1968 US athletes Tommi Smith and John Carlos suspended by US Olympic Committee for giving “black power” salute while receiving their medals at the Olympic Games in Mexico City.

1926

Chuck Berry, rock ‘n’ roll performer.

1948 Ntozake Shange (Paulette Williams), poet, playwright and novelist.

1961 Wynton Marsalis, Grammy-winning jazz trumpeter; presently (2013) artistic Director of Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wynton_Marsalis http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0550368/ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2065011/ Globetrotting: African American Athletes and Cold War Politics 2012, Pages 1-209   (Book) Thomas, D.L.   University of Maryland, United States View references (217) Abstract Throughout the Cold War, the Soviet Union deplored the treatment of African Americans by the U.S. government as proof of hypocrisy in the American promises of freedom and equality. This probing history examines government attempts to manipulate international perceptions of U.S. race relations during the Cold War by sending African American athletes abroad on goodwill tours and in international competitions as cultural ambassadors and visible symbols of American values. Damion L. Thomas follows the State Department's efforts from 1945 to 1968 to showcase prosperous African American athletes including Jackie Robinson, Jesse Owens, and the Harlem Globetrotters as the preeminent citizens of the African Diaspora rather than as victims of racial oppression. With athletes in baseball, track and field, and basketball, the government relied on figures whose fame carried the desired message to countries where English was little understood. However, eventually African American athletes began to provide counter-narratives to State Department claims of American exceptionalism, most notably with Tommie Smith and John Carlos's famous black power salute at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics. © 2012 by the Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois. All rights reserved.