2020 August History
My Day
By Dr. J. Ester Davis
A Week in August
The month of August has some wondrous significant dates. However, we know that history is made every day, ever evolving and ever full of surprises that needs recording. Herewith is a week in August that packs the shaping of African Americans with consistent consecutive history memories:
August 6: President Lyndon Johnson signs the voting rights bill in 1965.
August 7: Ralph Bunche was born in 1903. He was the first African American Noble Prize winner.
August 8: Explorers are often missed in our history, but Matthew A. Henson was the first to reach the North Pole. He was born in 1865.
August 9: African American Inventors are seldom acknowledged in our history also, but Annie Turnbo Malone, was the first to invent the pressing comb in 1900. She was born in 1869.
August 11: Senator Kamala Harris, the first Women of Color, is announced as the Vice President running mate to the presumptive nominee, Joe Biden, President of the United States. This historic announcement is made on Tuesday, August 11,2020, eighty-eight( 88) days before the national election in 2020. Early comments are that Senator Harris is the ‘best candidate’ to compliment the Former Vice President -turn -apparent front runner, President-to-be. Highly known in the Democratic field, Senator Harris of California, has had the presidency on her mind for over a year now. After all, she was one of 22 Democratic candidates who lined up for the job. She later dropped out of running citing ‘money handicaps’. On the light side as common remark about the potential Vice President is about her laugh. Most of her close peers, speak of her laugh, ‘that deep, body shaking laugh of hers”. Senator Harris has remained among the top-polling Democrats trending now more than two(2)years.
Senator Harris’ parents came to America, both immigrants, to attend the University of California. Shyamala Gopalan, Harris’ mother, came from India to receive her PhD in Nutrition and Endocrinology. Her father, Donald Harris, came from Jamaica to study economics. Ironically her parents met in the 1960s in the civil rights movement.
Most amazingly, on this same date, General Colin Powell is nominated as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in 1989. As you know, General Colin Powell , is a Jamaican American Military Official and Diplomat.
August 11: The Watts Riots start in 1965.
August 12: Born into slavery in 1818, Frederick Douglass’ home in Washington DC, in 1922 is declared a national memorial.
As usual, I am out of time and space. And . . . the rest is history.
