Lincoln Alexander, prominent attorney and politician, was born on January 21, 1922 in Toronto, Ontario, the son of West Indian immigrants. His mother was a maid, and his father a carpenter by training. In Canada, however, he had to work as a railway porter, which in … Read MoreLincoln MacCauley Alexander (1922-2012)
Constance Baker Motley was born on September 14, 1921, in New Haven, Connecticut. She was the ninth child in a family of twelve children. Her parents were emigrants from the island of Nevis in the West Indies. Motley grew up attending New Haven’s integrated public … Read MoreConstance Baker Motley (1921-2005)
George William Crockett Jr. was born in Jacksonville, Florida, on August 10, 1909 to George William Crockett Sr., and Minnie Amelia Jenkins. His father was a Baptist minister and railroad carpenter and his mother was a Sunday School teacher and poet. Crockett grew up in … Read MoreGeorge William Crockett Jr. (1909-1997)
Barbara Charline Jordan was born in Houston Texas’s Fifth Ward on February 21, 1936. She received her education in public schools in Texas and graduated from Texas Southern University in 1956 with a B.A. in political science and history. Jordan then received her LL.B. from … Read MoreBarbara Jordan (1936-1996)
Former State Legislator and Mayor Willie Lewis Brown Jr. was born in Mineola, Texas, to Willie L. Brown, Sr., and Minnie (Boyd) Lewis on March 20, 1934. After migrating to San Francisco, California in 1951, Brown worked as a janitor in order to subsidize his … Read MoreWillie Brown, Jr. (1934- )
On January 20, 2009, with the Presidential swearing in of her husband Barack Obama, Michelle Robinson Obama became the first person of African American descent to become First Lady of the United States. Obama is an accomplished professional with an impressive resume of her own. … Read MoreMichelle Robinson Obama (1964- )
George Washington Williams was a 19th century American historian most famous for his volumes, History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880; as Negroes, as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens (1882), and A History of the Negro Troops in the War … Read MoreGeorge Washington Williams (1849-1891)
Clarence Thomas, the second African American to sit on the U.S. Supreme Court, was born in Pin Point, Georgia, a small community south of Savannah. His mother, Leola Williams, a single parent, raised Thomas until he was seven. He and his brother, Myers, were sent … Read MoreClarence Thomas (1948- )
William Thaddeus Coleman, Jr., a prominent Republican lawyer and businessman, served as Secretary of Transportation under President Gerald Ford. Born on July 7, 1920 to a middle class Philadelphia, Pennsylvania family, Coleman attended a segregated elementary school. When he moved to Germantown High School he … Read MoreWilliam T. Coleman Jr. (1920-2017)
Born in Brooklyn, New York, Maryland politician Wayne Keith Curry’s father, Eugene, was a schoolteacher and his mother, Juliette, was a homemaker and later a secretary. When the family moved to Cheverly, Maryland in the 1960s, they encountered various forms of discrimination, including exclusion from … Read MoreWayne Keith Curry (1951-2014)
