Earl Whaley was an alto-saxophone player and bandleader from the San Francisco Bay Area. He moved to Seattle and led one of the first swing bands on the West Coast, The Red Hot Syncopators, who started performing successfully around Seattle at the Broadway and Finnish … Read MoreEarl Whaley Band
Eldrewey Joseph Stearns, political activist, and student organizer was born in Galveston, Texas, on December 21, 1931, to Devona and Rudolph Stearns. He spent his formative years during the 1930s and 1940s in San Augustine, Texas, but returned to Galveston in 1945 and graduated from … Read MoreEldrewey Joseph Stearns (1931-2020)
Born on October 2, 1939 in Vicksburg, Mississippi, George Robert Reed is a former American College football and Canadian Football League (CFL) player. Reed is considered one of the premier fullbacks to play in the CFL. Reed played for the Saskatchewan Roughriders for 13 seasons, … Read MoreGeorge Robert Reed (1939- )
Edward “Sancho” Mozique was born a slave June 10, 1849, in Columbia, South Carolina. The family, a mother and six siblings, lived as slaves in Spartanburg, South Carolina between 1851 and the end of the Civil War. Now free, they returned to Columbia. Mozique believed … Read MoreEdward “Sancho” Mozique (1849-1951)
Washington State politician George Fleming was born February 22, 1937, in Dallas, Texas, to parents A.R. and Lilla N. Fleming. He started post secondary education at the University of Washington, Seattle. While attending the University, Fleming was running back and kicker for the Washington Huskies … Read MoreGeorge Fleming (1937-2021)
Entrepreneur, millionaire, and political activist, Hobart T. Taylor was born in 1890 in Wharton, Texas, to Millie (Wright) and Jack Taylor. Jack Taylor, a former slave, who had become an entrepreneur and landowner, had acquired 2,000 acres of farmland in Fort Bend and Wharton Counties … Read MoreHobart T. Taylor, Sr. (1890-1972)
Thomas Fleming was a founding editor and columnist of one of the leading African American newspapers in California, the San Francisco-based Sun-Reporter. Born in Jacksonville, Florida in 1907, Fleming migrated to Chico, California in 1918 to live with his mother upon her divorce from Thomas’s … Read MoreThomas Courtney Fleming (1907-2006)
Born in Goliad, Texas on March 24, 1896, John Mason Brewer became one of the twentieth century’s premier African American folklorists. A poet, essayist, historian, and anthologist, Brewer earned an undergraduate degree from Wiley College in 1917 and later a graduate degree from Indiana University. … Read MoreJohn Mason Brewer (1896-1975)
George Dixon, also known as “Little Chocolate,” was born on July 29, 1870 in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Standing only 5’ 3 ½” and weighing no more than 118 pounds over the bulk of his career, “Little Chocolate” was described as long armed and skinny legged, … Read MoreGeorge “Little Chocolate” Dixon (1870-1909)
Green Fields, former Seattle City employee, early African American resident of the Queen Anne Neighborhood in Seattle, and soldier with the U.S. Colored Troops during the Civil War, was born a slave in DeSoto, Mississippi, the son of Fannie Jackson and Richard Fields. In 1864 … Read MoreGreen Fields (1840-1914)
