Login to BlackFacts.com using your favorite Social Media Login. Click the appropriate button below and you will be redirected to your Social Media Website for confirmation and then back to Blackfacts.com once successful.
Enter the email address and password you used to join BlackFacts.com. If you cannot remember your login information, click the “Forgot Password” link to reset your password.
The Malawian government has received the formal extradition request for fugitive self-proclaimed prophet Shepherd Bushiri and his wife Mary.
South Africa is one of the hardest-hit countries in Africa with over 740,000 infections.
The country recorded 60 more virus-related deaths on Wednesday, bringing the death toll to 20,011.
(Partner Content) The British Embassy in South Africa is currently considering virtual ceremonies but also awaiting the go-ahead from the UK Home Office.
[Balancing Act] London -- The making of the mobile industry was the moment that pre-paid calling was implemented. Users with no secure income but relatively small amounts of money could become customers when they had money. This week Mondia has launched a content platform that might become the \"pre-pay\" moment for digital content in Africa. Russell Southwood talked to Paolo Rizzardini, CCO, Mondia about its plans.
Ambassador Charles R. Baquet III was born December 24, 1941 in New Orleans, Louisiana. He attended public schools in the city and in 1963 he earned his B.A. in history from Xavier University in New Orleans. In 1975, he earned his M.A. in public administration from the Maxwell School of Government at Syracuse University in New York.
After graduating from Xavier, Baquet became a volunteer for the Peace Corps. From 1965 to 1967, he taught English and Social Science in the Somali Republic. In 1967, Baquet returned to the United States and joined Volunteers in Service to America (VISTA), which functioned as a domestic version of the Peace Corps.
Baquet entered the U.S. Foreign Service in 1968 and a year later had his first overseas assignment as a consular officer at the U.S. Embassy in Paris, France. In 1971 he returned to Washington, D.C. and worked at the State Department for the next four years.
From 1975 to 1976, Baquet was a general service officer at the U.S. consulate in Hong Kong, China and from 1976 through 1978 he was Counselor for Administrative Affairs in Beirut, Lebanon. He returned to Washington, D.C. and from 1979 to 1983, he worked as Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary for Operations of the Bureau of Administration at the Department of State.
Baquet spent the years 1983 to 1987 as Director of the Regional Management Center at the U.S. Embassy in Paris, France. After attending the senior seminar at the Foreign Service Institute in Washington, D.C. for one year, in 1988 he was assigned as consul general at the U.S. Consulate in Cape Town, South Africa. During his three years in South Africa he witnessed the end of apartheid, the release of Nelson Mandela, and the beginning of South Africa’s first complete democracy.
On March 25, 1991 President George H.W. Bush nominated Baquet to serve as the U.S. Ambassador to the Republic of Djibouti. After U.S. Senate confirmation, Baquet arrived in Djibouti City, the capital. As ambassador Baquet had the difficult task of continuing U.S. aid
Durban’s Hendrik Joerges went from dreaming of attending the iconic Burning Man Festival in the US to being on the line-up.
The History of NamibiaThe country has ever since that historical day; 21 March 1990 enjoyed peace, stability and progress in many ways. Namibia is also known as the smile of Africa because, of its geographical position and the friendliness and warmth of its citizens. Currently the country has a population of 1.7 million and covers an area of approximately 824,269 square km. The country is divided into 13 regions. Namibia is a very diverse country with breathtaking landscapes from the Orange River, bordering South Africa up to the Okavango, the Kunene and the Zambezi in the North and North East respectively, all flowing rivers throughout the year and being the natural borders of Angola, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Botswana. In the heart of this beautiful country lies the capital of Namibia, Windhoek. As the country itself, Windhoek was at one stage first occupied by Germany and then by South Africa. Namibia was a German protectorate from 1884 till 1915, when South Africa defeated the German colonial troops in the first year of the First World War. Throughout the years of being a protectorate, many Namibians lost their lives trying to fight the colonisers, the Germans as well as the South Africans. Out of that struggle many historically famous people were born and historical battles were fought. Hendrik Witbooi fought the Germans as early as 1880s, 90s and then again in 1904-07 uprising. On the other hand, Samuel Maharero declared war on the Germans in 1904. Other famous resistors were, Jakob Marengo, Simon Kooper and Mandume who became king of the Kwanyama in 1911 as a teenager and died at an early age fighting against the Portuguese and then against the South Africans. Today Hendrik Witbooi because of his many achievements and historical significance was honoured by getting a street called after him and being printed on Namibias currency.
A Quena woman was shown in Europe as a circus
freak during the last century. Saartjie Baartmans
early life is unknown except that she came from a
clan of Quena people, better known in South Africa
by the derogatory term Hottentot, in the Eastern
Cape. Born in the late 18th century, probably in the
1780s, Baartman migrated to the Cape Flats,
where the records show she was living in a small
shack in 1810. In that year she met a ships doctor,
William Dunlop, who persuaded her to travel to
England with promises that she would make a
fortune by exhibiting her body to Europeans. It
appears that two settlers called Hendrik and Johan
Cezar, probably themselves descendants of a
mixed-race marriage between a Quena woman and
a Dutchman, were instrumental in setting up the
deal. Baartman sailed with Dunlop to England,
where she was put on display in a building in
Piccadilly, exciting crowds of working-class
Londoners who viewed her with a mixture of morbid
curiosity and malice. Like all Quena woman, she
had a protruding backside and large genital organs
-- billed by the shows promoters as resembling
the skin that hangs from a turkeys throat.
Contemporary descriptions of her shows at 225
Piccadilly, Bartholomew Fair and Haymarket in
London say Baartman was made to parade naked
along a stage two feet high, along which she was
led by her keeper and exhibited like a wild beast,
being obliged to walk, stand or sit as he ordered.
The exhibitions took place at a time when the anti-
slavery debate was raging in England and
Baartmans plight attracted the attention of a young
Jamaican, Robert Wedderburn, who founded the
African Association to campaign against racism in
England. Under pressure from this group, the
attorney general asked the government to put an
end to the circus, saying Baartman was not a free
participant. A London court, however, found that
Baartman had entered into a contract with Dunlop,
although historian Percival Kirby, who has
discovered records of the womans
President Cyril Ramaphosa has made a lockdown address to the nation on Wednesday night - and he came equipped with a major announcement on alcohol.
The following speech, a sermon Dr. Martin Luther King gave at Mason Temple in Memphis, Tennessee, on April 3, 1968, was the last public appearance before his assassination the next day. King, in Memphis to support a strike by garbage workers, gives a poignant vision of the victorious future of the civil rights struggle, but without him there to witness its final triumph. To many in the audience and beyond, King’s speech seemed to predict his own death
Thank you very kindly, my friends. As I listened to Ralph Abernathy and his eloquent and generous introduction and then thought about myself, I wondered who he was talking about. Its always good to have your closest friend and associate to say something good about you. And Ralph Abernathy is the best friend that I have in the world. Im delighted to see each of you here tonight in spite of a storm warning. You reveal that you are determined to go on anyhow.
Something is happening in Memphis; something is happening in our world. And you know, if I were standing at the beginning of time, with the possibility of taking a kind of general and panoramic view of the whole of human history up to now, and the Almighty said to me, Martin Luther King, which age would you like to live in? I would take my mental flight by Egypt and I would watch Gods children in their magnificent trek from the dark dungeons of Egypt through, or rather across the Red Sea, through the wilderness on toward the promised land. And in spite of its magnificence, I wouldnt stop there.
I would move on by Greece and take my mind to Mount Olympus. And I would see Plato, Aristotle, Socrates, Euripides and Aristophanes assembled around the Parthenon. And I would watch them around the Parthenon as they discussed the great and eternal issues of reality. But I wouldnt stop there.
I would go on, even to the great heyday of the Roman Empire. And I would see developments around there, through various emperors and leaders. But I wouldnt stop there.
I would even come up to the day of the Renaissance, and
Ambassador Joseph Monroe Segars was born in Hartsville, South Carolina on November 6, 1938. He remained with his aunt and uncle in South Carolina while his parents moved to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania during the Great Migration to the North in search for better job opportunities. Upon graduating from Butler High School in Hartsville in 1956, he joined his parents in Philadelphia and began working in a lamp factory before entering college in 1957.
Ambassador Segars attended Cheyney University in Pennsylvania where he earned a Bachelor’s of Science degree in Education in 1961. After graduating from Cheyney University, he taught sixth grade in the Gary, Indiana public school system until 1967. He moved back to Philadelphia that same year and began teaching sixth grade in the Philadelphia public school system. Then, in 1970, he joined the U.S. Foreign Service and became the first African American to be assigned to the U.S. Embassy in Vienna, Austria. Segars remained in this position until 1973.
In 1974, Segars was assigned to the U.S. State Department’s West African Affairs Bureau where he was the desk officer primarily responsible for Liberia and Sierra Leone. In 1976 he returned overseas as Consul General in Johannesburg, South Africa. Segers was among the first African Americans to be assigned to South Africa and his arrival in Johannesburg coincided with the Soweto Uprising which was a student protest against the Afrikaans Medium Decree of 1974.
From 1978 to 1980 Segers served as Consul General in Kingston, Jamaica, and then the following year in 1981, he returned to Washington, D.C. to serve as the State Department’s desk officer for Zimbabwe, Lesotho, and Swaziland in the Office of Southern African Affairs. In 1983, Ambassador Segars was again appointed as Consul General, this time in Lagos, Nigeria where he remained until 1986.
Segars became the Deputy Chief of Mission at the United States Embassy in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania in 1986 and remained in this position until 1989. As Deputy Chief of Mission,
Named Career Ambassador, a title equivalent to a four-star general, U.S. ambassador to six different countries, Terence A. Todman was an outstanding diplomat in the service of the United States. He challenged the racial prejudice he encountered at the State Department, paving the way for hiring of more people of color there and he was a pioneer in integrating human rights issues into foreign policy.
Clarence Alphonso Todman was born on March 13, 1926, in St. Thomas, Virgin Islands to parents Alphonso and Rachael Todman, grocery clerk/stevedore, and laundress/maid. He attended the local university for one year and then was drafted into the US Army. He served four years in the Army and when stationed in post-World War II Japan, he helped organize that defeated nation’s first post-war elections.
Returning to finish college at Polytechnic Institute, Puerto Rico, he received a Master’s Degree from Syracuse University (New York) in 1951 and passed the Foreign Service Exam for a career in the U.S. State Department the following year. Although initially denied employment there because his accent was not 100 percent American,” Todman soon found only low level positions were open to blacks in the State Department. He fought this practice and the long standing assumption that black State Department employees would only be accepted for postings in Africa.
Todman served first at the United Nations Interim Program between 1952 and 1957 and in India between 1957 and 1960. He took intensive training in Arabic in Tunis, Tunisia between 1960 and 1962. He later became fluent in French, Spanish, and Russian and sought to learn the cultures of the nations where he was posted.
In 1969 Todman took his first ambassadorial assignment in the country of Chad, serving there until 1972. Over his forty year career he was also U.S. ambassador to Guinea, Costa Rica, Spain, Denmark, and Argentina. During the Carter Administration he was named assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American affairs. He served as envoy to Spain from 1978
James A. Joseph is a lifelong educator and public policy activist who served as the first African American U.S. ambassador to post-apartheid South Africa from 1996-1999. Joseph has worked to promote leadership opportunities in both the corporate world and through the Federal government. The father of two children, he is currently married to journalist Mary Braxton Joseph.
Born in Opelousas, Louisiana in 1935, Joseph earned a B.A. in political science and social studies at Southern University in 1956. After two years in the U.S. Army, Joseph enrolled in Yale Divinity School to earn a Bachelor’s of Divinity in 1963. In the following years, he taught at Stillman College in Tuscaloosa, Alabama and the Claremont Colleges in Claremont, California before being hired as associate director of the Irwin-Sweeney-Miller and Cummins Engine Foundations in 1967. An ordained United Church of Christ minister and civil rights activist, Joseph found new opportunities to advocate for public humanitarianism through these Indiana-based philanthropies. By 1972, he was promoted to become vice president of the Cummins Engine Co. and president of the Cummins Engine Foundation.
In 1977, President Jimmy Carter appointed Joseph to be Under Secretary of the Interior, citing Joseph’s business and philanthropic experience. In this position, he helped develop an Office of Minority Business Enterprise and urged greater attention to recreational areas located near or in urban centers, pointing out that most national parks remained out of reach of minorities in America’s inner cities.
Joseph’s public activism was recognized across traditional party lines. President Ronald Reagan appointed him to the Advisory Committee to the Agency for International Development while his successor, George H.W. Bush selected him to serve on the board of the Points of Light Foundation and the Board of Advisors on Historically Black Colleges. Under President Bill Clinton, Joseph joined the Board of Directors of the Corporation for National Service as
Despite hosting trials for several COVID-19 vaccine frontrunners, South Africa seems to have 'slipped behind' other nations in the procurement race.
Nelson Mandela was arrested near Howick, South Africa, and charged with incitement; he received a five-year sentence later in the year.
The N2 Wild Coast Road (N2WCR) project will create thousands of local jobs, serve as a catalyst for economic growth in the rural areas of the Eastern Cape and KZN, and unlock a treasure trove of spectacular natural diversity assets to boost the tourism economy.
Andrew Young, Jr., came into prominence as a civil rights activist and close associate of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., during the modern civil rights movement in the United States. Young worked with various organizations early in the movement, but his civil rights work was largely done with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) where he served as an executive director and later executive vice president. Young served on the Board of Directors until 1972.
Young was born into a prosperous upper-middle-class family on March 12, 1932 in New Orleans, Louisiana to Daisy Fuller, a school teacher, and Andrew Jackson Young, Sr., a Howard University-educated dentist. Young, Sr. moved the family from Franklin, Louisiana to New Orleans. Young, Sr., believed the move was necessary to take advantage of educational opportunities for Andrew and his younger brother Walter Young (b. 1934).
Andrew Young Jr. entered the Gilbert Academy—the urban preparatory academy for Dillard University—at the age of 11 and graduated from Gilbert at age 15. Because of his age, Young attended nearby Dillard University for a year and then transferred to Howard University during his sophomore year. It was at Howard University, Young noted, that he learned to “embrace the strengths of the black middle class.”
Young earned a B.S. degree in Pre-Med (biology) from Howard University (1951), but chose to become a minister. He attended Hartford Theological Seminary and graduated with a degree in divinity in 1955. Soon afterwards he became a pastor at Bethany Congregational Church in Thomasville, Georgia. In 1961 Young resigned his pastoral position and joined the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), which had been founded in Atlanta by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. three years earlier. Young quickly emerged as a trusted lieutenant of King and served as a principal strategist and negotiator during the Civil Rights Campaigns in Birmingham and Selma, Alabama that resulted in the passage of the Civil Rights Bill of 1964 and
Current government officials
Languages: English 7% (official), Afrikaans is common language of most of the population and of about 60% of the white population, German 32%; indigenous languages: Oshivambo, Herero, Nama: 1%
Ethnicity/race: black 87.5%, white 6%, mixed 6.5%. Note: about 50% of the population belong to the Ovambo tribe and 9% to the Kavangos tribe; other ethnic groups are Herero 7%, Damara 7%, Nama 5%, Caprivian 4%, Bushmen 3%, Baster 2%, Tswana 0.5%
Religions: Christian 80%–90% (Lutheran at least 50%), indigenous beliefs 10%–20%
National Holiday: Independence Day, March 21
Literacy rate: 88.8% (2010 est.)
Economic summary: GDP/PPP (2012 est.): $16.84 billion; per capita $7,800. Real growth rate: 4%. Inflation: 5.8%. Unemployment: 51.2%. Arable land: .99%. Agriculture: millet, sorghum, peanuts, grapes; livestock; fish. Labor force: 818,600; agriculture 16.3%, industry 22.4%, services 61.3% (2008 est.). Industries: meatpacking, fish processing, dairy products; mining (diamonds, lead, zinc, tin, silver, tungsten, uranium, copper). Natural resources: diamonds, copper, uranium, gold, lead, tin, lithium, cadmium, zinc, salt, vanadium, natural gas, hydropower, fish; note: suspected deposits of oil, coal, and iron ore. Exports: $4.657 billion (2012 est.): diamonds, copper, gold, zinc, lead, uranium; cattle, processed fish, karakul skins. Imports: $5.762 billion (2012 est.): foodstuffs; petroleum products and fuel, machinery and equipment, chemicals. Major trading partners: South Africa, U.S. (2006).
Communications: Telephones: main lines in use: 140,000 (2011); mobile cellular: 2.24 million (2011). Broadcast media: 1 private and 1 state-run TV station; satellite and cable TV service is available; state-run radio service broadcasts in multiple languages; about a dozen private radio stations; transmissions of multiple international broadcasters are available (2007). Internet Service Providers (ISPs): 78,280 (2012). Internet users: 127,500,600 (2009).
Transportation: Railways: total: 2,626 km (2008).
African actress and singer Miriam Makeba born in Johannesburg, South Africa.
On February 7, 2008, Belize elected Dean Barrow as its first black Prime Minister. Born March 2, 1951, in Belize City, Barrow earned his LL.M. from the University of Miami in the United States and became partner at a Belizean law firm in 1977. Two years later he established his own practice. Barrow married his long-term girlfriend, Kim Simpliss, in 2009, and they have one child together; he also has three children from a previous marriage with Lois Young.
The nation of Belize attained independence from the British in 1981, and Barrow entered politics two years later when he was elected to the Belize City council in 1983. Barrow broke into the national political scene in 1994 when he ran as a candidate under the United Democratic Party (UDP) banner during parliamentary elections. Barrow won the election and the attention of Prime Minister Manuel Esquivel (1984-1989), who appointed the 33 year old attorney to his executive cabinet as Minister of Foreign Affairs on December 17, 1984. In June of 1986, Barrow, while still serving as Minister of Foreign Affairs, received a second appointment to serve as Attorney General.
After Esquivel lost the 1989 election, Barrow became deputy leader of the UDP in 1990. In 1993, Belize elected Esquivel as Prime Minister for a second term, and he again appointed Barrow to serve as Minister of Foreign Affairs. In addition to his previously held duties, during Esquivel’s second term (1993-1998), Barrow also served as Deputy Prime Minister. One of Barrow’s most famous political endeavors during this term was establishing ambassadorial level diplomatic relation between Belize and Cuba in 1995.
Said Musa replaced Manuel Esquivel as Prime Minister in 1998, and Barrow, leaving the executive cabinet, became the outspoken leader of the now opposition UDP Party. In April of 2005, when Belize experienced strikes, demonstrations, and protests nationally over tax increases and government corruption, Barrow became the champion of the protestors, making public statements on their behalf
A global challenge to collectively cover 2,414 miles, the furthest distance across South Africa from Cape Town to Beitbridge on the Zimbabwe border and back again, has attracted walkers across four continents.
Best Known As:
Sister of Serena Williams and five-time winner of Wimbledon
Venus Williams dominated womens tennis in 2000, winning singles titles at Wimbledon, the U.S. Open and the Sydney Olympics, and winning doubles titles at Wimbledon and Sydney with her younger sister Serena. (Her victory at Wimbledon made her the first black female champion there since Althea Gibson in 1957 and 1958.) Venus Williams was already a famous figure in tennis for her size (61), overpowering strength, and unusual tennis background: she and Serena learned to play on public courts in tough Compton, California, coached by their self-taught father Richard. After her breakthrough 2000 campaign she was named Sportswoman of the Year by Sports Illustrated magazine. Venus Willams has won seven major titles in all: The U.S. Open in 2000 and 2001, and Wimbledon in 2000, 2001, 2005, 2007 and 2008. (She has never won the Australian Open or the French Open.) After a long period out of the limelight due to illness, she made the finals of the Australian Open in 2017. She lost there to her sister, Serena, 6-4 6-4 -- but in the process, Venus became at age 36 the oldest Grand Slam singles finalist in the Open Era.
Copyright © 1998-2017 by Who2?, LLC. All rights reserved.
Featured Videos
Independence Day Facts & Stats
Dont just celebrate the 4th--learn a little more about your country!
Hey! Its National Anti-Boredom Month
FactMonster Games are the cure for boredom!
Just how were ice cream cones & popsicles invented?
Learn how on FactMonster!
Dictionary
Encyclopedia
Thesaurus
Almanac
Atlas
Timelines
Privacy
Terms of Use
Citing Fact Monster™
Contact Us
Advertise
Part of FEN Learning
FactMonster
InfoPlease
FamilyEducation
TeacherVision
© 2000-2017 Sandbox Networks, Inc. All Rights Reserved.