Merrell R. Bennekin

Christian. Husband. Father. Son. Nupe. Morehouse Man.

[Merrell R. Bennekin @MerrellBennekin]

April 2, 1984 Georgetown University defeated the University of Houston 84 to 75 in the National Collegiate Athletic Association Men’s Division I Basketball championship game making John Thompson the first African American head coach to lead his team to the title.

[Merrell R. Bennekin @MerrellBennekin]

Hale was recognized by President Ronald Reagan in his 1985 State of the Union Address. Hale died December 18, 1992. Her biography, “Clara Hale: A Mother to Those Who Needed One,” was published in 1993.

[Merrell R. Bennekin @MerrellBennekin]

Over the years, her profession became her life calling. She became a foster parent and became known as a mother to those who did not have one. In 1969, Hale began to take in children who were born addicted to their mother’s drug habits during pregnancy.

[Merrell R. Bennekin @MerrellBennekin]

In 1975, she attained her child care license and officially opened Hale House. Mother Hale helped over 1,000 drug addicted babies, children born with HIV, and children whose parents had died of AIDS.

[Merrell R. Bennekin @MerrellBennekin]

April 1, 1905 Clara McBride Hale, humanitarian known as Mother Hale, was born in New York City. Hale struggled to support her family after the death of her husband during the Great Depression, using her home as a daycare center.

[Merrell R. Bennekin @MerrellBennekin]

She also published “The Challenge for Africa” (2009) and “Replenishing the Earth: Spiritual Values for Healing Ourselves and the World” (2011). Maathai died September 25, 2011.

[Merrell R. Bennekin @MerrellBennekin]

April 1, 1940 Wangari Muta Maathai, the first African woman to receive the Nobel Peace Prize, was born in Nyeri District, Kenya.

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She received the coveted 2006 Indira Gandhi Peace Prize from the Republic of India. Maathai published two autobiographies, “The Canopy of Hope: My Life Campaigning for Africa, Women and the Environment” (2002) and “Unbowed: A Memoir” (2006).

[Merrell R. Bennekin @MerrellBennekin]

In 2007, she became director of the Federal Office of Desegregation Monitoring where she supervised compliance of the public schools with desegregation mandates. She held that position until her death July 1, 2009.

[Merrell R. Bennekin @MerrellBennekin]

March 31, 1941 Andree Layton Roaf, scientist, lawyer and jurist, was born in Nashville, Tennessee but raised in Muskegon, Michigan. She earned her Bachelor of Science degree in zoology from Michigan State University in 1962.

[Merrell R. Bennekin @MerrellBennekin]

She earned her Juris Doctorate degree, second in her class, in 1978 and went into private practice. On January 17, 1995, she was appointed to the Arkansas Supreme Court, the first African American woman to serve on that court. She served on the court until 2006.

[Merrell R. Bennekin @MerrellBennekin]

In 2009, a memoir by Johnson that was published in French was translated and published as “My Life and Battles.”

[Merrell R. Bennekin @MerrellBennekin]

March 31, 1878 John Arthur “Jack” Johnson, hall of fame boxer and the first Black World Heavyweight Boxing Champion, was born in Galveston, Texas.

[Merrell R. Bennekin @MerrellBennekin]

Johnson’s life is the basis for the play and subsequent 1970 movie “The Great White Hope” and the 2005 documentary, “Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson.” Johnson’s biography, “Jack Johnson, In the Ring and Out,” was published in 1977.