The black Magus, or King, in Renaissance Adoration pictures is an enigmatic figure as no black African king is known to have visited Europe during this period. However, blacks, at the time, were known in a wide range of other guises from slaves to saints. … Read More[King Magi] The Black Magus (ca. 1350- )
George W. Lowther, barber, abolitionist, equal school rights activist, and Massachusetts legislator, was born a slave in Edenton, North Carolina, to Polly Lowther. His father’s identity is unknown. His mother, Polly Lowther (c.1780-1864) was an Edenton baker, the slave of wealthy planter Joseph Blount Skinner … Read MoreGeorge W. Lowther (1822-1898)
Tuskegee Airman Howard Adolphus Wooten was born on April 20, 1920 in Lovelady, Texas to parents Johnnie C. Morris Wooten and Howard L. Wooten. His father was the principal of the “colored school” in Lovelady, a town 100 miles north of Houston, and his mother … Read MoreHoward A. Wooten (1920-1948)
Jacob Francis, Revolutionary War veteran, was born on January 15, 1754 in Amwell, New Jersey. His mother was African American and his father’s race was unknown. What is known of Francis’ childhood is found in the personal testimony included on his military pension application. It … Read MoreJacob Francis (1754-1836)
Image Ownership: Library of Congress Abner Leonard Howell was a star athlete in Utah whose accomplishments went largely ignored during the peak of his football career because of his race. Howell, born on August 9, 1877, moved with his family from Louisiana to Salt Lake … Read MoreAbner Leonard Howell (1877-1966)
Few Americans realize that the institution of slavery reached the Pacific Northwest in the two decades before the Civil War. A small number of the white settlers who followed the Oregon Trail from Independence, Missouri to Oregon City brought bondservants. Oregon historian R. Gregory Nokes, … Read MoreSlavery in Oregon: The Reuben Shipley Saga
Artist Jean Michel Basquiat was born on December 22, 1960 to a Puerto Rican mother, Matilde Andradas, and a Haitian father, Gérard Basquiat, who raised him in the Puerto Rican barrio of Park Slope in Brooklyn, New York. Fluent in English, Spanish, and French, Basquiat … Read MoreJean Michel Basquiat (1960-1988)
During the Civil War Northerners organized sanitary fairs to raise funds on behalf of the United States Sanitary Commission, a charitable relief organization which promoted the welfare of Union Soldiers. President Abraham Lincoln addressed one such fair in Baltimore, Maryland on April 18, 1864. The … Read More(1864) Abraham Lincoln “Address at a Sanitary Fair”
Image Ownership: Wisconsin Historical Society Attorney Lloyd Augustus Barbee was born August 17, 1925 in Memphis, Tennessee. He was the youngest of three brothers from Earnest A. Barbee and Adelina Jenkins Gilliam, both from Mississippi. Barbee attended LeMoyne College in Memphis and later went to … Read MoreLloyd A. Barbee (1925-2002)
Adolf Badin, also known as Adolf Ludvig Gustav Fredrik Albert/Couschi, was born in St. Croix, Danish West Indies in 1747, and died in 1822 in Sweden. Badin came to Sweden a slave but became a titled person in the courts of King Fredrick and Queen … Read MoreAdolf Badin (1747-1822)
