On July 28, 1866, the Thirty-Ninth Congress passed the Act to increase and fix the Military Peace Establishment of the United States; thus the federal government created six all-Colored Army Regiments. The units identified as the 9th and 10th Colored Cavalry Regiments and the 38th, … Read MoreFormation of the Buffalo Soldiers, 1866
Harriet Powers is one of the best known southern African American quilt makers in the nation. Only two of her quilts survive today, both made after the Civil War. One is in the National Museum of American History collection at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, … Read MoreHarriet Powers (1837-1910)
James Lewis was born free on September 11 in either 1832 or 1833 in Woodville, Mississippi. Early in his life, he worked on steamboats that traveled between New Orleans and St. Louis. Later in life, Lewis recalled how he would use passes issued to him … Read MoreJames Lewis (1832/33-1914)
Founded in 1816, Mt. Zion United Methodist Church, the oldest continuously operating African American church in Washington DC, is located at 1334 29th Street NW. The Georgetown community where the church now sits, was a central port for slave and tobacco trading in the early … Read MoreMount Zion United Methodist Church (1816- )
Newspaper owner John Robert Clifford was born September 13, 1848 in Williamsport, West Virginia to Isaac and Saltipa Clifford. During the Civil War he rose to the rank of Corporal in the U.S. Colored Troops, entering U.S. military service in 1864 at the age of … Read MoreJohn Robert “J.R.” Clifford (1848-1933)
Alexander Kelso Davis was a Mississippi state legislator and a Lieutenant Governor of Mississippi. He was impeached by the resurgent Southern Democrats towards the end of the Reconstruction period in 1876. Davis served in the Mississippi House of Representatives from 1870 until 1873 representing his constituents in … Read MoreAlexander K. Davis (?- 1884)
Eliza Lee was one of the most esteemed cooks in antebellum Charleston who ran not only a prestigious catering business but, with her husband, owned and operated five restaurant/ hotels throughout the city. Lee’s mother was Sally Seymour, a former slave manumitted by her enslaver … Read MoreEliza Seymour Lee (1800-c. 1874)
Galloway United Methodist Church (UMC) in Falls Church, Virginia, was founded in 1867 by George and Harriet Brice, who are buried in the historic graveyard on site. The Brices had escaped slavery and according to the U.S. Federal Census of 1850 were free blacks living … Read MoreGalloway United Methodist Church (1867- )
The XXV Corps was the single largest African American unit of the Union Army during the American Civil War. It was also the only all-black Army corps in United States military history. On December 3, 1864, two United States Troop units, the X Corps and … Read MoreXXV Corps (1864-1866)
