As one of the most renowned big-band leaders of the 1920s, Bennie Moten succeeded in developing the “Kansas City” sound in big-band jazz. Born in Kansas City, Missouri on November 13, 1894, Moten spent most of his youth playing baritone saxophone in the city’s numerous … Read MoreBenjamin “Bennie” Moten (1894-1935)
Gary Coleman, best known for his child star status from the hit television sitcom Diff’rent Strokes, was born on February 8, 1968, and raised in Zion, Illinois. A talent scout for TV producer Norman Lear spotted Coleman in a Chicago bank commercial, and at the … Read MoreGary Coleman (1968-2010)
Academy Award-winning actor Morgan Porterfield Freeman, Jr. was born June 1, 1937 in Memphis, Tennessee, the son of Morgan Porterfield Sr., a barber, and Mayme Edna Morgan. Throughout his childhood the Freeman family moved often, living in Mississippi, Indiana and Chicago. Freeman showed early promise … Read MoreMorgan Freeman (1937- )
Two-time Academy Award-winning actor Denzel Hayes Washington was born December 28, 1954 in Mount Vernon, New York. Growing up in a middle-class family, Washington was the second of three children, his father, Reverend Denzel Washington, Sr., was a Pentecostal minister and his mother, Lennis “Lynne” … Read MoreDenzel Hayes Washington, Jr. (1954- )
Community organizer and civil rights activist Hunter Pitts O’Dell was born in Detroit, Michigan on August 11, 1924. His father George Edwin O’Dell worked in hotels and restaurants in Detroit. His mother, Emily (Pitts) O’Dell, who studied music at Howard University, later taught adults to … Read MoreHunter Pitts “Jack” O’Dell (1924-2019)
Juano G. “Juano” Hernández, Hollywood’s first Afro-Latino actor, was a polylingual self-educated Puerto Rican stage and film actor who was born Juan G. Hernández on July 19, 1896, in San Juan, Puerto Rico to a father from San Juan and a mother from Rio de … Read MoreJuano Hernandez (1896-1970)
Arthur George Gaston, wealthy businessman and civil rights activist, was born on July 4, 1892 in Demopolis, Alabama to Tom and Rosa McDonald Gaston. He was raised by his former slave grandparents Joseph and Idella Gaston. In 1905 Arthur Gaston moved to Birmingham where he … Read MoreA. G. Gaston (1892-1996)
Entrepreneur Robert Bogle was the first of many African American caterers who served nineteenth-century Philadelphia’s white elite. Born in 1774, the 1810 federal census shows Bogle and five members of his family in Philadelphia’s South Ward, where the majority of the city’s African American residents … Read MoreRobert Bogle (1774-1848)
Brock Peters, who emerged as a prominent actor of the 1960s, was born George Fisher in 1927, to Sonny and Alma Fisher in New York City. Prior to concentrating on an acting career that spanned nearly six decades, he attended the University of Chicago, and … Read MoreBrock Peters (1927-2005)
Redd Foxx was born John Elroy Stanford on December 9, 1922 in St. Louis, Missouri. In 1926 his father, an electrician, abandoned the family. Shortly afterward, he and his mother moved to Chicago to live with his grandmother. While in high school he formed a … Read MoreRedd Foxx (1922-1991)
