Lonnie Rashid Lynn, Jr. (born March 13, 1972), better known by his stage name Common (formerly Common Sense), is an American hip hop recording artist, actor, poet and film producer from Chicago, Illinois. Common debuted in 1992 with the album Can I Borrow a Dollar? and maintained a significant underground following into the late 1990s, after which he gained notable mainstream success through his work with the Soulquarians.[1] In 2011, Common launched Think Common Entertainment, his own record label imprint, and, in the past, has released music under various other labels such as Relativity, Geffen and GOOD Music, among others.

Commons first major-label album, Like Water for Chocolate, received widespread critical acclaim and tremendous commercial success.[2] His first Grammy Award was in 2003, winning Best R&B Song for Love of My Life, with Erykah Badu.[3] Its popularity was matched by May 2005s Be, which was nominated for Best Rap Album, at the 2006 Grammy Awards. Common was awarded his second Grammy for Best Rap Performance by a Duo or Group, for Southside (featuring Kanye West), from his July 2007 album Finding Forever. His best-of album, Thisisme Then: The Best of Common, was released on November 27, 2007.

Common won the 2015 Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song and the 2015 Academy Award for Best Original Song, for his song Glory from the 2014 film Selma, in which he co-starred as Civil Rights Movement leader James Bevel. Commons acting career also includes starring significant roles in the films Smokin Aces, Street Kings, American Gangster, Wanted, Terminator Salvation, Date Night, Just Wright, Happy Feet Two, New Years Eve, Run All Night, Being Charlie, and John Wick: Chapter 2. He also narrated the award-winning documentary Bouncing Cats, about one mans efforts to improve the lives of children in Uganda through hip-hop/b-boy culture.[4] He starred as Elam Ferguson on the AMC western television series Hell on Wheels.

Early life [ edit ]

Congress forbade Union officers and soldiers to aid in the capture and return of fugitive slaves, ending what one historian called the military slave hunt.

Clarence Alphonso Todman was born on March 13, 1926, in St.

By the end of the 1980s, Benins economy was near collapse. As its oil boom ended, Nigeria expelled 100,000 Beninese migrant workers and closed the border with Benin. Kérékous socialist collectivization of Benins agriculture and the ballooning bureaucracy further damaged the economy. By 1988, international financial institutions feared Benin would default on its loans and pressured Kérékou to make financial reforms.

Kérékou subsequently embarked on a major privatization campaign, cut the government payroll, and reduced social services, prompting student and labor union unrest. Fearing a revolution, Kérékou agreed to a new constitution and free elections. In 1991, Nicéphore Soglo, an economist and former director of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, was elected president. Although he enjoyed widespread support at first, Soglo gradually became unpopular as austerity measures reduced living standards and a 50% currency devaluation in 1994 caused inflation. Kérékou defeated Soglo in the 1996 elections and was easily reelected in March 2001. Term limits prevented him from running again. In April 2006, Yayi Boni assumed the presidency. The World Bank and IMF agreed to cancel much of Benins foreign debt after the country demonstrated significant economic reforms.

In 2010, floods destroyed 55,000 homes, killed tens of thousands of livestock, and displaced 680,000 people. There were 46 fatalities.

After two postponements, presidential elections were held on March 13, 2011. According to Benins constitutional court, incumbent Yayi Boni won 53% of the vote. His main challenger, Adrien Houngbedji, disputed the results, alleging fraud and claiming victory for himself. Parliamentary elections followed in April, 2011, and established a new government, including Pascal Koupaki as prime minister, Nassirou Bako Arifari as foreign minister, Benoît Assouan Degla as interior minister, and Adidjatou Mathys as finance minister; Issifou Kogui NDouro remained as defense minister.

James Theodore Holly died in Port-au-Prince, Haiti on March 13, 1911.

By the end of the 1980s, Benins economy was near collapse. As its oil boom ended, Nigeria expelled 100,000 Beninese migrant workers and closed the border with Benin. Kérékous socialist collectivization of Benins agriculture and the ballooning bureaucracy further damaged the economy. By 1988, international financial institutions feared Benin would default on its loans and pressured Kérékou to make financial reforms.

Kérékou subsequently embarked on a major privatization campaign, cut the government payroll, and reduced social services, prompting student and labor union unrest. Fearing a revolution, Kérékou agreed to a new constitution and free elections. In 1991, Nicéphore Soglo, an economist and former director of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, was elected president. Although he enjoyed widespread support at first, Soglo gradually became unpopular as austerity measures reduced living standards and a 50% currency devaluation in 1994 caused inflation. Kérékou defeated Soglo in the 1996 elections and was easily reelected in March 2001. Term limits prevented him from running again. In April 2006, Yayi Boni assumed the presidency. The World Bank and IMF agreed to cancel much of Benins foreign debt after the country demonstrated significant economic reforms.

In 2010, floods destroyed 55,000 homes, killed tens of thousands of livestock, and displaced 680,000 people. There were 46 fatalities.

After two postponements, presidential elections were held on March 13, 2011. According to Benins constitutional court, incumbent Yayi Boni won 53% of the vote. His main challenger, Adrien Houngbedji, disputed the results, alleging fraud and claiming victory for himself. Parliamentary elections followed in April, 2011, and established a new government, including Pascal Koupaki as prime minister, Nassirou Bako Arifari as foreign minister, Benoît Assouan Degla as interior minister, and Adidjatou Mathys as finance minister; Issifou Kogui NDouro remained as defense minister.

Jean Baptiste Point du Sable established the first

permanent settlement at Skikai-o, meaning the place

of wild onions, and is now known as Cicago, Illinois.

This African-American merchant also established trading

posts at present day Peoria, Illinois; Port Huron, Michigan;

and Michigan City, Indiana. Du Sables log cabin home, located

at 401 North Michigan Avenue, became a national historic

landmark in 1976. The Native Americans of the area have been

known to say the first white man to settle here was

a negro.

Col. B.O. Davis Jr. assumed command of Lockbourne Air Force Base, Ohio.The Tuskegee Airmen are the black pilots, bombardiers, navigators and support personnel trained during World War II. The fighter pilots of the 99th Fighter Squadron and the 332nd Fighter Group of the U.S. Army Air Corps, led by Col. B. O. Davis, Jr., distinguished themselves in combat in numerous missions in the European theater during 1944 through 1946.

Founded by William A. Scott, III, the Atlanta Daily World began publication.

James Rhoden, sculptor, born

I come to you from a liberated South Africa, a nation that many of you helped to set free. I come from a continent about which more is written but less is understood; so I come with a message that is straight-forward and simple. Like the Apostle Paul on his return from the provinces, I come to bring good news, but I also come with an appeal for your support of a new generation of Africans who have a bold, new futurist vision for their countries and their continent; but who live for the moment between two worlds, an old order that is dying but not yet dead and a new order that is conceived but not yet born.

The reports coming out of Africa are often confusing and contradictory:

Transformation and reconciliation in Southern Africa; conflict and crisis in Central Africa; new leaders with new vision in some areas and old leaders desperately hanging onto the past in others. It is now obvious that one can not speak of Africa as one continuous stream of ideas and social arrangements providing either cultural unity or political uniformity. There is much that unites Africans; W.E.B. Dubois reminded us at the turn of the century of the common bond created by the problem of the color line, for example. But the first thing that must be accepted and acknowledged by any one who dares to write or speak about the new Africa is that what seems self-evident in one area may not be the reality in another. Far too many people who would not dare to speak of a homogeneous Europe or Asia speak of the more than fifty independent nations of Africa as if the continent was a single political entity.

It is indeed difficult for many Americans to grasp either the extraordinary range of cultural, political and economic diversity or the immense size of a continent so large that the whole of China, the continental United States, Europe, Argentina, India, and New Zealand can fit within its boundaries. It is even more difficult for Americans to recognize that any idea of a retreat from the African continent at the very moment so many

This West African nation on the Gulf of Guinea, between Togo on the west and Nigeria on the east, is about the size of Tennessee. It is bounded by Burkina Faso and Niger on the north. The land consists of a narrow coastal strip that rises to a swampy, forested plateau and then to highlands in the north. A hot and humid climate blankets the entire country.

Republic under a multiparty democratic rule.

The Abomey kingdom of the Dahomey, or Fon, peoples was established in 1625. A rich cultural life flourished, and Dahomeys wooden masks, bronze statues, tapestries, and pottery are world renowned. One of the smallest and most densely populated regions in Africa, Dahomey was annexed by the French in 1893 and incorporated into French West Africa in 1904. It became an autonomous republic within the French Community in 1958, and on Aug. 1, 1960, Dahomey was granted its independence within the Community.

Gen. Christophe Soglo deposed the first president, Hubert Maga, in an army coup in 1963. He dismissed the civilian government in 1965, proclaiming himself chief of state. A group of young army officers seized power in Dec. 1967, deposing Soglo. In Dec. 1969, Benin had its fifth coup of the decade, with the army again taking power. In May 1970, a three-man presidential commission with a six-year term was created to take over the government. In May 1972, yet another army coup ousted the triumvirate and installed Lt. Col. Mathieu Kérékou as president. Between 1974 and 1989 Dahomey embraced socialism, and changed its name to the Peoples Republic of Benin. The name Benin commemorates an African kingdom that flourished from the 15th to the 17th century in what is now southwest Nigeria. In 1990, Benin abandoned Marxist ideology, began moving toward multiparty democracy, and changed its name again, to the Republic of Benin.

By the end of the 1980s, Benins economy was near collapse. As its oil boom ended, Nigeria expelled 100,000 Beninese migrant workers and closed the border with Benin. Kérékous socialist collectivization of

Kofi Awoonor , original name George Kofi Awoonor Williams (born March 13, 1935, Weta, Gold Coast [now Ghana]—died September 21, 2013, Nairobi, Kenya), Ghanaian novelist and poet whose verse has been widely translated and anthologized.

In the island Republic of Grenada, the New Jewel Movement, headed by U.S. educated Maurice Bishop, ousted the government of Prime Minister Gairy.

Arkansas legislature passed anti-Klan law.

John Lee, first black commissioned officer in the U.S. Navy is assigned to duty.

Dec 1944-Jan 1945 The U.S. Army integrated black volunteers with white troops to fight during the Battle of the Bulge, the Germans¹ last desperate counteroffensive to break through in the Ardennes forest in Belgium. Over 5000 African-American soldiers in the Army¹s service units volunteered; 2500 of them were accepted. After 6 weeks of training, the black troops were organized into 37 platoons of 40 men each, which were then attached to white units of 200 men each. Suggested by General John Lee and approved by General Dwight D. Eisenhower, this was the first and only example of an integrated Army fighting force in WWII. White officers later judged that these black soldiers had performed very well or fairly well. Although this experiment proved to be quite successful, the Army withheld a favorable survey on the intermixing of its troops because it would supposedly have undermined southern political support for a postwar peacetime draft.

Jefferson Davis signed bill authorizing use of slaves as soldiers in the Confederate army.

He died from AIDS-related complications in Tacoma on March 13, 1996.

Broadway performer Anne Wiggins Brown was born August 9, 1912 in Baltimore, Maryland to Dr. Harry F. Brown and Mary Wiggins Brown. Her father, the grandson of a slave, was a respected physician, and her mother was of black, Cherokee, and Scottish-Irish decent. Brown was a talented singer from a young age, but when her parents tried to enroll their daughter in a private Catholic elementary school with a music program, she was denied entrance because she was African American.

Brown began her training at Morgan College (now Morgan State University), after which she applied to the Peabody Institute in Baltimore.  Once again she was denied admittance because of her race. Brown did not give up and in 1928, when she was just 16 years old, Brown auditioned for and was admitted to the Julliard School in New York, becoming the first African American vocalist to attend the school. While at Julliard, Brown was awarded the prestigious Margaret McGill scholarship.

Brown got her big break in 1935 when she sang the part of Bess in the world premiere of George Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess at the Colonial Theater in Boston.  The play, which featured an all-African American cast, focused on the lives African Americans living in Charleston, South Carolina during the 1920s. After a successful opening, Porgy and Bess was moved to the Alvin Theater in New York in October 1935.  Although Brown’s performance was highly praised, the opera received mixed reviews. Many African Americans, including Brown’s father, believed that the play was racist and portrayed stereotypes of black people.

Brown continued to appear on Broadway in such shows as Pins and Needles (1937) and Mamba’s Daughters (1939). The successful singer/actress also continued to play Bess in multiple revivals of Porgy and Bess including the Broadway revival in 1942. Although she had gained fame and success, Brown was still forced to deal with the reality of segregation in America. Brown encountered prejudice on many occasions and was even denied use of a performance hall in