This Week In Black History June 12-18, 2024

BESSIE COLEMAN JUNE 12 1840—The world’s first anti-slavery convention took place in London, En­gland. The aim of the gathering was to unite abolitionists worldwide. Howev­er, the effectiveness of the convention was harmed by a decision to exclude female delegates. 1886—The Georgia Supreme Court upholds the will of former slave own­er David Dickson who had left more than $300,000 to a child he fathered by raping a 12-year-old Black girl. The ruling made Amanda America Eu­banks the wealthiest Black person in America. She would later marry one of her White first cousins.& 1963—Medgar Evers, Mississippi field secretary for the NAACP, was assassinated in front of his home by White supremacist Byron de la Beck­with. All-White juries twice refused to find De la Beckwith guilty although the evidence was overwhelming. Fi­nally, in 1995, Beckwith was convicted of killing the civil rights activist. Beck­with died in prison in 2001. JUNE 13 1967—President Lyndon B. John­son nominates former NAACP Chief Counsel Thurgood Marshall to be the first Black justice on the United States Supreme Court. He said of his deci­sion, it “was the right thing to do, the right time to do it.” Marshall had been a towering figure in the legal battles against...