The following are short descriptions of the women and men who have contributed to the shaping of African American history. These encyclopedia entries serve as a starting point for much more inclusive descriptions and discussions that appear in other sources. For additional information please consult the print or website sources cited in the entry.
Stephen Bonga was part of a prosperous Minnesota fur trading family, the first African American residents of that state. Fluent in Native American languages, Stephen and his brothers traveled as translators and voyageurs throughout the upper Great Lakes region of the Midwest. Bonga was born … Read MoreStephen Bonga (1799-1884)
John Matthew Shippen, Jr. was the first African American professional golfer and known as one of America’s golf pioneers. Shippen achieved this distinction when he competed in the US Open in 1896. John Shippen was born on December 5, 1879 in Long Island, New York … Read MoreJohn Matthew Shippen, Jr. (1879-1968)
Historian, educator and clergyman Rev. Miles Mark Fisher was pastor of the White Rock Baptist Church in Durham, North Carolina from 1933 to 1965. He published a number of important scholarly works on African American culture and the Baptist missionary movement to Africa. In 1953 … Read MoreMiles Mark Fisher (1899-1970)
In 2010, retired lieutenant colonel Allen West became the first black Republican to represent Florida in Congress since Rep. Josiah T. Walls, who served during Reconstruction. Congressman West was born on February 7, 1961 in Atlanta, Georgia to Herman and Elizabeth West. His father was … Read MoreAllen West (1961- )
Artist Edward Bannister was a painter who concentrated on pastoral landscape scenes depicting the beauty and serenity of nature. He was the first African American artist to receive a national award. Bannister was born in St. Andrews, New Brunswick, Canada in November of 1828. Little … Read MoreEdward Mitchell Bannister (1828-1901)
Born into slavery in 1854, Fr. Augustine (nicknamed Augustus) Tolton was one of the country’s first African American Roman Catholic priests. Tolton shares early black Catholic history with three brothers of Irish-African American ancestry: James, Sherwood, and Patrick Healy. The Healy brothers were ordained two … Read MoreAugustine (Augustus) Tolton (1854-1897)
U.S. Senator from South Carolina, Timothy Eugene Scott is the first black Republican elected to the Senate from the South since Senator Blanche Kelso Bruce served in that body representing Mississippi from 1876 to 1881. He is also the first black Republican senator elected since … Read MoreTimothy Scott (1965- )
Poet and essayist Jupiter Hammon published his writing while living and working as a slave in Revolutionary-era New England. He is believed to be the first published male African American poet. His essays were directed to slave readers and featured themes of morality and Christian … Read MoreJupiter Hammon (c. 1711-c. 1806)
George Branham III is best known as the first African American to win a major Professional Bowlers Association (PBA) title and one of the very few men of color in professional bowling. Branham was born on November 21, 1962 in Detroit, Michigan. His father, George … Read MoreGeorge Branham, III (1962- )
Born into slavery in Charleston, South Carolina on June 29, 1849, William J. Simmons served as the second president of what would later become Simmons College of Kentucky between 1880 and 1890. He was also a prominent historian and biographer of African American men. Simmons’s … Read MoreWilliam J. Simmons (1849-1890)
