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“The one who has knowledge uses words with restraint, and whoever has understanding is even-tempered. Even fools are thought wise if they keep silent, and discerning if they hold their tongues.” Proverbs‬ ‭17:27-28‬ ‭NIV‬‬

Gail Adrienne Cobb (August 17, 1950 – September 20, 1974) was a police officer from DC, the first female police officer in the U.S. to be shot and killed in the line of duty. She was the first uniformed female officer of the Metropolitan Police Department of the District of Columbia to have been killed in the line of duty.

She was born in DC, the second of five children. Her family moved to DC in the 1930s. Her father was Clinton Cobb, a correctional Captain for the District of Columbia who applied to the Metropolitan Police Department in 1953. He was rejected because he was shorter than the mandatory height requirement of five feet and eight inches. Her mother, Gloria Cobb, worked as a crossing guard at Kingsman Elementary School when she met her father at Cardoza High School. Her sister, Denise, became a schoolteacher.

She attended Elliot Jr. High School, Eastern High School, and the now-defunct St. Cecilia’s Academy. She wanted to become a successful fashion designer. She ended up becoming a long-distance operator at the Chesapeake and Potomac Telephone Company.

Luther Sylvester Allison (August 17, 1939 – August 12, 1997) was a blues guitarist. He was interested in music as a child and toured with a family gospel group called The Southern Travelers. He taught himself guitar and began listening extensively to blues. He dropped out of school and began hanging around outside blues nightclubs with the hopes of being invited to perform. He played with the band Howlin’ Wolf and Freddie King, taking over King’s band when King toured nationally. He worked with Jimmy Dawkins, Magic Sam, and Otis Rush, and backed James Cotton.

Laureate Tsegaye Gabre-Medhin (August 17, 1936 – February 25, 2006) was a poet and novelist. His novels and poems evoke retrospective narratives, fanciful epics, and nationalistic connotations. He is considered one of the most prominent novelists, along with Baalu Girma and Haddis Alemayehu; his books were successful in both commercial sales and academic theses. His works are solely in Amharic and English.

He was born in Bodaa Village, Ethiopia. He is part Amhara and part Oromo. He learned Ge’ez, the ancient language of the church, the Ethiopian equivalent of Latin. He helped the family by caring for cattle. He was still very young when he began writing plays at the local elementary school. One of those plays, King Dionysus and the Two Brothers, was staged in the presence, among others, of Emperor Haile Selassie.

He attended the prestigious British Council-supported General Wingate School. He attended the Commercial School in Addis Ababa, where he won a scholarship to Blackstone School of Law in Chicago. He traveled to Europe to study experimental drama at the Royal Court Theatre in London and the Comédie-Française in Paris. He devoted himself to managing and developing the Ethiopian National Theater.

He attended the first UNESCO-organised World Festival of Black Arts and the Pan-African Cultural Festival. He was awarded his country’s highest literary honor, the Haile Selassie I Prize for Amharic Literature. The prize earned him the title of Laureate.

He was appointed vice-minister of culture and sports and was active in establishing the Addis Ababa University Department of Theatre Arts. He wrote an extended and very poetic essay, “Footprints in Time”, which appeared in large format with photographs. It traced Ethiopian history from the prehistoric era of Lucy, the first known hominid found in the Afar Desert in eastern Ethiopia.

State Representative Lloyd Augustus Barbee (August 17, 1925 - December 29, 2002) was born in Memphis. He was the youngest of three brothers, born to Earnest A. Barbee and Adelina Jenkins Gilliam. He attended LeMoyne College and graduated from law school at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He married Roudaba Bunting (1954-59). He became President of the Madison NAACP branch. He worked as an attorney for the Wisconsin State Department of Labor. He won the first housing discrimination case before the Wisconsin Supreme Court, Gregory III v. Madison Mobile Homes Park.

He ran as State Representative for the 6th District in Milwaukee. He was the only African American in the Wisconsin State Legislature (1965-77). He sponsored the Fair Housing Act, several employment and public accommodation Civil Rights Acts, the legalization of abortion, and reparations. He wrote articles called “Comments,” which were featured in African American newspapers across the nation.

He represented comedian and civil rights activist Dick Gregory when he was arrested and charged with “disorderly conduct” while participating in a civil rights march in Milwaukee. He won a major civil rights lawsuit, Amos v. Armstrong, against the Milwaukee School Board in Federal District Court, resulting in Milwaukee becoming one of the first major Northern cities to be ordered by a court to integrate its public schools.

He represented African American students at the University of Wisconsin, Oshkosh, who protested to demand that Black history courses be taught, only to be dismissed by the University administration for their actions. He obtained a court order allowing their readmission because the university had violated their due process rights.

He taught at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee in the Africology Department. He was awarded an honorary doctorate in Sociology from the University and created the Lloyd A. Barbee scholarship in his honor.

Julius W. Harris (August 17, 1923 – October 17, 2004) was an actor who appeared in more than 70 movies and numerous television series in a career that spanned four decades. He is known for his roles in 1970s films such as Live and Let Die, Super Fly, Black Caesar, and Hell Up in Harlem.

Born in Philadelphia to a dancer mother and musician father, he worked as a nurse and a bouncer in New York City jazz clubs. Before he began his acting career, he served as a medic in the Army during WWII. After hanging out with many struggling actors, he took a dare and auditioned for his first role. He was cast as the father in Nothing But a Man, a critically acclaimed 1964 film about Black life in the South, starring Ivan Dixon and Abbey Lincoln.

Some of his most prominent roles included the villainous, steel-armed Tee Hee in Live. They Let Die, Scatter in Super Fly, Bubbletop Woodson in Let’s Do It Again, Captain Bollin in Shaft’s Big Score, Inspector Daniels in The Taking of Pelham One Two Three, Joseph in Islands in the Stream, and Ugandan President Idi Amin in Victory at Entebbe.

He appeared in Trouble Man, King Kong, Black Caesar, Hell Up in Harlem, Friday Foster, Shrunken Heads, Harley Davidson, and the Marlboro Man, and in guest-starring roles on Sanford and Son, Good Times, and Love Boat, among others. He was a member of the Negro Ensemble Company in New York City and appeared on Broadway in the Pulitzer Prize-winning play No Place to Be Somebody.

Marcus Mosiah Garvey Jr. (August 17, 1887 – June 10, 1940) was a political activist, publisher, journalist, entrepreneur, and orator. He was the founder and first President-General of the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League, through which he declared himself Provisional President of Africa. A Black nationalist and Pan-Africanist, his ideas came to be known as Garveyism.

He became involved in trade unionism before living in Costa Rica, Panama, and England. He founded UNIA in 1914. He moved to the US and established a UNIA branch in New York City’s Harlem district. Emphasizing unity between Africans and the African diaspora, he campaigned for an end to European colonial rule across Africa and the political unification of the continent. He envisioned a unified Africa as a one-party state, governed by himself, that would enact laws to ensure Black racial purity. He was committed to the Back-to-Africa movement, arguing that many African Americans should migrate there. His ideas became increasingly popular, and UNIA grew in membership. His Black separatist views and his collaboration with white racist groups like the kkk to advance their shared interest in racial separatism divided him from other prominent African American civil rights activists such as W. E. B. Du Bois promoted racial integration.

He launched various businesses, including the Negro Factories Corporation and Negro World newspaper. He became President of the Black Star Line, a shipping and passenger company designed to forge a link between North America and Africa and facilitate African American migration to Liberia.

Attorney Archibald Henry Grimké (August 17, 1849 – February 25, 1930) was a lawyer, intellectual, journalist, diplomat, and community leader in the 19th and early 20th centuries. A graduate of Freedmen’s schools, Lincoln University, and Harvard Law School, he was appointed as American Consul to the DR (1894-98). He was an activist for African American rights, working in Boston and Washington, DC. He was a national VP of the NAACP and president of its DC branch.

He was born enslaved near Charleston, South Carolina. He was the eldest of three sons of Nancy Weston, who was born enslaved as the daughter of an enslaved African or African American female and her white owner, Henry W. Grimké, a widower. Henry acknowledged his sons, although he did not manumit them or make the rest of his family aware of their existence. His brothers were Francis and John. Henry was a member of a prominent, large slaveholding family in Charleston. His father and relatives were planters and active in political and social circles.

Attorney John Sinclair Leary (August 17, 1845 – December 9, 1904) was a lawyer and politician. He was one of the first African American lawyers in North Carolina and served in the state legislature (1868- 70). He was an alderman in Fayetteville and held federal government appointments. He was the first dean of the law school at Shaw University (1890).

He was born in Fayetteville to Matthew Leary and Julia Memriel. He had at least three siblings: Lewis Sheridan Leary, Henrietta, and Michael Leary, Jr. Lewis was killed taking part in John Brown’s raid on Harpers Ferry. He was a cousin to Hiram Rhodes Revels, the first African American to serve in the Senate.

Matthew Leary, Sr. was one of the wealthiest African Americans both before and after the American Civil War. His business was successful enough that as early as 1848 he was credit-rated and owned property worth $6,000. His brother, Matthew Leary, Jr. went into politics as well and became a federal government clerk in DC.

He attended school in Fayetteville for about eight years before 1861. He learned the trade of a saddler and harness-maker in his father’s shop where his father had worked for a long time.

He moved to Charlotte, becoming that city’s first African American lawyer, and continued to practice there until his death. He was disappointed in several attempts to obtain higher-appointed offices. In 1892, the Raleigh Signal suggested him as a candidate for state attorney general. In 1901, he was endorsed by Reverend D. C. Covington in The Colored American for the position of federal judge of the Philippines. In 1896, he was key to supporting Daniel Russell’s successful run for Governor of North Carolina and sought the position of assistant US District Attorney as a reward.

Charlotte Forten Grimké (August 17, 1837 - July 23, 1914) grew up in a rich intellectual and activist environment. Born into a wealthy Black abolitionist family in Philadelphia, she became famous in her own right as a writer and poet. Her grandparents, James Sr. and Charlotte Forten, regularly hosted leading Black and white abolitionists in their home. James Forten was one of the wealthiest Blacks in Philadelphia, having amassed a fortune in the sail-making business. Her parents, Robert Bridges Forten and Mary Woods Forten, continued the family’s activist tradition as had her uncles and aunts, including Sarah, Harriet, and Margaretta Forten, who helped establish the bi-racial Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society.

She spent much of her youth in Salem, Massachusetts. She attended the exclusively white Higginson Grammar School and the Normal School. Like many educated women of her generation, she became a teacher. In 1856, she began teaching at the Epes School in Salem to support herself, but an bout with tuberculosis led her to return to her family in Philadelphia.

Like her aunt Sarah Forten, she developed a passion for writing poetry, much of which focused on antislavery themes. During the Civil War, she wrote essays about her experience as a teacher among southern Blacks. In 1862, she joined Black and white northern women who journeyed to the Union-occupied coastal Sea Islands of South Carolina to teach formerly enslaved children. She published “Life on the Sea Islands” in The Atlantic Monthly about her work with the Sea Islands Mission.

President Vicente Ramón Guerrero Saldaña (August 20, 1782 – February 14, 1831) was a military officer from 1810–1821 and a statesman who became the nation’s second president in 1829. He was one of the leading generals who fought against Spain during the Mexican War of Independence. He lived alongside Indigenous peoples in Tlaltelulco and could speak Spanish and Indigenous languages.

He abolished slavery in Mexico. He was deposed during a rebellion led by his Vice President, Anastasio Bustamante.

He was born in Tixtla. He was the son of María Guadalupe Rodríguez Saldaña and Juan Pedro Guerrero. He worked for his father’s prosperous mule-driven freight business, which provided him the opportunity to travel across Mexico. His travels exposed him to emerging ideas of independence and dissent against Spanish rule.

His ethnic origins have been a subject of debate, with some historians suggesting he was of mixed Indigenous heritage. No portraits of him were made during his lifetime, and those made posthumously may be unreliable. Fellow insurgent described him as a “young man with bronzed or tanned skin, tall and strong, with an aquiline nose, bright, light-colored eyes, and prominent sideburns.” The indigenous people often supported him.

Jeffery Lamar Williams (August 16, 1991) known professionally as Young Thug, is a rapper, singer, and songwriter. He is considered to be an influential figure of his generation. He released a series of independent mixtapes beginning in 2011 with I Came from Nothing. He signed with Gucci Mane’s 1017 Records, and he released his label debut mixtape 1017 Thug to critical praise.

He received mainstream recognition in 2014 with the singles “Stoner” and “Danny Glover” in addition to appearances on several singles, including T.I.’s “About the Money”, Tyga’s “Hookah”, and Rich Gang’s “Lifestyle”. He collaborated on the mixtape Rich Gang: Tha Tour Pt. 1. He released several mixtapes, including Barter 6 and two installments of his Slime Season series. He issued commercial mixtapes I’m Up, Slime Season 3, and Jeffery. He featured on the worldwide hit “Havana” by Cuban pop singer Camila Cabello, which became his first #1 single on the Billboard Hot 100. He released a compilation album titled Slime Language on his label, YSL Records. He won the Grammy Award for Song of the Year for his contributions to Childish Gambino’s “This Is America”.

His debut studio album, So Much Fun, debuted at #1 on the US Billboard 200 and included the Billboard Hot 100 top-twenty singles “The London” and “Hot”. His single “Go Crazy” from the collaborative mixtape Slime & B peaked at #3 on the Hot 100, becoming his first top-ten single as a lead artist. He reached number 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 for the second time in his career with his feature alongside M.I.A. on Travis Scott’s single “Franchise.” He released the compilation album Slime Language 2, which debuted at number 1 on the Billboard 200. He would reach number 1 on the Hot 100 a third time for his feature on Drake’s “Way 2 Sexy”. His second studio album, Punk, was released on October 15, 2021. It debuted at number 1 on the Billboard 200, becoming his third number 1 album and his second chart-topping project. His third studio album, Business is Business, was released while he was in jail.

Terence T. Crutcher (August 16, 1976 - September 16, 2016) was shot and killed by Tulsa Police Officer Betty Shelby. The circumstances of the shooting would become the source of a police investigation and a separate Civil Rights investigation by the Department of Justice. A trial resulted in Shelby’s acquittal, and a series of protests ensued.

He was born in Tulsa to Joey and Leanna Crutcher. He had four children: three daughters and a son, whom he lived with at the time of his death. He was passionate about music, singing in a local church choir, and majoring in music at Tulsa Community College. Many of his friends and neighbors described him as a family man who was focused on his children and his dream of becoming a gospel singer.

Officer Shelby was responding to a call from passing drivers reporting that a car was abandoned in the middle of the road. According to Shelby, he was non-compliant when directed by police officers. Shelby believed he reached into his car for what she thought was maybe a weapon. The video from a helicopter and a police car’s dashboard camera showed Crutcher with his hands up during some of the events before being stunned with a Taser and shot.

He died immediately from the shootings. The District Attorney for Tulsa County filed charges against Officer Shelby for manslaughter. She was arrested but remained on paid leave during the trial. Her defense attorneys argued that he was non-compliant, reached into his SUV, and had doses of PCP in his bloodstream, according to the Oklahoma Medical Examiner’s office. The prosecution argued that none of his actions warranted lethal force.

Christian Emeka Okoye (August 16, 1961) is a former football running back for the Kansas City Chiefs. Nicknamed the “Nigerian Nightmare,” he was known for his powerful running style and ability to break tackles. His six seasons in the NFL saw an NFL rushing title, first-team All-Pro honors, second-team All-Pro honors, two Pro Bowl appearances, and three playoff appearances. He ended his NFL career due to multiple injuries. He was inducted into the Kansas City Chiefs Hall of Fame.

He arrived in the US at age 21 and did not play football until age 23, when he joined the squad at Azusa Pacific University. He excelled in track and field, winning seven college titles in the shot put, discus, and hammer throw. The first time he attended a football game, he thought it was boring.

Angela Evelyn Bassett Vance (August 16, 1958) is an actress, director, producer, and activist. She is known for her biographical film roles, most notably her performance as Tina Turner in the biopic What’s Love Got to Do with It, for which she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress and won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Comedy or Musical. She has portrayed real-life figures: Betty Shabazz in both Malcolm X and Panther; Katherine Jackson in The Jacksons: An American Dream; Voletta Wallace in Notorious; and Coretta Scott King in Betty & Coretta. Her other notable film roles include Reva Styles in Boyz n the Hood, Bernie Harris in Waiting to Exhale, Rachel Constantine in Contact, Lynne Jacobs in Olympus Has Fallen. London Has Fallen, and Queen Ramonda in Black Panther and Avengers: Endgame.

She was born in New York City, the daughter of a social worker, Betty Jane (née Gilbert), a civil servant, and Daniel Benjamin Bassett, a preacher’s son.

She began her film career in the 1980s, after earning a BA and MA from Yale University. She earned nominations for her roles in films such as The Score, Akeelah and the Bee, Meet the Browns, and Jumping the Broom, and won awards for her performances in How Stella Got Her Groove Back and Music of the Heart, among others. Her performance as Rosa Parks in the film The Rosa Parks Story earned her her first Primetime Emmy Award nomination.

Dr. Helene Dorris Gayle (August 16, 1955) is a physician, academic, and non-profit administrator. She was president of Spelman College until 2024. She was CEO of the Chicago Community Trust. She was the director of the international humanitarian organization CARE and spent much of her career in public health research, particularly in epidemiology, at the CDC.

She was born in Buffalo to Jacob Gayle and Marietta Gayle. She attended Barnard College and graduated with honors, earning a BA in psychology. She earned an MD from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and an MPH from the Johns Hopkins University School of Hygiene and Public Health. She is board-certified in pediatrics and completed a residency in pediatric medicine at Children’s National Medical Center. She completed a second residency in preventive medicine at the CDC.

She served as the AIDS coordinator and chief of the HIV/AIDS Division at the US Agency for International Development. She was appointed as the first director of the National Center on HIV, TB, and STD Prevention. She was named an Assistant Surgeon General and Rear Admiral in the US Public Health Service.

She directed the HIV, TB, and Reproductive Health Program at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

She was president and CEO of McKinsey Social Initiative.

She is recognized internationally as an expert on health, global development, and humanitarian issues. She has been named one of Forbes’ “100 Most Powerful Women,” one of Nonprofit Times’ “Power and Influence Top 50,” and one of Chicago Magazine’s “Chicago’s 50 Most Powerful Women.” Media outlets like The New York Times, The Washington Post, ForbesWoman, Glamour, O Magazine, National Public Radio, and CNN have featured her.

Runoko Rashidi (Ronnie Ross, also known as Ronald Lamar; August 16, 1954 – August 2, 2021) was a historian, essayist, author, and public lecturer based in Los Angeles.

He was a writer and speaker who lectured on ancient Egypt, his belief in an African presence in prehistoric America, Africans in antiquity, and the African presence in Asia and other parts of the world.

He was the author of Introduction to the Study of African Classical Civilizations (1993) and the editor of Unchained African Voices, a collection of poetry and prose by death row inmates at California’s San Quentin State Prison. He is the author or editor of 18 books, including The African Presence in Early Asia (1985, 1988, 1995), co-authored with Ivan Van Sertima; Black Star: The African Presence in Early Europe (2012); and African Star over Asia: The Black Presence in the East (2013).