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.
Egbert Austin “Bert” Williams was born in New Providence, Nassau on November 12, 1874. When he was eleven or twelve his family settled in Riverside, California, and it was not long before Williams became attracted to show business. In 1893 Williams got his start in … Read MoreWilliams, Bert (1874-1922)
A major figure in Harlem community politics and the Communist Party during the 1930s and 1940s, Benjamin Davis, Jr. was born into a prominent African American family in Atlanta, Georgia in 1903. He migrated north to Massachusetts to attend college at Amherst, where he was … Read MoreBenjamin Davis, Jr. (1903-1964)
Trinidad-born dental surgeon and Spanish Civil War veteran Arnold Donowa was born on December 1895 in Trinidad. Very little is known about his childhood there but by the early 1920s he was living in the United States and earned his D.D.S. from Howard University in … Read MoreArnold Bennett Donowa (1896-1964)
Arnold Bertonneau was a New Orleans wine merchant, black soldier, and is best known as one of the first African American participants in Louisiana’s Reconstruction period. Born in New Orleans sometime in 1834, in 1862-63, Bertonneau was a captain in the 1st Regiment of the … Read MoreE. Arnold Bertonneau (1834-1912)
Andrew Rube Foster was born in Calvert, Texas, on September 17, 1879. The son of Andrew and Sarah Foster, Rube started a baseball tradition that would be followed by his brother Willie Bill Foster. Rube quit school after the eighth grade, barnstorming with the Waco … Read MoreAndrew “Rube” Foster (1879-1930)
First named First Colored Baptist Church and located in Savannah, Georgia, First African Baptist Church traces its roots to December 1777, and is officially designated the oldest African American church in the United States. George Liele, the Church’s founder, continued to evangelize and baptize both … Read MoreAndrew Bryan (1737-1812)
Although he was the first African American to earn a Ph.D. in a field of the biological sciences, Alfred Oscar Coffin ended his career as Professor of Romance Languages at Langston University in Oklahoma. Born in Pontotoc, Mississippi on May 14, 1861, Coffin earned his … Read MoreAlfred O. Coffin (1861-?)
Reputed to be the first African American in the United States to graduate from college, Alexander Twilight was born on a farm in Corinth, Vermont to a white or fair-skinned mother, Mary Twilight, and a mixed-race father, Ichabod Twilight, who had served as a private … Read MoreAlexander Twilight (1795-1857)
Painter and illustrator Aaron Douglas was born in Topeka, Kansas on May 26, 1899 to Aaron Douglas Sr., a baker originally from Tennessee and Elizabeth Douglas, a homemaker from Alabama. and became one of the leading visual artists of his time. Inspired by the work … Read MoreAaron Douglas (1898-1979)
Born in Tuscaloosa, Alabama on May 25, 1918, Coleman Young arrived in Detroit, Michigan with his family when he was five. The Colemans settled in the working class neighborhood of Black Bottom (East Detroit), where his father operated a dry cleaning business and his mother … Read MoreColeman A. Young (1918-1997)
