“Image Ownership: Luke Ford” American actor Sherman Alexander Hemsley was an Air Force veteran and postal worker before becoming a television actor. He is best known for his role as George Jefferson on the CBS television series All in the Family, The Jeffersons, and as … Read MoreSherman Alexander Hemsley (1938-2012)
Addison Scurlock, photographer, was born to attorney George Clay Scurlock and wife Nannie in Fayetteville, North Carolina on June 19, 1883. In 1900, his family moved to Washington, D.C. where in 1900, 17-year-old Scurlock began an apprenticeship under Moses P. Rice, a prominent white photographer … Read MoreAddison Scurlock (1883-1964)
Tituba was a slave in Salem, Massachusetts and was one of the first people persecuted in the Salem Witch Trials between 1691 and 1692. Many specifics about her life are unknown, and the historical accounts about her are often contradictory. She is believed to have … Read MoreTituba
Image Ownership: John Matthew Smith (CC BY-SA 2.0) Actress Phylicia Rashad was born June 19, 1948 in Houston, Texas to Andrew Allen, a dentist, and Vivian Ayers, a Pulitzer Prize nominated poet and playwright. Rashad’s siblings are also entertainers; her brother “Tex” Arthur Allen Jr. … Read MorePhylicia Rashad (1948- )
Diana Ernestine Earle Ross is an American singer and actress. She was born in Detroit, Michigan on March 26, 1944 to Fred and Ernestine Ross, who lived in the low-income Brewster Housing Project. Growing up, Diana, who was referred to as “Diane,” studied design and … Read MoreDiana Ross (1944- )
In 1925, Josephine Baker took Paris, France by storm, appearing on stage in “La Revue Negre” wearing nothing but a skirt of artificial bananas in Danse Sauvage. Born Josephine Freda MacDonald in St. Louis, Missouri on June 3, 1906, she was nicknamed “Tumpy” because she … Read MoreJosephine Baker (1906-1975)
Eartha Mae Kitt was born on January 26, 1928, in the city of North in South Carolina. Her sharecropper parents abandoned Kitt and her half-sister as young children, forcing them to live with a foster family until they moved to New York City, New York … Read MoreEartha Mae Kitt (1928-2008)
The fourth of seven children in Pittsburgh’s Hill District, August Wilson was born Frederick August Kittel, April 27, 1945 to an African American mother and a German immigrant father. By the time he was five, his parents divorced. His mother remarried in the late 1950s … Read MoreAugust Wilson (1945-2005)
Joseph Sylvester Jackson became the first executive secretary of the newly founded Seattle Urban League when it received its charter from the national headquarters in New York in 1930. Little is known about Jackson before 1928. That year he graduated from Livingston College in Salisbury, … Read MoreJoseph Sylvester Jackson (?–?)
