Critically acclaimed actor Cicely Tyson was born in Harlem, New York City, New York on December 19, 1933. Her parents, William and Theodosia Tyson, were immigrants from Saint Kitts and Nevis in the West Indies. Her father was a carpenter, and her mother was a … Read MoreCicely Tyson (1933-2021)
Derrick Bell, legal scholar and teacher, was the first black law professor at Harvard Law School to achieve tenure and one of the first African American deans in a non-historically black law school. Bell was also a founder of an academic model called critical race … Read MoreDerrick Albert Bell Jr. (1930-2011)
International peace and women’s rights activist, political office seeker, and crime fighter, Eunice Hunton Carter was born July 16, 1899 in Atlanta, Georgia to William Alphaeus Sr. and Addie Waite Hunton who were also prominent educators and activists. The family moved to Brooklyn, New York … Read MoreEunice Hunton Carter (1899-1970)
A small but growing number of black women are slowly being recognized for their contributions to the “long” civil rights movement, the nearly century-long struggle by African Americans against all forms of racial discrimination. In the account below University of Texas-El Paso historian Cecilia Gutierrez … Read MoreJuanita Jewel Shanks Craft (1902-1985) and the Long Civil Rights Movement in Texas
Helene (Hilyer) Hale, the first African American woman elected to the Hawaii Legislature, was born March 23, 1918 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Her father was an attorney in Minneapolis and her grandfather was one of the first African American attorneys to graduate from the University of … Read MoreHelene H. Hale (1918-2013)
Shonda Rhimes is the first African American woman to write and produce a top-10-rated show on network television. She is most known for her work writing and producing the shows Grey’s Anatomy (2005- ), Private Practice (2007- ), and Scandal (2012- ). Rhimes was born … Read MoreShonda Rhimes (1970- )
Jefferson August Beaver, banker, businessman, local politician, and civil rights activist, was born in Warren, Arkansas on May 20, 1908 to parents Rev. Robert Jefferson Beaver, a minister with the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church and Ethel Jordan. Beaver’s family resided in Monticello, Arkansas before … Read MoreJefferson A. Beaver (1908-1991)
Image Courtesy of the San Francisco Public Library San Francisco civil rights activist Tracy Sims, now Tamam Tracy Moncur, was born in 1945 in Oakland, California. Sims moved to San Francisco with her mother and brothers when she was in high school. She later married … Read MoreTracy Sims (1945- )
Tarea (Ty) Hall Pittman was a civil rights worker, social worker, and community activist. Born in Bakersfield, California in 1903, she was the second of the five children of William Hall and Susie Pinkney. Her father, a farm laborer who moved from Alabama to Bakersfield … Read MoreTarea Hall Pittman (1903-1991)
Dr. Riley Andrew Ransom Sr., the founder of the first hospital for African Americans in Fort Worth, Texas, was born on March 9, 1886, in Columbus, Kentucky, to parents Allen and Alice Ransom. Ransom briefly attended Lane College in Tennessee then transferred to Southern Illinois … Read MoreRiley Andrew Ransom Sr. (1886-1951)
