The USS PC-1264 was a PC-461- class submarine chaser built for the United States Navy. The vessel was one of two U.S. Navy ships operated primarily by an African American crew during World War II. The other ship was the escort destroyer, the USS Mason … Read MoreThe USS PC-1264 (1943-1946)
John Andrew Burroughs Jr. was an equal opportunity advocate and diplomat who was born in Washington, D.C. on July 31, 1936. He spent his youth in Washington, D.C. before moving to the Midwest to attend the University of Iowa in Iowa City, Iowa. While there … Read MoreJohn Andrew Burroughs, Jr. (1936-2014)
Samuel (“Sammy”) Leamon Younge Jr. was a 21-year-old civil rights activist who was shot to death on January 3, 1966 when he attempted to use a whites-only restroom at a gas station in Macon County, Alabama. He was a navy veteran studying political science at … Read MoreSamuel (“Sammy”) Leamon Younge, Jr. (1944-1966)
Henry Davis Green was an anti-slavery activist (abolitionist) who was a participant in the Christiana Resistance (also known as the Christiana Riot) of 1851, the largest and most violent antebellum response to the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. Green, a teamster by occupation, was born … Read MoreHenry Davis Green (1827-1911)
Tensions leading up to the Civil War often manifested themselves through conflicts over the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850. The Oberlin-Wellington Rescue was one such instance of this. It was a struggle between supporters of slavery and supporters of freedom, the outcome of which would … Read MoreOberlin-Wellington Rescue (1858)
The Port Chicago Mutiny involved African American enlisted men in the U.S. Navy who refused to return to loading ammunition after a disastrous explosion at Port Chicago, California on July 17, 1944 that destroyed the Liberty ship SS E.A. Bryan. Sailors and dock workers were … Read MorePort Chicago Mutiny (1944)
Captain John Perkins, nicknamed Jack Punch, was the first black commissioned officer in the Royal Navy. His date of birth and origins are unknown but Perkins first appeared in Navy records in 1775 when he joined as a ship’s pilot aboard HMS Antelope, the flagship … Read MoreJohn [aka “Jack Punch”] Perkins (?-1812)
The New York Slave Conspiracy of 1741 is an extraordinarily complex story. Some historians have dismissed the idea that slaves actually conspired to overthrow chattel bondage and gain their freedom, while others have argued that the events in New York were part of a mixed … Read MoreNew York Slave Conspiracy (1741)
Between twenty-five and fifty blacks congregated at midnight in New York City, New York on April 6, 1712. With guns, swords and knives in hand, the slaves first set fire to an outhouse then fired shots at several white slave owners, who had raced to … Read MoreNew York City Slave Uprising (1712)
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)
