Laurence Aikens on LinkedIn: #africanhistory365 #africanexcellence (2024)

Fionnghuala O’Reilly (August 20, 1993) winner of the 2019 Miss Universe Ireland Contest would not only be of African descent but had arrived far from the shores of the Emerald Isle.In 2020, she joined Mission Unstoppable as the newest correspondent. She joined the cast of Twenty Pearls.Born in the section of Hardin County, Kentucky, she is the daughter of Irishman Fergal O’Reilly, a bricklayer and painter, and Vanetta O’Reilly, an African American he met in San Francisco. At age 9 an affinity for math and science resulted in her attendance at Space Camp in Huntsville, Alabama, and as a teenager participation in the Summer Math and Science Honors Academy at UC Berkeley.She won her first beauty contest, Miss Freshman, at George Washington University where she pledged Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority. She earned her BS in Systems Engineering. A tip from a friend led to a position in the Datanaut program at NASA and was promoted to executive director of the NASA Space Apps Challenge which allowed her to work remotely from her home in Dublin, Ireland.In 2018, she won the swimsuit competition and was third runner-up in the Miss District of Columbia USA contest. On August 1, 2019, she competed for the title of Miss Universe Ireland against 28 finalists in the Round Room of the Mansion House on Dublin’s Dawson Street. She won the crown and the equivalent of $78,000 in prizes. She had the distinction of being the first person of color and the first person of African heritage to claim victory in the history of the contest.Returning from Atlanta, representing Ireland in the 2019 Miss Universe Contest, she continued her association with Girls Who Code, a NASA-related program aimed at girls interested in STEM fields, and #ReachForTheStars, a social media initiative she launched that promotes women and diversity in STEM. #africanhistory365 #africanexcellence #alphakappaalpha

Lawrence “Kris” Parker (born August 20, 1965) KRS-One, MC, producer, philosopher, and activist was born to Jacqueline Jones and Sheffield Brown in South Bronx. His mother was a secretary while his father, who worked as a handyman, was deported to his native Trinidad.He left home in his early teens and lived on the streets of the Bronx as hip-hop culture began to emerge. He ended up in a Shelter where he met a social worker named Scott Sterling, a.k.a. Scott La Rock, an experienced DJ, connected with him who had developed an identity as a graffiti writer who signed “KRS-ONE” (Knowledge Reigns Supreme Over Nearly Everyone).In 1984 Scott La Rock, he, and two other rappers collectively became Scott La Rock & the Celebrity Three and released a song called “Advance.” “Advance” discussed nuclear war prevention. Scott and he formed their group, The Boogie Down Crew, in honor of their borough’s nickname, the “Boogie Down” Bronx.The Boogie Down Crew changed the group’s name to Boogie Down Productions. BDP’s first album Criminal Minded ushered in a new strain of rap music that brought consciousness to the violent realities of life on urban American streets with songs like “9mm Goes Bang” and “South Bronx.” Scott La Rock was shot in killed in 1987.BDP released By All Means Necessary. The album discussed stereotypical imagery in rap, safe sex, corruption in law enforcement, hip-hop as a teaching tool, and violence in hip-hop. He was invited to lecture at Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Columbia, and NYU on the rise of rap music. He created the Stop the Violence Movement and produced the all-star collaborative anti-violence song “Self Destruction”. He provided the theme music for I’m Gonna Git You Sucka. BDP would release four more albums before he began a career as a solo artist. He is the founder of Human Education Against Lies as well as the Temple of Hip-Hop.He married Ramona Scott, a.k.a. Ms. Melodie (1987). He married Simone Parker. #africanhistory365 #africanexcellence

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Albert Lincoln Roker Jr. (born August 20, 1954) is a weather presenter, journalist, television personality, and author. He is the weather anchor on Today, and occasionally co-hosts 3rd Hour Today. He has an inactive American Meteorological Society Television Seal #238.On November 12, 2014, at 10:00 p.m. EST, he attempted to beat the unofficial world record for an uninterrupted live weather report of 33 hours. On November 14, 2014, at 8:00 a.m. EST, he set the Guinness World Record by reporting for 34 hours.On the December 14, 2018, episode of Today, he was honored for 40 years of service. The Today Plaza was officially named the “Rockefeller Plaza” in his honor.He was born in the borough of Queens, the son of Isabel, of Jamaican descent, and Albert Lincoln Roker Sr., a bus driver of Bahamian descent. He wanted to be a cartoonist. He was raised Catholic, his mother’s faith, and graduated from Xavier High School in Manhattan. He attended the State University of New York at Oswego where he received a BA in communications. Following an early marriage and divorce, he married WNBC producer Alice Bell. They divorced. He married fellow journalist Deborah Roberts on September 16, who has reported for both ABC and NBC.Roker has three children. He and Bell adopted daughter Courtney as an infant. With Roberts, he is the father of a daughter and a son.He ran in the ING New York City Marathon.He co-authored a series of murder mysteries. The second book in the series, The Midnight Show Murders was nominated for a Nero Award. The Morning Show Murders, published was made into a movie.The non-fiction book Been There, Done That Family Wisdom for Modern Times, written by Roker and his wife Deborah Roberts, was published.He returned to his former stomping grounds in Cleveland to report on the city’s reopening efforts following the COVID-19 pandemic, and while living on the Today Show, WKYC chief meteorologist Betsy Kling announced that the station had named the radar tower on top of the WKYC building the “Roker Tower” in his honor, and presented him with a plaque to commemorate the occasion. #africanhistory365 #africanexcellence #phibetasigma

Sergeant First Class Perry James Henry Watkins (August 20, 1948 - March 13, 1996) was the only openly gay person discharged from the Army with full honors after serving almost two decades. He had to fight for this distinction, suing the Army after being forced out because of his sexual orientation. The case went to the SCOTUS.He was born in Joplin, Missouri, the son of Ola Watkins, a nurse. He moved with his family as a teenager and attended Tacoma Lincoln High School, where he was open about being gay. He studied dance and won speech tournaments. In August 1967, he was living in Germany where his stepfather was serving in the military when he was drafted and at his initial examination told an Army psychiatrist he was gay. During his induction examination in May 1968, he stated that he was hom*osexual when asked, but the doctor still categorized him as “qualified for military service”. He did not take any legal action or protest being drafted. During the Vietnam War, he received his draft summons. He marked “yes” on his inductee questionnaire when asked about “hom*osexual tendencies.” The Army responded by sending him to a psychiatrist who interrogated him about his sexuality but asked if he had a problem serving his country. He answered, “No problem.” His military career as an openly gay man began in May 1968. He tried to leave the military due to his sexual orientation after hearing that the Army dismissed several white gay peers for that reason. The military denied his’ requests. He surmised that the primary reason for this differential treatment was his race.That the Army had earlier accepted his sexual orientation early in his career and removed him for it, became the center of his nine-year legal challenge, which was decided in 1990 by the SCOTUS. The Court rejected the Army’s argument and ordered him to be reinstated with back pay, retirement benefits, and retroactive promotion to Sergeant First Class. He was honorably discharged in 1990. #africanhistory365 #africanexcellence

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Congressman Rev. Dr. William Herbert Gray III (August 20, 1941 – July 1, 2013) was a politician and member of the Democratic Party who represented Pennsylvania’s 2nd congressional district (1979-91). He served as chairman of the House Committee on the Budget (1985-89) and as House Majority Whip (1989-91). He resigned from Congress in September of that year to become president and chief executive officer of the United Negro College Fund, a position he held until 2004.As an African American, he was the fourth-highest-ranking member of the House at the time of his resignation and a minister in Philadelphia. He was a co-founder of the government lobbying and advisory firm, Gray Loeffler LLC, headquartered in DC.He was born in Baton Rouge but grew up in St. Augustine, Florida, where his father was president of Florida Normal and Industrial Institute, and in North Philadelphia, where he graduated from Simon Gratz High School. He attended Franklin & Marshall College, where he received a BA. He went on to obtain an M.Div from Drew Theological Seminary and an MA in theology from Princeton Theological Seminary. He received an L.H.D. from Bates College. He was married to the former Andrea Dash; they had three sons. He was a member of the Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity. He died, in London, while attending the Wimbledon tennis tournament with his son Andrew. His death came suddenly and no cause of death has been given. In 1997 he received the Four Freedom Award for the Freedom of Worship.In 2014 President Barack Obama signed House Resolution 4838 directing Amtrak to rename Philadelphia’s 30th Street Station to William H. Gray III 30th Street Station. #africanhistory365 #africanexcellence #alphaphialpha

The National Negro Bowling Association was formed on August 20, 1939, in Detroit. Now known today as The National Bowling Association, the organization boasts over 23,000 members and hundreds of leagues nationwide.Bowling had become a favorite pastime for many Black families, and the NNBA was formed in part to organize leagues and membership as the sport’s popularity grew. Two prominent organizations, the American Bowling Congress, and the Women’s International Bowling Congress, a counterpart to the ABC, barred non-white members from joining their ranks.The NNBA held its first meeting at the Frog’s Club in Motor City, with Wynston Brown becoming the group’s first president. In 1944, non-white bowlers were allowed to join the NNBA, as the ABC and WBIC wouldn’t let them join due to race. The NNBA changed its name after opening its doors, membership remained predominately Black.Under pressure from the NAACP, the ABC and WBIC removed its rule barring non-white members, and the following year, the ABC hosted a tournament featuring the first all-Black bowling team, the Allen Supermarket team.Groups like the TNBA gave way to pioneers such as Louise Fulton, a US Bowling Congress Hall of Fame inductee who became the first Black bowler to win a professional title in 1964, and the first Black inductee to the group’s Hall of Fame. Gary Faulkner Jr., the only active Black professional bowler to win a national title, played in TNBA tournaments before going pro. #africanhistory365 #africanexcellence

Donald King (born August 20, 1931) is a boxing promoter, known for his involvement in several historic boxing matchups. He has been a controversial figure, due to a manslaughter conviction and civil cases against him, as well as allegations of dishonest business practices by numerous boxers.He was born in Cleveland, where he attended school and graduated from John Adams High. After dropping out of Kent State University, he ran an illegal bookmaking operation out of the basem*nt of a record store on Kinsman Road and was charged with killing two men in incidents 13 years apart. The first was determined to be a justifiable homicide after it was found that he shot Hillary Brown in the back and killed him while he was attempting to rob one of his gambling houses. He was convicted of second-degree murder for the second killing after he was found guilty of stomping to death an employee. While he served his term at the Marion Correctional Institution, he began self-education; according to his own words, he read everything in the prison library he could get his hands on.He was pardoned by Ohio Governor Jim Rhodes, with letters from Jesse Jackson, Coretta Scott King, George Voinovich, Art Modell, and Gabe Paul, among others, being written in support of him.His career highlights include, among multiple other enterprises, promoting “The Rumble in the Jungle” and “Thrilla in Manila”. He has promoted some of the most prominent names in boxing, including Muhammad Ali, Joe Frazier, George Foreman, Larry Holmes, Tomasz Adamek, Mike Tyson, Evander Holyfield, Chris Byrd, John Ruiz, Julio César Chávez, Ricardo Mayorga, Andrew Golota, Bernard Hopkins, Félix Trinidad, Roy Jones Jr., Azumah Nelson, and Marco Antonio Barrera. His wife, Henrietta, died on December 2, 2010. He has one biological daughter, Debbie, a son, Eric, an adopted son Carl, five grandchildren, and three great-grandchildren. #africanhistory365 #africanexcellence

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Dr. Samuel Lee Kountz Jr. (August 20, 1930 - December 23, 1981) surgeon and pioneer in organ transplants was born to Samuel Kountz, Sr. and Emma Montague in Lexa, Arkansas. His father assumed the role of nurse and his mother was a midwife.He graduated from Arkansas Agricultural, Mechanical, and Normal College with a BS. He received an MS in Biochemistry from the University of Arkansas and became the first African American admitted and graduated from medical school. He married Grace Akin (1958). The couple had three children.During his residency at Stanford University School of Medicine, he focused on surgery, becoming interested in kidney transplants. Up until 1960 such transplants were impossible unless the donor and recipient were twins. Transplants between those distantly related or unrelated ended in rejection by the transplant recipient.He and Roy Cohn performed the first successful kidney transplant between two people who were close relatives but not twins. He researched the process of kidney transplants in dogs. He discovered that monitoring blood flow into the new kidney and administering methylprednisolone to the patient after surgery allowed the body to accept the new organ.He joined the faculty at Stanford University Hospital and Medical School and became the chief of the kidney transplant service at the University of California at San Francisco. He worked with Folker Belzer to create the Belzer kidney perfusion machine. This innovation kept kidneys alive for 50 hours after being removed. The institution’s kidney transplant research center became one of the best in the country. He created the Center for Human Values at UCSF, to discuss ethical issues concerning transplants.The State University of New York, Downstate Medical Center recruited him to become the professor and chair of the Department of Surgery. His pioneering work has made kidney transplants routine today. He won numerous awards and was elected president of the Society of University Surgeons. He traveled the world to share his expertise. He contracted an unknown disease while in South Africa, which caused serious brain damage. #africanhistory365 #africanexcellence

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Tuskegee Airman Staff Sergeant Howard Adolphus Wooten (April 20, 1920 - August 20, 1948) was born in Lovelady, Texas to parents Johnnie C. Morris Wooten and Howard L. Wooten. His father was the principal of the “colored school” in Lovelady, and his mother was a teacher there.He grew up on a farm near Lovelady and in 1937, he entered Prairie View College on a football scholarship. His main interest was in aviation and he attempted to enroll in flight training programs.He dropped out in 1940 and enlisted in the Army as a private assigned to a Field Artillery unit. He rose through the ranks, becoming a Staff Sergeant in the 46th Field Artillery Brigade by January 1942.He applied to the Army Flight School at Tuskegee in 1944 and graduated in December of that year. He was assigned to the 15th USAAF Brigade as a fighter pilot, in the 332nd Fighter Group.He was reassigned to the 477th Bombardment Group, where he was one of a select group of Tuskegee pilots who would train to fly North American B-25 Mitchell bombers. He was transferred to Mather Field, for additional training.He decided to become an attorney and moved to Seattle with four brothers and a sister, to get as far away as possible from “Jim Crow” Texas. He was hired as a production worker at the Boeing Airplane Company and joined the Aeronautical Machinists Union. He Josephine A. Stratman, another Boeing production worker (1947).He was memorialized by the Air Force when his WWII pilot’s photograph was chosen by an advertising agency to represent the famed Tuskegee Airmen. His photo was first seen on Air Force recruiting posters in the 1990s and was adopted as the official image of the Tuskegee Airmen Foundation. The photograph from the National Archives has been seen in public media including ESPN, Flight, Ebony, Sports Illustrated, and other periodicals. #africanhistory365 #africanexcellence

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Mummia, Mumia, or originally mummy referred to several different preparations in the history of medicine, from “mineral pitch” to “powdered human mummies”. It originated from Arabic mūmiyā “a type of resinous bitumen found in Western Asia and used curatively” in traditional Islamic medicine, which was translated as pissasphaltus in ancient Greek medicine. In medieval European medicine, mūmiyā “bitumen” was transliterated into Latin as Mumia meaning both “a bituminous medicine from Persia” and “mummy”. Merchants in apothecaries dispensed expensive mummia bitumen, which was thought to be an effective cure-all for many ailments. It was used as an aphrodisiac. Beginning around the 12th century when supplies of imported natural bitumen ran short, mummia was misinterpreted as “mummy”, and the word’s meaning expanded to “a black resinous exudate scraped out from embalmed Egyptian mummies”. This began a period of lucrative trade between Egypt and Europe, and suppliers substituted rare mummia exudate with entire mummies, either embalmed or desiccated. After Egypt banned the shipment of mummia in the 16th century, unscrupulous European apothecaries began to sell fraudulent mummia prepared by embalming and desiccating fresh corpses. Scholars proved that translating bituminous mummia into a mummy was a mistake, physicians stopped prescribing the ineffective drug. Artists used ground-up mummies to tint a popular oil paint called mummy brown. Noble’s new book, Medicinal Cannibalism in Early Modern English Literature and Culture, and Richard Sugg’s Mummies, Cannibals, and Vampires: The History of Corpse Medicine from the Renaissance to the Victorians, reveal that many Europeans, including royalty, priests, and scientists, routinely ingested remedies containing human bones, blood and fat as medicine for everything from headaches to epilepsy. There were few vocal opponents of the practice, even though cannibalism in the newly explored Americas was reviled as a mark of savagery. Mummies were stolen from Egyptian tombs, and skulls were taken from Irish burial sites. Gravediggers robbed and sold body parts. #africanhistory365 #africanexcellence