Ramphal served as Foreign Minister of Guyana from 1972 to 1975. He was born in Guyana to an Indo-Guyanese family.

He was the Chancellor of the University of Warwick from 1989 to 2002, the University of the West Indies until 2003 and also served as Chancellor of the University of Guyana. He studied at the London School of Economics.

The extra troops, which joined Federal forces already stationed in the nearby town of Oxford, were deemed necessary as the violence started to spread onto the surroundings streets.

The protesters were angry at the admission of James Meredith, a black American, to the university.

Then president, John F. Kennedy, addressed the nation in a televised broadcast urging a peaceful settlement to the dispute over racial segregation.

“He stayed close to me, clutching me from my back while I was trying to keep him away from the bullets,” said his father, Jamal. “But one bullet hit him in the leg. I started screaming and crying, hoping that the bullets would stop, but to no avail.”

Edited television footage showed Jamal al-Durrah waving desperately, shouting, “Don’t shoot!” but Muhammad was eventually hit by four bullets and collapsed in his father’s arms. Jamal al-Durrah was also shot and suffered critical injuries but survived after receiving emergency surgery in Jordan. He suffered a permanently paralyzed right arm.

“It is the worst nightmare of my life… My son was terrified, he pleaded with me: ‘For the love of God protect me, Baba (Dad).’ “I will never forget these words.”

An ambulance driver who tried to reach the trapped pair was reported shot and killed. A second ambulance driver was reported wounded.

The 39 firms had brought legal action to fight legislation which would allow generic versions of their patented drugs being made in or imported to South Africa.

They argued such a move would threaten future Aids research. However, the South African Government argued that it desperately needed cheap medication to help the 4.7 million South Africans infected with HIV or Aids.

Under rules laid down by the World Trade Organisation, governments are allowed to issue compulsory licenses that allow generic drugs to be manufactured, or allow “parallel importation” of cheaper drugs. But the drug companies challenged this in their lawsuit.

The case turned into a public relations disaster for the pharmaceutical industry which was accused of putting profit before the lives of millions of people in the developing world.

The firms involved in the court action did not impose any conditions for dropping the case. A spokesman for GlaxoSmithKline said South Africa had made a commitment to respect international law on drugs patents.

During the hearing, which lasted less than a minute, the companies also said they would meet the South African Government’s legal costs.

The new settlement was hopefully to be a blueprint for future relations between pharmaceutical companies and governments in the developing world.

About two thirds of the 40 million HIV positive people in the world are Africans.

Mr Mbeki has caused controversy in the past by insisting the HIV virus is not the primary cause of Aids – a view which runs contrary to mainstream medical opinion.

After dropping the case, pharmaceutical companies agreed to sell Aids drugs at cost price in developing countries – a discount of up to 90%.
In October 2001 GlaxoSmithKline gave permission for low-cost, generic versions of its anti-Aids drugs to be manufactured by a South African drugs company.

But the company is not allowed to profit from the sale of the drugs or export them to any other African country.

In July 2002 Aids campaigners in the United States began action against GlaxoSmithKline accusing it of overcharging for its antiviral drugs.

The lawsuit was part of a campaign in rich countries to make drugs companies slash prices there as well as in the developing world.

Along with her husband Kenneth Clark she founded the Northside Center for Child Development in Harlem. They are known for their 1940s experiments using dolls to study children’s attitudes about race which grew out of her master’s degree thesis.

She was the first African American woman (and only second African American after her husband) to receive a Ph.D. in psychology from Columbia University in 1943.

The Clarks testified as expert witnesses in Briggs v. Elliott, one of the cases that were later combined into the famous Brown v. Board of Education, the case in which the U.S. Supreme Court officially overturned racial segregation in public education.

Born in Darlington County SC. Newman was the son of the Reverend Melton C. Newman and Charlotte Elizabeth Morris. He attended Williamsburg County public schools and Claflin College and was ordained in the United Methodist Church (UMC) in 1931.

Three years later he received his Bachelor of Arts degree from Clark College in Atlanta, then earned his divinity degree from Gammon Theological Seminary in Atlanta in 1937. While serving as a student pastor he met and later married Anne Pauline Hinton of Covington, Georgia. They had one child, Emily.

For over forty years, he served UMC churches in Georgia and South Carolina and held key positions with their South Carolina Conference and its General Conference. As a member of the UMC Merger Committee in the 1970s, he played a major role in bringing an end to segregated congregations.

Early in his ministry, Newman identified the struggle for racial equality as a matter of the spirit, as well as a social and political concern, and he developed a preaching style that linked morality with practicality, especially in reference to race relations.

In 1943 Newman helped organize the Orangeburg branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). He contributed to the NAACP in a variety of capacities, including service as South Carolina field director from 1960 to 1969.

Newman was a gentle, self-effacing man, patient and slow to anger, who preferred diplomacy to confrontation. A tenacious advocate for simple justice in race relations, he also believed in non-violent protest as the most effective means for achieving the goal.

Newman was both chief strategist for the protest movement and chief negotiator at the conference table, becoming the “unofficial liaison” between African Americans and the white power structure.

South Carolina dismantled its structure of legalized segregation with a minimum of violence, in large measure because of his leadership and dedication to peaceful change. In the 1940s Newman helped found the Progressive Democratic Party, an effort to change the racial policies of the regular Democratic Party.

He became a trusted confidant of such state leaders as U.S. Senator Ernest Hollings and governors Robert McNair and John West, as well as a delegate to several Democratic national conventions. Extending his personal ministry into the lives of ordinary people, Newman worked to improve the condition of Blacks and whites in rural South Carolina.

Housing, medical care, the environment, aging, vocational education, and social services in general were among the concerns for which both state and private agencies sought his counsel.

Honorary degrees from state colleges and universities further acknowledged his achievements, and the University of South Carolina established a chaired professorship in social work in his honor.

On October 25, 1983, Newman became the first African American since 1887 to serve in the state senate. Newman served with distinction on several senate committees, until ill health forced him to resign his seat; he died in Columbia SC. on October 21, 1985.

His mother, Chlora, worked two jobs to try to support her family. She oftened worked as a cashier at various department stores to support Martin and his five siblings.

During his teen years, Martin excelled at boxing. While living in Maryland, he attended Eleanor Roosevelt High School and became a Mid-Atlantic Golden Gloves boxing contender. Although he was reputedly a good boxer, comedy is where Martin found his greatest success, even early in life.

In school, Martin would poke fun at others during breaks and recess, and teachers would routinely let Lawrence have a few minutes of class time to tell jokes and make classmates laugh.

It was a teacher who suggested that Lawrence give his comedic talents a shot on stage, at a local comedy club during open mike night. He took on the challenge and was successful.

She earned the title of “Empress of the Blues” by virtue of her forceful vocal delivery and command of the genre. She was the highest-paid Black performer of her day and arguably reached a level of success greater than that of any African-American entertainer before her.

Bessie Smith was born in Chattanooga, Tennessee and like many of her generation, she dreamed of escaping a life of poverty by way of show business. As a teenager she joined the Moss Stokes Company traveling minstrel show, with her comedian brother Clarence and befriended another member, Gertrude “Ma” Rainey who served as a blues mentor.

Smith was signed to Columbia Records in 1923. Her first recording – Down Hearted Blues b/w Gulf Coast Blue” – sold an estimated 800,000 copies. Smith sang raw, uncut country blues inspired by life in the South.

Some of her better-known sides include Backwater Blues, Taint Nobody’s Bizness If I Do, St. Louis Blues, and Nobody Knows You When You’re Down and Out.

The Depression dealt her career a blow, but Smith changed with the times by adapting a more up-to-date look and revised repertoire that incorporated Tin Pan Alley tunes like Smoke Gets in Your Eyes.

On the verge of the Swing Era, Smith died from injuries sustained in an automobile accident outside Clarksdale, Mississippi, in September 1937.

Flanked by Tanzanian army commanders whose troops helped drive Amin from Kampala, Lule appealed to his countrymen not to seek vengeance. “We must not indulge in the evil acts of the regime we have just removed,” he advised.

President Lule condemned Amin as a rebel and ordered commando squads to track him down. He urged troops still loyal to Amin to surrender saying they would be “protected” if they handed over their weapons.

Ironically, Amin precipitated his own downfall by sending troops to annexe part of Tanzania. But Tanzania fought back, invaded Uganda and helped unify the various anti-Amin rebel groups.

Up to that time the only other black person to win an Oscar was the best supporting actress award given to Hattie McDaniel in 1939 for her role in “Gone with the Wind.

Alongside ‘Rat Pack’ actor Sammy Davis Jnr and, earlier, Paul Robeson, Poitier was one of only a handful of Black men to gain recognition in Hollywood for roles not involving singing or dancing.

It was the second time he had been in the running for an Oscar after losing out in 1959 when he was nominated for his part in The Defiant Ones. “It has been a long journey to this moment,” the he said after he was presented with the prized statuette by actress Ann Bancroft.

Sidney Poitier’s early life seemed unlikely to spawn a Hollywood star. He grew up in poverty in the Bahamas in the Caribbean where his father was a tomato farmer. In his first months in New York he was so poor he slept in the toilets of a bus station.

He was hampered in his efforts to break into acting by his strong Bahamian accent and was initially rejected by the American Negro Theatre.

His first film was “No Way Out” alongside Richard Widmark in 1950 in which he played a doctor. But his big breakthrough came five years later in “The Blackboard Jungle.”

His roles have been a big move away from the stereotypical dim-witted Negro characters made famous in the 1930s and 1940s by Stepin Fetchit.