Today’s Afro Birthdays ! Actress, Zoe Saldana ! Actress, Phylicia Rashad ! Middle Distance Runner, Johnny Gray !

Zoรซ Saldaรฑa at Hollywood Life Magazineโs 7th Annual Breakthrough Awards (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Zoe Saldana strikes a pose at the 82nd Academy Awards, March 7, in Hollywood, Calif. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Actress Phylicia Rashad in the 2007 Red Dress Collection for The Heart Truth Foundation (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Today in Afro History ! U.S. Supreme Court bans housing discrimination in 1968, known as the Civil Rights Act of 1968. Signed into law by President Johnson. 3,000 Afro American Students boycott Boston Public schools over the quality of their education in 1963 !
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)