On August 4, 1914, Britain joined the Great War. The First World War, 1914-1918, is usually viewed as a predominantly white European conflict. In fact, many Africans, Asians, black Britons, and Caribbeans fought for the British Empire. At the beginning of the war, the British War Office, however, was reluctant to allow blacks to enlist … Read MoreBritish West Indian Regiment (BWIR) (1915-1918)
Kelso Benjamin Cochrane, one of the early victims of racial violence against West Indians in London, UK, was born on September 26, 1926, in Johnson’s Point, Antigua to Joanna Valentine and Stanley Cochrane. He was born into a working-class family and was a carpenter. At the age of nineteen, he moved to Dominica. … Read MoreKelso Benjamin Cochrane (1926-1959)
Born in Jamaica in 1935, Dorrel Dixon began weightlifting in his teens which slowly became his introduction into the realm of athletics. Through weightlifting, Dixon widened his physical stature. His physique and strength led him to win his first accolade as Mr. Jamaica in 1954. Later in the … Read MoreDory Dixon (1935- )
Since 2016, Marvin Jonathan Rees, a member of the British Labour Party, has presided as mayor of Bristol, England. Born in April 1972, he and his younger sister were raised in Lawrence Weston and Eastern, two of the poorer wards in the city, by his … Read MoreMarvin Johnathan Rees (1972- )
Lewis Morrison was one of the most prominent stage actors of his time. He was best known worldwide for his portrayal of “Mephistopheles” in Faust. He was also the first black Jewish officer to serve during the Civil War. Lewis Morrison was born in Kingston, … Read MoreMorris W. Morris/ Lewis Morrison (1845-1906)
In 2018, Dr. Odette Harris of Stanford University in California became the second African American female professor of neurosurgery in the United States, following Dr. Alexa Canady who was appointed in 1981. Harris’s research and clinical focus is on traumatic brain injury and peripheral nerve neurosurgery. Born in Jamaica in 1970, Harris took an interest … Read MoreOdette Harris (1970- )
Astronomer Gibor S. Basri was born in May 3, 1951 in New York City, New York, the eldest son of Saul A. Basri, an Iraqi Jewish immigrant from Iraq and physics professor, and the former Phyllis Claire Whyte, a Jamaican-born African American dance and ballet instructor. Though he experienced … Read MoreGibor Saul Basri (1951- )
The Creole Case was the result of an American slave revolt in November 1841 on board the Creole, a ship involved in the United States coastwise slave trade. As a consequence of the revolt, 128 enslaved people won their freedom in the Bahamas, then a British possession. Because of the number of people … Read MoreThe Creole Case (1841)
Hazel Carby is an African-American Studies scholar, a professor at Yale University in Connecticut, and holder of the Charles C. and Dorothea S. Dilley Chair in African American Studies. Hazel Vivian Carby was born on January 15, 1948 in Okehampton, in Devon county, United Kingdom. She was born to … Read MoreHazel V. Carby (1948- )
Rachel Megan Markle was born on August 4, 1981 in Los Angeles, California. Her African American mother Doria Ragland was a social worker and yoga instructor, and her Caucasian father Thomas Markle Sr., is a retired television director of lighting and photography. The couple divorced … Read MoreRachel Megan Markle, The Duchess of Sussex (1981- )
