Cleo Fields, politician, lawyer, and United States Representative from Louisiana’s Fourth Congressional District (1993-97), was born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana on November 22, 1962. At four years old, Fields lost his father, Isidore Fields, a dockworker, in a car crash. His mother, Alice Fields, supported … Read MoreCleo Fields (1962- )
Percy Sutton, attorney, politician, civil rights activist, and businessman, was born on November 24, 1920, in San Antonio, Texas to school teachers Samuel and Lillian Sutton. Percy Sutton attended Prairie View A&M University, Tuskegee Institute, and Hampton Institute. In 1942, Sutton joined the military. He … Read MorePercy Sutton (1920-2009)
Attorney, civil rights and human rights activist, Fred D. Gray was born on December 14, 1930, in Montgomery, Alabama to Nancy and Abraham Gray. The youngest of five children, he and his siblings were raised in a shotgun house in a segregated black section of … Read MoreFred D. Gray (1930- )
Harold Washington, the first African American mayor of Chicago, Illinois, was born on April 15, 1922, to Roy Washington, a lawyer, Methodist minister and one of the first Black precinct captains in Chicago. Washington’s mother Bertha Washington was a well-known singer in the city. Washington … Read MoreHarold Washington (1922-1987)
Edwin Garrison Walker, leatherworker, lawyer, and politician, was born free in Boston, Massachusetts to Eliza and David Walker in 1831. His exact date of birth is unknown. His mother Eliza, whose last name also is unknown, was, according to most sources, a fugitive slave. His … Read MoreEdwin Garrison Walker (1830-1901)
Horace Julian Bond was a scholar, poet, former legislator, and activist in the American Civil Rights Movement. Julian Bond, as he came to be known, was born on January 14, 1940, in Nashville, Tennessee to Julia Washington Bond and Horace Mann Bond, an educator who … Read MoreJulian Bond (1940-2015)
Image Ownership: Public Domain David Augustus Straker, author, lawyer, and politician, was born and raised in Bridgetown, Barbados, where he achieved success as a teacher and principal at St. Mary’s Public School. In 1868, he moved to Kentucky, where he taught at a freedman’s school … Read MoreDavid Augustus Straker (1842-1908)
Former State Legislator and Mayor Willie Lewis Brown Jr. was born in Mineola, Texas, to Willie L. Brown, Sr., and Minnie (Boyd) Lewis on March 20, 1934. After migrating to San Francisco, California in 1951, Brown worked as a janitor in order to subsidize his … Read MoreWillie Brown, Jr. (1934- )
Wilma J. Gerdine Webb was born in Denver, Colorado in 1943. She married Wellington Webb in 1969. Wilma Webb attended the University of Colorado at Denver intermittently from 1970 to 1979 but did not obtain a degree. As a State legislator, she attended the John … Read MoreWilma J. Webb (1943- )
George Thompson Ruby was born in New York in 1841 but reared in Portland, Maine. After acquiring a sound liberal arts education there, he journeyed to Haiti, where he worked as a correspondent for the Pine and Palm, a New England newspaper edited by abolitionist … Read MoreGeorge Thompson Ruby (1841-1882)
