Alicia Keys is a rhythm and blues singer, songwriter, and pianist known for her unique blend of classical, R&B, jazz, neo-soul, and hip-hop. She writes and produces her own music. Her stage name, “Keys,” alludes to her being a pianist. Keys was born Alicia Augello Cook on January 25, 1981, … Read MoreAlicia Keys/Alicia Augello Cook (1981- )
James Amos Porter was the first African American art historian. Born on December 22, 1905 in Baltimore, Maryland, he was the son of Lydia and John Porter, a prominent minister in the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church. Porter graduated cum laude in 1927 with a Bachelor of Science in art from Howard University. … Read MoreJames Amos Porter (1905-1970)
Stuart Hall was a leading 20th Century cultural theorist and a sociologist. Hall, widely known as a founder of British Cultural Studies and the Birmingham School of Cultural Studies, pioneered theories of multiculturalism. He is generally credited with expanding the field of cultural studies to … Read MoreStuart Hall (1932-2014)
Luis Gonzaga Pinto da Gama (Luis Gama) was a Brazilian poet, journalist, legal activist, abolitionist leader, and former slave. He was born in 1830, a free mulatto in Salvador, the capital of Brazil’s Bahia province. His mother, Luisa Mahin, was a black woman from Ghana … Read MoreLuis Gama (1830-1882)
Born January 25, 1959 in Brazzaville, Republic of the Congo, Jean-Léonard Touadi, one of 10 children of a civil servant, immigrated to Italy in 1979 where he became a journalist, university lecturer, the author of several books, and a pioneering politician. A devout Roman Catholic … Read MoreJean-Léonard Touadi (1959- )
Peter Magubane was a South African photojournalist best known for his photos that exposed that nation’s Apartheid injustice and humanitarian crisis to the west. He was born outside Johannesburg, in Vrededorp, on January, 18, 1932, and grew up in Sophiatown. Magubane started his photographic career … Read MorePeter Sexford Magubane (1932-2024)
Author George Jackson is best known for his memoir Soledad Brother, containing the letters that he wrote from prison between 1964 and 1970. George Lester Jackson was born on September 23, 1941, on the west side of Chicago, Illinois. The second of five children, Jackson’s … Read MoreGeorge Jackson (1941-1971)
Akinwande Ouwole “Wole” Soyinka, the first African writer to win a Nobel Prize in Literature (1986) was born in Abeokuta, Nigeria on July 13, 1934. His father, Canon S.A. Soyinka, was an Anglican minister and his mother, Grace Eniola, was the daughter of an Anglican … Read MoreWole Soyinka (1934- )
Rudolph Fisher was a physician, orator, music arranger, and writer during the Harlem Renaissance. While published in many medical journals, his literary work graced the pages of Redbook and Story Magazine. His first short story, “City of Refuge,” which depicted the clashes between the newly … Read MoreRudolph Fisher (1897-1934)
Born on the Grest Farm in Liberty County, Georgia, on August 6, 1848, Susie Baker King Taylor was raised as an enslaved person. Her mother was a domestic servant for the Grest family. At the age of 7, Baker and her brother were sent to … Read MoreSusan Taylor (Susie) Baker King (1848-1912)
