When in June 1928, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) chose to hold its 19th annual conference in Los Angeles, California, it was the first time the Association’s meeting was held in the West. W.E.B. DuBois was the major speaker. He … Read More(1928) Beatrice Morrow Cannady Speaks to the NAACP
Controversial remarks drawn from the sermons of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, an unpaid campaign advisor to Democratic Presidential Candidate Barack Obama, and his pastor at Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, emerged as a lingering issue in the 2008 presidential campaign. On March 18, … Read More(2008) Democratic Presidential Candidate Barack Obama, “A More Perfect Union”
Reverend Dr. Jeremiah A. Wright, Jr. was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on September 22, 1941 to Jeremiah A. Wright, Sr., a Baptist minister who served as pastor of Grace Baptist Church in Germantown, and Mary Henderson Wright. Wright completed primary and secondary school in that … Read MoreJeremiah A. Wright (1941- )
Born in Brooklyn, New York on October 3, 1954, Alfred Charles Sharpton, Jr., is an American Baptist minister and political, social, and human rights advocate. Known as “the Wonder Boy” as a youth, he was licensed and ordained as a Pentecostal minister and toured with … Read MoreAlfred Charles “Al” Sharpton (1954- )
Born in Huntsville, Alabama, on the 6th of August, 1912, Illinois Congressman Bennett McVey Stewart was the son of Bennett Stewart and Cathleen Jones. He attended local public schools in Huntsville and Birmingham before entering Miles College in Birmingham. There he earned a Bachelor of … Read MoreBennett McVey Stewart (1912-1988)
Reverend Walter E. Fauntroy, pastor, Congressional representative, and civil rights activist, was born in Washington, D.C., on February, 6, 1933. The son of Ethel Vines Fauntroy and William Thomas Fauntroy, who worked in the U.S. Patent Office, Walter Fauntroy graduated from Dunbar High School in … Read MoreWalter E. Fauntroy (1933- )
Hiram Rhodes Revels was a Republican U.S. Senator, minister in the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church, and the first African American to serve in the U.S. Senate. Revels was born in Fayetteville, North Carolina on September 27, 1827, to a family that had been free … Read MoreHiram Rhodes Revels (1827-1901)
In 1990, more than thirty years after moving west with her family from rural Alabama, Hattie Canty was elected president of the Las Vegas Hotel and Culinary Workers Union Local 226, a position that enabled her to significantly improve the standard of living for tens … Read MoreHattie Canty (1934- )
William Herbert Gray III was born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, on August 20, 1941. His mother, Hazel Yates Gray, was a high school teacher. His father, William Herbert Gray Jr. was a Baptist Minister and over his career, the president of two Florida colleges. Upon … Read MoreWilliam Herbert Gray III (1941-2013)
Kweisi Mfume was born as Frizzel Gray in Baltimore, Maryland on October 24, 1948, the eldest of four children. Gray experienced a troubled childhood with the abandonment of his father and death of his mother as well as economic instability, but made a successful return … Read MoreKweisi Mfume (Frizzel Gray) (1948- )
