Arabella Fields was a singer and actress known as “The Black Nightingale” and had a storied career performing in Europe. She was born on January 31, 1879, as Sarah Arabella Middleton in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Early reports state she was performing at the young age of … Read MoreArabella Fields (1879-1933)
As a child, concert violinist and professor Elwyn A. Adams was a musical prodigy of some notoriety in the African American community of Cleveland, Ohio, where he was born on August 3, 1933. At age five he gave his first violin recital at East Mt. … Read MoreElwyn Albert Adams (1933-1995)
Denyce Graves is a renowned mezzo-soprano opera singer. She has performed at opera houses around the world and is best known for her roles in Carmen and Samson et Dalila. Denyce Graves was born on March 7, 1964 to parents Charles Graves and Dorothy Graves-Kenner in Washington D.C. She was raised by her … Read MoreDenyce Graves (1964- )
Arthur W. Lewis was a career foreign officer who served in diplomatic missions in Eastern Europe and Africa before retiring in 1987. He also played a significant role in expanding opportunities for racial and ethnic minorities in the American diplomatic corps. Before entering the Foreign … Read MoreArthur W. Lewis (1926-2019)
Clifton R. Wharton, one of the first African-Americans to hold a professional position in the U.S. State Department, was born in 1899 in Baltimore, Maryland. Described as a “scholastic marvel,” Wharton attended English High School in Boston, Massachusetts, skipped college, and was accepted to Boston … Read MoreClifton Reginald Wharton, Sr. (1899-1990)
Kwame Nkrumah, the first prime minister (1957-1960) and president (1960-1966) of the Republic of Ghana, was the leader of the first sub-Saharan African nation to gain its independence. He subsequently became a leading figure in the campaign for the United States of Africa. Nkrumah was … Read MoreKwame Nkrumah (1909-1972)
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
U.S. Ambassador Orison Rudolph Aggrey was born in Salisbury, North Carolina, the son of James Emman Kwegyir, an African immigrant who became an American college professor, and Rose Rudolph (Douglass) Aggrey, an African American woman. He earned a B.S. degree from Hampton Institute, where he … Read MoreOrison Rudolph Aggrey (1926-2016 )
