On this day in 1970, 3,000 people of African descent met in Atlanta, Georgia to establish the Congress of African People. The CAP was an effort to establish Black-self-determination and Pan-Africanism. Attendees came from the United States, 27 African nations, four South American nations, and Australia.
Charles Hamilton Houston, Dean of the Howard University Law School, and NAACP special counsel is born on this day in 1895. He set up the legal structure that took down many Jim Crow laws across the United States.
On this day in 1838, a young Frederick Douglass, dressed as a sailor, escaped from slavery.
On this day in 1783, Richard Allen, later to organize the African Methodist Episcopal Church, purchased his freedom from his owners.
The Reverend (later Bishop) Henry McNeal Turner of the AME Church was one of the Black elected officials during Reconstruction. After he and his fellow Black elected officials were expelled from the Georgia Legislature, he delivered a defiant speech on this day in 1868 saying he will not beg for his position. As he said, “…I am here to demand my rights and to hurl thunderbolts at the men who would dare to cross the threshold of my manhood.”
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