An estimated 20,000 women of all races marched on the Union Buildings in Pretoria to protest apartheid pass laws, a protest now commemorated as South Africa's National Women's Day.
Sources: South African History Online ; Al Jazeera
PoliticsOn this day — August 9 in African history
Real events, births and milestones from Africa and the diaspora.
Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons 1936 Jesse Owens won his fourth gold medal of the Berlin Olympics as part of the US 4x100-meter relay team, setting a world record.
Sources: Olympedia ; History.com
Sports
US Navy — Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons 1963 Singer Whitney Houston, one of the best-selling music artists in history, was born in Newark, New Jersey.
Sources: New Jersey Hall of Fame ; Britannica
BirthMichael Brown, an unarmed 18-year-old Black man, was shot and killed by a Ferguson police officer, Darren Wilson, and weeks of protests followed. The Justice Department closed its investigation into the shooting without bringing federal charges. Its parallel investigation into the city found that the police and the municipal court discriminated against Black residents deliberately, and that Black people made up 67 percent of Ferguson's population but more than 90 percent of its arrests and traffic stops.
Sources: US Department of Justice ; US Department of Justice
HistoryJ.F. Ade Ajayi, a leading Nigerian historian who helped pioneer the study of African history from an African perspective, died.
Sources: University of Lagos Institutional Repository (Cambridge University Press, Africa journal obituary) ; Dictionary of African Christian Biography
Death