A leading intellectual and activist of the post-WWII period, Alphaeus Hunton Jr. was the executive director of the Council on African Affairs (CAA) and editor of the CAA’s publication, New Africa, from 1943 through the organization’s dissolution in 1955. In this capacity, Hunton did more … Read MoreWilliam Alphaeus Hunton Jr. (1903-1970)
Bayard Rustin was one of the most important, and yet least known, Civil Rights advocates in the twentieth century. He was born in West Chester, Pennsylvania on March 17, 1912 and raised by his maternal grandparents. His grandmother, Julia, was both a Quaker and an … Read MoreBayard Rustin (1912-1987)
Malcolm X, one of the most influential African American leaders of the 20th Century, was born Malcolm Little in Omaha, Nebraska on May 19, 1925 to Earl Little, a Georgia native and itinerant Baptist preacher, and Louise Norton Little who was born in the West … Read MoreMalcolm X (1925-1965)
Prominent in the pantheon of Afrocentric scholars is Chancellor James Williams, the son of a former slave, born on December 22, 1898 in Bennettsville, South Carolina. Williams earned both his bachelor’s degree in education and master’s degree in history at Howard University where he began … Read MoreChancellor J. Williams (1898-1992)
John Gibbs St. Clair Drake was an American anthropologist and sociologist and the founding Director of Stanford University’s African and African American Studies Department in 1968. Drake was born in Suffolk, Virginia on January 2, 1911. Drake’s father immigrated to the United States from the … Read MoreSt. Clair Drake (1911-1990)
A journalist, radical activist, and theoretician, George Padmore did more than perhaps any other single individual to shape the theory and discourse of Pan-African anti-imperialism in the first half of the twentieth century. Born Malcolm Nurse in Trinidad in 1901, Padmore moved to the United … Read MoreGeorge Padmore (1901-1959)
Paul Cuffe is best known for his work in assisting free blacks who wanted to emigrate to Sierra Leone. Cuffe was born free on Cuttyhunk Island, Massachusetts (near New Bedford) sometime around 1759. The exact date of his birth is unknown. He was the youngest … Read MorePaul Cuffe Sr. (1759-1817)
