Sarah Bartlett, Author at

Independent Historian

Sarah Bartlett earned her bachelor’s degree in English from the University of Washington. She has worked in schools and libraries in China and Seattle, and continues to work as an educator in the Pacific Northwest.

Grace Bumbry (1937-2023 )

Grace Bumbry was one of the most successful opera singers of the late 20th century. She had a long career as a performer, spanning over four decades. A Grammy-award-winning mezzo-soprano and the first Black singer to perform at the Bayreuth festival in Germany. Bumbry, along … Read More

Elizabeth Catlett (1915-2012)

Elizabeth Catlett Mora was a prominent black political expressionist sculptor and printmaker in the 1960s and 1970s. Catlett was born to John and Mary Catlett who were public school teachers in Washington, D.C. She was the youngest of three children. After graduating from Dunbar High … Read MoreElizabeth Catlett (1915-2012)

Ruth Simmons (1945- )

Ruth Simmons is the first African American to be named President of an Ivy League university. She is also the first African American woman to lead any major university in the United States. Simmons was sworn in as the 18th President of Brown University in … Read MoreRuth Simmons (1945- )

Georgiana Simpson (1866-1944)

Georgiana R. Simpson was the second black women to be awarded a Ph.D. in the United States. She received her degree in German from the University of Chicago in 1921, the same year that Sadie Tanner Mossell became the first black woman to be awarded … Read MoreGeorgiana Simpson (1866-1944)

Eva Beatrice Dykes (1893-1986)

In 1921 Eva Beatrice Dykes became the first black woman in the United States to complete the required coursework for a Ph.D. and the third African American woman to receive a doctoral degree. Two other black women, Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander and Georgiana Simpson, receive … Read MoreEva Beatrice Dykes (1893-1986)

John Kenneth Blackwell (1948- )

J. Kenneth Blackwell, better known as Ken Blackwell, served as Ohio’s Secretary of State from 1999 to 2007. As a member of the Republican Party, he consistently advocated a conservative platform. Born on February 28, 1948, and raised in Cincinnati, Ohio, Blackwell graduated from Xavier … Read MoreJohn Kenneth Blackwell (1948- )

Brown Fellowship Society (1790-1945)

Founded in 1790, the Brown Fellowship Society is the oldest all-male Funeral Society in Charleston, South Carolina. It also provides a major historical example of how racism affected the African American community itself, in that lighter skinned African Americans in the Society considered themselves superior … Read More

Atlanta Race Riot of 1906

The Atlanta Race Riot or Atlanta Riot of 1906 was the first race riot to take place in the capital city of Georgia. The riot lasted from September 22 to September 24 and was the culmination of a number of factors, including lingering tensions from … Read MoreAtlanta Race Riot of 1906