Civil rights activist Diane Judith Nash was born on May 15, 1938 in Chicago, Illinois to Leon Nash and Dorothy Bolton Nash. Nash grew up a Roman Catholic and attended parochial and public schools in Chicago. In 1956, she graduated from Hyde Park High School … Read MoreDiane Nash (1938- )
Founded on March 5, 1897 in Washington, D.C. by 78-year-old Reverend Alexander Crummell, the American Negro Academy (ANA) was an organization of black intellectuals who through their scholarship and writing were dedicated to the promotion of higher education, arts, and science for African Americans as … Read MoreAmerican Negro Academy (1897-1924)
The Creek Seminole College was officially opened in 1906 in Boley, a black town in Creek Nation, Indian Territory (today Oklahoma). The school’s founder and president was John C. Leftwich, a graduate of Selma University in Alabama. Leftwich built the college on five acres of … Read MoreCreek Seminole College (1906-ca. 1925)
In the early twentieth century Boley, Oklahoma was the largest predominantly black town in the United States. Boley was officially opened for settlement in 1903 in Creek Nation, Indian Territory along the Fort Smith and Western Railroad. The interracial group that founded Boley included Lake … Read MoreBoley, Oklahoma (1903- )
William Henry Hastie Jr., attorney and diplomat, was born on November 17, 1904 in Knoxville, Tennessee to parents William Henry Hastie Sr. and Roberta Childs. He spent his childhood in Tennessee until his family moved to Washington, D.C. Hastie graduated from Dunbar High School in Washington, … Read MoreWilliam Henry Hastie (1904-1976)
Unita Blackwell, a civil rights activist and the first black female mayor in the state of Mississippi, was born the daughter of sharecropping parents in Coahoma County, Mississippi on March 18, 1933. She worked throughout the civil rights era urging and recruiting blacks to register … Read MoreUnita Blackwell (1933-2019)
Alexander Crummell, an Episcopalian priest, missionary, scholar and teacher, was born in New York City in 1819 to free black parents. He spent much of his life addressing the conditions of African Americans, urging an educated black elite to aspire to the highest intellectual attainments … Read MoreAlexander Crummell (1819-1898)
Born in Richmond, Virginia on January 17, 1931, Lawrence Douglas Wilder was the first African American to be elected governor in the United States of America. For four years Wilder served as the governor of Virginia (1990-1994) after previously serving as Lt. Governor of the … Read MoreLawrence Douglas Wilder (1931- )
Floyd C. Covington was a leader in Los Angeles’s black community for more than fifty years. A native of Denver, Colorado, Covington endured many traumatic experiences during his childhood. The 1910 manuscript census indicates that Covington’s father did not live with his family. Covington’s mother … Read MoreFloyd C. Covington (1901-1989)
THE SEATTLE OPEN HOUSING CAMPAIGN, 1959-1968: Housing Segregation and Open Housing Legislation Anne Frantilla Seattle Municipal Archives Seattle’s African-American population increased dramatically between 1940 and 1960, making the community the city’s largest minority group. As blacks moved north and west during and after World War … Read MoreHistory of the Seattle Open Housing Campaign, 1959-1968
