Image Courtesy of Carl Lender (CC BY-SA 2.0) Delta blues and boogie-woogie piano master Willie “Pinetop” Perkins was born on the Honey Island plantation near Belzoni, Mississippi on July 7, 1913. During his career, Perkins played with some of the best known blues and rock … Read MoreJoseph William “Pinetop” Perkins (1913–2011)
Will Allen, son of a sharecropper, former professional basketball player, ex-corporate sales leader and now farmer, is recognized as one of the preeminent thinkers of our time on agriculture and food policy. Allen is the founder and CEO of Growing Power, Inc., a farm and … Read MoreWill Allen (1948- )
Vernon Earl “Earl the Pearl” Monroe, a retired National Basketball Association (NBA) player, was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1944. During his NBA career Monroe was an All-Star guard for the Baltimore Bullets and New York Knicks. Monroe was a student at Philadelphia’s Bertram High … Read MoreVernon Earl “Earl the Pearl” Monroe (1944- )
Perry James Henry Watkins was the only openly gay person discharged from the U.S. Army with full honors after serving almost two decades. He had to fight for this distinction, suing the Army after being forced out because of his sexual orientation. The case went … Read MorePerry Watkins (1948-1996)
Beginning in the 1970s, Barbara Smith broke new ground as a black feminist, lesbian, activist, author, and book publisher of women of color. She and her twin sister, Beverly Smith, were born on December 16, 1946 in Cleveland, Ohio. Their mother, Hilda Smith, maternal grandmother, … Read MoreBarbara Smith (1946- )
Born in Pittsfield, Massachusetts in 1906, Thomas Nelson Baker was the first African American to earn a Ph.D. in chemistry from The Ohio State University. The third child of Rev. Dr. Thomas Nelson Baker, Sr. and Elizabeth (Lizzie) Baytop Baker, Thomas had one brother, Harry … Read MoreThomas Nelson Baker Jr. (1906-1977)
LeRoy Homer Jr., co-pilot of United Airlines Flight #93, was born on August 27, 1965 in Long Island, New York. Homer and his three sisters were raised on Long Island by their German mother, Ilse, and their African-American father who died from a stroke when … Read MoreLeRoy W. Homer Jr. (1965-2001)
The Combahee River Collective, founded by black feminists and lesbians in Boston, Massachusetts in 1974, was best known for its Combahee River Collective Statement. This document was one of the earliest explorations of the intersection of multiple oppressions, including racism and heterosexism. For the first … Read MoreCombahee River Collective (1974-1980)
In the article below historian Robin Dearmon Muhammad discusses the growth of the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) or the Garvey Movement in the American West, with particular emphasis on its influence in black working-class organizing in the San Francisco Bay Area after World War … Read MoreGarveyism Looks Toward the Pacific: The UNIA and Black Workers in the American West
The Albina Ministerial Alliance is an umbrella group that represents 125 churches in North and Northeast Portland, Oregon. It was founded in the early 1960s by two ministers, Rev. John Jackson and Rev. O.B. Williams. The majority of churches represented in the Albina Ministerial Alliance … Read MoreAlbina Ministerial Alliance (ca. 1964- )
