North America – Panama
Juan Valiente (ca. 1505-1553)
Juan Valiente, a Spanish-speaking black conquistador, was born in Northwest Africa around 1505 and was enslaved and acquired by the...
George Patrick Alphonse Forde (1882-1967)
George Patrick Alphonse Forde was an important physician in early 20th century Houston, Texas. Forde was born in Barbados in...
The Church of St. Mark, Brooklyn, New York (1838- )
The Church of St. Mark in Brooklyn, New York was originally established by a group of black Episcopalians in 1838. ...
Eleven Years in the U.S. Navy: The Strange Saga of Robert Shorter
In the account below historian Lorraine McConaghy uses the story of black sailor Robert Shorter to indicate that while the...
Guadalupe Victoria Yolí Raymond (1936-1992)
Guadalupe Victoria Yolí Raymond, known popularly as “La Lupe,” was a Cuban and Cuban American singer and dancer. She was...
Ewart Guinier (1910-1990)
Ewart Guinier, labor activist, and political candidate, was the first chairman of Harvard University’s Afro-American Studies Department. Born in Panama...
Mary Jane Seacole (1805-1881)
Mary Jane Grant Seacole was an early nurse in the British Empire during the 19th Century. Born in Kingston, Jamaica...
Ferdinand Christopher Smith (1893-1961)
Jamaican-born Ferdinand Christopher Smith became a prominent twentieth century international labor activist and leader. At an early age Smith left...
Eric Walrond (1898-1966)
Eric Walrond was an Afro-Caribbean-American fiction writer and journalist of the Harlem Renaissance era. Born December 18, 1898, in Georgetown,...
