Elizabeth Thorn Scott Flood, born a free woman in 1828, is known as the mother of desegregated education for children of color in California. Flood led the battle to open the public schools of California to her own children and paved the way for integrated … Read MoreElizabeth Thorn Scott Flood (1828-1867)
In a sermon to Barbadian emigrants, at Trinity Church, Monrovia, Liberia, West Africa on May 14, 1863, Alexander Crummell calls on persons of African ancestry around the world to be actively engaged in the religious, economic and social development of the African continent. His sermon … Read More(1863) Alexander Crummell, “Emigration, an Aid to the Evangelization of Africa”
In an address to women of the graduating class of the Colored High School in Washington, D.C. on June 6th 1884, Rev. Alexander Crummell urges them to put their intellect and their education in the service of racial advancement. The address appears below. Young Ladies: … Read More(1884), Alexander Crummell, “Excellence, an End of the Trained Intellect”
Born in Michigan in 1869, James David Corrothers became an important literary figure in the 1890s. Corrothers grew up in South Haven, a southern Michigan town established by abolitionists, fugitive slaves, and free blacks during the years before the civil war. For a time he … Read MoreJames David Corrothers (1869-1917)
On September 13, 1886, Alexander Crummell preached a sermon at his church, St. Luke’s Church in Washington, D.C. where he challenged many of the prevailing ideas about the importance of classical education. His sermon is reprinted below. That the soul should be without knowledge is … Read More(1886) Alexander Crummell, “Common Sense in Common Schooling”
North Carolina congressman James O’Hara was born a free person in New York City to an Irish merchant and West Indian mother. While growing up he worked as a deckhand on ships that sailed between New York and the West Indies. When he was eighteen … Read MoreJames Edward O’Hara (1844-1905)
Scott Joplin, a musician and composer of ragtime music, was born in 1867 to ex-slave parents who worked as laborers on a Texas farm. At an early age they moved to Texarkana, on the Texas-Arkansas border, and it was here, following his mother as she … Read MoreScott Joplin (1867-1917)
John Adams Hyman was born into slavery on July 23, 1840 in Warren County, North Carolina. Hyman’s thirst for knowledge resulted in him being sold away from his family for attempting to read a spelling book that was given to him by a sympathetic white … Read MoreJohn Adams Hyman (1840-1891)
Alice Ruth Moore Dunbar-Nelson was an educator, poet, activist, and playwright. Moore was born on July 19, 1875 in New Orleans, Louisiana, into a family of mixed black, white, and Indian ancestry. Her mother, Patricia Wright, was formerly enslaved, and worked as a seamstress and … Read MoreAlice Ruth Moore Dunbar-Nelson (1875-1935)
Benjamin Sterling Turner, a member of the United States House of Representatives from Alabama during the Reconstruction period, was born on March 17, 1825 in Weldon, North Carolina. He was raised as a slave and as a child received no formal education. In 1830 Turner … Read MoreBenjamin Sterling Turner (1825-1894)
