Carl Maxey grew up in an orphanage and became a leading attorney, civil rights activist, and champion of the underdog. He was adopted by a Spokane, Washington, couple immediately following his birth in Tacoma but ended up in the Spokane Children’s Home after his adoptive … Read MoreCarl Maxey (1924-1997)
The fourth of seven children in Pittsburgh’s Hill District, August Wilson was born Frederick August Kittel, April 27, 1945 to an African American mother and a German immigrant father. By the time he was five, his parents divorced. His mother remarried in the late 1950s … Read MoreAugust Wilson (1945-2005)
Joe Louis Barrow, known popularly as Joe Louis, was the second African American heavyweight boxing champion in the 20th Century. Louis was born on May 13, 1914 in Chambers County Alabama to sharecropper parents Monroe and Lilly Reese Barrow. He was the seventh of eight … Read MoreJoe Louis [Barrow] (1914-1981)
Wing Chong Luke is a pioneer in Asian American politics. In 1962, at the age of 37, Luke, despite an active smear campaign, became the first person of Asian ancestry elected to public office in the Pacific Northwest and the first person of color elected … Read MoreWing Chong Luke (1925-1965)
Norman Oliver Houston was co-founder of the Golden State Mutual Insurance Co., the largest black-owned insurance company in the west. He was born in San Jose, California on October 16, 1893, and studied business administration at the University of California at Berkeley before being drafted … Read MoreNorman Oliver Houston (1893-1981)
Image Ownership: Public Domain By the time the U.S. entered World War I, black soldiers and white Texas civilians had a history of hostile relations dating back more than fifty years. At Camp Logan, men with the Third Battalion of the Twenty-fourth U.S. Infantry … Read MoreHouston Mutiny of 1917
William Levi Dawson was a well-known Chicago, Illinois lawyer who became one of the city’s most influential politicians. His career paralleled the rising significance of African Americans in the Democratic Party. Dawson was born in Albany, Georgia on April 26, 1886. Little is known of … Read MoreWilliam Levi Dawson (1886-1970)
Microbiologist James Monroe Jay was born in Fitzgerald, Georgia on September 12, 1927. Following service in the U.S. Army during World War II he earned his bachelor’s degree at Paine College (cum laude), then his master’s in 1953 and Ph.D. in bacteriology and biochemistry at … Read MoreJames M. Jay (1927-2008)
George L. Vaughn was a black lawyer and civic leader in St. Louis, Missouri best known for representing J.D. Shelley and Herman Willer in the landmark civil rights case Shelley v. Kraemer (1948). Born to former slaves and raised in Kentucky, Vaughn graduated from Lane College … Read MoreGeorge L. Vaughan (1885-1950)
Ezzard Charles, also known as “The Cincinnati Cobra,” was a quiet, modest individual who went on to become a relatively unheralded world heavyweight champion. Born in Lawrenceville, Georgia on July 7, 1921, Ezzard moved to Cincinnati at the age of nine to live with his … Read MoreEzzard Mack Charles (1921-1975)
