Teacher, writer, and women’s activist Hallie Quinn Brown was born on March 10, 1850 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the daughter of former slaves who in 1864 migrated to Ontario, Canada. The Brown family returned to the United States in 1870, settling in Wilberforce, Ohio. Brown attended … Read MoreHallie Quinn Brown (1850-1949)
African American intellectual Alexander Crummell lived in Monrovia, Liberia for nineteen years between 1853 and 1872. While there he taught at Liberia College. In a speech delivered in Monrovia on December 1, 1863, Crummell discusses the role educated young Liberian men would play in the … Read More(1863) Alexander Crummell, “The Responsibility of the First Fathers of a Country for its Future Life and Character”
Image Ownership: Public Domain African American intellectual Alexander Crummell was one of the few19th century scholars known and respected widely among European Americans. In an address before the American Geographical Society delivered in Chickering Hall in New York City on May 22, 1877, Crummell demonstrates … Read More(1877) Alexander Crummell, “Address Before the American Geographical Society”
Founded on March 5, 1897 in Washington, D.C. by 78-year-old Reverend Alexander Crummell, the American Negro Academy (ANA) was an organization of black intellectuals who through their scholarship and writing were dedicated to the promotion of higher education, arts, and science for African Americans as … Read MoreAmerican Negro Academy (1897-1924)
Alexander Crummell, an Episcopalian priest, missionary, scholar and teacher, was born in New York City in 1819 to free black parents. He spent much of his life addressing the conditions of African Americans, urging an educated black elite to aspire to the highest intellectual attainments … Read MoreAlexander Crummell (1819-1898)
Philadelphia Dentist John S. Rock would eventually become a medical doctor and attorney who in 1865 would become the first African American lawyer to argue a case before the United States Supreme Court. In 1850, however, he was also an abolitionist and civil rights activist. … Read More(1850) John S. Rock, “Address to the Citizens of New Jersey”
After one loyal slave told his master about a plot to seize the city of Charlestown, South Carolina and kill all the whites, local authorities exposed the most comprehensive slave plot in the history of the United States. More than 1,000 free and enslaved blacks … Read MoreDenmark Vesey Conspiracy of 1822
Nannie Helen Burroughs was born in Orange, Virginia on May 2, 1879 to parents John and Jennie Burroughs. Young Burroughs attended school in Washington, D.C. and then moved to Kentucky where she attended Eckstein-Norton University and eventually received an honorary M.A. degree in 1907. Despite … Read MoreNannie Helen Burroughs (1883-1961)
In the following article by Alton Hornsby, Jr., the Fuller E. Callaway Professor of History at Morehouse College and former editor of the Journal of Negro History, briefly describes the founding of Atlanta University, Clark College (now Clark Atlanta University), Morehouse College, Spelman College, Morris … Read MoreHistorically Black Colleges and Universities of Atlanta
Born a slave in 1819 in Natchez, Mississippi, Elizabeth Taylor Greenfield had little reason to dream of the life that would eventually become her own. Because of a series of unlikely circumstances and her own relentless efforts she would eventually become known as the first … Read MoreElizabeth Taylor Greenfield (1819-1876)
