April 1947: Influential Black Americans Jarvis Scott, Deborah Batts, Pamela Bridgewater, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Cathy Hughes, G.K. Butterfield & Bobby Scott

Also, historian Allan Lichtman, white supremacist, Henry Ford & singer-songwriter, Bunny Wailer

April 4, 1947 (Aries): Historian, Allan Lichtman, born.

In 2017, he published The Case for Impeachment, laying out multiple arguments for the impeachment of Donald Trump.

In the run-up to the 2024 presidential election, amid widening calls by Democratic Party representatives, members, voters, and supporters of President Joe Biden to withdraw from the race in favor of another candidate with “better chances,” Lichtman called that demand a “foolish, destructive escapade,” accusing “pundits and the media” of “pushing” Democrats into a losing choice.

He added that those calling for Biden's resignation had “zero track record” of predicting election outcomes.

On July 21, 2024, Biden announced he was withdrawing from the race but would serve the remainder of his term.

Vice President Kamala Harris was nominated as the Democratic presidential candidate the next month.

On September 5, Lichtman predicted that Harris will win the election!

April 6, 1947 (Aries): Sprinter, Jarvis Scott, born.

She competed in the women's 400 meters at the 1968 Summer Olympics.

She qualified by winning the 1968 Olympic Trials.

She also finished third in the 800 meters behind eventual gold medalist Madeline Manning, but declined her position in that event allowing Francie Kraker to run.

She is the first American woman and the last American to qualify for the Olympics in both the 400 and 800.

April 7, 1947: Industrialist, business magnate, founder of the Ford Motor Company and white supremacist, Henry Ford, dies.

In 1918, Ford purchased his hometown newspaper, The Dearborn Independent.

A year and a half later, Ford began publishing a series of articles in the paper under his own name, claiming a vast Jewish conspiracy was affecting America.

The series ran in 91 issues.

Every Ford dealership nationwide was required to carry the paper and distribute it to its customers.

Ford later bound the articles into four volumes entitled The International Jew: The World's Foremost Problem, which was translated into multiple languages and distributed widely across the US and Europe.

The International Jew blamed nearly all the troubles it saw in American society on Jews.

The Independent ran for eight years, from 1920 until 1927.

With around 700,000 readers of his newspaper, Ford emerged as a “spokesman for right-wing extremism and religious prejudice.”

April 9, 1947: The Journey of Reconciliation begins.

Also called “First Freedom Ride,” was a form of nonviolent direct action to challenge state segregation laws on interstate buses in the Southern United States.

Bayard Rustin and 18 other men and women were the early organizers of the two-week journey.

The participants started their journey in Washington, D.C., traveled as far south as North Carolina, before returning to Washington, D.C.

The journey was seen as inspiring the later Freedom Rides of the Civil Rights Movement from May 1961 onward. 

James Peck, one of the white participants, also took part in the Freedom Ride of May 1961.

April 10, 1947 (Aries): Singer-songwriter, percussionist and original member of Bob Marley & the Wailers, Bunny Wailer, born (click on link to listen to music)

A three-time Grammy Award winner, he is considered one of the longtime standard-bearers of reggae music. 

April 13, 1947 (Aries): United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, Deborah Batts, born.

During Gay Pride Week in June 1994 [when I was an undergraduate student at the University of Massachusetts Amherst], Batts was sworn in as a United States district judge for Manhattan, becoming the nation's first openly LGBT federal judge.

She took senior status on her 65th birthday, April 13, 2012.

Batts received an Bachelor of Arts degree in government from Radcliffe College in 1969 [the year my grandmother moved the family to Cambridge, Massachusetts], and a Juris Doctor from Harvard Law School in 1972.

In 2007, Batts was a prominent figure in the litigation over the case of the Central Park Five, rejecting the dismissal of their lawsuit.

April 14, 1947 (Aries): Career diplomat who served as the U.S. Ambassador to Jamaica, Pamela Bridgewater, born.

My elderly mother, Nancy Hardy, a Jamaican citizen, was murdered in her home on November 24, 2018, forcing me into the position of having to interact with the U.S. Embassy in Jamaica in Kingston that doesn’t answer inquiries from the families of Americans murdered on the island, further adding to our pain.

To this day, I do not know whether justice was served in my mother’s case due to a long-delayed trial during which her killer, who remains incarcerated, has been uncooperative with his own defense attorneys.

She was murdered while divorcing, the most dangerous time for women in addition to pregnancy.

Femicide is a global public health crisis, but particularly in the fourth most murderous country in the world with repeated states of emergency due to homicide.

April 16, 1947 (Aries): Former basketball player, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, born.

He had a strained relationship in his final year with Donohue after the coach called him a “nigger.”

Alcindor wrote for the Harlem Youth Action Project newspaper.

The Harlem riot of 1964, which was prompted by the fatal shooting of 15-year old Black boy James Powell by a New York police officer, triggered Alcindor's interest in racial politics.

“Right then and there, I knew who I was, who I had to be. I was going to be Black rage personified, Black Power in the flesh.” he said.

April 22, 1947 (Taurus): Entrepreneur, radio and television personality and business executive, Cathy Hughes, born.

She has been listed as the second-richest Black woman in the United States, after Oprah Winfrey.

She founded the media company Radio One (Urban One), and when the company went public in 1999, she became the first Black American woman to head a publicly traded corporation.

In the 1970s, Hughes created the urban radio format called “The Quiet Storm” on Howard University's radio station WHUR with disc jockey and fellow Howard student Melvin Lindsey.

April 27, 1947 (Taurus): Lawyer and politician who served as the U.S. representative for North Carolina's 1st congressional district from 2004 to 2022, G.K. Butterfield, born.

He was a member of the Congressional Black Caucus and served as its chair from 2015 to 2017.

April 30, 1947 (Taurus): Lawyer and politician serving as the U.S. representative for Virginia's 3rd congressional district since 1993, Bobby Scott, born.

On December 15, 2017, Marsheri Everson, a former congressional fellow who had worked in Scott's office, alleged that Scott had sexually harassed her in 2013, touching her on the knee and back on separate occasions, then propositioning her with an inappropriate relationship after asking, “if you travel with me, are you going to be good?”

Scott strongly denied Everson's claim.

Everson was represented by two attorneys, one Jack Burkman, known for his involvement in the conspiracy theories surrounding the murder of Seth Rich as well as his alleged involvement in a scheme to pay women to lie about sexual harassment claims against special counsel and former FBI Director Robert Mueller.

Everson's case against Scott is ongoing.

Scripps professor Vanessa C. Tyson alleged in 2019 that Virginia Lieutenant Governor Justin Fairfax sexually assaulted her in 2004 and approached Scott, a longtime friend, about these allegations between the time of Fairfax's election in November 2017 and inauguration in January 2018; The Washington Post also contacted Scott about the allegations.

In a 2019 statement, Scott said, “Allegations of sexual assault need to be taken seriously. I have known Professor Tyson for approximately a decade, and she is a friend. She deserves the opportunity to have her story heard.”