J. Max Bond, Sr., an educator who worked in the United States and abroad, was born in Nashville, Tennessee in 1902. His father was a Congregationalist minister and his mother was a schoolteacher. Bond’s undergraduate education came from what would become Roosevelt University in Chicago, … Read MoreJ. Max Bond Sr. (1902-1991)
Dennis Brutus was a South African poet, organizer and activist perhaps most notable for his use of sports as a weapon against apartheid. Dennis Vincent Brutus was born to South African parents of French, Italian and African descent in Salisbury, Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) in … Read MoreDennis Brutus (1924-2009)
Preston Wilcox (left) with Unidentified Man Image Courtesy of Harlem Heritage Preston Wilcox, human rights activist and professor, was a proponent of black studies and advocated community control over education. He was born in 1923 and raised in Youngstown, Ohio along with his four siblings. … Read MorePreston Wilcox (1923-2006)
In the following article Professor Malik Simba, an historian at California State University, Fresno describes his professional and personal odyssey that led to the writing of his book, Black Marxism and American Constitutionalism: From the Colonial Background through the Ascendancy of Barack Obama and the … Read MoreA Marxist Scholar Analyzes the American Legal System
Edgardo Ortuno, Afro-Uruguayan professor, politician, and activist for human rights and equal opportunities, was born on June 10, 1970 in the Uruguayan capital of Montevideo. Ortuno’s childhood experiences had a profound impact on his adult life. Growing up as an Afro-Uruguayan in a country where … Read MoreEdgardo Ortuno (1970- )
David Harold Blackwell, mathematician and statistician, was the first African American to be elected to the National Academy of Sciences (1965) and is especially known for his contributions to the theory of duels. Blackwell was born on April 24, 1919, to a working-class family in … Read MoreDavid Harold Blackwell (1919-2010)
Darwin Theodore Troy Turner was an African American literature critic, a poet, and an English professor who was born in Cincinnati, Ohio on May 7, 1931. His grandfather, Charles H. Turner, was the first African American psychologist; his father, Darwin Romanes Turner, was a pharmacist; … Read MoreDarwin T. Turner (1931-1991)
Harry Edwards is an Emeritus Professor at the University of California at Berkeley best known for co-engineering the “Revolt of the Black Athlete” in the late 1960’s. Edwards, born in East St. Louis, Illinois in 1942, attended Fresno City College from 1959 to 1960 as … Read MoreHarry Edwards (1942- )
William Henry Ferris was born in New Haven, Connecticut on July 20, 1874 to David Henry, a volunteer for the Union Army during the Civil War, and Sarah Anne Jefferson Ferris. After high school, Ferris attended Yale University, where he was heavily influenced by polymath … Read MoreWilliam Henry Ferris (1874-1941)
In the following article drawn from his book, Black Philosopher, White Academy: The Career of William Fontaine, University of Pennsylvania historian Bruce Kuklick introduces us to the world of philosopher William Fontaine, one of the few African American faculty members at an Ivy League institution … Read More“Going South: William Fontaine’s Trip to Virginia, 1948”
