Black History 365 | # 128 Rita Marley

Did you know that Rita Marley, the wife of Bob Marley has lived in Ghana for over 20 years? She moved to Ghana alongside Bob Marley's family in the 1990s and became a Ghanaian citizen in 2013. She now resides in Ghana and was several years ago enstooled as Nana Afua Adobea 1(Queen of Development) in the South-eastern Akwapim Region of Ghana.

Black History 365 | # 127 Bob Marley

Robert Nesta Marley was born on February 6, 1945, on his grandfather Omeriah Malcolm’s farm in the rural interior of the island of Jamaica at Nine Mile, Rhoden Hall, St. Ann Parish. His mother was an eighteen-year-old black Jamaican named Cedella Malcolm. His father was Captain Norval Sinclair Marley, a white British Army member in his early sixties. Bob spent most of the early part of his life in poverty and all of it without a father present. Marley died on May 11, 1981, at the age of thirty-six, from cancer in his stomach, lungs, and brain. Since 1991, ten years after his death, over 21 million Bob Marley records have been sold. Marley was also known for his belief in Rastafarianism, where Haile Selassie I is regarded by Rastafarians as the God of the Black race.

Black History 365 | # 126 Nina Simone

Nina Simone’s music provided a soundtrack for the civil rights movement and she used her “unapologetic rage and accusatory voice to name names and take no prisoners in the African-American struggle for equality in the early 60s.” Simone struck up close friendships with James Baldwin, Langston Hughes, LeRoi Jones, Miriam Makeba, and Lorraine Hansberry, who became her political mentor and was a neighbor of Malcolm X’s widow, Betty Shabazz. She wrote “Mississippi Goddam” in response to the 1963 assassination of Medgar Evers and the Birmingham church bombing that killed four young African-American girls. Simone also penned “Four Women,” chronicling the complex histories of a quartet of African-American female figures, and “Young, Gifted and Black,” borrowing the title of a play by Hansberry, which became a popular anthem. After the assassination of Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968, Simone’s bassist Greg Taylor penned “Why (The King of Love Is Dead),” which was first performed by the singer and her band at the Westbury Music Festival.

Black History 365 | # 125 Afro-Sri Lankans

The smallest African diasporic community is in Sri Lanka. There’s a group of people (being reported) called the Kaffirs in Sri Lanka, they have African roots. Said to be descendants of the enslaved Africans brought to the island by the Portuguese. This community has a distinct history. In these reports, they supposedly go all the way back to the 16th century.

Black History 365 | # 124 Dave Coulier, the reason TLC made "No Scrubs"

Did you know Uncle Joey (AKA Dave Coulier) inspired the song “No Scrubs” by TLC? Yes it was him, “sitting on the passenger’s side of his best friend’s ride,” trying to holler at T-Boz & Chilli. While Uncle Jesse (AKA John Stamos) was driving. CRAZY! He is the scrub.