OAAA E-Weekly Newsletter

This Week in Black History

President Dwight D. Eisenhower apologizes to African diplomat. On October 10, 1957, President Eisenhower offers his apologies to Ghanaian Finance Minister, Komla Agbeli Gbdemah, who had been refused service at a restaurant in Dover, Delaware. It was one of the first of many such incidents in which African diplomats were confronted with racial segregation in the United States. Although the matter might appear small, relative to other events in the Cold War, the continued racial slights to African (and Asian) diplomats during the 1950s and 1960s concerned U.S. officials, as the Civil Rights movement was gaining momentum.

The Boer War begins in South Africa on October 11, 1899. The Boers, also known as Afrikaners, were the descendants of the original Dutch settlers of southern Africa. Britain took possession of the Dutch Cape colony in 1806 during the Napoleonic wars, sparking resistance from the independence-minded Boers, who resented the Anglicization of South Africa and Britain’s anti-slavery policies.