On this day: September 23 in African history

Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons

Mary Church Terrell, a founding member of the NAACP and pioneering African American civil rights and women's suffrage activist, was born in Memphis, Tennessee.

Sources: U.S. National Archives ; Virginia Commonwealth University Libraries, Social Welfare History Project ; Ohio History Connection

Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons

An all-white jury in Mississippi acquitted Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam of the murder of 14-year-old Emmett Till, sparking national outrage that helped galvanize the civil rights movement.

Sources: Equal Justice Initiative ; National Park Service ; PBS American Experience

Photo by Robert S. Oakes, Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons

U.S. President John F. Kennedy nominated civil rights lawyer Thurgood Marshall to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, though segregationist senators delayed his confirmation for nearly a year.

Sources: U.S. National Archives (Rediscovering Black History) ; Federal Judicial Center ; U.S. Government Publishing Office

British forces under Herbert Kitchener captured Dongola in Sudan during the Anglo-Egyptian reconquest of the country.

Sources: The Gazette (UK official public record) ; Project Gutenberg

Corrected in September 2026 · see what changed

Sketch attributed to James King, first printed in Nathaniel Isaacs, Travels and Adventures in Eastern Africa (1836), Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons

Shaka, king of the Zulu Kingdom, was assassinated at kwaDukuza by his half-brothers Dingane and Mhlangana and his attendant Mbopha ka Sithayi. The best-supported date is 23 September 1828, though the Port Natal traders' accounts differ: Fynn wrote 24 September, Isaacs the night of the 22nd and Farewell reported both 23 and 21 September.

Sources: Cambridge University Press ; Brill ; Internet Archive