Josiah Henson was born into slavery on June 15, 1789 in Charles County, Maryland. As a young boy he witnessed slavery’s cruelties inflicted on his immediate family. Young Henson watched his father receive fifty lashes for standing up to a slave owner and then witnessed … Read MoreJosiah Henson (1789-1883)
Teacher, writer, and women’s activist Hallie Quinn Brown was born on March 10, 1850 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the daughter of former slaves who in 1864 migrated to Ontario, Canada. The Brown family returned to the United States in 1870, settling in Wilberforce, Ohio. Brown attended … Read MoreHallie Quinn Brown (1850-1949)
Sonia Sanchez was born Wilsonia Benita Driver in Birmingham, Alabama. After her mother’s death in 1935 she lived with her grandmother. Her grandmother taught her to read at age four and write at age six. When her grandmother passed away in 1943 she moved to … Read MoreSonia Sanchez (1934- )
Born in Harlem, New York on January 23, 1935, Robert Parris Moses was an educator and an icon of the Civil Rights Movement. He was one of three children born to Gregory H. Moses, a janitor, and Louise Parris Moses, a homemaker. He graduated with … Read MoreRobert P. Moses (1935-2021)
Elijah McCoy, one of the two most prolific black inventors of the 19th Century (the other was Granville T. Woods), was born on May 2, 1843 in Colchester, Ontario, Canada to runaway slave parents who used the Underground Railroad to escape. Once the McCoy family … Read MoreElijah McCoy (1843-1929)
Mary Ann Shadd (1823-1893) was born into an affluent free black family in Wilmington, Delaware. Nonetheless after the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act in 1850, Shadd joined thousands of other African Americans in emigrating to Canada. She briefly taught the children of the emigrants … Read More(1858) Mary Ann Shadd, “Break Every Yoke and Let The Oppressed Go Free”
By the 1840s a number of fugitive slaves, the most prominent being Frederick Douglass, took to the lecture circuit usually appearing before abolitionist societies where they told their personal stories of bondage. The speech of Lewis Richardson, however, attracted particular attention because he had escaped … Read More(1846) Lewis Richardson, “I am Free From American Slavery” 1846
Elijah Abel, early convert to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS), was born on July 25, 1810 in Washington County, Maryland to Andrew and Delilah Abel, likely in bondage. There is some evidence that he used the Underground Railroad to escape slavery. He eventually … Read MoreElijah Abel (1810-1884)
In the early 1990s Bertram Oliver Fraser-Reid was being touted as the first person of African descent to have a serious chance at winning the Nobel Prize in a branch of science. In fact, this native of Coleyville, Jamaica, born February 23, 1934, was nominated … Read MoreBertram O. Fraser-Reid (1934-2020)
Benjamin “Pap” Singleton was born a slave in Nashville, Tennessee in 1809 and worked for much of his life as a cabinet maker. After being sold to the Deep South Singleton escaped to Canada, but it was not long before he moved to Detroit, Michigan … Read MoreBenjamin “Pap” Singleton (1809-1892)
