“Image Ownership: Nightscream” Geoffrey Lamont Holder, acclaimed choreographer and legendary figure in the dance world, was also a respected actor, Tony Award-winning director, costume designer, singer, music composer, voice-over artist, orator, painter, sculptor, and photographer. Holder was born to a middle-class family in Port of … Read MoreGeoffrey Lamont Holder (1930-2014)
People’s Baptist Church in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, thrived for the first half of the 20th century as the state’s first and only black congregation. It served a New England coastal community where African Americans represented 4% of the population. People’s Baptist was the spiritual home … Read MorePeople’s Baptist Church, Portsmouth, New Hampshire (1873- )
Samuel (“Sammy”) Leamon Younge Jr. was a 21-year-old civil rights activist who was shot to death on January 3, 1966 when he attempted to use a whites-only restroom at a gas station in Macon County, Alabama. He was a navy veteran studying political science at … Read MoreSamuel (“Sammy”) Leamon Younge, Jr. (1944-1966)
John Berry Meachum was a businessman, a founder of the oldest black church in Missouri, and a pioneer in the education of blacks in that state. Meachum was born a slave in Goochland County, Virginia on May 3, 1789. His owner, Paul Meachum, moved Meachum … Read MoreJohn Berry Meachum (1789-1854)
Abolitionist and civil rights activist William Lambert was born in Trenton, New Jersey in 1817, the son of a manumitted father and a freeborn mother. As a young man Lambert was educated by abolitionist Quakers. Twenty-three year old Lambert arrived in Detroit, Michigan in 1840 … Read MoreWilliam Lambert (1817-1890)
Austin Steward, author, businessman, abolitionist, and temperance leader, was born a slave in Prince William County, Virginia to Robert and Susan Steward sometime around 1793. By the age of seven he was working as a house slave on the plantation of Capt. William Helm. The … Read MoreAustin Steward (1793-1869)
Alexis Herman, US Secretary of Labor, political activist, civic leader, social worker, and entrepreneur, was born on July 16, 1947 in Mobile, Alabama to politician Alex Herman and educator Gloria Caponis. Herman graduated from Heart of Mary High School in Mobile in 1965 and enrolled … Read MoreAlexis Margaret Herman (1947- )
Image Ownership: David Maxwell, New York Times Bill Powell was the first African American to design, construct, and own a professional golf course in the United States. In 1946, Bill and his wife Marcella did most of the landscaping by hand when they transformed a … Read MoreWilliam James “Bill” Powell (1916-2009)
George W. Lowther, barber, abolitionist, equal school rights activist, and Massachusetts legislator, was born a slave in Edenton, North Carolina, to Polly Lowther. His father’s identity is unknown. His mother, Polly Lowther (c.1780-1864) was an Edenton baker, the slave of wealthy planter Joseph Blount Skinner … Read MoreGeorge W. Lowther (1822-1898)
Actor Samuel Leroy Jackson was born on December 21, 1948 in Washington, D.C. to factory worker Elizabeth Jackson. His father abandoned his mother shortly after Jackson’s birth and then died of alcoholism. Jackson and his mother moved to Chattanooga, Tennessee, where they lived with her … Read MoreSamuel L. Jackson (1948- )
