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Buffalo Soldier William Harrison “Bones” Dillard (July 8, 1923 – November 15, 2019) was a track and field athlete, who is the only male in the history of the Olympic Games to win gold in both the 100 meters (sprints) and the 110-meter hurdles, making him the “World’s Fastest Man” in 1948 and the “World’s Fastest Hurdler” in 1952.

He was born in Cleveland and attended East Technical High School. He entered Baldwin-Wallace College, joined Pi Lambda Phi International Fraternity, and was drafted into the US Army, where he served in the all-Black 92nd Infantry Division, known as the Buffalo Soldiers. He returned to college and resumed his athletic career, inspired by Jesse Owens. He won the NCAA and AAU 120-yard and 220-yard hurdles, and he tied world records in both events with a 22.3 in the 220 and a 13.6 in the 120.

At the trials for the 1948 Summer Olympics, he failed to qualify for the 110 m hurdles event but qualified for the 100 m after finishing third.

He reached the final, which seemed to end in a dead heat between Dillard and another American, Barney Ewell. The finished photo showed Dillard had won, equalling the World record as well. This was the first use of a photo finish at the Olympic Games. As a member of the 4 × 100 m relay team, he won another gold medal at the London Games.

William Clarence Eckstine (July 8, 1914 – March 8, 1993) was a jazz and pop singer and bandleader during the swing era. He was noted for his rich, almost operatic bass-baritone voice. His recording of “I Apologize” (MGM, 1948) was given the Grammy Hall of Fame Award in 1999. The New York Times described him as an “influential band leader” whose “suave bass-baritone” and “full-throated, sugary approach to popular songs inspired singers like Joe Williams, Arthur Prysock, and Lou Rawls.”

Louis Thomas Jordan (July 8, 1908 – February 4, 1975) was a saxophonist, multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, and bandleader who was popular from the late 1930s to the early 1950s. Known as “the King of the Jukebox”, he earned his highest profile towards the end of the swing era. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Specializing in the alto sax, he played all forms of the saxophone, as well as piano and clarinet. He was a talented singer with great comedic flair and fronted his band for more than twenty years. He duetted with some of the biggest solo singing stars of his time.

He was an actor. He appeared in 14 three-minute Soundies filmed for “movie jukeboxes” of the 1940s. He worked as a specialty act in the Hollywood theatrical features Follow the Boys and Swing Parade of 1946. His musical short Caldonia prompted three more feature films, Beware; Reet, Petite and Gone; and Look-Out Sister.

He began his career in big-band swing jazz in the 1930s, and he became known as an innovative popularizer of jump blues, a swinging, up-tempo, dance-oriented hybrid of jazz, blues, and boogie-woogie.

He mapped out the main parameters of the classic R&B, urban blues, and early rock-and-roll genres with a series of highly influential 78-rpm discs. These recordings presaged many of the styles of Black popular music of the late 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s and exerted a strong influence on many leading performers in these genres.

He ranks fifth on the list of the most successful African American recording artists, according to Billboard magazine’s R&B chart, and was the most popular rhythm and blues artist for his “jump blues” recordings. He had at least four million-selling hits during his career. He topped the R&B “race” charts, achieving the #1 slot eighteen times, with 113 weeks in that spot over the years. He was one of the first Black recording artists to achieve significant crossover.

François “Féral” Eugène Benga (July 8, 1906 – September 13, 1957) was a dancer and became a sought-after model of the Harlem Renaissance; Carl Van Vechten, Richmond Barthé, and George Platt Lynes, among others, took his portraits and sculptures.

He was the grandchild of one of Dakar’s wealthiest property owners. He moved to Paris, and his father disinherited him.

He starred in The Blood of a Poet. He was a Folies Bergère star.

Richmond Barthé went on a tour to Paris. This trip exposed Barthé to classical art and performers such as he and Josephine Baker. He was enchanted by him, which led Barthé to create a sculpture of him in 1935.

His partner, Geoffrey Gorer, wrote Africa Dances, dedicated to him. It was the result of a trip they made to Africa in 1933 to study the native dances. He opened a nightclub in Paris.

James A. Porter, in Soldat Senegalese, painted him.

Back in Manhattan, he was a gay icon. He moved in the circles of the Harlem Renaissance. Pavel Tchelitchew painted him, and the painting, Deposition, was owned by Lincoln Kirstein.

Gwendolyn Bennetta Bennett (July 8, 1902 - May 30, 1981) was a poet, author, educator, journalist, and graphic artist who was born in Giddings, Texas, to Joshua and Maime Bennett. Her parents worked as teachers in the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Her family moved to DC in 1906. Soon after, her mother divorced her father and took custody of her. Joshua kidnapped her, and they settled in with her stepmother in Brooklyn.

She attended Brooklyn’s Girls High, where she became the first African American to join the Drama and Literary societies and where she was awarded first place in a school-wide art contest. She graduated from Columbia University and Pratt Institute in fine arts.

She began writing poetry in college, and in November 1923, her poem “Nocturne” was published in The Crisis, the journal of the NAACP. Another poem, “Heritage,” appeared in Opportunity, the magazine of the National Urban League. She became an Assistant Professor in the Art Department at Howard University. She attended the Académie Julian and the École de Pantin in Paris.

She became the assistant editor of Opportunity magazine. She became active in the Harlem Renaissance and regularly wrote a column called “The Ebony Flute” in Opportunity about literary and fine arts. Her column reported the various literary activities of Harlem Renaissance artists. She wrote short stories such as “Wedding Day,” which first appeared in the Harlem Renaissance anthology, Fire.

She married Alfred Jackson (1927). Financial pressures constantly threatened their marriage. They lost their home in Florida during the Great Depression, and soon afterward he passed away.

Lieutenant Lucien Victor Alexis, Sr. (July 8, 1887 - December 18, 1981) was born in New Orleans. He worked as a railway mail clerk, saving up for his ultimate dream: to attend Harvard University, a phenomenally daunting challenge for a Black man at that time. He accumulated sufficient funds, and he was accepted, though the university asked him to attend Phillips Exeter Academy for one year first. He discovered his talent (and love) for foreign languages and excelled in all his classes, graduating cum laude from Harvard a full year early so as not to exhaust the offset from his tuition savings.

During WWI, he was commissioned as a 1st Lieutenant in the famed 366th Infantry. He returned to New Orleans and married Rita Holt, with whom he had one son, Lucien Jr. (who would himself one day attend Harvard). After working as a teacher at several elementary schools, he secured an appointment as principal of McDonough High School. He brought some of his Army discipline to his principalship and his German and Latin classes, quietly enforcing strict dress and behavior codes. McDonough was situated in a poor neighborhood and was the only public high school available to Black students in New Orleans. It endured a bad reputation, but under his leadership over the next 30 years, the school not only succeeded but also flourished.

On July 8, 1876, the small town of Hamburg, South Carolina, erupted in violence as the community’s African American militia clashed with whites from the surrounding area. Hamburg was a small all-Black community across the river from Augusta, Georgia. It was solidly Republican, and some of its men were militia members.

On July 4, two white farmers from surrounding Edgefield County, Thomas Butler and Henry Getzen, attempted to drive a carriage through the town along the main road but were obstructed by the all-Black militia, which was engaged in a military exercise.

Butler and Getzen brought a formal complaint of obstruction of a public road before the local court. The case was postponed until July 8. Matthew C. Butler, an Edgefield attorney, appeared as the farmers’ counsel. Butler demanded that the Hamburg militia company be disbanded although that action had no direct connection to the complaint.

Hundreds of armed white men, including many who were members of various rifle clubs, descended upon the small Black community. Militia members retreated to a stone warehouse which they used as their armory.

Twenty-five militiamen and fifteen Hamburg residents fought back from the armory. By mid-afternoon, a white attacker and a militiaman lay dead, and a few more members of the militia were wounded. As cannon fire blew a hole in the armory, some Black militiamen and Hamburg’s Town Marshal, James Cook, attempted to flee. Cook was shot and killed.

The rest of the militiamen and townspeople were captured in the armory. Four of the militiamen were brought out and executed by the white mob. The whites turned their guns on the escaping men, shooting as many as possible. Six were black militiamen or civilians, and one was a white farmer killed in the attack on the armory.

Brooklyn (popularly known as Lovejoy) is a village in St. Clair County, Illinois. It is the oldest majority-Black incorporated town in the US, founded by freed and fugitive enslaved people and incorporated on July 8, 1873. Its motto is “Founded by Chance, Sustained by Courage.” The mayor is Trenton C. Atkins.

An AME Church mission was established in the new settlement in 1836. Now known as Quinn’s Chapel AME, the congregation is believed to have supported the Underground Railroad and aided fugitive enslaved people in reaching freedom, together with members of the Antioch Baptist Church, established in 1838.

An early interracial community, it suffered from structural discrimination; transport lines were routed to bypass and isolate it rather than connecting it, and economic development projects passed over it, and indeed were set up in competition to it. In 2015, the county’s state attorney Brendan Kelly described the village as a ‘failed state.

Brooklyn has an elected city council and mayor.

The town has a police department that in 2015 was described by the county prosecutor as having “gone from dysfunctional to nonfunctional.”[

“The wicked plot against the righteous and gnash their teeth at them; but the Lord laughs at the wicked, for he knows their day is coming.”

‭‭Psalms‬ ‭37:12-13‬ ‭NIV‬‬

“To fear the Lord is to hate evil; I hate pride and arrogance, evil behavior and perverse speech.” ‭‭Proverbs‬ ‭8:13‬ ‭NIV‬‬

The Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church is the oldest operating African American church in DC. The AME Church designates Metropolitan AME as the National Cathedral of African Methodism.

Metropolitan AME began on July 6, 1872, as the result of a merger of two smaller churches, Israel Bethel AME, founded in 1821, and Union Bethel AME, created in 1838. Both were formed because of disaffection from two mostly white Methodist congregations in DC, Fourth Street and Ebenezer Church. Each church required African Americans to sit in the gallery. Members of these churches established Israel Bethel and Union Bethel.

The new churches actively championed the cause of anti-slavery in the Nineteenth Century. They sheltered runaway enslaved people as stations on the Underground Railroad and led the way in protest as well as racial uplift work. The Bethel Literary Society, led by the Reverend Daniel A. Payne, worked to increase literacy and introduce literary luminaries. Construction of the present church edifice was begun in 1881 and was completed in 1886.

The first African American Senator, Blanche Kelso Bruce, was a member of the church. On January 9, 1894, he introduced fellow congregant Frederick Douglass at Metropolitan, who delivered his final speech before his death, entitled “The Lessons of the Hour,” in which he admonished the US to end racial prejudice and thus reap the benefit of the nation that would “flourish forever.”

Pastor Natasha Tameika “Tasha” Cobbs Leonard (July 7, 1981) is a gospel musician and songwriter. She released the extended play Grace in 2013 with EMI Gospel. The EP reached #61 on the Billboard charts. At the 56th Annual Grammy Awards, she won the Grammy for Best Gospel/Contemporary Christian Music Performance. She has won 3 Stellar Awards and 3 Dove Awards.

She started her solo music career in 2010 with the independently self-released album Smile. The album caught the attention of EMI Gospel, which released her EP, Grace, on February 5, 2013. This was listed on two Billboard charts: #61 on the Billboard 200 and #2 on the Top Gospel Albums chart. The EP reached number 1 on the Top Gospel Albums chart. The singles “Break Every Chain” and “For Your Glory” reached number 1 on the Hot Gospel Songs charts. At the 56th Annual Grammy Awards in 2014, she took home Best Gospel/Contemporary Christian Music Performance, winning her first Grammy. She was awarded the Gospel Artist of the Year at the 2015 GMA Dove Awards.

She married Kenneth Leonard, a music producer and her longtime love. They adopted a son.

She toured America with Pastor William H. Murphy III of the dReam Center Church for three years. She has been leading worship at the dReam Center and managing the Worship and Arts department. In 2018, she appeared as herself in the film Sinners Wanted.

Nia-Malika Henderson (July 7, 1974) is a senior political reporter for CNN. She reported broadly on the 2016 campaign for CNN’s digital and television platforms, with a special focus on identity politics, exploring the dynamics of demographics, race, and religion, and covering the groups who help shape national elections.

She graduated from Lower Richland High School in Hopkins, South Carolina. She went on to graduate cum laude from Duke University with a BA in Literature and Cultural Anthropology. She earned MAs from Yale University in American Studies and from Columbia University in Journalism.

She began her career writing for The Baltimore Sun and for Newsday’s national staff, where she was its lead reporter covering Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign, the Democratic primary race, and the Democratic National Convention. She covered the first two years of the Obama administration for Politico.

She served as a reporter at The Washington Post (2010-15). As a national political reporter for the Post, she covered the White House, the 2012 presidential campaign, and the 2010 midterm elections and anchored the Post’s Election 2012 blog.

In 2015, she joined CNN as a senior political reporter and anchor.

Lisa Deshaun Leslie (July 7, 1972) is a former basketball player. She is the head coach for Triplets in the BIG3 professional basketball league, as well as a studio analyst for Orlando Magic broadcasts on Fox Sports Florida. She played in the WNBA. She is a three-time WNBA MVP and a four-time Olympic gold medal winner. The #7 pick in the inaugural 1997 WNBA draft, she followed her USC career with eight WNBA All-Star selections and two WNBA championships over 11 seasons with the Los Angeles Sparks before retiring in 2009. She was the first player to dunk in a WNBA game. In 2011, she was voted in by fans as one of the Top 15 players in WNBA history. In 2015, she was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. She was inducted into the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame in 2015.

She married Michael Lockwood (2005), who played basketball for the US Air Force Academy and is a pilot for UPS.

Cree Summer Francks (July 7, 1969) is an actress, voice actress, and singer.

She is known for playing Winifred “Freddie” Brooks in A Different World. In animation, she was the original voice of Penny in Inspector Gadget. Her other voice roles include Princess Kneesaa in Ewoks, Elmyra Duff in Tiny Toon Adventures and Pinky, Elmyra & the Brain, Susie Carmichael in Rugrats and All Grown Up!, Numbuh 5 and Cree Lincoln in Codename: Kids Next Door, and Cleo the Poodle in Clifford the Big Red Dog. She is the voice of Princess Kida in the franchise Atlantis: The Lost Empire, Valerie Gray in Danny Phantom, Penelope in Barbie as Rapunzel, Blackarachnia in Transformers Animated, Rayna Cartflight in The Buzz on Maggie, Beast Girl in Teen Titans Go!, Priscilla Skunk in Sheriff Callie’s Wild West, Maxine “Max” Gibson in Batman Beyond, Foxxy Love in Drawn Together, Magma in X-Men Legends, Yvonne and Gordon in Mrs. Munger’s Class, Nebula in Guardians of the Galaxy, and Witch Haggar in Voltron: Legendary Defender. She voiced the character Mo in The Horrible Histories, as well as Kermit’s Mom, Star, and Pilgrim in Kermit’s Swamp Years, as well as a role in Queen Sugar.

Allen Payne (July 7, 1968) born Allen Roberts, is a film and television actor known for his role as Jason Alexander in Jason’s Lyric, as well as his portrayal of C.J. Payne in Tyler Perry’s House of Payne. He is known for his portrayal of Lance Rodman on The Cosby Show during its final two seasons. He played Gerald “Gee Money” Wells in New Jack City and Detective Justice in Vampire in Brooklyn.

His first television role was in a 1990 episode of The Cosby Show. He appeared in episodes of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and Malcolm & Eddie.

Karen Malina White (July 7, 1965) is a film and television actress. She is known for her roles as Kaneesha Carter in Lean on Me, Charmaine Brown on The Cosby Show and A Different World; Nicolette Vandross in Malcolm & Eddie, and the voice of Dijonay Jones in The Proud Family.

After graduating high school, she continued her studies at Howard University, where she graduated cum laude with a BFA. During her senior year, she won the title of “Miss Howard University” and landed her first role as an actress.

Reginald “Reggie Rock” Bythewood (July 7, 1965) is a filmmaker and actor. He is known for directing the film Dancing in September (2000) and creating the television series Shots Fired and Swagger.

He grew up in the Bronx. He was a rapper in a neighborhood hip-hop crew. During junior high school assemblies, he and other schoolmates were allowed to get on stage and breakdance.

After junior high, his main focus became acting. He went to the High School of Performing Arts as a drama major. The school did not allow students to work as professional actors.

During his senior year, he was cast in the soap opera Another World; he left Performing Arts and attended Quintanos School for the Young Professionals.

He acted in The Brother from Another Planet. He graduated from Marymount Manhattan College with a BFA in theater. He co-founded a New York City-based theater company called The Tribe, which performed plays he wrote and directed.

He moved to Los Angeles to pursue a career in screenwriting. He became one of the first members of Walt Disney’s prestigious Writers Fellowship Program. He was hired as a writer on A Different World. He went on to write and produce New York Undercover. He wrote the screenplay for Get on the Bus. He was one of the film’s investors.

He was hired to rewrite Notorious. He made his feature film directorial debut with Dancing in September. He has directed Biker Boyz, “Daddy’s Girl”, “One Night in Vegas”, and Gun Hill, for which he won the 2014 NAACP Image Award. He co-created Shots Fired with Gina Prince-Bythewood.

He was chairman of the B-Dads organization. He fed homeless families in Los Angeles, raised thousands of dollars for the Sickle Cell Disease Foundation, and conducted workshops on fatherhood. He has spoken on various panels on police reform, including at the annual convention of the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement.