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As at christmas day, Félix Tshisekedi, who has been in power since the beginning of 2019 and is running for a second five-year term, has achieved a score of 81.4% according to the Céni,
Many people have been killed since clashes began on Monday. Scores too had been killed in the run up to the vote as protestors marched against Conde's bid for a third term.
Editorial - The new plan by the electoral commission to streamline vetting of qualifications of candidates seeking political seats is remarkable. In this respect, the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) has entered into a partnership with the Kenya National Qualifications Authority (KNQA) to verify the academic certificates of candidates seeking seats in Parliament and county assemblies in a bid to weed out those with fake credentials.
Howard University has been labeled “the capstone of Negro education,” because of its central role in the African American educational experience. Among historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) Howard has produced the greatest number of graduates with advanced degrees. Originally conceived as a theological school in 1866, Howard University was chartered as a university by an act of the United States Congress in 1867. It is the only HBCU to hold that distinction. Named after Oliver Otis Howard, a Civil War general who became commissioner of the Freedmen’s Bureau, the institution was from its inception committed to graduate and professional education in sharp contrast to most other black postsecondary institutions of that era.
As an example of this, Howard established the first black law school in the nation only two years after its founding and in 1872, Charlotte Ray, a white student, was one of its first graduates. Ray was the first woman graduate from the school and the first woman admitted to the District of Columbia Bar. From its founding down to 1926 Howard’s presidents were all white, but in that year, Stanley Durkee was replaced by Mordecai Wyatt Johnson.
Howard Universitys faculty has provided significant leadership in African America. Its ranks have included Kelly Miller, the sociologist and philosopher, Carter G. Woodson, the historian who originated Black History Month, Alain Locke, the first black Rhodes Scholar and in the 1920s, promoter of the Harlem Renaissance, and Ralph Bunche, the political scientist who would later work for the United Nations and in 1948 win a Nobel Peace Prize for brokering a peace between Israel and its Arab neighbors. In 1929 President Johnson appointed Charles Hamilton Houston as vice dean of the Law School. Under his leadership, Howard Law became the major center in the U.S. for civil rights law, training a generation of black lawyers dedicated to that goal including most notably Thurgood Marshall who argued the Brown v. Board decision which
I Have a Dream is a public speech delivered by American civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr. during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom on August 28, 1963, in which he calls for an end to racism in the United States and called for civil and economic rights. Delivered to over 250,000 civil rights supporters from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., the speech was a defining moment of the Civil Rights Movement.[2]
Beginning with a reference to the Emancipation Proclamation, which freed millions of slaves in 1863,[3] King observes that: one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free.[4] Toward the end of the speech, King departed from his prepared text for a partly improvised peroration on the theme I have a dream, prompted by Mahalia Jacksons cry: Tell them about the dream, Martin![5] In this part of the speech, which most excited the listeners and has now become its most famous, King described his dreams of freedom and equality arising from a land of slavery and hatred.[6] Jon Meacham writes that, With a single phrase, Martin Luther King Jr. joined Jefferson and Lincoln in the ranks of men whove shaped modern America.[7] The speech was ranked the top American speech of the 20th century in a 1999 poll of scholars of public address.[8]
The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom was partly intended to demonstrate mass support for the civil rights legislation proposed by President Kennedy in June. Martin Luther King and other leaders therefore agreed to keep their speeches calm, also, to avoid provoking the civil disobedience which had become the hallmark of the Civil Rights Movement. King originally designed his speech as a homage to Abraham Lincolns Gettysburg Address, timed to correspond with the 100-year centennial of the Emancipation Proclamation.[6]
King had been preaching about dreams since 1960, when he gave a speech to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) called The Negro and the American Dream. This speech
[HRW] Kinshasa -- Trial Progress Slow Four Years after Killing of Michael Sharp, Zaida Catalán
Electoral authorities in Guinea on Saturday declared President Alpha Conde winner of Sunday's election with 59.49% of the vote, defeating his main rival Cellou Diallo.
\t Some people went to the streets to protest immediately after the announcement. Such demonstrations have occurred for months after the government changed the constitution through a national referendum, allowing Conde to extend his decade in power.
\t Opposition candidate Cellou Diallo received 33.50% of the vote, the electoral commission said. Voter turnout was almost 80%.
\t Political tensions in the West African nation turned violent in recent days after Diallo claimed victory ahead of the official results. Celebrations by his supporters were suppressed when security forces fired tear gas to disperse them.
They accuse the electoral authorities of rigging the vote for incumbent president Alpha Conde.
\t At least nine people have been killed since the election, according to the government. The violence sparked international condemnation by the U.S. and others.
\t ``Today is a sad day for African democracy,'' said Sally Bilaly Sow, a Guinean blogger and activist living abroad. The government should take into account the will of the people who have a desire for change, he said.
ICC warning
The International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor warned on Friday that warring factions in Guinea could be prosecuted after fighting erupted.
“I wish to repeat this important reminder: anyone who commits, orders, incites, encourages and contributes in any other way to crimes … is liable to prosecution either by the Guinean courts or the ICC,” she said.
#ICC Prosecutor #FatouBensouda: "I wish to repeat this important reminder: anyone who commits, orders, incites, encourages or contributes, in any other way, to the commission of #RomeStatute crimes, is liable to prosecution either by #Guinean courts or by the #ICC."
— Int'l Criminal Court (@IntlCrimCourt) October 23, 2020
\t On Friday, internet and international calls were cut off across the West African nation in anticipation of the election results, according to locals and international observers in the capital, Conakry.
\t This was the third time that Conde matched-up against Diallo. Before the election, observers raised concerns that an electoral dispute could reignite ethnic tensions between Guinea's largest ethnic groups.
Martin Luther King, Jr., (January 15, 1929-April 4, 1968) was born Michael Luther King, Jr., but later had his name changed to Martin. His grandfather began the familys long tenure as pastors of the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, serving from 1914 to 1931; his father has served from then until the present, and from 1960 until his death Martin Luther acted as co-pastor. Martin Luther attended segregated public schools in Georgia, graduating from high school at the age of fifteen; he received the B. A. degree in 1948 from Morehouse College, a distinguished Negro* institution of Atlanta from which both his father and grandfather had graduated. After three years of theological study at Crozer Theological Seminary in Pennsylvania where he was elected president of a predominantly white senior class, he was awarded the B.D. in 1951. With a fellowship won at Crozer, he enrolled in graduate studies at Boston University, completing his residence for the doctorate in 1953 and receiving the degree in 1955. In Boston he met and married Coretta Scott, a young woman of uncommon intellectual and artistic attainments. Two sons and two daughters were born into the family
In 1954, Martin Luther King became pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama. Always a strong worker for civil rights for members of his race, King was, by this time, a member of the executive committee of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the leading organization of its kind in the nation. He was ready, then, early in December, 1955, to accept the leadership of the first great Negro nonviolent demonstration of contemporary times in the United States, the bus boycott described by Gunnar Jahn in his presentation speech in honor of the laureate. The boycott lasted 382 days. On December 21, 1956, after the Supreme Court of the United States had declared unconstitutional the laws requiring segregation on buses, Negroes and whites rode the buses as equals. During these days of boycott, King was arrested, his
Barack Obama is the 44th President of the United States and the first African American to occupy the White House. Obama was born August 4, 1961, in Honolulu, Hawaii. His father, Barack Obama Sr., was a Kenyan graduate student studying in the United States and his mother, Stanley Ann Dunham, a white American from Wichita, Kansas. The two were married on February 2, 1961 in Maui, Hawaii. In 1971, when he was ten, Obama’s mother, who had remarried and was living in Indonesia, sent him to Honolulu, Hawaii to live with his maternal grandparents Madelyn and Stanley Dunham for several years, where he attended Punahou, a prestigious preparatory school. Obama was admitted on a scholarship with the assistance of his grandparents.
Obama continued his higher education at Occidental College, Los Angeles, California. He later transferred to Columbia University in New York City, New York, graduating with a Bachelor’s (B.A.) in 1983. He attended law school at Harvard University, receiving his law degree (J.D.) in 1992. While at Harvard Obama was president of the Harvard Law Review. After relocating to Chicago he began working as a community organizer and later lecturing at the University of Chicago Law School on the subject of constitutional law.
In 1989 Obama met Michelle Robinson who at the time was an attorney at the Chicago law firm of Sidney and Austin. Obama was a summer intern for the firm that year. Three years later, in 1992, they were married. Their two daughters, Malia and Natasha (Sasha) were born in Chicago in 1999 and 2001, respectively.
In 1994, Obama was elected to the Illinois State Senate from an economically diverse district that includes Hyde Park (surrounding the University of Chicago) as well as working class African American neighborhoods in the heart of Chicago’s South Side. Obama remained in the State Senate until 2004.
During his tenure in the Illinois State Senate, Obama helped craft legislation to create the state Earned Income Tax Credit which reduced the tax bill of working class
The United Negro College Fund, or UNCF, is an American philanthropic organization that funds scholarships for black students and general scholarship funds for 37 private historically black colleges and universities. UNCF was incorporated on April 25, 1944 by Frederick D. Patterson (then president of what is now Tuskegee University), Mary McLeod Bethune, and others. UNCF is headquartered at 1805 7th Street, NW in Washington, D.C.[1] In 2005, UNCF supported approximately 65,000 students at over 900 colleges and universities with approximately $113 million in grants and scholarships. About 60% of these students are the first in their families to attend college, and 62% have annual family incomes of less than $25,000. UNCF also administers over 450 named scholarships.
UNCFs president and chief executive officer is Michael Lomax. Past presidents of the UNCF included William H. Gray and Vernon Jordan.
Though founded to address funding inequities in education resources for African Americans, UNCF-administered scholarships are open to all ethnicities; the great majority of recipients are still African-American. It provides scholarships to students attending its member colleges as well as to those going elsewhere.[2]
Graduates of UNCF member institutions and scholarships have included many blacks in the fields of business, politics, health care and the arts. Some prominent UNCF alumni include Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., a Nobel Peace Prize recipient and leader in the Civil Rights Movement; Alexis Herman, former U.S. Secretary of Labor; noted movie director Spike Lee; actor Samuel L. Jackson; General Chappie James, the U.S. Air Force’s first black four-star general; and Dr. David Satcher, a former U.S. Surgeon General and director of the Centers for Disease Control.[3]
In 1944 William J. Trent, a long time activist for education for blacks, joined with Tuskegee Institute President Frederick D. Patterson and Mary McLeod Bethune to found the UNCF, a nonprofit that united college presidents to raise money collectively
Born: 1/15/1929 Atlanta, GeorgiaDied: 4/4/1968 Memphis, TennesseeKing was a pivotal figure in the non-violent civil rights movement. During the 1950s and 1960s, he sought to improve race relations and overturn discrimination in American society. He is remembered for his powerful speeches which sought to bring about a united society - where race did not act as a barrier.Awards / Achievements:
Ralph J. Bunche, director of the UN Trusteeship division and former professor of political science at Howard University, awarded the Nobel Peace prize (September 22) for successful mediation of the Palestine conflict. He was the first Black to receive a Nobel citation.
Born: 8/4/1961 Honolulu, HawaiiFirst US President of African origin. Obama served two terms as President and was awarded the Nobel Peace PrizeBusiness / Schooling: Awards / Achievements:
Nobel Peace Prize laureate Dr. Denis Mukwege has stepped down from a COVID-19 task force in eastern Congo, saying his hospital needs to focus on treating coronavirus patients because testing delays and other problems have allowed the crisis to deepen.
In announcing his resignation Wednesday, Mukwege said he expected virus cases to keep mounting in Bukavu, where his renowned Panzi Hospital treats survivors of sexual violence and provides other health care services.
Mukwege’s statement outlined problems that had hurt regional coronavirus response efforts, including delays of more than two weeks on testing samples sent to a national laboratory in the capital, Kinshasa.
The emergence of COVID-19 in eastern Congo comes as the region has yet to declare victory over the world’s second most deadly Ebola outbreak in history, which has left more than 2,200 people dead since August 2018.
Health officials in Congo are also grappling with the world’s largest measles outbreak, which has touched every province and left nearly 7,000 dead.
Name at birth: Ralph Johnson Bunch
Ralph Bunche was the first black American to receive the Nobel Peace Prize, awarded to him in 1950 for his mediation during the founding of the nation of Israel. Born in Detroit, he moved west when he was a young teenager. When he was 13 years old his father left the family, his mother died of tuberculosis and Bunches grandmother took him to Los Angeles to raise (she also added the e to his surname). A 1927 graduate of the University of California at Los Angeles, Bunche studied political science and went on to earn a Masters degree at Harvard in 1928 (he later got his doctorate from Harvard, in 1934). An expert on the effects of European colonialism, Bunche had an academic career as a political science professor at Howard University (1928-50), and was recognized nationally for his work in the late 1930s and early 1940s with Swedish sociologist Gunnar Myrdal. Together they produced An American Dilemma: The Negro Problem and Modern Democracy (1944), the first extensive scholarly study of black Americans. A consultant to the founders of the United Nations, Bunche was appointed in 1948 to be head of their Palestine Commission. He spent nearly a year negotiating the Arab-Israeli conflict and oversaw the transition from British Palestine to an independent Israel with a 1949 peace agreement. His expertise in the Middle East also came in handy in the 1950s and 60s, when he served as the director of U.N. peacekeeping forces in Egypts Suez region. After 1955 he was an undersecretary at the United Nations, a post he held the rest of his life. A longtime activist in the realm of civil rights, Bunche went from being hailed as a hero in the 1940s and 50s to being unfairly criticized in the 60s as an example of tokenism -- a good Negro popularized by whites. Still, his achievements were many and hes remembered as a talented administrator who worked on behalf of improving international relations.
Some sources say Ralph Bunche was born in 1904. According to the library at U.C.L.A.,
At 6:01 p.m. on April 4, 1968, civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was hit by a snipers bullet. King had been standing on the balcony in front of his room at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, when without warning, he was shot. The .30-caliber rifle bullet entered Kings right cheek, traveled through his neck, and finally stopped at his shoulder blade. King was immediately taken to a nearby hospital but was pronounced dead at 7:05 pm.
Violence and controversy followed. In outrage of the murder, many blacks took to the streets across the United States in a massive wave of riots. The FBI investigated the crime, but many believed them partially or fully responsible for the assassination. An escaped convict by the name of James Earl Ray was arrested, but many people including some of Martin Luther King Jr.s own family, believe he was innocent. What happened that evening?
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
When Martin Luther King, Jr. emerged as the leader of the Montgomery Bus Boycott in 1955, he began a long tenure as the spokesperson for nonviolent protest in the Civil Rights Movement. As a Baptist minister, he was a moral leader to the community. Plus, he was charismatic and had a powerful way of speaking. He was also a man of vision and determination. He never stopped dreaming of what could be.
Yet he was a man, not a God. He was most often overworked and overtired and he had a fondness for the private company of women.
Though he was the 1964 Nobel Peace Prize winner, he did not have complete control over the Civil Rights Movement. By 1968, violence had edged its way into the movement. Black Panther Party members carried loaded weapons, riots had erupted across the country, and numerous civil rights organizations had taken up the mantra Black Power! Yet Martin Luther King held strong to his beliefs, even as he saw the Civil Rights Movement being torn in two.
Violence is what brought King back to Memphis in April 1968.
On February 12, thirteen hundred African-American sanitation workers in
