Meeting place of National Civil War Centennial Commission shifted from Charleston to Charleston Naval Station after a national controversy cover segregation hotels in Charleston.

Claudette Colvin was an important figure in the civil rights movement. She was born on September 5, 1939. At birth, she was adopted by C. P. Colvin and Mary Anne Colvin, who lived in a poor neighborhood in Montgomery, Alabama. This was a time of intense racial divide, and Colvin was a victim of it along with the rest. At the age of four, she was shopping for groceries with her mother, when a group of white children came into the store. They asked Colvin to touch hands with them, in order to compare the colors of their skin. Colvin did so, but received a slap and a severe reprimand from her mother, saying that she was not allowed to touch white people.

Colvin studied at Booker T. Washington High School, a segregated school for African Americans. She was a bright student and mostly received A grades. She was also a member of the NAACP Youth Council, and aspired to be President one day. On March 2, 1955, she was on a Capital Heights bus, making her way back home from school. Buses were segregated at the time, so Colvin sat in the black section of the bus at the back. She was sitting two seats away from the emergency exit. The norm was for whites and blacks to sit in their respective sections, but if the bus became too crowded, blacks were asked to vacate their seats if any white people were left standing. Such was the case on that day, when Colvin was returning home.

The bus driver, Robert W. Cleere, ordered Colvin and three other women to vacate their seats. Three of the women moved but another woman, by the name of Ruth Hamilton, got up and sat next to Colvin. She was pregnant and she kept saying that she didn’t feel like standing, and as she had paid her fare, she had as much right to the seat as the white woman. Colvin said the same but the bus driver threatened to call the police. When both women still refused to move, two policemen came to the scene and rearranged some seats so that Mrs. Hamilton could be seated. Colvin, however, continued to refuse so she was taken into custody. She was charged with

Dr. Jerome H. Holland was elected to the board of directors of the New York Stock Exchange on this day.

Through 25th Some 180 Black students and a white minister arrested in Columbia, S.C., after anti-segregation march.

Thomas Hit Man Hearns wins the vacant USBA Welterweight title. This is one of five weight classes that he has won a boxing title making him the first Black to win boxing titles in five different weight classes.

Morocco becomes Independent. Morocco as an independent state has been in existence since 788 AD, when Idris I was proclaimed King at Volubilis. Today, Morocco is a constitutional monarchy. King Hassan II came to the throne in 1961. A descendant of the Prophet, he is also the commander of the Believers, or in other words, Morocco’s religious leader.

Howard University established. Also founded or chartered in 1867 were Talladege College, Morgan State University, Johnson C. Smith College, and St. Augustines College.

George Benson, jazz guitarist, protege and student of guitarist extraordinaire Chet Atkins, was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Among Bensons hits are Breezin, Masquerade, The Greatest Love of All, and Love X Love.

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(1808) An Act to Prohibit the Importation of Slaves into any Port or Place Within the Jurisdiction of the United States, From and After the First Day of January, in the Year of our Lord One Thousand Eight Hundred and Eight

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That from and after the first day of January, one thousand eight hundred and eight, it shall not be lawful to import or bring into the United States or the territories thereof from any foreign kingdom, place, or country, any negro, mulatto, or person of colour, with intent to hold, sell, or dispose of such negro, mulatto, or person of colour, as a slave, or to be held to service or labour.

SEC 2. And be it further enacted, That no citizen or citizens of the United States, or any other person, shall, from arid after the first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and eight, for himself, or themselves, or any other person whatsoever, either as master, factor, or owner, build, fit, equip, load or otherwise prepare any ship or vessel, in any port or place within the jurisdiction of the United States, nor shall cause any ship or vessel to sail from any port or place within the same, for the purpose of procuring any negro, mulatto, or person of colour, from any foreign kingdom, place, or country, to be transported to any port or place whatsoever, within the jurisdiction of the United States, to be held, sold, or disposed of as slaves, or to be held to service or labour: and if any ship or vessel shall be so fitted out for the purpose aforesaid, or shall be caused to sail so as aforesaid, every such ship or vessel, her tackle, apparel, and furniture, shall be

David Satcher, physician, educator, and administrator, was born in Anniston, Alabama, on March 2, 1941 to Wilmer and Anne Satcher.   In 1963 Satcher graduated from Morehouse College in Atlanta.  He earned a M.D. and Ph.D. in cytogenetics from Case Western Reserve University in 1970.  

In 1979 Satcher became a professor and later chair of the Department of Community Medicine and Family Practice at Morehouse School of Medicine.  In the early 1980s, he also served on the faculty of the UCLA School of Medicine and Public Health and the Martin Luther King/Drew Medical Center in Los Angeles, where he developed and chaired the King/Drew Department of Family Medicine. While in his position, Satcher negotiated the agreement with the UCLA School of Medicine and the Board of Regents that created a medical education program at King/Drew. In this new program, he directed sickle cell research.  In 1982, Satcher began his five year presidency at Meharry Medical College in Nashville, Tennessee.

In 1988, Satcher began a career in federal government, serving concurrently as Surgeon General and Assistant Secretary for Health.  In 1993, he became the Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Administrator of the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry.  In 1998, Satcher was sworn in under President William Clinton’s administration as the third African American and 16th Surgeon General of the United States.  As Surgeon General, he advocated for better healthcare for the poor and ethnic minorities and he pushed to destigmatize mental illness.  He served in this position through part of President George W. Bush’s administration until 2002. 

During his distinguished career, Satcher earned 18 honorary degrees.  He also received awards from the American Academy of Family Physicians, the American Medical Association, the American College of Physicians, and Ebony magazine. In 1995, Satcher received the Breslow Award in Public Health and two years later the New York Academy of Medicine Lifetime

On this day in 1962, Wilt the Stilt Chamberlain scored 100 points in a single basketball game-a professional record that still stands today. He sunk 36 field goals and 28 foul shots. Chamberlain, who played for the Philadelphia Warriors and 76ers and then the Los Angeles Lakers, was the best scorer and rebounder in the history of the sport, and the first player to score 30,000 points. At seven-feet-one-inch tall, Chamberlain was the first professional player over seven feet, changing basketball into a tall mans game. Chamberlain retired from basketball in October 1974 and was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 1979.

First of a succession of Reconstruction acts passed by Congress. The acts divided the former Confederate states into five military districts under the command of army generals.

Howard University (HU or simply Howard) is a federally chartered, private, coeducational, nonsectarian, historically black university (HBCU) in Washington, D.C. It is recognized by the Carnegie Foundation as a research university with high research activity and is accredited by the Middle States Commission on Higher Education.

From its outset Howard has been nonsectarian and open to people of all genders and races.[4] In addition to over 70 distinct undergraduate programs, it has graduate programs in business, nursing, history, computer science, engineering, pharmacy, law, social work, education, communications, art, science, divinity, dentistry, and medicine.

Howard is classified as a Tier 1 national university and ranks second among HBCUs by U.S. News & World Report.[5] Howard is the only HBCU ranked in the top 75 on the 2015 Bloomberg Businessweek college rankings.[6] The Princeton Review ranked the school of business first in opportunities for minority students and in the top five for most competitive students.[6] The National Law Journal ranked the law school among the top 25 in the nation for placing graduates at the most successful law firms.[7] Howard has produced four Rhodes Scholars between 1986 and 2017.[8] Between 1998 and 2009, Howard University produced a Marshall Scholar, two Truman Scholars, twenty-two Fulbright Scholars and ten Pickering Fellows.[9] [10] In 2011, the Huffington Post named Howard the second best-dressed college in the nation.[11] Howard is the most comprehensive HBCU in the nation and produces the most black doctorate recipients of any non-profit university.[12] [13]

Shortly after the end of the American Civil War, members of The First Congregational Society of Washington considered establishing a theological seminary for the education of African-American clergymen. Within a few weeks, the project expanded to include a provision for establishing a university. Within two years, the University consisted of the Colleges of Liberal Arts and Medicine. The new institution was named

Capital Savings Bank of Washigton, D.C., the first Black bank, opened in Washington, D.C. The Savings Bank of the Order of True Reformers (Richmond, Va.) was chartered on March 2, 1888.

Blacks voted in municipal election in Alexandria, Va., for perhaps the first time in the South. The election commissioners refused to count the fourteen hundred votes and military officials suspended local elections pending clarification of the status of the freedmen.

Ismāʿīl Pasha , (born Dec. 31, 1830, Cairo—died March 2, 1895, Istanbul), viceroy of Egypt under Ottoman suzerainty, 1863–79, whose administrative policies, notably the accumulation of an enormous foreign debt, were instrumental in leading to British occupation of Egypt in 1882.

Ismāʿīl studied in Paris and undertook various diplomatic missions in Europe before becoming viceroy in 1863. In 1867 he obtained from the Ottoman sultan the hereditary title of khedive. As viceroy he conducted important negotiations regarding completion of the Suez Canal. The canal neared completion in the summer of 1869, and Ismāʿīl turned the celebration of the canal’s opening in November into a magnificent display of khedival splendour.

One of the most significant of Ismāʿīl’s innovations was the establishment of an assembly of delegates in November 1866. Although this body served only in an advisory capacity, its members eventually came to have an important influence on the course of governmental affairs. Village headmen dominated the assembly and came to exert increasing political and economic influence over the countryside and the central government. This was demonstrated in 1876, when the assembly prevailed upon Ismāʿīl to reinstate the law (promulgated by him in 1871 to raise money and later repealed) that allowed landownership and tax privileges to persons paying six years’ land tax in advance.

Ismāʿīl, hoping to bring the vast areas of the Sudan under effective Egyptian control, hired Europeans and Americans to direct the military and administrative aspects of this venture, feeling that they would be more immune to the intrigues to which his own officials would have been subjected. Although some progress was made, Ismāʿīl did not realize his goal of creating a new southern province but did assert what later became an important element in nationalist thought—the political unity of the Nile valley.

Ismāʿīl’s administrative policies consumed an enormous amount of money, much of it supplied by European financiers. When he

Elections were ordered for constitutional conventions and freedmen were enfranchised. Commanders in some states changed the status of Blacks by military orders. In March Maj. Gen. E.R.S. Canby opened the jury box to Blacks were named policemen in Mobile, Alabama.

The Battle of Adwa and the Victory of Adwa Centenary Medal

The Battle of Adwa, in which Ethiopian forces under Emperor Menelik II united to defeat an invading force of Italian troops, was one of the most significant turning points in the history of modern Africa. It occurred, in 1896, when the “colonial era” was well advanced on the African continent, and it served notice that Africa was not just there “for the taking” by European powers. More than this, it marked the entry of Ethiopia into the modern community of nations: Menelik’s victory over the Italians caused the other major European states, and Italy itself, to recognise Ethiopia as a sovereign, independent state in the context of modern statecraft.

The actual battle which took place on March 1 and 2, 1896, at Adwa, the principal market town of the North of Ethiopia, had been precipitated by the great rush of the European powers to colonise Africa. Italy and Germany had lagged behind other European powers — most notably France and Britain — in seizing large parcels of the Continent to colonise. Thus, the Conference of Berlin was convened in 1884-85 to “divide up” the remainder of Africa among the other European powers, anxious to obtain their own African colonies to satisfy the urge for imperial expansion and economic gain. Italy was “awarded” Ethiopia; all that remained was for Italian troops to take possession.

Significantly, until this time, Ethiopia had been left alone by the European powers. Its coastal littoral was well-known to traders, but the heartland in the highlands was peopled by nations notoriously unwilling to accept and embrace external contact and influence. But the Ethiopian nations had been known in the past to be fractious and divided, and from all accounts, Italy’s leaders expected a rapid conquest of the individual national leaders. Britain had, in 1868, waged a successful war against Emperor Téwodros II (Theodore), leading to his death. The Italians, however, failed to recognise that Emperor Menelik II had re-shaped Ethiopia

Joaquim Dias Cordeiro da Matta , (born December 25, 1857, Icolo-e-Bengo, Angola—died March 2, 1894, Barra do Cuanza, Angola), Angolan poet, novelist, journalist, pedagogue, historian, philologist, and folklorist whose creative zeal and research in the late 19th century helped establish in Angola an intellectual respect for Kimbundu culture and tradition.

Writing in Portuguese, Cordeiro da Matta, by profession a trader in wood, was one of the first Angolans to speak in favour of an autochthonous, or native, literature. Cordeiro da Matta was self-taught, and although he wrote many poems and two unpublished novels, the manuscripts of most of his literary works were lost. Only the poems from his published volume Delírios (1887; “Delirium”) and individual verses from the Almanach de Lembranças are extant, but it is primarily as a collector of proverbs (Filosofia Popular em Provérbios Angolenses, 1891) and as a lexicographer (his Kimbundu–Portuguese dictionary was published in 1893) that he is remembered.

Cordeiro da Matta belonged to the generation of the 1880s, a decade in which there was a flowering of literary activity in Angola. An incipient press enabled black and mulatto writers to reach a literate audience interested in cultural and political affairs. Encouraged by the Swiss Protestant missionary and ethnologist Héli Chatelain, Cordeiro da Matta began to investigate the history, legends, and language of his people. One of his important works, a lost manuscript entitled A Verdadeira História da Rainha Jinga (“The True Story of Queen Jinga”), documented the life of the legendary Mbundu queen who actively resisted Portuguese expansion in the 17th century. As a journalist he contributed to O Arauto Africans, O Policia Africano, and O Futuro d’Angola. He believed that the African intellectual’s task was as an educator of the people, whom he felt needed to understand African history and national traditions, and he was one of the cultivators of a growing Angolan literary and intellectual life.

Crispus Attucks is remembered as the first martyr of the African American Revolutionary War. His exact date of birth is not known, but it is estimated that he was born sometime around 1723. Very little is known about his origins; he may have been a slave or a free man. Some accounts define him to be a slave hailing from Framingham, Massachusetts. His father was African American and his mother was native American, which makes him of mixed race. An advertisement from a local newspaper in 1750 states that slave owner William Brown had offered a reward for 10 pounds in return for a runaway slave named Crispus, whom he describes as being a Molato, around 6 ft 2 in tall and 27 years of age. Whether or not this advertisement refers to Attucks is a point of contention for historians.

Attucks never returned to the farm, and instead joined a trading ship as a dock hand. He worked on board the ship, and also worked as a rope maker. Life on board the ship involved long journeys. In 1770, his ship temporarily landed in Boston on a return voyage from the Bahamas and was due to leave for North Carolina soon. There was already a lot of tension and conflict between the British soldiers and the colonists at the time. On March 2, 1770, there was a fight between a group of Bostonians and some British soldiers. A few nights later, a British soldier entered a local pub where a crowd of angry Bostonians started jeering at him. Attucks was amongst those present in the pub. The crowd began to taunt a British soldier, which led other British soldiers to join in their comrade’s defense.

When things got heated, the British opened fire at the Bostonian soldiers which caused the death of 5 men, Crispus Attucks being one of them. This episode was a major contributing factor towards war with the British. The incident was further incited when the British soldiers were completely pardoned on the grounds of “self defense”, by choosing to claim the “benefit of clergy” which basically meant that they were above the law. Future U.S. President John

Atlanta Chamber of Commerce announced that Black and white leaders had agreed on a plan for desegregation of lunchrooms and other facilities. Clifton R. Wharton sworn in as ambassador to Norway.