The Underground Railroad was established to aid enslaved people in their escape to freedom. The railroad was comprised of dozens of secret routes and safe houses originating in the slaveholding states and extending all the way to the Canadian border, the only area where fugitives … Read MoreThe Underground Railroad (1820-1861)
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)
Originally the site of New York City’s first free black settlement, by 1850 the Five Points district in lower Manhattan had instead become infamous for its dance halls, bars, gambling houses, prostitution, and for its mixed-race clientele. To the larger white community, the Five Points … Read MoreFive Points District, New York City, New York (1830s-1860s)
The Langston City Herald was a black newspaper based in the Oklahoma Territory but with circulation throughout the South. The paper was founded and edited by Edwin and Sarah McCabe in 1890 soon after they relocated from Kansas to the Oklahoma Territory. Because its readership … Read MoreLangston City Herald
The Frances Ellen Harper branch of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) was founded in Seattle, Washington by Mrs. Emma Ray in 1891. It was a local branch of the WCTU, an organization dedicated to total abstinence from alcohol based on the belief that alcohol … Read MoreFrances Ellen Harper Branch of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union (1891-1895)
A successful business owner and real estate investor, Charles Owens became one of the most prominent African Americans in Los Angeles by the end of the nineteenth century. Born into slavery in Texas, Charles’s father, Robert Owens, purchased his family’s freedom and migrated to Los … Read MoreCharles Owens (?-1882)
Isaac Murphy was born on April 16, 1861 as Isaac Burns near Frankfort, Kentucky on a farm to parents James Burns and a mother whose name is unknown. Murphy was the first American jockey elected to Racing’s Hall of Fame in Saratoga Springs, New York … Read MoreIsaac Burns Murphy (1861-1896)
Fannie Jackson was born a slave in Washington DC on October 15, 1837. She gained her freedom when her aunt was able to purchase her at the age of twelve. Through her teen years Jackson worked as a servant for the author George Henry Calvert … Read MoreFannie Jackson Coppin (1837-1913)
The term Jim Crow originates back to 1828 when a white New York comedian, Thomas Dartmouth “Daddy” Rice, performed in blackface his song and dance that he called Jump Jim Crow. Rice’s performance was supposedly inspired by the song and dance of a physically disabled … Read MoreJim Crow/Jump Jim Crow
Paul Quinn College, founded by members of the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church in Austin, Texas in 1872, is the oldest African-American liberal arts college in the state and one of the oldest west of the Mississippi River. The institution was named for Bishop Paul … Read MorePaul Quinn College (1872- )
