John Edgar Wideman was born in 1941 in Washington, D.C. but grew up in the predominantly black middle class community of Homewood near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. By the time Wideman was in high school, his family had moved to Shadyside, an upper middle class mostly white … Read MoreJohn Edgar Wideman (1941- )
Born on December 7, 1948 in Springfield, Massachusetts to well known black nationalist minister Albert Buford Cleage (later Jaramogi Abebe Agyeman) and school teacher Doris Graham Cleage, Pearl Cleage grew up in Detroit, Michigan and entered Howard University in Washington, D.C. in 1966 to study … Read MorePearl Cleage (1948- )
Stanley Crouch was a tough-minded and controversial jazz critic, playwright, essayist, novelist, and percussionist. After a personal intellectual transformation in the late 1970s, Crouch became the contemporary champion of traditionalist jazz – an identity which he defined with both powerful cultural criticisms and outbursts of … Read MoreStanley Crouch (1945-2020)
James Madison Nabrit, Jr. was a renowned civil rights lawyer, Howard University president, and United Nations deputy ambassador. During his legal career, he argued for the voting rights of blacks as well as school desegregation. Nabrit was born September 7, 1900, in Atlanta, Georgia. The … Read MoreJames M. Nabrit, Jr. (1900-1997)
John Wesley Blassingame was one of the preeminent scholars in the study of enslaved African Americans. His early monographs The Slave Community (1972) and Black New Orleans, 1860-1880 (1973) shattered racist and stereotypical portrayals of African American life by using testimony and evidence left by … Read MoreJohn W. Blassingame (1940-2000)
A marine biologist, academic, and administrator, Samuel Milton Nabrit was born in Macon, Georgia, to James Madison Nabrit and Gertrude West on February 21, 1905. Upon completing his elementary and high school education, he entered Morehouse College in 1921. There he earned the B.S. degree … Read MoreSamuel Milton Nabrit (1905-2003)
Born in Louisville, Kentucky in 1884, Saint Elmo Brady became the first African American to earn a Ph.D. in the field of chemistry when he completed his graduate studies at the University of Illinois in 1916. The eldest child of Thomas and Celesta Brady, Saint … Read MoreSaint Elmo Brady (1884-1966)
On July 18, 1988, Charles Z. Smith became the first African American to serve on the Washington Supreme Court. He was appointed to the court by Washington’s then Governor Booth Gardner and was subsequently elected to his position on the court for a two-year term … Read MoreCharles Z. Smith (1927-2016)
Dr. Mark Dean, an American inventor and computer engineer, is one of the most important figures in the emergence of the personal computer in the late 20th Century. Three of the nine patents on the original personal computer (PC) by International Business Machines (IBM) are … Read MoreMark Dean (1957- )
(William) Allison Davis graduated from Williams College with a B.A. degree in 1924, an M.A. from Harvard University in 1925 and a second degree in 1932. In 1942, he attained a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago where he became the first John Dewey Distinguished … Read MoreAllison Davis (1902-1983)
