August 1947: Influential Black Americans Denise Oliver-Velez, Chokwe Lumumba, Barbara Mason, Lugenia Burns Hope, Carol Moseley Braun & M. Shawn Copeland

Also, politician, racist dog whistler and white supremacist who twice served as Governor of Mississippi and later was elected a U.S. Senator, Theodore G. Bilbo, dies

August 1, 1947 (Leo): Professor, contributing editor, activist and community organizer, Denise Oliver-Velez, born.

She is a contributing editor for the blog, Daily Kos, and a former adjunct professor of anthropology and women's studies at SUNY New Paltz.

August 2, 1947 (Leo): Attorney, activist, and politician, Chokwe Lumumba, born.

He was affiliated with the Black separatist organization Republic of New Afrika and served as its second vice president.

He served as a human rights lawyer in Michigan and Mississippi.

In 2013, after serving on the City Council, he was elected as Mayor of Jackson, Mississippi.

He was born in Detroit, Michigan, as Edwin Finley Taliaferro, and was raised there.

He changed his name in 1969 [the year the civil rights power couple divorced] after joining the Republic of New Afrika.

August 9, 1947 (Leo): Soul singer with several R&B and pop hits, Barbara Mason, born (click on link to listen to music)

August 14, 1947: Social reformer, Lugenia Burns Hope, dies.

Her Neighborhood Union and other community service organizations improved the quality of life for Black Americans in Atlanta, Georgia, and served as a model for the future Civil Rights Movement.

August 16, 1947 (Leo): Diplomat, politician, and lawyer who represented Illinois in the United States Senate from 1993 [the year I graduated high school] to 1999 [the year I earned my Master of Education at UMass Amherst], Carol Moseley Braun, born.

Moseley Braun was the first Black American woman elected to the U.S. Senate, the first Black American U.S. senator from the Democratic Party, the first woman to defeat an incumbent U.S. senator in a primary, and the first female U.S. senator from Illinois.

In January 2023, she was nominated by President Joe Biden to serve as a member and chair of the board of directors for the United States African Development Foundation.

She began her tenure in April 2024.

August 21, 1947: Politician and white supremacist who twice served as governor of Mississippi (1916–1920, 1928–1932) and later was elected a U.S. Senator (1935–1947) Theodore G. Bilbo, dies.

A demagogue and lifelong Democrat, he was a filibusterer whose name was synonymous with white supremacy.

Like many Southern Democrats [whose descendants became MAGA] of his era, Bilbo believed that Black people were inferior; he defended segregation, and was a member of the Ku Klux Klan, the United States' largest white supremacist terrorist organization.

He also published a pro-segregation work, Take Your Choice: Separation or Mongrelization.

Bilbo overcame accusations of accepting bribes and won an election for lieutenant governor, a position that he held from 1912 to 1916.

In 1915, he was elected governor and served from 1916 to 1920.

He was an unsuccessful candidate for the United States House of Representatives in 1920.

Bilbo won the election to the governorship again in 1927, and he served from 1928 to 1932.

He aided [Southern] Democratic nominee [whose descendants became MAGA] Al Smith in the 1928 presidential election by spreading the story that Republican nominee Herbert Hoover had socialized with a Black woman; Mississippi voters, considering whether to maintain their allegiance to the Democratic Party in light of Smith's Catholicism and support for the repeal of Prohibition, largely remained with Smith after Bilbo's appeal to racism.  

In 1934, Bilbo won election to a seat in the United States Senate.

In the Senate, Bilbo maintained his support for segregation and white supremacy; he was also attracted to the ideas of the Black separatist movement, considering it a potentially viable method of maintaining segregation.

He proposed resettling the 12 million American Black people in Africa.

In his second term, he made anti-Black racism a major theme.

Although reelected to a third term in 1946, liberals led by Glen H. Taylor blocked his seating based on denying the vote to Black people and accepting bribes.

By the time he died (without taking his seat), the national media had made him the symbol of racism.  

August 24, 1947: Retired American womanist and Black Catholic theologian, and a former religious sister, M. Shawn Copeland, born.

She is professor emerita of systematic theology at Boston College and is known for her work in theological anthropology, political theology, and Black American Catholicism.