Born in Sagua la Grande, Cuba, Wilfredo Lam personally exemplified the complex multiethnic nature of Latin America: his father was Chinese while his mother boasted a combined African, Indian, and European cultural background. Utilizing some of this background, Lam, through art, would explore various African … Read MoreWilfredo Lam (1902-1982)
Harold Cruse, a leading intellectual in the second half of the 20th Century, was born in 1916 in Petersburg, Virginia. His father, a railroad porter, divorced his mother and took Cruse to New York at a young age. While in school he worked nights at … Read MoreHarold Cruse (1916-2005)
Asmara (Asmera) is the largest city and capital of the modern state of Eritrea. It was also the capital of Eritrea when it was a colony under Italian rule. Asmara is located in the highlands of Eritrea on the edge of the Great Rift Valley. … Read MoreAsmara, Eritrea (ca. 1000- )
American soprano Kathleen Battle was born on August 13, 1948 in Portsmouth, Ohio. Battle’s father was a steelworker and her mother was an active participant in the gospel choir at the family’s local African Methodist Episcopal Church. Battle attended Portsmouth High School and upon graduation … Read MoreKathleen Battle (1948- )
Professional tennis player Venus Williams was born June 17, 1980 in Lynnwood, California. She is the daughter of Richard Williams and Oracene Price. Both parents coached Venus and her younger sister, Serena, who is also a top-ranked professional tennis player. Venus Williams, the second youngest … Read MoreVenus Ebony Starr Williams (1980- )
Zenzile Miriam Makeba, world renowned South African singer, was born in Johannesburg on March 4, 1932. She studied music for eight years at the Kilmerton Training Institute in Pretoria, South Africa and toured with amateur groups before beginning her professional career in 1954 with the … Read MoreMiriam Makeba (1932-2008)
Florence Cole-Talbert was an African American soprano singer. Cole-Talbert was born in Detroit, Michigan on June 17, 1890 as one of two daughters to parents Thomas A. Cole and Sadie (Chandler) Cole. She was born into a family of musicians and began to learn and … Read MoreFlorence Cole-Talbert (1890-1961)
The Partition of Africa began in earnest with the Berlin Conference of 1884-1885, and was the cause of most of Africa’s borders today. This conference was called by German Chancellor Bismarck to settle how European countries would claim colonial land in Africa and to avoid … Read MoreThe Partition of Africa
Most historians of the Roman world have decoupled the concepts of bondage and race that are central to the arguments justifying the enslavement of millions of people in the United States and other modern western nations. Instead they argued that those enslaved by the Romans … Read MoreRoman Slavery and the Question of Race
