1945: The 761st Tank Battalion, “We Shall Overcome,” the Southern California KKK, the Cavalcade of Jazz, "Ebony" Magazine, White Women Allies, & Influential Black Americans
The 761st Tank Battalion was an independent tank battalion of the United States Army during World War II.
Its ranks primarily consisted of Black American soldiers, who by War Department policy were not permitted to serve in the same units as white troops; the United States Armed Forces did not officially desegregate until after World War II.
The 761st were known as the Black Panthers after their distinctive unit insignia, which featured a black panther's head, and the unit's motto was “Come out fighting.”
Decades after the war, the unit received a Presidential Unit Citation for its actions.
In addition, a large number of individual members also received medals, including one Medal of Honor, eleven Silver Stars and approximately 300 Purple Hearts.
“We Shall Overcome” is a gospel song that is associated heavily with the Civil Rights Movement (click on link to listen to song)
The origins of the song are unclear; it was thought to have descended from “I'll Overcome Some Day,” a hymn by Charles Albert Tindley, while the modern version of the song was first said to have been sung by tobacco workers led by Lucille Simmons during the 1945–1946 Charleston Cigar Factory strike in Charleston, South Carolina.
Veteran of the Civil Rights Movement from McComb, Mississippi, Brenda Travis, born.
Her imprisonments for protesting a segregated bus station and participation in a peaceful high school walk out in 1961 helped catalyze public sentiment against segregation.
Activist with the NAACP, Isaac W. Williams, born
July 2, 1945: GI during World War II, Louis Till, is executed.
After enlisting in the United States Army following trial for domestic violence against his estranged wife Mamie Till, and having chosen military service over jail time, Till was court-martialed on two counts of rape and one count of murder during the Italian Campaign.
He was found guilty and was executed by hanging at Aversa.
Till was the estranged father of Emmett Till, whose murder in August 1955 at the age of 14 galvanized the Civil Rights Movement.
The circumstances of Till's death remained largely unknown, until they were revealed after the highly controversial acquittal of his son's murderers a decade later.
There is debate on the matter of Louis Till's guilt concerning the crime for which he was executed.
In 2013, in a book documenting every court martial and execution of GIs in North Africa and Europe during World War II, United States Army Colonel French MacLean acknowledges the lynching murder of Till's son, but insists that even though justice was not done to Emmett Till's murderers, the documents kept on the case by Judge Advocate General's Corps suggest that justice was in fact done to Louis Till.
In 2016, notable Black American novelist and essayist John Edgar Wideman tracked down the same case files as Maclean and reached a different conclusion, believing his innocence.
Wideman explored the circumstances leading to and including the military conviction of Louis Till in the partly fictional book Writing to Save a Life – The Louis Till File.
Wideman examines the trial record and compares it to the trial of Emmett's killers, calling both “a farce” and expresses the belief that the leak of Mr. Till's military records during 1955 was an intentional effort to further demonize Emmett Till and retroactively justify the acquittal of his murderers.
Wideman expresses the viewpoint that Louis Till may have been punished for the “Crime of being (Black)” rather than for committing any real crimes, citing the disproportionate punishment of Black American soldiers for rape as well as laws in the United States that defined all sexual encounters between Black American men and white women as rape.”
Wideman's analysis of Till's murder trial alleged one of its witness insisted that the killer was a white person before recanting their statement, and in Till's rape trial, both victims said that they were assaulted in darkness and could not identify their attackers, declining to label Till or his co-defendant as suspects.
Wideman believed that their execution, due to these inconsistencies, was racially motivated.
Ollie Gordon, one of Emmett Till's cousins, was recorded visiting Louis Till's grave in France for the final episode of the ABC documentary series Let the World See, which aired in January 2022.
Referencing Wideman's analysis of Till's murder and rape trials, she said “He's laying in this less than honorable area for a crime that we're still not sure that he committed.”
July 3, 1945: Professor and academic administrator, Ruth Simmons, born.
Simmons served as the eighth president of Prairie View A&M University, a HBCU, from 2017 until 2023.
From 2001 to 2012, she served as the 18th president of Brown University, where she was the first Black American president of an Ivy League institution.
While there, Simmons was named best college president by Time magazine.
Before Brown University, she headed Smith College, one of the Seven Sisters and the largest women's college in the United States, beginning in 1995 [while I was a sophomore at the University of Massachusetts Amherst].
There, during her presidency, the first accredited program in engineering was started at an all-women's college.
A professor of literature in the Romance languages, in 2017, Simmons was called out of retirement to head Prairie View in her home state of Texas, where she increased scholarships and funding.
She stepped down as president there in 2023.
She is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Philosophical Society (1997), an honorary fellow of Selwyn College, Cambridge, and a Chevalier of the French Legion of Honor.
In February 2023, Simmons announced her plans to advise Harvard University regarding relationships with historically Black universities (HBCUs).
As of 2023, Simmons is also a President's Distinguished Fellow at Rice University.
July 5, 1945: Former diplomat who acted as the U.S. Ambassador to Zimbabwe between 2009 and 2012, Charles A. Ray, born
July 8, 1945: Army Air Force second lieutenant and member of the World War II combat fighter group, the Tuskegee Airmen, Esteban Hotesse, dies in a B-25 Mitchell crash.
He was the only Dominican-born member of the Tuskegee Airmen.
July 10, 1945: Actor Ron Glass born
August 6, 1945: Artist, poet, activist, and musician, Thomas James Reddy, born
August 7, 1945: Former Minnesota state Supreme Court judge and professional football player, Alan Page, born
August 15, 1945: Professional football guard who played for the Oakland Raiders of the American Football League (AFL) and later the National Football League (NFL), Gene Upshaw, born
August 24, 1945: Gay liberation activist and self-identified drag queen, Marsha P. Johnson, born
August 26, 1945: Feminist, political scientist, writer, attorney and white woman ally, Jo Freeman, born
As a student at the University of California, Berkeley in the 1960s, she became active in organizations working for civil liberties and the Civil Rights Movement.
She went on to do voter registration and community organization in Alabama and Mississippi and was an early organizer of the women's liberation movement.
She authored several classic feminist articles as well as important papers on social movements and political parties.
She has also written extensively about women, particularly on law and public policy toward women and women in mainstream politics.
August 26, 1945: Politician who served as director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency from 2014 to 2019, Mel Watt, born
August 29, 1945: Retired American track and field sprinter, and the first person to retain the Olympic title in the 100 m, Wyomia Tyus, born
August 31, 1945: Donyale Luna, model and actress, was born Peggy Ann Freeman in Detroit, Michigan.
As a teenager, Luna moved to New York City to pursue a modeling career.
In 1966, she became the first Black American model to appear on the cover of a Vogue magazine when she appeared on the British issue of the magazine.
Time magazine described 1966 as “The Luna Year” and called her “unquestionably the hottest model in Europe at the moment.”
Luna commanded one of the highest day rates of any model in the 1960s and 1970s.
Luna also appeared in several films, including “Camp” (1965), “Skidoo” (1968), “Satyricon” (1970), and “Salome” (1972).
Luna died on May 17, 1979.
September 2, 1945: Journalist, lawyer, and a clerk and law examiner for the United States General Land Office of the United States Department of the Interior, Lafayette M. Hershaw, dies.
He was a key intellectual figure among Black Americans in Atlanta in the 1880s and in Washington, D.C., from 1890 until his death.
He was a leader of the intellectual social groups in the capital such as Bethel Literary and Historical Society and the Pen and Pencil Club.
He was a strong supporter of W. E. B. Du Bois and was one of the thirteen organizers of the Niagara Movement, the forerunner to the NAACP.
He was an officer of the D.C. Branch of the NAACP from its inception until 1928.
He was also a founder of the Robert H. Terrell Law School and served as the school's president.
September 7, 1945: Lieutenant general in the United States Air Force who served as the director of the Air National Guard, Daniel James III, born
September 9, 1945: Secretary of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), Alphonso Jackson, born
September 9, 1945: Essayist, poet, academic, political activist and white woman ally, Melanie Kaye/Kantrowitz, born
September 9, 1945: R&B singer Dee Dee Sharp born (click on link to listen to music)
September 15, 1945: Opera singer and recitalist, Jessye Norman, born (click on link to listen to music)
September 23, 1945: The Cavalcade of Jazz events were large outdoor jazz festivals held annually between 1945 and 1958 in Wrigley Field, Los Angeles, California.
They were the first such large-scale events and were produced by a Black American man, Leon Hefflin, Sr.
October 1, 1945: Soul singer, keyboardist, songwriter, backing vocalist, and arranger who Rolling Stone described as a “soul legend,” Donny Hathaway, born (click on link to listen to music)
October 5, 1945: First Black American mayor of Des Moines, Iowa, Preston Daniels, born
October 8, 1945: Author and media critic, Earl Ofari Hutchinson, born
November 1, 1945, John H. Johnson published the first issue of Ebony Magazine.
The purpose of the magazine was to focus on achievements and display positive images of Black Americans.
The first issue of the magazine sold 25,000 copies.
Johnson's first publication, Negro Digest, debuted in 1942.
He sent out $2 pre-publication subscription letters to 20,000 people.
He received a response from 3,000 people, sending in $6,000.
Within eight months, Negro Digest had increased its circulation to 50,000 copies a month nationally.
In October 1943, a cover story by first lady Eleanor Roosevelt on what she would do if she were Black almost doubled the circulation overnight.
Anchored on the success of Negro Digest, Ebony was launched three years later in 1945.
It began as a picture magazine that brought readers face to face with the possibilities and positive images of Black people in America.
Like Negro Digest, it gave Black readers the respect they were missing.
When Ebony came on the scene, it was the voice that needed to be heard on various issues.
It was a voice that reaffirmed who Black people were in terms of accomplishments.
It was a voice that talked about political and social issues, the civil rights movement, Black power, and glorified Black people who were unsung and denied opportunities.
It honored Black identity by portraying Black life, refuting stereotypes, and inspiring readers to overcome racial and other barriers to success.
Ebony portrayed Black culture, gave fashion advice, hairstyling ideas, tips on parenting, and even recipes!
Ebony kept Black people connected during some very turbulent times.
November 14, 1945: Prominent Los Angeles–based businessman and founder of Golden State Mutual Life Insurance Company, which at one time was the largest Black-owned business west of the Mississippi, William Nickerson Jr., dies
November 22, 1945: Artist who used hand-tools and shoe dye on leather canvases, Winfred Rembert, born
November 25, 1945: Poet, actor, playwright, and costume designer who lived in Washington, D.C., and had strong ties to the Harlem Renaissance period in New York, Lewis Grandison Alexander, dies
December 2, 1945: Theoretical physicist, who was the eleventh president of The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, George Campbell Jr., born
December 12, 1945: Jazz drummer Tony Williams born (click on link to listen to music)
December 13, 1945: Businessman and Tea Party movement activist in the Republican Party, Herman Cain, born
December 14, 1945: Poet, music and cultural critic, syndicated columnist, novelist, and biographer, Stanley Crouch, born
December 15, 1945: Civil rights activist, feminist, and political strategist, Heather Booth, born.
Booth's opposition to racial discrimination began when she was still in elementary school.
She defended a Black American fellow student who was being attacked for allegedly stealing another student's lunch money.
It was soon discovered that the girl who made the accusation had put the money in her shoe and forgotten it.
In a 1985 interview, Booth said “I remember having the feeling that you don't do this to people.”
While in high school, she joined the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) to help protest Woolworth's lunch counter discrimination in the South.
In 1963, soon after enrolling in college, she became head of a group, called Friends of SNCC, that was organized on campus to support the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee.
She also became student liaison to the Chicago Council of Community Organizations (CCCO), which was then protesting school segregation in the city.
As CCCO liaison, she helped coordinate Freedom Schools in the Chicago's South Side.
In 1964, Booth joined the Freedom Summer project in which volunteers from Northern and Western colleges and universities worked to register Black voters and set up freedom schools and libraries in Mississippi.
She was arrested for the first time while she was carrying a sign saying "Freedom Now!" during a peaceful demonstration in Shaw, Mississippi.
In an interview conducted in 1989, she said that the experience reinforced her commitment to the Civil Rights Movement.
Confronted by the violent resistance of white Mississippians, she feared for her own life, but also realized that she could leave whenever she wished and was awed by the extraordinary heroism of the Black residents with whom she worked.
“They had a quiet heroism,” she said, “not just by standing up to bullets, but by day to day being willing to go and talk to their neighbors, have meetings in their churches, take people into their homes.”
She said the work was full of tiring and frustrating tasks but recognized that it is the mundane everyday work that brings meaningful change.
In 1965, Booth was arrested while demonstrating at banks that were providing financial support for the apartheid regime in South Africa.
Shortly afterward, she helped form a number of local groups that sought to learn about urban problems and find ways to overcome them.
She left SNCC in 1967 when its leaders no longer welcomed whites as members.
She then devoted more of her time to issues related to feminism and the anti-war movement.
December 16, 1945: The Fontana, California, home of the Short family erupted in flames, killing O’Day and Helen Short and their two children, Barry, 9, and Carol Ann, 7.
As the Fontana community became diverse, segregation lines emerged: Black families moving out of the overcrowded Los Angeles area were relegated to living in the rocky plains of “North Fontana” and working in the dirtiest departments of the mill.
Ku Klux Klan activity also surged throughout Southern California during this time.
O’Day H. Short – a Mississippi native and Los Angeles civil rights activist – purchased a tract of land in the white section of town and made arrangements to move there with his family.
As Shorts built their home, forces tried to stop them.
Vigilantes visited Short and ordered him to move or risk harm to his family; he refused and reported the threats to the FBI and local sheriff.
Sheriff’s deputies did not offer protection and instead reiterated the warning that Short should leave before his family was harmed.
Members of the Fontana Chamber of Commerce encouraged Short to move to the North Fontana area and offered to buy his home.
He refused.
Just days later, an explosion destroyed the home, killing Short’s wife and children.
He survived for two weeks, shielded from the knowledge of the other deaths, but died in January 1946 after the local D.A. bluntly informed him of his family’s fate during an investigative interview.
Officials initially concluded that the fire was an accident, caused by Short’s own lighting of an outdoor lamp.
After surviving family members, the Black press, and the Los Angeles NAACP protested, a formal inquest was held, at which an independent arson investigator obtained by the NAACP testified that the fire had clearly been intentionally set.
Despite this testimony and evidence of the harassment the Short family had endured in the weeks leading up to the fire, local officials again concluded the explosion was an accident and closed the case.
No criminal investigation was ever opened, no arrests or prosecutions were made, and residential segregation persisted in Fontana for over 25 more years.
December 17, 1945: Actor Ernie Hudson born
December 24, 1945: Teacher, communist political activist, and politician, Williana Burroughs, dies.
She is best remembered as one of the first women to run for elective office in New York.
I love these compilations. We shall not forget.