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“Blessed are those who find wisdom, those who gain understanding, for she is more profitable than silver and yields better returns than gold. She is more precious than rubies; nothing you desire can compare with her. Long life is in her right hand; in her left hand are riches and honor. Her ways are pleasant ways, and all her paths are peace. She is a tree of life to those who take hold of her; those who hold her fast will be blessed.”

‭‭Proverbs‬ ‭3:13-18‬ ‭NIV‬‬

Alechia Janeice Campbell (June 2, 1983) known professionally as Leela James, is an R&B

singer-songwriter from Los Angeles.

She made her debut on the soundtrack to the film Bait on the Roots song “Work”, credited as Alechia James.

She toured as an opening act for the Black Eyed Peas and Macy Gray. She was featured on hip-hop producer, DJ, and emcee Pete Rock’s album Soul Survivor II, providing vocals for the track “No Tears”. She lent her voice to the posthumously released Ray Charles album Genius & Friends.

Her debut album, A Change Is Gonna Come, was released on June 21, 2005. She co-wrote most of the tracks on this album. Notable collaborators on the album include Raphael Saadiq, Kanye West, and Wyclef Jean.

She guested on Robert Randolph and the Family Band’s album Colorblind, lending her vocals to “Stronger”.

She signed with the independent label Shanachie Records and released her second studio album, an all-cover set entitled Let’s Do It Again, in homage to the Staple Singers.

In June 2009, she appeared on the Moby album Wait for Me, providing vocals on “Walk with Me”.

Her third album, My Soul, her first with the Stax label, was released on May 24, 2010, and debuted at #7 on the US Hip Hop/R&B chart.

On July 31, 2012, she released her fourth studio album, Loving You More… In the Spirit of Etta James.

On July 8, 2014, she released her fifth studio album, Fall For You. The album’s first two singles, “Say That” and “Fall For You,” both reached the Top 15 on the Billboard Urban AC charts, with “Fall For You” reaching number 12. She performed at the Essence Music Festival, the Arizona Jazz Fest, the San Diego Jazz Fest, the Capitol Jazz Fest, and more.

Her sixth album, Did It for Love, was released on March 31, 2017. The album has the singles “Don’t Want You Back”, “Hard for Me”, “Don’t Mean a Thang”, and a video single “All Over Again”. The single “Don’t Want You Back” reached #1 on Billboard’s Adult R&B Songs chart, becoming her highest-charting single ever.

Simone Antoinette Johnson, or Simone Gooden (July 2, 1970) known by her stage name Monie Love, is a British rapper, actress, and radio personality from London. Known for her singles from the late–1980s through the 1990s, she serves as a radio personality on the urban adult contemporary station KISS 104.1 WALR-FM in Atlanta. She is a two-time Grammy Award nominee, making her the first British female hip-hop artist to hold that distinction.

Her debut album, Down to Earth, was released in 1990. It spawned the singles “Monie in the Middle” and “It’s a Shame (My Sister)”. The album reached #26 on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart. She appears on the song titled “United” from Inner City’s third album, Praise, and raps a clap back from the woman’s perspective on a remix of the Fine Young Cannibals hit, “She Drives Me Crazy”.

She was the morning drive host on Philadelphia’s WPHI-FM 100.3. She is an official MySpace.com DJ. She has a radio show on XM Satellite Radio called Ladies First Radio with Monie Love. She was a DJ on Philadelphia’s Boom 107.9, where she hosted a morning show. She co-hosted the Ed Lover Morning Show on “Boom 92” KROI in Houston with Ed Lover. She did the workday and lunch break on 106.7 WTLC in Indianapolis.

She was featured on the LA Reid & Babyface remix of Whitney Houston’s R&B hit “My Name Is Not Susan”. Her single “Full-Term Love” reached #7 on the Hot Hip-Hop Singles chart. She collaborated with Marley Marl on her second album, In a Word or 2, which featured the Prince-produced single “Born To B.R.E.E.D.” (which reached #1 on the Hot Dance Music chart and number 7 on the Hot Rap Singles chart) as well as a re-release of “Full-Term Love”. Prince asked her to write lyrics for a few songs on a side project, Carmen Electra’s eponymous album, Carmen Electra. Her last release as a lead artist was the single “Slice of da Pie”. She was featured on the track “Sometimes” by Ras Kass from his album Barmageddon, and she released a single called “Divine”.

Jonathan T. Capehart (July 2, 1967) is a journalist and television commentator. He writes for The Washington Post’s PostPartisan blog and is the host of The Saturday/Sunday Show with Jonathan Capehart on MSNBC.

He grew up in Hazlet and Newark, New Jersey, and attended Saint Benedict’s Preparatory School. He received a BA in political science from Carleton College.

He was a researcher for The Today Show. He worked for the New York Daily News, serving on its editorial board. He was the youngest-ever member of the newspaper’s editorial board. He left the Daily News to work at Bloomberg News. He advised and wrote speeches for Michael Bloomberg during his run for New York City mayor. He returned to the New York Daily News, serving as deputy editor of the editorial page. He joined the global public relations company Hill & Knowlton as a Senior Vice President and senior counselor of public affairs.

He joined the staff of The Washington Post as a journalist and member of its editorial board. He continues in that capacity and is a contributing commentator for MSNBC. He hosts the Cape Up podcast, in which he talks to newsmakers about race, religion, age, gender, and cultural identity in politics. He began guest-hosting the WNYC radio show Midday.

He hosted the premiere episode of The Sunday Show with Jonathan Capehart on MSNBC. He is the fill-in host of The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell on the Friday edition.

He replaced Mark Shields in the Friday political commentary segment on the PBS NewsHour. He became the associate editor of The Washington Post. The Sunday Show was expanded to Saturday as well, becoming The Saturday/Sunday Show with Jonathan Capehart.

He was a key contributor to a New York Daily News staff entry that received the Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Writing. He was an Esteem Honoree. In honor of the 50th anniversary of the first LGBTQ Pride parade, Queerty named him among the fifty heroes “leading the nation toward equality, acceptance, and dignity for all people”.

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 (enacted July 2, 1964) is a landmark civil rights and labor law in the US that outlaws discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. It prohibits unequal application of voter registration requirements and racial segregation in schools, employment, and public accommodations.

Initially, the powers given to enforce the act were weak, but they were supplemented in later years. Congress asserted its authority to legislate under several different parts of the US Constitution, principally its power to regulate interstate commerce under Article One (section 8), its duty to guarantee all citizens equal protection of the laws under the Fourteenth Amendment, and its duty to protect voting rights under the Fifteenth Amendment.

President John F. Kennedy had proposed the legislation in June 1963, but a filibuster in the Senate opposed it. After Kennedy was assassinated on November 22, 1963, President Lyndon B. Johnson pushed the bill forward. The House of Representatives passed the bill on February 10, 1964, and, after a 54-day filibuster, the Senate passed it on June 19, 1964. The final vote was 290–130 in the House of Representatives and 73–27 in the Senate. After the House agreed to a subsequent Senate amendment, the Civil Rights Act was signed into law by President Johnson at the White House on July 2, 1964.

Mark Steven Doss (July 2, 1957) is a Grammy Award-winning bass-baritone, specializing in opera, concert, and recital. He has performed major roles with many international opera companies, including Milan’s La Scala, Vienna State Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, San Francisco Opera, the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, Deutsche Staatsoper Berlin, Brussels’ La Monnaie, Canadian Opera Company, and Oper Frankfurt.

He was born in Cleveland and attended East Technical High School, participated in varsity sports, took drama and chorus, and performed in a school production of Godspell. He enrolled in the Seminary at Saint Joseph’s College. He continued to take music courses and performed in recitals and musical theatre productions. He left the seminary and became a student at the college, graduating with a BA in music and sociology. He entered the master’s program at Indiana University’s School of Music. His first operatic performance was in the role of Khan Konchak in the Indiana University Musical Theatre’s production of Borodin’s Prince Igor. He performed a total of six roles at Indiana University.

He made his debut at Milan’s La Scala in the role of Escamillo in Carmen. He has been a regular performer at La Scala, most recently in the role of Amonasro in the opera’s production Aida. He performed the roles of Mephistopheles in Gounod’s Faust with Opera Tampa, Amonasro in Verdi’s Aida at La Scala and in Tel Aviv, Jochanaan in Strauss’ Salome with the Deutsche Staatsoper Berlin, and Premysl in Janáček’s Šárka with La Fenice in Venice.

He is married to Dawn Rivard, and he has two sons.

He is the recipient of Planet Africa’s 2011 Entertainment Award. He received a Grammy Award for his performance on the Deutsche Grammophon recording of Handel’s Semele. He won First Prize in the International Verdi Competition, as well as being a Metropolitan Opera Finalist Winner. He received The National Institute for Music Theatre’s George London Opera Prize.

David Lloyd Steward (July 2, 1951) is a businessman. He is the chairman and founder of World Wide Technology, one of the largest African American-owned businesses in America.

According to Forbes, in 2019 he was one of 13 African American billionaires worldwide. He was ranked 239th on the Forbes 400 list of American billionaires in 2019.

He received his BS in business from Central Missouri State University.

He worked at Wagner Electric as a production manager, a sales representative at Missouri Pacific Railroad Company, and a senior account executive at Federal Express, where he was recognized as a salesman of the year and inducted into the company’s hall of fame. He owned Transportation Business Specialists and Transport Administrative Services in the years leading up to founding World Wide Technology. He is the founder of Telcobuy, a global technology and supply chain management company.

He founded World Wide Technology, a systems integrator. WWT focused on implementing enterprise-wide imaging, conversion services, and telecommunications networks.

World Wide Technology’s 2018 revenue is estimated at more than $11 billion, which would rank it among St. Louis’ largest private companies.

He has served on committees and boards that include: Civic Progress of St. Louis; the St. Louis Regional Chamber and Growth Association; Missouri Technology Corporation, appointed by the Governor of Missouri; Webster University; BJC Health System; First Banks, Inc.; St. Louis Science Center; United Way of Greater St. Louis; The Greater St. Louis Area Council of Boy Scouts of America and Harris-Stowe State College African American Business Leadership Council. He was appointed to the Board of Curators at the University of Missouri by the Governor.

Dr. Laurence (Larry) Cornelius Morse (July 2, 1951) was born in Birmingham. Little is known about his years in Birmingham. He graduated from Howard University with a BA in Economics. He was awarded the Luard Scholarship by the London School of Economics and Political Science during his junior year and attended the institution (1971-72). He received an MA and Ph.D. from Princeton University. He held a postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard University.

He began his career as an analyst at UNC Ventures, a venture capital firm based in Boston. He was promoted to investment officer. He became the Vice President of Equico Capital Corporation. He became the founding principal of the TSG Ventures investment fund. Coopers & Lybrand International Consulting Services hired him as a senior venture capital advisor. He advised establishing a proposed $100 million Africa Enterprise Development Fund based in the then-post-apartheid South Africa.

He helped found Fairview Capital Partners, Inc. He joined the English-Speaking Union of the United States. He was appointed director of both Webster Financial Corp and Webster Bank.

He continued his work in the financial and educational realms. He served three terms on the Princeton University Investment Company’s board of trustees and joined the Princeton University Board of Trustees. He became a trustee of Harris Associates Investment Trust, and he joined the Board of Trustees of Howard University. He has worked with or for various private equity firms and served on their advisory boards, including Sierra Ventures, ICV Capital Partners, and Trinity Ventures.

State Representative Dr. Dawn Taylor Mason (July 2, 1945) is a former Washington State Representative for the 37th District, an adjunct professor and former member of the Board of Visitors at Antioch University Seattle, and a Vision and Planning Team Member for Cultural Reconnection (USA and Kenya). She attended Kearny, New Jersey public schools, Tennessee State University, California State College Dominguez Hills, and The Evergreen State College, where she received her BA. She received her M.Ed. from Antioch University in Seattle. She is a Flemming Fellow alum and retired City of Seattle Management Systems Analyst.

She served two two-year terms in the Washington State Legislature, 1995-97 and 1997-99. While there, she was Assistant Minority Whip and Ranking Chair of the Higher Education Committee. The Washington Student Lobby presented her with the Legislator of the Year Award in 1996 for her effective leadership in maintaining access to higher education for all students. In 1998, she was appointed by President Bill Clinton to the Women’s Economic Roundtable.

Paul Hamilton Williams, Jr. (July 2, 1939 – August 17, 1973) was a baritone singer. He was noted for being one of the founding members and the original lead singer of the Motown group the Temptations, along with Elbridge “Al” Bryant, Otis Williams, and fellow Alabamians Eddie Kendricks and Melvin Franklin.

Personal problems and failing health forced Williams to retire in 1971; he was found dead two years later as the result of an apparent suicide.

He was born and raised in Birmingham. He was the son of Sophia and Rufus Williams. He supposedly met Eddie Kendricks in elementary school. Both boys shared a love of singing and sang in their church choir together. As teenagers, he, Kendricks, Kell Osborne, and Willie Waller performed in a secular singing group known as The Cavaliers. In 1957, he, Kendricks, and Osborne left Birmingham to start careers. Now known as the Primes, the trio moved to Cleveland and found a manager in Milton Jenkins, who moved the group to Detroit. Although the Primes were never recorded, they were successful performers and even launched a spin-off female group, the Primettes, who later became the Supremes.

The Primes disbanded. Kendricks returned to Alabama but visited him in Detroit. He and Eddie had learned that Otis Williams, head of a rival Detroit act known as the Distants, had two openings in his group’s lineup. He and Kendricks joined Otis Williams, Melvin Franklin, and Elbridge Bryant to form the Elgins, who signed to the local Motown label in 1961, after first changing their name to the Temptations.

As a member of the Temptations, was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the Vocal Group Hall of Fame, and the Rhythm and Blues Music Hall of Fame. Both of his solo recordings were released by Motown on Temptations-related compilations in the 1980s and 1990s.

Ed Artie Bullins (July 2, 1935 - November 13, 2021) was born in Philadelphia and was a playwright. He was the Minister of Culture for the Black Panthers. He has won numerous awards, including the New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award and several Obie Awards. He was among the best-known playwrights of the Black Arts Movement.

After completing his GED, he enrolled in Los Angeles City College and began writing short stories for the Citadel, a magazine he started. He moved to San Francisco and joined the creative writing program at San Francisco State College, where he started writing plays. His first play was How Do You Do, followed by Clara’s Ole [Old] Man and Dialect Determinism.

His plays were produced at La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club. Street Sounds were produced at La MaMa and then toured to Middletown, Connecticut. His next production at La MaMa was a set of four one-acts, called Short Bullins. The four works were How Do You Do?, A Minor Scene, Dialect Determinism, and It Has No Choice, and the production featured music by Aaron Bell. These four one-acts, along with another work called Clara’s Ole [Old] Man, toured Italy alongside Black Terror, with performances in Venice and Milan. He performed in The Hotel Play at La MaMa. Clara’s Ole Man was produced again at La MaMa.

He was a playwright-in-residence at the American Place Theatre. He was on staff at the Public Theater with the New York Shakespeare Festival’s Writers’ Unit. He wrote two children’s plays, titled I am Lucy Terry and The Mystery of Phillis Wheatley. He wrote the text for two musicals, titled Sepia Star and Storyville.

Ahmad Jamal (Frederick Russell Jones; July 2, 1930 – April 16, 2023) was a jazz pianist, composer, bandleader, and educator. For six decades, he was one of the most successful small-group leaders in jazz. He was a National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Master and won a Lifetime Achievement Grammy for his contributions to music history.

He was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He began playing piano at the age of three when his uncle Lawrence challenged him to duplicate what he was doing on the piano. He began formal piano training at the age of seven with Mary Cardwell Dawson, whom he described as having greatly influenced him. His Pittsburgh roots remained an important part of his identity (“Pittsburgh meant everything to me, and it still does,” he said in 2001). It was there that he was immersed in the influence of jazz artists such as Earl Hines, Billy Strayhorn, Mary Lou Williams, and Erroll Garner. He studied with pianist James Miller and began playing piano professionally at the age of fourteen. At that point, he was recognized as a “coming great” by the pianist Art Tatum. When asked about his practice habits by a critic from The New York Times, he commented, “I used to practice and practice with the door open, hoping someone would come by and discover me. I was never a practitioner in the sense of twelve hours a day, but I always thought about music. I think about music all the time.”

Ahmad Jamal (Frederick Russell Jones; July 2, 1930 – April 16, 2023) was a jazz pianist, composer, bandleader, and educator. For six decades, he was one of the most successful small-group leaders in jazz. He was a National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Master and won a Lifetime Achievement Grammy for his contributions to music history.

He was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He began playing piano at the age of three when his uncle Lawrence challenged him to duplicate what he was doing on the piano. He began formal piano training at the age of seven with Mary Cardwell Dawson, whom he described as having greatly influenced him. His Pittsburgh roots remained an important part of his identity (“Pittsburgh meant everything to me, and it still does,” he said in 2001). It was there that he was immersed in the influence of jazz artists such as Earl Hines, Billy Strayhorn, Mary Lou Williams, and Erroll Garner. He studied with pianist James Miller and began playing piano professionally at the age of fourteen. At that point, he was recognized as a “coming great” by the pianist Art Tatum. When asked about his practice habits by a critic from The New York Times, he commented, “I used to practice and practice with the door open, hoping someone would come by and discover me. I was never a practitioner in the sense of twelve hours a day, but I always thought about music. I think about music all the time.”

Brock Peters (George Fisher; July 2, 1927 – August 23, 2005) was an actor and singer, known for playing the role of Tom Robinson in To Kill a Mockingbird and for his role as the villainous “Crown” in the 1959 film version of Porgy and Bess. He gained recognition among Star Trek fans for his portrayals of Fleet Admiral Cartwright in two Star Trek feature films and of Joseph Sisko, father of Benjamin Sisko, in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. He was notable for his role as Hatcher in Soylent Green.

Between 1981 and 1996, he provided the voice of Darth Vader for the radio adaptations of the first three Star Wars films for National Public Radio. He played the role of a Colonial prosecutor trying to make a murder case against Starbuck in an episode of the original Battlestar Galactica.

Prime Minister Patrice Émery Lumumba (alternatively styled Patrice Hemery Lumumba; July 2, 1925 – January 17, 1961) was a Congolese politician and independence leader who served as the first Prime Minister of the independent Democratic Republic of the Congo from June until September 1960. He played a significant role in the transformation of the Congo from a Belgian colony into an independent republic. Ideologically, an African nationalist and Pan-Africanist, he led the Congolese National Movement party from 1958 until his assassination.

Shortly after Congolese independence in 1960, a mutiny broke out in the army, marking the beginning of the Congo Crisis. He appealed to the US and the UN for help to suppress the Belgian-supported Katangan secessionists led by Moise Tshombe. Both refused, so he turned to the Soviet Union for support. This led to growing differences between President Joseph Kasa-Vubu and Chief of Staff Joseph-Désiré Mobutu, as well as with the US and Belgium, which opposed the Soviet Union in the Cold War.

Sergeant Medgar Wiley Evers (July 2, 1925 – June 12, 1963) was a civil rights activist in Mississippi, the state’s field secretary for the NAACP, and a WWII veteran who had served in the US Army. He worked to overturn segregation at the University of Mississippi, end the segregation of public facilities, and expand opportunities for African Americans, which included the enforcement of voting rights.

A college graduate, he became active in the Civil Rights Movement in the 1950s. Following the 1954 SCOTUS ruling in Brown v. Board of Education, which declared segregated public schools unconstitutional, he challenged segregation at the state-supported University of Mississippi by applying to its law school. He worked for voting rights, economic opportunity, access to public facilities, and other changes in the segregated society. He was awarded the 1963 NAACP Spingarn Medal.

He was assassinated in 1963 by Byron De La Beckwith, a member of the White Citizens’ Council in Jackson. This group was formed in 1954 in Mississippi to resist school integration and civil rights activism. As a veteran, he was buried with full military honors at Arlington National Cemetery. His murder and the resulting trials inspired civil rights protests; his life and these events inspired numerous works of art, music, and film. All-white juries failed to reach verdicts in the first two trials of Beckwith in the 1960s. He was convicted in 1994 in a new state trial based on new evidence.

President Joe Biden awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom.