World-class symphony conductor Rafael Payare was born February 23, 1980 in the northern port city of Puerto la Cruz, Venezuela, the son of cartographer Juan R. Payare and elementary school teacher Trina Torres de Payare. In 1994, at age 13, Payare began studying French horn … Read MoreRafael Payare (1980- )
James E. Walton, longtime professor of English at California State University, Fresno, was born on September 13, 1944 in Bessemer, Alabama to Willie Walton, Sr. and Mary Woods Cutts. Walton attended a two-room schoolhouse in Alabama. At age three, his grandmother taught him to read … Read MoreJames E. Walton (1944-2019)
John Leerdam is an Afro-Dutch politician and theater director. Leerdam was born to African-descended parents on July 23, 1961 in the capital city of Willemstad, Curacao, an island dependency of the Netherlands in the southern Caribbean Sea. His father, John Arnold Walther Julius Leerdam was … Read MoreJohn Leerdam (1961- )
Comedian turned movie director Jordan Haworth Peele was born on February 21, 1979 in New York City, New York. His white mother Lucinda Williams raised him in a small apartment on the Upper West Side; Peele did not know his father, who was black, and … Read MoreJordan Peele (1979- )
Anton de Kom (Cornelis Gerhard Anton de Kom) was a Surinamese author, anti-colonial activist, trade unionist, and World War II resistance fighter. De Kom was born in Paramaribo, Suriname, a colony of the Netherlands, on February 22, 1898 to a former slave and farmer Adolf de Kom and a free woman Judith … Read MoreAnton de Kom (1898-1945)
Chemist James Tyson Tildon was born August 7, 1931 in Baltimore, Maryland. As a young boy he had an innate curiosity for how things work, often taking apart toys, toasters, etc., and reassembling them. When Tildon was in elementary school, his parents bought him a chemistry set, … Read MoreJames Tyson Tildon (1931-2006)
Saartjie (Sara) Baartman was one of the first black women known to be subjugated to human sexual trafficking. She was derisively named the “Hottentot Venus” by Europeans as her body would be publicly examined and exposed inhumanly throughout the duration of her young life. Moreover. her experience … Read More(Sara) Saartjie Baartman (1789-1815)
Solomon Burke was a minister and renowned singer of rhythm & blues and soul music with a career stretching from the 1950s to his death in 2010. Although never reaching chart-topping fame, Burke is heralded as one of one of the best soul singers of all time. Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on March … Read MoreSolomon Burke (1940-2010)
Paul Rusesabagina, a former Rwandan hotel manager who protected 1,268 people from the 1994 Rwandan genocide, was born in 1954 in a Hutu family of farmers. Before working in the hotel business, Rusesabagina went to a missionary school in central Rwanda and attended the Faculty of Theology in Cameroon. In 1984, he became … Read MorePaul Rusesabagina (1954- )
Lutrelle Horne on the Sesame Street Set Image Ownership: Public domain Lutrelle Horne is a producer who worked for Children’s Television Workshop (now Sesame Shop). He was one-time Executive Vice-President of Children’s Television Workshop and Executive Producer and Director of its International Division. Horne was … Read MoreLutrelle Horne (1937?- )
