Inventor Lewis H. Latimer was born in Chelsea, Massachusetts on September 4, 1848. His parents were former slaves who escaped bondage and settled in Boston. Abolitionists William Lloyd Garrison and Frederick Douglass secured the necessary funds to obtain their freedom. After a stint in the … Read MoreLewis H. Latimer (1848-1928)
Lemuel Haynes was a Patriot involved in the American Revolutionary War, a prominent New England Congregational minister, and the first African American in America to receive an honorary college degree. Haynes was born in West Hartford, Connecticut on July 18, 1753. His mother was a … Read MoreLemuel Haynes (1753-1833)
“If I had nine lives, I’d want to be a lawyer every day of every one, I enjoy it so.” With this sensibility and love for the legal system, Juanita Kidd Stout made the correct decision in choosing her life’s work. Juanita Kidd Stout established … Read MoreJuanita Kidd Stout (1919-1998)
Josh Gibson was born in Buena Vista, Georgia, on December 21, 1911. He moved to Pittsburgh in 1924 when his father found work in a steel mill. He played baseball for company teams in the area but began his career with the Negro League when … Read MoreJoshua [“Josh”] Gibson (1911-1947)
John T. King was born in Girard (now Phenix City), Alabama in 1846. He was the son of covered bridge designer and builder Horace King. John King carried on the family business by designing and building bridges, houses, and commercial buildings in Georgia and Alabama. … Read MoreJohn Thomas King (1846-1926)
Adolphus D. Griffin used his self-attained literacy to emerge as a newspaper editor/publisher in the West at the turn of the twentieth century. Born near Shreveport, Louisiana, in 1868, A.D. Griffin moved to Spokane, Washington where he edited one of his first newspapers, The Northwest … Read MoreAdolphus D. Griffin (1868-1916)
John Henry “Pop” Lloyd was born April 25, 1884, in Palatka, Florida. Reportedly discovered by baseball legend Rube Foster, Lloyd would begin his professional career with the Cuban X-Giants, where fans would give him the nickname “El Cuchara” (“The Shovel”) due to his steady hands … Read MoreJohn Henry “Pop” Lloyd (1884-1965)
Isaiah Thornton Montgomery was an African American leader best known for founding the all-black town of Mound Bayou, Mississippi and for his public endorsement of black disenfranchisement. Montgomery was born enslaved on May 21, 1847 to Benjamin Thornton and Mary Lewis Montgomery on the Hurricane … Read MoreIsaiah T. Montgomery (1847-1924)
In 1853, the Lumbee Indians, a triracial people who are descendants of several southeastern Indian tribes, whites, and African Americans, named themselves after the Lumber River, which flows through their homeland in North Carolina. According to the Lumbee historian Adolph Dial, they are also descended … Read MoreHenry Berry Lowry (ca. 1846-1872)
George H. White served as a member of the fifty-fifth and fifty-sixth United States Congresses (March 4, 1897-March 3, 1901) from North Carolina’s Second Congressional District during what historian Rayford Logan has termed the nadir in race relations for the post-Reconstruction South. Born in Rosindale, … Read MoreGeorge Henry White (1852-1918)
