Real events, births and milestones from Africa and the diaspora.
Photo by Robert Knudsen, White House/JFK Library — Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons Guinea declared independence from France under Ahmed Sékou Touré, becoming the first French West African colony to break fully from Paris.
Sources: BBC News ; University of Toronto (Mairi MacDonald, PhD thesis)
Independence
1831 woodcut, Library of Congress — Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons 1800 Nat Turner, who later led an 1831 rebellion of enslaved people in Virginia, was born into slavery.
Sources: National Geographic ; Project Gutenberg (Thomas R. Gray, The Confessions of Nat Turner, 1831) ; National Park Service
Birth
Photo by Thomas J. O'Halloran, U.S. News & World Report / Library of Congress — Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons 1967 Thurgood Marshall was sworn in as the first African-American justice of the United States Supreme Court.
Sources: Federal Judicial Center ; HISTORY (A+E Networks)
Politics
CC BY 2.5, Wikimedia Commons 1967 Frankie Fredericks, Namibian sprinter and four-time Olympic silver medalist, was born in Windhoek.
Sources: Olympedia ; Confederation of African Athletics (CAA)
Sports
Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons 1981 Hazel Scott, Trinidadian-American jazz pianist, singer and civil rights activist, died.
Sources: National Women's History Museum ; PBS American Masters
Death