Through the 12th New Orleans laborers attacked by whites. Six Blacks were killed.

Jesse Jackson Jr. is a former African-American Democratic Congressman. From 1995 to 2012, he represented Illinois’s 2nd congressional district in the United States House of Representatives. Moreover, his father was an eminent political figure who was a former presidential candidate.

Born on March 11, 1965, in Greenville, South Carolina, Jesse Louis Jackson, Jr. grew up in the Jackson Park Highlands District. He received his early education from a nursery school and John J. Pershing Elementary School. He and his brother were sent to Le Mans Military Academy in Rolling Prairie, Indiana considering Jackson’s hyperactive behavior. He was often paddled for disciplinary reasons and also suspended twice from school. Besides, he showed keen interest in sports as he played for his high school football team and featured on one of Sports Illustrated’s sections. Following in his father’s footsteps he enrolled himself at North Carolina A&T University. In 1987, he received Bachelor of Science degree with magna cum laude. He took his father’s advice and went on to attend the Chicago Theological Seminary from where he obtained the masters degree.

Jackson’s educational background is quite rich as he went on to study at a law school at the University Of Illinois College Of Law. He earned Juris Doctor (J.D.) in 1993, however, he did not take bar exam even after he finished his coursework. In his teen years he assisted his father along with his brothers in civil rights activities. He also helped his father in his presidential campaign by holding a voter registration drive that registered 3,500 voters on a campus. Upon graduation he accepted his first job as an executive director for the Rainbow Coalition. His father had him involved in the 1988 Democratic primaries and obtained a position for him as an at-large member of the Democratic National Committee (DNC). The position offered him the opportunity to work on a number of congressional election races. Afterwards, he was promoted to the post of a vice president of Operation PUSH.

Richard Brooks , (born May 18, 1912, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.—died March 11, 1992, Beverly Hills, California), American screenwriter and director whose best-known movies were adaptations of literary works, notably Blackboard Jungle (1955), Elmer Gantry (1960), and In Cold Blood (1967).

After attending Temple University in Philadelphia, Brooks began his writing career as a sports journalist and later was a radio commentator for NBC. In the early 1940s he moved to Hollywood, where he worked at Universal on the screenplays for such films as Men of Texas (1942) and Cobra Woman (1944). After serving (1943–45) in World War II, Brooks wrote The Brick Foxhole (1945), a novel about the persecution of a homosexual. The book was the basis for Edward Dmytryk’s noir classic Crossfire (1947), though the film centres on anti-Semitism. Brooks later provided the scripts for such notable films as the Jules Dassin noir Brute Force (1947) and John Huston’s Key Largo (1948).

In 1950 Brooks was given the chance to direct his own script for Crisis, thanks to its star, Cary Grant, who interceded with MGM on Brooks’s behalf. The political thriller received generally good reviews, and two years later Brooks made The Light Touch, a standard caper starring Stewart Granger as an art thief. Deadline—USA (1952) was a significant step forward, using Brooks’s newspaper background to provide Humphrey Bogart with one of his better late films. After a string of indifferent movies, Brooks had his first major success with Blackboard Jungle (1955). Based on a popular novel by Evan Hunter, the film is set in a New York City school terrorized by teenage hoodlums (played by Vic Morrow and Sidney Poitier, among others) until a new teacher (Glenn Ford) intervenes. Extremely influential, the drama helped launch the rock-and-roll revolution by using “Rock Around the Clock” by Bill Haley and the Comets as its theme. Brooks received an Academy Award nomination for his screenplay.

In 1956 Brooks directed one of his few westerns, The Last Hunt,

Through 12th Manifesto denouncing Supreme Cout ruling on segregation in public schools issued by one hundred Southern senators and representatives.

Dr. Reginald Weir becomes the first black player to compete in the U.S. Indoor Lawn Tennis Association Championship.

Soul singer Otis Redding posthumously receives a dold record for the single The Dock of the Bay. Redding was killed in a plane crash three months ago.

Ralph David Abernathy was born on March 11, 1926 in Linden, Alabama.

Ralph David Abernathy , (born March 11, 1926, Linden, Ala.

The Rev. Ralph David Abernathy, aide to the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., and Southern Christian Leadership Conference figure, was born in Linden, Alabama.

Bobby McFerrin , (born March 11, 1950, New York, New York, U.S.), American musician noted for his tremendous vocal control and improvisational ability. He often sang a cappella, mixing folk songs, 1960s rock and soul tunes, and jazz themes with original lyrics. He preferred to sing without fixed lyrics, and he could imitate the sounds of various musical instruments with great skill.

McFerrin’s parents both had distinguished vocal careers. His mother, a soprano, was a Metropolitan Opera judge who chaired the vocal department at Fullerton College, near Los Angeles, and his father, who sang at the Met, dubbed actor Sidney Poitier’s singing on the 1959 Porgy and Bess sound track. In McFerrin’s youth he was inclined to become a minister of music, but, after attending California State University at Sacramento and Cerritos College in Norwalk, California, he instead became a pianist and organist with the Ice Follies ice-skating show and with pop music bands. In 1977 he auditioned for and won a singing job. As a swinging jazz and ballad vocalist, by 1980 McFerrin was touring with popular jazz singer Jon Hendricks. Inspired by Keith Jarrett’s improvised piano concerts, in 1982 he worked up the nerve to sing alone.

McFerrin issued his self-titled debut album in 1982, and it was followed by The Voice (1984), which was unusual because it featured no accompaniment; Spontaneous Inventions (1985), which featured music by Herbie Hancock and Manhattan Transfer; and Simple Pleasures (1988), which featured the hit song “Don’t Worry, Be Happy.” He also recorded television commercials and a theme song for The Cosby Show; improvised music for actor Jack Nicholson’s readings of Rudyard Kipling’s children’s stories; and released an album with cellist Yo-Yo Ma, titled Hush, in 1992.

McFerrin was perhaps best known for his spontaneity; in concert he might wander through the auditorium singing, make up songs on listeners’ names, conduct his audience in choirs, or burst into a condensed version of The Wizard of Oz, complete with tornado

Charles Sumner , (born Jan. 6, 1811, Boston—died March 11, 1874, Washington, D.C.), U.S. statesman of the American Civil War period dedicated to human equality and to the abolition of slavery.

A graduate of Harvard Law School (1833), Sumner crusaded for many causes, including prison reform, world peace, and Horace Mann’s educational reforms. It was in his long service as a U.S. senator from Massachusetts (1852–74), however, that he exercised his major influence on history. He bitterly attacked the Compromise of 1850, which attempted to balance the demands of North against South. On May 19/20, 1856, he denounced the “Crime against Kansas” (the Kansas–Nebraska Act) as “in every respect a swindle” and characterized its authors, Senators Andrew P. Butler and Stephen A. Douglas, as myrmidons (followers) of slavery. Two days later Congressman Preston S. Brooks of South Carolina invaded the Senate, labelled the speech a libel on his state and on his uncle, Senator Butler, and then severely beat Sumner with a cane. It took three years for Sumner to recover from the beating.

Sumner was chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee from March 1861 to March 1871. Close acquaintanceships with prominent Englishmen such as Richard Cobden, John Bright, William Ewart Gladstone, and other European leaders—gained during his several European sojourns (1837–40)—afforded him unusual understanding of and influence in international affairs. He helped preserve peace between Britain and the United States by persuading President Lincoln to give up Confederate commissioners James M. Mason and John Slidell after their capture aboard the “Trent” in November 1861.

Sumner opposed President Lincoln and later Pres. Andrew Johnson on post-war Reconstruction policy. He took the position that the defeated South was a conquered province outside the protection of the Constitution, and that the Confederate states should provide constitutional guarantees of equal voting rights to blacks before those states could be readmitted to the Union.

In

Confederate Congress, meeting in Montgomery, Ala., adopted constitution which declared that the passage of any law denying or impairing the right of property in Negro slaves was prohibited.

Comedian and television star Flip Wilson received the International Broadcasting Man of the Year Award. Flip Wilson was the first Afro-American to be a television superstar.

Bobby McFerrin, born

The Fifth Dimensions Aquarius/Let the Sun Shine In is named Record of the Year at the Grammys.

Death of Charles Sumner (63), militant white advocate of equal rights.

Dudley was born on March 11, 1911 in South Boston, Virginia to Edward Richard and Nellie (Johnson) Dudley.

On this day, Lorraine Hansberrys A Raisin in the Sun

opened at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre in New York City

with Sidney Poitier and Claudia McNeil in the lead roles.

The play ran for 530 performances, becoming the longest

running Broadway play written by an African-American.

This was also the first Broadway drama written and directed

by an African-American woman. In 1961 A Raisin in the Sun

was made into a movie, again starring Sidney Poitier as the

chauffeur Walter Younger. Hansberrys landmark career was cut

short when she died of cancer in 1965 at the age of 34.

Moore was born in Akron, Ohio on March 11, 1929.

Moshoeshoe , also spelled Mshweshwe, Moshweshwe, or Moshesh, original name Lepoqo (born c. 1786, near the upper Caledon River, northern Basutoland [now in Lesotho]—died March 11, 1870, Thaba Bosiu, Basutoland), founder and first paramount chief of the Sotho (Basuto, Basotho) nation. One of the most successful Southern African leaders of the 19th century, Moshoeshoe combined aggressive military counteraction and adroit diplomacy against colonial invasions. He created a large African state in the face of attacks by the Boers and the British, raiders from the south east coastal lowlands of Africa, and local African rivals.

Moshoeshoe was the son of Mokhachane, the chief of the Mokoteli. As a young man, Moshoeshoe—then known by his post circumcision name of Letlama (“The Binder”)—won a reputation for leadership by conducting daring cattle raids. In early adulthood he took the name Moshoeshoe, an imitation of the sounds made by a knife in shaving that symbolized his deft skills at rustling cattle. His acquaintance with the chief Mohlomi, who was revered as a wise man, strengthened his capacity for generous treatment of allies and enemies alike.

In the late 1810s and early ’20s, European land invasions, labour needs, and trade heightened Southern African disturbances and led to migration in the region. Moshoeshoe led his people south to the nearly impregnable stronghold of Thaba Bosiu (“Mountain at Night”) in the western Maloti Mountains, where his following expanded to other African peoples attracted by the protection he was able to provide. He eventually united the various small groups to form the Sotho nation, called Basutoland by English-speaking persons. He strengthened his new nation by raiding local Tembu and Xhosa groups for cattle and adopting the use of horses and firearms. In the cold Highveld he was able to defeat mounted Griqua and Korana raiders with his own mounted cavalry and expanded his control into the Caledon valley.

In 1833 he welcomed missionaries of the Paris Evangelical Missionary

Frederick Douglass named president of the failing Freedmens Bank.

Terrence Howard is a celebrated American actor known for his strong performances in movies such as “Hustle & Flow” and “Ray & Crash”. He was born on March 11, 1969 in Chicago, Illinois to Tyrone Howard and Anita Williams. He came from a family of actors; his maternal great-grandmother, Minnie Gentry, was a stage actress, and his mother and uncles were actors as well. His father was an abusive man, and used to beat Terrence as a child. At the age of 2, Terrence witnessed his father stabbing another man for which he was sent to jail. Upon Tyrone’s release a year later, he and Anita divorced. Terrence emancipated himself at the age of 16, and lived in shelters and off government welfare for two years. He then decided to move to New York to become an actor.

At first he enrolled as a student of chemical engineering at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York. Dropping out after two years, he began to make small appearances in television shows including a part in “The Cosby Show” starring Bill Cosby. Other roles during this time included a leading role in the television miniseries titled “The Jacksons: An American Dream” and other programs such as “Family Matters”, “Coach” and “Picket Fences”. Moving from television to film, Howard caught his big break with more prominent roles. The first of these was the 1995 film “Mr. Holland’s Opus” followed by “Sunset Park” in 1996, “Spark” in 1998 and “The Best Man” in 1999. In 2000, he co-starred with comedian Martin Lawrence in the hit film “Big Momma’s House” and in 2001, he starred with Jennifer Lopez in the film “Angel Eyes”. Other major roles followed, such as “Hart’s War” in 2002, “Biker Boys” in 2003 and “Ray” featuring Jamie Foxx in 2004.

Howard’s reputation as a respected actor was now confirmed and he began to receive even more lucrative roles. In 2004, he co-starred with several of Hollywood’s top stars such as Sandra Bullock, Don Cheadle, Matt Dillon, Jennifer Esposito, Michael Peña, Brendan Fraser, Ludacris, Thandie Newton, and Ryan Phillippe in the film “Crash”. The