Samuel Gravely was appointed captain of the Navy Destroyer Escort, U.S.S. Falgout, the first African American to command a United States warship. He later received the rand of Rear Admiral, a first for an African American navyman.

Baltimore Orioles manager Frank Robinson is named assistant general manager of the club, the third African American to become as assistant GM.

Four African Americans win Tony Awards for Black and Blue

Mississippi Valley State University is founded in Itta Bena, Miss.

William J. Jefferson is a former Democratic politician who represented Louisiana’s Second Congressional District from 1991 to 2009. He was the first African American congressman elected from the state since Reconstruction. His career ended in a bribery scandal that resulted in his conviction in November 2009. 

William Jefferson was born in 1947 in Lake Providence, Louisiana. He was one of ten children in his family, one of the few black landowning families in an area inhabited mostly by black sharecroppers and white plantation owners. Jefferson earned a BA degree from Southern University A & M College in 1969, and then earned a JD from Harvard Law School in 1972. From 1973 to 1975 he was a legislative assistant to Louisiana Senator J. Bennett Johnston.  

In 1978, Jefferson ran for a seat representing New Orleans’ Uptown section in the Louisiana State Senate, defeating a white incumbent candidate. He remained in the State Senate for twelve years, although twice he ran unsuccessfully for mayor of New Orleans. In 1990 Jefferson ran for and won the hotly-contested congressional seat of retiring Representative Corinne (Lindy) Boggs.

Jeffersons first five years in the U.S. House of Representatives were without controversy. He earned a spot as a senior member on the influential Ways and Means Committee and became a vocal advocate of U.S. trade with Brazil and Africa. In the summer of 2005, however, an FBI investigation of Jefferson was launched to determine if Jefferson had used his political connections for the financial benefit of his wife and daughters. In May 2006, FBI agents executed a search warrant at Jefferson’s office in the Rayburn House Office Building, the first FBI raid of a congressional office. While not supporting Jefferson, a number of congressmen including Republican House Speaker Dennis Hastert were outspoken in their criticism of the raid.    

On June 4, 2007, a federal grand jury indicted William Jefferson on sixteen counts of corruption for racketeering and money laundering involving business

Four persons, including the presiding judge, killed in courthouse shoot-out in San Rafael, Marin County, California. Police charged that activist Angela Davis helped provide the weapons used by the convicts and issued a nationwide warrant for her arrest. Davis went into hiding to avoid arrest. Davis was acquitted of all charges on June 4, 1972.

A series of military coups followed, and on June 4, 1979, Flight Lt. Jerry Rawlings overthrew Lt. Gen. Frederick Akuffos military rule. Rawlings permitted the election of a civilian president to go ahead as scheduled the following month, and Hilla Limann, candidate of the Peoples National Party, took office. Rawlingss three-month rule was one of Ghanas bloodiest periods, with executions of numerous government officials and business leaders. Two years later Rawlings staged another coup, charging the civilian government with corruption. As chairman of the Provisional National Defense Council, Rawlings scrapped the constitution, instituted an austerity program, and reduced budget deficits over the next decade. He then returned the country to civilian rule and won the presidency in multiparty elections in 1992 and again in 1996. Since then, Ghana has been widely viewed as one of Africas most stable democracies. In Jan. 2001, John Agyekum Kufuor was elected president. In 2002, he set up a National Reconciliation Commission to review human rights abuses during the countrys military rule. He was reelected in Dec. 2004.

In presidential elections in December 2008, Nana Akufo-Addo, of the governing New Patriotic Party, won just over 49% of the vote, and John Atta Mills, of the main opposition party, National Democratic Congress, took almost 48%. In the runoff election, necessary because neither candidate received 50% of the vote, Atta Mills eked out victory, with 50.23%. It was the closest election in Ghanas history.

President Atta died in July 2012. His four years in office were marked by stability and an increase in oil production. Vice President John Dramani Mahama was sworn in shortly after Attas death. Mahama won the presidential election held in December, taking 50.7% of the vote. He prevailed over Nana Akufo-Addo of the New Patriotic Party.

See also Encyclopedia: Ghana .

U.S. State Dept. Country Notes: Ghana

Modibo Keita , (born June 4, 1915, Bamako, French Sudan [now in Mali]—died May 16, 1977, Bamako, Mali), socialist politician and first president of Mali (1960–68).

Angela Davis acquitted by white jury in San Jose, Calif., of charges stemming from a 1970 courtroom shoot-out.

By 1993 Lani Guinier, a Yale Law School graduate, had crafted an impressive career as an NAACP attorney who specialized in voting rights cases, member of the law faculty at the University of Pennsylvania, and special assistant in the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department in the Carter Administration.  In 1993 newly elected President Bill Clinton (whom she had met while both were Yale Law School students) nominated her to head the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department in his administration.  The nomination, however, touched off a firestorm of protest by opponents who labeled her “the  quota queen” for her work to support voting districts that had black majorities.  In the face of that firestorm, President Clinton withdrew her nomination.  On June 4, 1993, Guinier responded with these words at a press conference.  

HAD I BEEN ALLOWED to testify in a public forum before the United States Senate, I believe that the Senate would also have agreed that I am the right person for this job, a job some people have said I have trained for all my life.

I would like to thank all the Americans, those who have known me all my life and those who have only just heard of me, for their support and encouragement.

I am blessed with many loyal friends, fine colleagues, dedicated allies, and a wonderful husband and son. Their support has helped me to endure this process with some measure of dignity, and I am grateful.

I deeply regret that I shall not have the opportunity for public service in the Civil Rights Division. I am greatly disappointed that I have been denied the opportunity to go forward to be confirmed and to work closely to move this country away from the polarization of the last twelve years, to lower the decibel level of the rhetoric that surrounds race, and to build bridges among people of goodwill to enforce the civil rights laws on behalf of all Americans. In particular, I had been excited about the possibility of working closely with Attorney General Janet Reno, a woman of outstanding integrity, a

Third national Black convention met in Philadelphia with twenty-nine delegates from eight states. Henry Sipkins of New York was elected president.

Death of Arna Bontemps (72), writer and educator, in Nashville, Tennessee.

John Vorster , original name Balthazar Johannes Vorster; also known as B.J. Vorster (born Dec. 13, 1915, Jamestown, Union of South Africa—died Sept. 10, 1983, Cape Town), far right Nationalist politician who served as prime minister (1966–78) and president (1978–79) of South Africa. He was forced to resign from the presidency because of a political scandal.

Vorster was the 13th child of a wealthy Afrikaner sheep farmer. He studied at the University of Stellenbosch, where he gained attention as a Nationalist student leader. In 1938 Vorster left the university to act as registrar to the judge-president at the Cape, and the next year he practiced law at Port Elizabeth. During World War II, Vorster helped to found the anti-British Ossewa Brandwag (Ox-Wagon Guard) and became a “general” in its extremist wing. Vorster expressed his contempt for the democracies and respect for Germany and was arrested for undermining the war effort in 1942. He was released after 14 months and allowed to resume his legal practice.

Vorster tried to enter politics after the war but was at first rejected by the National Party. He was narrowly defeated in the 1948 parliamentary election. By 1953, however, he was accepted by the party and was a successful candidate from the Nigel constituency in the Transvaal. As a leading member of the National Party’s right wing, Vorster helped to bring to power Hendrik Frensch Verwoerd, who became prime minister in 1958. Vorster, in turn, was appointed deputy minister of education, arts and science, and social welfare in October. He soon gained a reputation for rigid enforcement of apartheid policies. When Verwoerd decided that a firmer hand was needed after the Sharpeville massacre (1960), Vorster was made minister of justice, police, and prisons in 1961. With expanded legal authority, Vorster vigorously suppressed and harassed opponents of his government’s racial policies.

One week after Verwoerd was assassinated (September 1966), a National Party caucus chose Vorster as his successor. He had rivals