John Berry Meachum was a businessman, a founder of the oldest black church in Missouri, and a pioneer in the education of blacks in that state. Meachum was born a slave in Goochland County, Virginia on May 3, 1789. His owner, Paul Meachum, moved Meachum … Read MoreJohn Berry Meachum (1789-1854)
As one of the most renowned big-band leaders of the 1920s, Bennie Moten succeeded in developing the “Kansas City” sound in big-band jazz. Born in Kansas City, Missouri on November 13, 1894, Moten spent most of his youth playing baritone saxophone in the city’s numerous … Read MoreBenjamin “Bennie” Moten (1894-1935)
The Niagara Movement was a civil rights group organized by W.E.B. Du Bois and William Monroe Trotter in 1905. After being denied admittance to hotels in Buffalo, New York, the group of twenty-nine business owners, teachers, and clergy who comprised the initial meeting gathered at … Read MoreNiagara Movement (1905-1909)
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)
Born on the Eastern Shore of Virginia on March 7, 1890, William Sherman Savage was forced to withdraw from primary school at age 11 to help his family in the fields, but he never gave up his dream of attaining a full education. Finally finishing … Read MoreW. Sherman Savage (1890-1981)
Charleton Tandy was born in Kentucky in 1836 to parents who were free only because his grandparents had purchased the family’s freedom three years before his birth. Throughout his childhood, Tandy’s family worked to free slaves through the Underground Railroad, and as a young man, … Read MoreCharleton Tandy (1836-1919)
Moses Dickson was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, on April 5, 1824. At 16, he began a three year tour of the South which persuaded him to work for the abolition of slavery. On August 12, 1846, Dickson and twelve other men gathered in St. Louis … Read MoreMoses Dickson (1824-1901)
Isaiah Thornton Montgomery was an African American leader best known for founding the all-black town of Mound Bayou, Mississippi and for his public endorsement of black disenfranchisement. Montgomery was born enslaved on May 21, 1847 to Benjamin Thornton and Mary Lewis Montgomery on the Hurricane … Read MoreIsaiah T. Montgomery (1847-1924)
Booker T. Washington is one of the most controversial and dominant figures in African American history. According to his autobiography Up From Slavery (1901), he did not know the exact year, date, and place of his birth or his father’s name. Yet, it is widely … Read MoreBooker T. Washington (1856-1915)
