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.
E. Burton Ceruti was a prominent attorney and one of the founders of the Los Angeles branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Ceruti was born on August 14, 1875, in Nassau, the Bahamas. He moved to the United States when … Read MoreE. Burton Ceruti (1875-1927)
When Gary Franks was elected to Congress in 1990, he was the first black representative from Connecticut and the first black Republican in Congress in nearly 50 years. Son of a brass factory worker and a dietary specialist, education was a high priority in Franks’s … Read MoreGary Franks (1953- )
Born on June 22, 1866 in Kaufman County, Texas, William Madison (Gooseneck Bill) McDonald’s parents had been slaves. His father, George McDonald, was born in Tennessee and his mother, Flora Scott McDonald, in Alabama. His mother died when he was five, and his father married … Read MoreWilliam Madison McDonald (1866-1950)
Frank Marshall Davis rose to prominence as a poet and journalist during the Depression and the Second World War. Prior to his departure for the Territory of Hawaii in 1948, he found himself the subject of adulation by many readers but also the target of … Read MoreFrank Marshall Davis (1905-1987)
Samuel L. Robinson was born in Kansas in 1896. He arrived in Atlantic City, New Jersey, in his teens, where he attended the city’s integrated high school. He joined the school’s football team and became a close friend of the team captain and the future … Read MoreSamuel L. Robinson (1896-1964?)
Lucy (Lucile) Berkeley Buchanan Jones was the first African American woman to graduate from the University of Colorado. Buchanan was born on June 13, 1884, on the second floor of the family’s mule and horse barn in the town of Barnum, southwest of Denver, Colorado. … Read MoreLucy (Lucile) Berkeley Buchanan Jones (1884-1989)
Born in Louisville, Kentucky in 1884, Saint Elmo Brady became the first African American to earn a Ph.D. in the field of chemistry when he completed his graduate studies at the University of Illinois in 1916. The eldest child of Thomas and Celesta Brady, Saint … Read MoreSaint Elmo Brady (1884-1966)
Born on the campus of Howard University on May 1, 1901, Sterling Allen Brown was the last of six children and the only boy born to the Rev. Sterling Nelson, a former slave and prominent professor in the Howard Divinity School, and Adelaide (Allen) Brown. … Read MoreSterling A. Brown (1901-1989)
In 1878 soprano Marie Selika Williams, known as the “queen of staccato,” became the first black artist to perform at the White House. Marie Selika was born c. 1849 in Natchez, Mississippi. Shortly after her birth, Selika’s family moved to Cincinnati, Ohio where, as a … Read MoreMarie Selika Williams (ca. 1849-1937)
Alice Augusta Ball, a pharmaceutical chemist, was born in Seattle, Washington in 1892 to Laura and James P. Ball Jr. Her grandfather was J.P. Ball, the well known daguerreotype photographer and her father was a promising lawyer. James P. Ball Sr. moved to Hawaii for … Read MoreAlice Augusta Ball (1892-1916)
