The Tougaloo Nine were nine students who, in 1961 while undergraduates at Tougaloo College, staged sit-ins at the all-white Jackson Main Library in Jackson, Mississippi. Prior to the sit-ins, African Americans were prohibited from using the city’s main library. The Nine—Meredith Coleman Anding Jr., James … Read More … Read MoreThe Tougaloo Nine (1961)
Joseph W. Hatchett, the first African American Supreme Court Justice after Reconstruction in the South, was born on September 17, 1932, in Clearwater, Florida, to John and Lula Hatchett. He attended Florida A&M University, where he received a Bachelor of Political Science in 1954. Four years later in 1959, he graduated … Read More … Read MoreJoseph Woodrow Hatchett (1932-2021)
Edwina Justus, also known as “Curlie,” is the first African American woman locomotive engineer for the Union Pacific Railroad. She was born on July 11, 1943 in Omaha, Nebraska to Lee Chaney and Caldonia Isaiah Chaney. As a young child she attended Brown Park Elementary … Read More … Read MoreEdwina “Curlie” Justus (1943- )
Frank Waldron was one of the most influential musicians and teachers in the first half of Seattle’s 20th century jazz scene. Waldron was born in San Francisco, California in 1890. By World War I he had moved to the Pacific Northwest and played music at … Read More … Read MoreFrank Waldron (1890-1955)
With his appointment in 1955 as the first African American to serve on the New York State Supreme Court, Harold Arnoldus Stevens continued a string of firsts that began in 1950 when he was elected to the New York Court of General Sessions, becoming the first African … Read More … Read MoreHarold A. Stevens (1907-1990)
Audrey Smedley, one of the nation’s first African American women anthropologists, was born in Detroit in 1930, the eldest daughter of Ulysses and Mattie Smedley. While raising six children, her mother maintained a career as a beautician; her father owned and operated a gas station … Read More … Read MoreAudrey Smedley (1930-2020)
Image Ownership: Liz Margerum/Reno Gazette-Journal Maurice E. Washington is a Reno, Nevada businessman and pastor who is best known as a former Republican member of the Nevada State Senate. Washington was born on July 25, 1956, in Albuquerque, New Mexico. He moved to Nevada where … Read More … Read MoreMaurice E. Washington (1956- )
Image Ownership: Public Domain One year after his Atlanta Compromise Speech 40-year-old Booker T. Washington was on his way to becoming the most influential African American in the United States. One example of that growing influence was the invitation from the Harvard Alumni to speak … Read More … Read More(1896) Booker T. Washington, “Address to the Harvard Alumni Dinner”
Saint Peter Claver (Mission) Church was the first African American Catholic Church in San Antonio, Texas. The church was built by Irish-born Margaret Mary Healy Murphy, the widow of John Bernard Murphy, who was the mayor of Corpus Christi from 1889 to 1884. Margaret Mary … Read More … Read MoreSaint Peter Claver Church, San Antonio, Texas (1888- )
Born into slavery in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on February 14, 1760, Richard Allen went on to become an educator, writer, minister and founder of the African Methodist Episcopal Church. Benjamin Chew, a Quaker lawyer, owned the Allen family, which included Richard’s parents and three other children. … Read More … Read MoreRichard Allen [Pennsylvania] (1760-1831)
