In 1877 a small village blossomed that was home to freedpeople slaves from Victoria County, Texas. Ex-slaves, Joseph Smith and George Washington, both born in Virginia, opened a freight and passenger business hauling goods from the Gulf Coast to Victoria and neighboring towns. With their … Read MoreCologne, Texas
December 9, 1952, Argued May 17, 1954, Decided MR. CHIEF JUSTICE WARREN delivered the opinion of the Court. [1] These cases come to us from the States of Kansas, South Carolina, Virginia, and Delaware. They are premised on different facts and different local conditions, but … Read More(1954) Brown v. Board of Education
In 1921, Bessie Coleman became the first black woman to gain an international permit to fly. After learning French, she attended the famous flight school Ecole d’Aviation des Frères Caudron in Northern France. No schools in America would train a black person. She was inspired … Read MoreBessie Coleman (1892-1926)
Tom Pollock, a Flagstaff, Arizona businessman, built the Apache Lumber Company on land surrounded by the Apache Indian Reservation in northeast Arizona in 1916. Pollock named the site “Cooley,” after prominent Army scout and Arizona trailblazer, Corydon E. Cooley. Despite Pollock’s early success, his business … Read MoreMcNary, Arizona
Eleanor Dickey Ragsdale was one of the most distinguished activists, educators, and entrepreneurs in Arizona history. In 1947 she graduated from the historically black Cheyney University in Pennsylvania. The university’s main mission was to cultivate African American teachers, who would become leaders in their local … Read MoreEleanor Dickey Ragsdale (1926-1998)
Cloves Campbell, Sr. was born in Elizabeth, Louisiana in 1931. He moved to Arizona in 1945 with his family and earned a B.A. in Education from Arizona State University. Campbell was elected to the Arizona House of Representatives in 1962, and after two terms he … Read MoreCloves Campbell, Sr. (1931-2004)
Known affectionately as the Black Ahab, William Thomas Shorey was born on January 25, 1859 on the island of Barbados in the British West Indies. He was the son of a Scottish sugar planter and a West Indian woman of mixed African and European ancestry. … Read MoreWilliam Thomas Shorey (1859-1919)
William Owen Bush was the eldest son of George and Isabella Bush. George Bush was a mixed-race settler who came with his large family to what is now the Tumwater, Washington area in 1845. The Bushes and their sons, William Owen, Joseph Tolbert, Rial Bailey, … Read MoreWilliam Owen Bush (1832-1907)
Rebecca Howard, an outstanding hotelier and cook, was one of Olympia, Washington‘s earliest businesswomen. Born in 1827 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Rebecca Groundage married Alexander Howard, a local cooper, in New Bedford, Massachusetts in 1843. By 1859 Rebecca and her husband had moved to Olympia and … Read MoreRebecca Groundage Howard (1827-1881)
Carl Brooks was an outspoken civil rights activist, labor leader, and member of the Communist Party (CP) in the state of Washington. Born in 1908 and raised in Seattle, by the mid 1930s he was active in the Northwest branch of the Communist Party’s League … Read MoreCarl Brooks (1908-?)
