Victoria Spivey grew up in a musical family where her father, Grant, played in a string band while sisters, Addie and Elton, sang the blues. But it was Victoria who became the star with a beginning that took her moaning style of singing into honky … Read MoreVictoria Spivey (1906-1976)
The 1830s saw an unprecedented wave of mob violence in the Northern states. The Pennsylvania Hall fire is one such case of violence spurred by racial/gender tensions. The hall had several rooms and a large auditorium that seated three hundred people. A Board of Managers … Read MorePennsylvania Hall Fire (1838)
Actor, director, and narrator Roscoe Lee Browne was born on May 2, 1925 in Woodbury, New Jersey, the son of Sylvanus Browne, a Baptist minister, and Lovie Lee. A bright student who excelled in the study of literature, Browne graduated from Lincoln University in Pennsylvania … Read MoreRoscoe Lee Browne (1925-2007)
William J. Seymour was born in Centerville, Louisiana, to former slaves Simon and Phillis Seymour, who raised him in the Baptist church. While living in Cincinnati, Ohio, he was influenced by holiness teachings, and then he moved to Houston, Texas, where he heard Charles Fox … Read MoreWilliam J. Seymour (1870-1922)
It would be difficult to find a more formidable and respected African American scholar who has had so little visibility among African American intellectuals as Nathan Alexander Scott, Jr. Born in Cleveland, Ohio on April 24, 1925, Scott finished his B.A. at the University of … Read MoreNathan A. Scott (1925-2006)
DJ Kool Herc was the earliest major figure to emerge from the mid-70’s Bronx, New York music scene that would eventually come to be known as Hip-Hop. Born Clive Campbell in Kingston, Jamaica, Herc immigrated to New York City and was exposed at an early … Read MoreDJ Kool Herc/Clive Campbell (1955- )
Robert “Bumps” Blackwell was a musician, producer, and composer who worked with the top names in early jazz and rock and roll. Blackwell was born in Seattle, Washington on May 23, 1918. By the late 1940s his Seattle-based “Bumps Blackwell Junior Band” featured Ray Charles … Read MoreRobert “Bumps” Blackwell (1918-1985)
Acting on the presumption that rural southern blacks were generally more promiscuous and syphilitic than whites, and without sufficient funding to establish an effective treatment program for them, doctors working with the Public Health Service (PHS) commenced a multi-year experiment in 1932. Their actions deprived … Read MoreTuskegee Syphilis Experiment (1932-1972)
A gospel singer and arranger, Sallie Martin was born near Atlanta, Georgia. In her early twenties she began singing in a church choir in Cleveland, and, by 1929, had moved to Chicago and joined a chorus directed by Thomas Dorsey, later known as the Father … Read MoreSallie Martin (1895-1988)
Lionel Leo Hampton, bandleader, jazz percussionist and vibraphonist, was born in Louisville, Kentucky in 1908. Hampton and his mother Gertrude moved to Chicago after the death of his father, Charles Hampton, a promising pianist and singer, in World War I. At the age of 15 … Read MoreLionel L. Hampton (1908-2002)
