October 8

Jesse Louis Jackson, Sr. (born October 8, 1941) came to the attention of SCLC leaders Martin Luther King, Jr. and James Bevel during the 1965 Selma to Montgomery March, and the next year they selected him to head the Chicago branch of the SCLC's economic arm, Operation Breadbasket. He was promoted to national director in 1967. After King's death, Jackson had conflicts with Ralph Abernathy, leaving in 1971 to form Operation PUSH (People United to Serve Humanity). In 1984, Jackson organized the Rainbow Coalition and resigned as president of Operation PUSH in 1984 to run for president of the United States. He received 3.3 million votes, or 18% of the total, carrying Louisiana, the District of Columbia, and South Carolina. He ran again in 1988, winning 6.9 million votes and seven primaries.

Birthdays

Powhatan Beaty (October 8, 1837 – December 6, 1916) served in the Union Army's 5th United States Colored Infantry Regiment throughout the Richmond–Petersburg Campaign, receiving the Medal of Honor for taking command of his company at the Battle of Chaffin's Farm after all officers had been killed and/or wounded. After the war he returned to Cincinnati where worked as a turner in a cabinet shop and was also an amateur actor. A local appearance by actress Henrietta Vinton Davis led to an invitation to tour with her in a Shakespearean production which appeared May 1884 at Ford's Opera House on 9th Street in Washington, D.C.

Clarence Williams (October 8, 1893 - November 6, 1965) was a vaudeville singer and piano player in New Orleans as a teenager, as well as booking other musicians in Rampart Street and Storyville clubs. He began a music publishing business at this time, which continued after he moved to Chicago and then New York City where he was studio pianist and A&R director for Okeh Records. He was married to singer Eva Taylor and they are the grandparents of actor Clarence Williams III.

Faith Ringgold (born October 8, 1930) taught art for about 15 years in New York City before establishing herself as a full-time artist. Some of her first work was a body of paintings in 1963 called the American People series, which portrays the civil rights movement from a female perspective.  She began a series of painted story quilts in the 1970s, often collaborating with her mother, Willie Jones, a Harlem clothing designer and seamstress. Many of her quilts went on to inspire the children's books that she later made. She also created both carved and soft-sculpture masks which were also used in performance art. She has participated in and founded a number of African American feminist organizations.

Story Quilt by Faith Ringgold

Aunt Harriet's Underground Railroad in the Sky by Faith Ringgold

Lonnie Pitchford (October 8, 1955 – November 8, 1998) was a blues musician and instrument maker from Lexington, Mississippi. He was notable in that he was one of only a handful of young African American musicians from Mississippi who had learned and was continuing the Delta blues and country blues traditions of the older generations. In addition to the acoustic and electric guitar, Pitchford was also skilled at the one-string guitar and diddley bow, a one string instrument from Africa.

Events

On October 8, 1992, Derek Walcott was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1992, the second Caribbean writer to receive the honor after Saint-John Perse, who was born in Guadeloupe, received the award in 1960. The Nobel committee described Walcott's work as “a poetic oeuvre of great luminosity, sustained by a historical vision, the outcome of a multicultural commitment.” He is a native of St. Lucia and taught at Boston University from 1981 to 2007.

On October 8, 2004, Wangari Maathai won the Nobel Peace Prize for "her contribution to sustainable development, democracy and peace" In 1977, Maathai founded the Green Belt Movement, an environmental non-governmental organization focused on the planting of trees, environmental conservation, and women's rights. Maathia, who died in 2011, was from Kenya and is the first African woman to win the award.

Photo Gallery

Mrs. Sam Crawford helps with tobacco harvesting on her husband's farm in Maryland. Mrs. Crawford wears the Women's Land Army uniform. October 8, 1943.

Saxophonist Benny Carter squatting on stage to greet fans in Savoy Ballroom in Harlem, New York, October 8, 1945.

Publications

Jet Magazine, October 8, 1953

Jet Magazine, October 8, 1953

Aretha Franklin with London bobbies, Jet Magazine, October 8, 1970

Jet Magazine, October 8, 1984