Businesswoman, politician, and civil rights activist, Mae Street Kidd, was born February 8, 1904 in Millersburg, Kentucky to a black mother and white father. Kidd’s biological father refused to acknowledge her as his daughter. She attended a segregated black primary school in her community. As … Read MoreMae Street Kidd (1909-1999)
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)
Religious leader Barbara Clementine Harris was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to Walter and Beatrice (Price) Harris on June 12, 1930. After graduating from the Charles Morris Price School of Advertising and Journalism, she joined Joseph V. Baker Associates, Inc., a black-owned public relations firm in … Read MoreBarbara C. Harris (1930-2020 )
Robert Curry Owens was born in Los Angeles, California in January of 1860 to Charles Owens, a livery stable owner, and Ellen Mason-Owens. As the first born grandson to the Owens-Mason union, Robert rose to prominence in Los Angeles after inheriting both his father’s and … Read MoreRobert Curry Owens (1860-?)
Creole New Orleans newspaper editor Paul Trévigne, the biracial son of a Battle of New Orleans veteran, was born in New Orleans in 1825. Trévigne was part of the free people of color community in Louisiana that protested racial injustice before the Civil War and … Read MorePaul Trévigne (1825-1908)
Charles Bennett Ray journalist, clergyman, and abolitionist was born in Falmouth, Massachusetts on December 25, 1807. He attended school in his hometown, and then in the 1830s he was given the opportunity by abolitionists to attend Wesleyan Seminary in Wilbraham, Massachusetts to study theology. He … Read MoreCharles B. Ray (1807-1886)
Henry Francis Downing was an author, playwright, consul and sailor. He was born in New York City in 1846, the son of Henry and Nancy Downing. His family maintained an oyster business that had been owned by his grandfather, Thomas Downing, a well known freeman. … Read MoreHenry Francis Downing (1846-1928)
Physician and newspaper publisher, Louis Charles Roudanez was born free in June of 1823 in Saint James Parish, Louisiana. He was the son of a French merchant named Louis Roudanez and a black woman named Aimée Potens. Though his baptismal record registers him as white, … Read MoreLouis Charles Roudanez (1823-1890)
Johnson Chesnutt Whittaker was the second black cadet at the United States Military Academy at West Point in New York. He was born in South Carolina to an enslaved mother, Maria J. Whitaker, and her free husband, James Whitaker, in 1858. (Later in life, he … Read MoreJohnson C. Whittaker (1858-1931)
