local authorities to begin integrating schools which in turn outraged segregationists and caused the attack. Four men, who were members of the United Klans of America, went to the church and planted 19 sticks of dynamite outside the basement behind the building.
The explosion which occurred around 10:20 that Sunday morning destroyed the rear end of the building. The steps going outside were destroyed as were all but one of the church's stained glass windows. Even the windows of the laundromat across the street were blown out and many cars outside damaged or destroyed.
The public funeral for three of the girls attracted over eight thousand people but not one city or state official attended. The Birmingham Post-Herald reported a month later that in the aftermath of the bombing no one had been arrested for the incident itself but 23 African Americans had been arrested for charges ranging from disorderly conduct, to “being drunk and loitering” mostly in the vicinity of the church. One black youth was gunned down by police after he threw rocks at passing cars with white passengers.
The four men responsible for the murders were not charged until 45 years later. Two of them, Bobby Frank Cherry and Thomas Blanton are spending the last of their lives in prison, one, Robert Chambliss, already died in prison, and the fourth, Herman Cash, died in the mid-1990s before charges could be brought against him.
Source:
BlackPast.org
http://www.blackpast.org/aah/sixteenth-street-baptist-church-bombing-1963
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09/15/2024
On This Day In TCXPI History
Claude McKay, Writer And Poet
Claude McKay was born September 15, 1889 in James Hill, Clarendon, Jamaica. He started writing poetry at ten. He published his first book of poems, “Songs of Jamaica,” in 1912, and emerged as one of the first and most militant voices of the Harlem Renaissance and was regarded as one of the major poets of the movement.
A couple of his most famous poems were the militant “If We Must Die” (1919) and his self-portrait “Outcast” (1922).
In 1928, Claude McKay published his most famous novel, “Home to Harlem,” which won the Harmon Gold Award for Literature. The tone for many of his works was race conscious and revolutionary. He was an advocate for full civil liberties and racial solidarity. His works heavily influenced a generation of Black authors, including James Baldwin and Richard Wright.
Claude McKay began his transition May 22, 1948 .
Biographies of McKay include “Claude McKay: Rebel Sojourner in the Harlem Renaissance” (1987) and “Claude McKay: A Black Poet’s Struggle for Identity” (1992).
Source:
The Wright Museum Blog
http://thewright.org/explore/blog/entry/today-in-black-history-5222014
(Accessed on 05/21/2015)
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09/15/2024
TCXPI Presents On This Day In TCXPI History - Daily Black History Facts
On This Day In TCXPI History – We Remember Denise McNair, 11, Carole Robertson, 14, Addie Mae Collins, 14, and Cynthia Wesley, 14, who on Sunday morning, September 15, 1963 at 10:22 a.m. were killed by a bomb planted by Ku Klux Klan members at the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama. This murderous and cowardice act would shock the nation and galvanized the civil rights movement.
http://www.nps.gov/nr/travel/civilrights/al11.htm
http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/m_r/randall/birmingham.htm
09/17/2024