Utilizing the research of Professor Dominique-René de Lerma of Lawrence University in Appleton, Wisconsin, historian William J. Zick in the article below provides vignettes which comprise an overview of various composers and musicians of African ancestry who performed in Europe, North America, and Latin America … Read MoreBlack Composers and Musicians in Classical Music History
Established in 1738, Fort Mose was the first free black settlement in what is now the United States. Located just north of St. Augustine, Florida, Fort Mose played an important role in the development of colonial North America. As Great Britain, France, Spain and other … Read MoreFort Mose, Florida (1738-1820)
Since 1965, the Watts Labor Community Action Committee (WLCAC) has operated as the key antipoverty agency in South Central Los Angeles. Union members and community activists established the WLCAC largely because of the failure of the city and county of Los Angeles to establish a … Read MoreWatts Labor Community Action Committee (1965- )
Alto saxophonist Charlie Parker was the most influential jazz musician to follow Louis Armstrong, and one of the music’s few true revolutionaries. The style he helped to create, called bebop, or bop, established jazz as an intellectual music that was no longer viewed merely as … Read MoreCharles “Charlie” Parker, Jr. (1920-1955)
The Southern Negro Youth Congress (SNYC) was formed in 1937 by young people who had attended the National Negro Congress (NNC) in Chicago, Illinois in 1936 and wanted to implement its call for action. These young leaders, including veteran activists James Jackson, Helen Gray, Esther … Read MoreSouthern Negro Youth Congress (1937-1949)
Clarence Thomas, the second African American to sit on the U.S. Supreme Court, was born in Pin Point, Georgia, a small community south of Savannah. His mother, Leola Williams, a single parent, raised Thomas until he was seven. He and his brother, Myers, were sent … Read MoreClarence Thomas (1948- )
Joycelyn Elders, the former U.S. Surgeon General, was born Minnie Lee Jones in Schaal, Arkansas on August 13, 1933, to Curtis and Hailer Jones; she added the name Joycelyn when she was in college. As the eldest of eight children of sharecroppers, Joycelyn Elders experienced extreme poverty in segregated, … Read MoreJoycelyn Minnie Elders (1933- )
An influential African American economist who is known for his controversial views on race, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status, Thomas Sowell was born in Gastonia, North Carolina in 1930. When he was eight, his family moved to Harlem, New York. His father, a construction worker, did … Read MoreThomas Sowell (1930- )
Soprano saxophonist and clarinetist Sidney Bechet was one of the most important soloists of early jazz. Together with Louis Armstrong, he was the first to develop the loose, fluid rhythmic style that set jazz apart from ragtime and that came to be known as “swinging.” … Read MoreSidney Bechet (1897-1959)
John Hiram Jackson was born November 16, 1912 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Both his parents were Virginians, and his maternal grandfather, the Reverend Daniel Cave, was a founder of Lynchberg Seminary, an independent black Baptist college. Reverend Cave was the first of a line of Baptist … Read MoreJohn Hiram Jackson (1912-1997)
