Willard L. Bowman was a union organizer, politician, and civil rights activist in Anchorage, Alaska. From 1963 to 1970, he served as the first director of the state’s Human Rights Commission. In 1970 he was one of the first African Americans elected to the Alaska … Read MoreWillard L. Bowman (1919-1975)
Joshua Mqabuko Nyongolo Nkomo was a Zimbabwean anti-colonialist revolutionary and politician who was vice-president of Zimbabwe from 1990 to his death in 1999. Nkomo was born on June 19, 1917 in what was then Matabeleland, Rhodesia into a family where he had eight siblings. After … Read MoreJoshua Mqabuko Nyongolo Nkomo (1917-1999)
“Image Ownership: Public Domain” Ishmael Flory was a civil rights activist, trade union organizer, and Communist Party (CPUSA) leader in Illinois. Flory was born on July 4, 1907, the youngest of nine children to Samuel and Leola Hancock Flory in Lake Charles, Louisiana. In 1918 … Read MoreIshmael Flory (1907–2004)
Tom Mboya, born on August 15, 1930 in Kilimambogo, Kenya on a sisal plantation estate, was a Kenyan nationalist, trade union leader, and government minister. His parents were Luo agricultural workers who, as recently converted Catholics, sent him to mission schools from an early age. … Read MoreThomas Mboya (Joseph Odhiambo) (1930-1969)
Claudius W. Rice was a political activist and labor leader in Houston, Texas from the 1920s through the 1940s. He was the owner of Negro Labor News, president of the Texas Negro Business Association, and advocate of Booker T. Washington and the Tuskegee philosophy of … Read MoreClaudius William Rice (ca. 1892-1973)
Ahmad Sekou Toure in Bamako Image Ownership: Public Domain Ahmed Sékou Touré, first president of Guinea, trade unionist, Pan-Africanist and authoritarian leader, was born on January 9, 1922, at Faranah, Guinea, a town on the banks of the Niger River. His parents, Alpha Touré and … Read MoreAhmed Sékou Touré (1922-1984)
James Edward Shepperson is considered one of the most influential leaders and spokesmen among Black miners in Washington during the late 19th century and early 20th centuries. Shepperson was born in Roanoke, Virginia in 1858. In the 1870 census, he was listed living with his … Read MoreJames Edward Shepperson (1858-1934)
Isaac Myers, a labor leader and mason, was born in Baltimore on January 13, 1835. He was the son of free parents but grew up in a slave state. Myers received his early education from a private day school of a local clergyman, Rev. John … Read MoreIsaac Myers (1835-1891)
Félix Houphouet-Boigny was born near Yamoussoukro, the southern part of the Ivory Coast, on October 18, 1905. His father was a Boulé tribal chief and a wealthy cocoa farmer. At five years old, Houphouet-Boigny inherited his father’s chief status and his cocoa plantation. He studied … Read MoreFélix Houphouet-Boigny (1905-1993)
In 1990, more than thirty years after moving west with her family from rural Alabama, Hattie Canty was elected president of the Las Vegas Hotel and Culinary Workers Union Local 226, a position that enabled her to significantly improve the standard of living for tens … Read MoreHattie Canty (1934- )
