The Atlanta Negro Voters League (ANVL) was a political organization which focused on mobilizing the strength of black voters in Georgia’s capital city from the late 1940s to the early 1960s. After a 1946 court ruling ordered the end of Georgia’s all white primaries, the … Read MoreAtlanta Negro Voters League
John Henry Merrick—insurance agent, entrepreneur, business owner—was born in Clinton, North Carolina on September 7, 1859. Merrick was born a slave; he lived with his mother Martha Merrick and a younger brother. With the 1863 Emancipation Proclamation his family was freed. When Merrick was twelve … Read MoreJohn Henry Merrick (1859-1919)
Kwame Kilpatrick is a former American politician who served as a Democratic Michigan state representative and Mayor of Detroit from 2002 to 2008. Kilpatrick was born in Detroit, Michigan on June 6, 1970, to Carolyn and Bernard Kilpatrick. He attended Cass Technical High School and … Read MoreKwame Malik Kilpatrick (1970- )
Jesse B. Blayton, Sr., was a pioneer African American radio station entrepreneur. Blayton founded WERD-AM in Atlanta, Georgia on October 3, 1949, making him the first African American to own and operate a radio station in the United States. Jesse Blayton was born in Fallis, … Read MoreJesse B. Blayton, Sr. (1897-1977)
Otis Redding was one of the great American soul singers, who, although only enjoying a short career due to his early death in a plane crash at the age of 26, has been described as the embodiment of soul and one of the most important … Read MoreOtis Redding (1941-1967)
Horace King, born a slave on September 8, 1807, in Chesterfield District, South Carolina, was a successful bridge architect and builder in west Georgia, northern Alabama and northeast Georgia from the 1830s to the 1870s. King worked for his master, John Godwin who owned a … Read MoreHorace King (1807-1885)
Alfred Schmitz Shadd, a black educator, physician, farmer, politician, editor and civic leader was born in Raleigh, Ontario in 1870. He was the fourth son of Garrison and Harriet Poindexter Shadd, a distinguished abolitionist family. Shadd planned to become a doctor but trained as a … Read MoreDr. Alfred Schmitz Shadd (1870-1915)
James Poindexter clergyman, abolitionist, politician, and civil rights activist, was born in Richmond Virginia in 1819. He attended school in Richmond until he was about sixteen when he started to apprentice as a barber. In 1837 Poindexter married Adelia Atkinson and the coupled moved to … Read MoreJames Poindexter (1819-1907)
Isaac Jefferson, a slave of the third President of the United States, was born in December 1775 in Monticello, on the Thomas Jefferson plantation in Virginia. His family was an important part of the Monticello labor force. His father, Great George, was the only enslaved … Read MoreIsaac Jefferson (1775-1853)
James P. Thomas, a noted African American barber and businessman, was born in 1827 in Nashville, Tennessee. He was the mulatto son of a famous antebellum judge, John Catron (one of the justices in the Dred Scott case), and a slave mother, Sally Thomas, who … Read MoreJames P. Thomas (1827-1913)
