Iman Kerigo is a 22 year old black woman who at the age of 18 was crowned Miss Norway in 2010. She was the first woman of African descent to hold the title. Kerigo and her family are refugees from Kenya. She arrived initially in … Read MoreIman Kerigo (1992- )
Samuel (“Sammy”) Leamon Younge Jr. was a 21-year-old civil rights activist who was shot to death on January 3, 1966 when he attempted to use a whites-only restroom at a gas station in Macon County, Alabama. He was a navy veteran studying political science at … Read MoreSamuel (“Sammy”) Leamon Younge, Jr. (1944-1966)
Image Courtesy of Ruby Bishop Ruby Carol Bishop is a legendary jazz performer in the Pacific Northwest. Graced with ebullient humor, loving her adoring audiences, and always dressed in sparkly sequins, Bishop at 94 continues to play piano in Seattle nightclubs while belting out jazz … Read MoreRuby Bishop (1919 – 2019)
Project 100,000 was a program devised by the U.S. Department of Defense in 1966 to ease recruitment standards for the United States Army. While the project was ostensibly promoted to allow inner city youth and poor young men from rural areas to join the military … Read MoreProject 100,000 (1966-1971)
Tone Johnson, medical doctor, Vietnam hero, and civic leader was born on November 9, 1944 to Lyzer (Elizabeth) Marks Johnson and sawmill worker and farmer Henry Johnson in Plain Dealing, Louisiana. After graduating from Carrie Martin High School in Plain Dealing in 1963, he went … Read MoreTone Johnson Jr. (1944– )
Clifton R. Wharton, Jr., has combined careers in business, higher education, foreign economic development, and philanthropy. The son of Clifton Wharton, Sr. who served 40 years in the U. S. Foreign Service, Wharton began school in the Canary Islands while his father was a diplomat … Read MoreClifton Reginald Wharton Jr. (1926- )
Bryant Gumbel was the first African-American co-host of the National Broadcasting Company’s (NBC) The Today Show and is well known as a broadcast journalist and sportscaster. Gumbel was born in1948 in New Orleans, Louisiana to Rhea Alice and Richard Dunbar Gumbel, a city clerk and … Read MoreBryant Gumbel (1948- )
Charles Frank Bolden, Jr., NASA’s first permanent black administrator, was born to Charles Frank and Ethel Bolden, both teachers, on August 19th, 1946 in Columbia, South Carolina. He rose to the rank of Major General in the United States Marine Corps and was a National … Read MoreCharles F. Bolden Jr. (1946- )
Jean-Bédel Bokassa, longtime dictator and military leader of the Central African Republic, was born in Bobangui, Oubangui-Chari, French Equatorial Africa (present-day Central African Republic) on February 22, 1921. Bokassa’s father, a village chief of the Mbaka people, was murdered in November 1927 for refusing to … Read MoreJean-Bédel Bokassa (1921-1996)
Jesse Brown, wounded veteran and government official, was born on March 27, 1944 to Lucille Brown in Detroit, Michigan. His single-parent mother raised him in Chicago. Brown first attended Roosevelt University in Chicago and later graduated from Kennedy- King College in that same city. In … Read MoreJesse Brown (1944-2002)
