Today’s Afro Birthdays ! Singer, Nathan Morris ! Broadway Actor, Avon Long ! NFL player, Bruce Smith ! NFL player, Antonio Gates ! South African President, Thabo Mbeki ! NFL player, Chris Harris !

CAPE TOWN/SOUTH AFRICA, June 4, 2008 – Thabo Mbeki, President of South Africa, captured during the Opening Plenary of the World Economic Forum on Africa 2008 in Cape Town, South Africa, June 4, 2008. Copyright World Economic Forum/Eric Miller (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
English: Chris Harris, a National Football League player on the Denver Broncos American football team (2011- ). (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Today in Afro History ! The Tuskegee Merchant Boycott begins in response to the attempt to exclude Afro American voters in Tuskegee Alabama in 1957.

English: “The Oaks”, former home of Booker T. Washington located on the Tuskegee University campus in Tuskegee, Alabama. The building is a contributing property to the Tuskegee Institute National Historic Site and National Landmark. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

English: George Washington Carver (front row, center) poses with fellow staff members at the Tuskegee Institute (now known as Tuskegee University) located in the U.S. state of Alabama. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Today’s Afro Birthdays ! Tennis Champion, Venus Williams ! Author/Lyricist/Civil Rights Activist, James Weldon Johnson ! Singer, Simone Battle !

English: Venus Williams plays Vera Dushevina on the opening day of the US Open 2009. Cropped (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

James Weldon Johnson’s poetry influenced Angelou’s writing in Singin’ and Swingin’. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

James Weldon Johnson Residence, 187 West 135th Street, Manhattan, New York City (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Today in Afro History ! The “Soweto Uprising”. A non-violent march of over 10,000 students in Soweto, South Africa, turns violent when police open fire on the crowd in 1976. Kenneth A. Gibson becomes first Afro American Mayor of Newark in 1970 !
Today’s Afro Birthdays ! Singer, Eddie Levert ! Rapper, Tupac Shakur ! Actor, Bill Cobbs !
Today in Afro History ! Henry O. Flipper becomes the first Afro American to graduate from West Point in 1877 !

English: Photograph of Henry Ossian Flipper in his West Point cadet uniform. (http://www.usma.edu/Bicentennial/FlipperDinner.asp). (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

English: Photo of the first African American Graduate of West Point, Henry O. Flipper (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Today’s Afro Birthdays ! Rapper/Actor, Ice Cube ! Activist/ Escaped Slave, Josiah Henson ! MLB player/Manager Dusty Baker ! Jazz Pianist, Erroll Garner !
A picture of Dusty talking to Chris Welsh (off camera) before a game against the Phillies in Philadelphia, July 2009 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The Life of Josiah Henson, Formerly a Slave, Now an Inhabitant of Canada, as Narrated by Himself (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Today in Afro History ! Jamaican Sprinter, Asafa Powell breaks 100m world record with a time of 9.77 seconds in 2005 !
Today’s Afro Birthdays ! Actress, Marla Gibbs ! Actor, Fazion Love ! NBA player, Sam Perkins ! NFL player, Sammy Watkins ! Saxophonist/Singer, Junior Walker ! Singer/Songwriter, Renaldo Benson !
Today in Afro History ! Thurgood Marshall is nominated to become the first Afro American on the U.S. Supreme Court in 1967 !

Thurgood Marshall, appointed by Kennedy to the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Today’s Afro Birthdays ! Olympic Medalist ,Triple and Long Jumper, Will Claye ! NBA player, Hassan Whiteside ! NFL Player, Nate Jones !
Today in Afro History ! Activist, Medgar Evers is shot and killed in 1963. Nelson Mandela is sentenced to life imprisonment in 1964.

English: Young Nelson Mandela. This photo dates from 1937. South Africa protect the copyright of photographs for 50 years from their first publication. See . Since this image would have been PD in South Africa in 1996, when the URAA took effect, this image is PD in the U.S. Image source: http://www.anc.org.za/people/mandela/index.html (Photo credit: Wikipedia)