William Harvey Carney was born a slave in Norfolk, Virginia in 1840. His father William Sr. had escaped slavery through the Underground Railroad and eventually earned enough money to buy the freedom of his wife and son. After freeing his family, the reunited Carneys moved … Read MoreWilliam H. Carney (1840-1908)
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)
Peyton Colony was a freedmen’s community established in 1865 by Peyton Roberts (c.1820-1888), an ex-slave who migrated to Caldwell County, Texas. Roberts was born enslaved on the William Roberts Plantation in Virginia. Roberts and several families on the Roberts Plantation gained their freedom at the … Read MorePeyton Colony, Texas (1865- )
Samuel L. Robinson was born in Kansas in 1896. He arrived in Atlantic City, New Jersey, in his teens, where he attended the city’s integrated high school. He joined the school’s football team and became a close friend of the team captain and the future … Read MoreSamuel L. Robinson (1896-1964?)
Robert James Harlan was an entrepreneur, businessman, and army officer who devoted the second half of his life to political and civic service. Among his many accomplishments, in an 1879 speech before Congress titled “Migration is the Only Remedy for Our Wrongs,” Harlan argued for … Read MoreRobert James Harlan (1816-1897)
Z. Alexander Looby was among the small cadre of African American lawyers who began practicing in the southern United States during the 1920s and 1930s. Often considered the “second generation of black attorneys,” these lawyers followed the first cadre of African Americans who began practicing … Read MoreZ. Alexander Looby (1899-1972)
William Hannibal Thomas was born in Pickaway County, Ohio, on May 4, 1843 to free black parents. During his early childhood Thomas’s family moved frequently in search of economic advancement before returning to Ohio in 1857. As a teenager Thomas performed manual labor, attended school … Read MoreWilliam Hannibal Thomas (1843-1935)
During World War II, Lydia Sims moved from Newark, New Jersey, to Spokane with her husband, James Sims, an Army Air Force soldier stationed at Geiger Airfield. At the end of the war, the Sims family decided to remain in Spokane. For 10 years they … Read MoreJames & Lydia Sims
After the Civil War, when the massive Union Army was disbanded, Congress could not ignore the contributions of about 200,000 black volunteers to the Union victory. Congress designated six post-Civil War regiments for black enlisted men in the reorganization act of July 28, 1866—the 9th … Read MoreBuffalo Soldiers
William Lineas Maples, a physician and musician, was born in Sevierville, Tennessee, on March 31, 1869. The son of Edward Maples and Martha Jane Runions, William graduated in the first class of the segregated high school in Knoxville in 1888. Showing a talent for science, … Read MoreWilliam Lineas Maples (1869-1943)
