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.
Robert Franklin Williams was a militant civil rights leader whose open advocacy of armed self-defense anticipated the movement for “black power” in the late 1960s and helped inspire groups like the Student National Coordinating Committee, the Revolutionary Action Movement, and the Black Panther Party. Williams … Read MoreRobert F. Williams (1925-1996)
Postal worker, real estate broker and civil rights activist, Mary Ann Spencer was the 10th child of twelve. She was born in Patrick County, Virginia on January 7, 1917. Spencer completed high school at Christiansburg’s Industrial High School in 1937, Virginia and went on to … Read MoreMary Ann Spencer Smith (1917-2001)
Anita Hill is a professor of law, social policy and management and women’s studies at Brandeis University. She was born in Lone Tree, Oklahoma on July 30, 1956. A bright student, she graduated as the valedictorian of her high school class and then earned a … Read MoreAnita Faye Hill (1956- )
Born in Brooklyn, New York, Maryland politician Wayne Keith Curry’s father, Eugene, was a schoolteacher and his mother, Juliette, was a homemaker and later a secretary. When the family moved to Cheverly, Maryland in the 1960s, they encountered various forms of discrimination, including exclusion from … Read MoreWayne Keith Curry (1951-2014)
Huddie Ledbetter was born January 15, 1888, on the Jeter Plantation near Mooringsport, Louisiana. He was an only child who quickly became interested in music when he received his first instrument (an accordion) from his uncle Terrell. In 1903at the age of 15, Ledbetter he … Read MoreHuddie (Leadbelly) Ledbetter (1888-1949)
Blind Lemon Jefferson was born in Couchman, Texas, sometime around the 1890s although the exact date is not known and several are claimed. He was the youngest of seven children and the only one of them born blind. The details of his birth and young … Read MoreBlind Lemon Jefferson (ca. 1890-1929)
Hand-picked by his American Express predecessor, CEO Harvey Golub, to lead the company upon Golub’s retirement, Kenneth Chenault is an attorney and the CEO and chairman of American Express. Named one of the fifty most powerful African American executives by Fortune magazine in 2001, Chenault … Read MoreKenneth Irvine Chenault (1951- )
William and Ellen Craft were born into slavery. William was born in Macon, Georgia to a master who sold off his family to pay his gambling debts. William’s new owner apprenticed him as a carpenter in order to earn money from his labor. Ellen was … Read MoreWilliam and Ellen Craft (1824-1900; 1826-1891)
Born on December 7, 1948 in Springfield, Massachusetts to well known black nationalist minister Albert Buford Cleage (later Jaramogi Abebe Agyeman) and school teacher Doris Graham Cleage, Pearl Cleage grew up in Detroit, Michigan and entered Howard University in Washington, D.C. in 1966 to study … Read MorePearl Cleage (1948- )
First elected to the Congress in 1870, Josiah T. Walls became Florida’s first elected African American congressman. Walls was born a slave in Winchester, Virginia on December 30, 1842. He was conscripted by the Confederate Army and captured in Yorktown by Union forces in 1862. … Read MoreJosiah Thomas Walls (1842-1905)
