Born a freeman in Pennsylvania in 1827, Jonathan Gibbs was the son of Maria Jackson and the Methodist minister, Jonathan Gibbs. Gibbs was originally trained as a carpenter until in 1848. Then he became one of only two African Americans accepted at Dartmouth College in … Read MoreJonathan Gibbs (1827-1874)
Born in Nashville, Tennessee on February 18, 1852, and educated at the law school later affiliated with Northwestern University, Ferdinand Lee Barnett was an attorney, writer, lecturer, and the editor and founder of Chicago’s first black newspaper, the Chicago Conservator. Although he is often remembered … Read MoreFerdinand Lee Barnett (1858-1936)
Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on April 17, 1823, Mifflin Wistar Gibbs apprenticed as a carpenter. By his early 20s he was an activist in the abolition movement, sharing platforms with Frederick Douglass and helping in the Underground Railroad. Black intellectual ferment of the era gave … Read MoreMifflin Wistar Gibbs (1823-1915)
Born August 9, 1884 in Reading, Pennsylvania, Daisy Lampkin became one of the most highly-acclaimed African American women of her time. While Lampkin is best known for becoming the first woman to be elected to the national board of the NAACP, she spent much of … Read MoreDaisy Lampkin (1884-1965)
Born on June 22, 1866 in Kaufman County, Texas, William Madison (Gooseneck Bill) McDonald’s parents had been slaves. His father, George McDonald, was born in Tennessee and his mother, Flora Scott McDonald, in Alabama. His mother died when he was five, and his father married … Read MoreWilliam Madison McDonald (1866-1950)
Blanche Kelso Bruce was born a slave in 1841 in Prince Edward County, Virginia but was raised in Missouri. Shortly after the beginning of the Civil War, Bruce fled to Kansas, becoming a free man before Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation. After the Civil War he returned … Read MoreBlanche Kelso Bruce (1841-1898)
North Carolina congressman James O’Hara was born a free person in New York City to an Irish merchant and West Indian mother. While growing up he worked as a deckhand on ships that sailed between New York and the West Indies. When he was eighteen … Read MoreJames Edward O’Hara (1844-1905)
John Adams Hyman was born into slavery on July 23, 1840 in Warren County, North Carolina. Hyman’s thirst for knowledge resulted in him being sold away from his family for attempting to read a spelling book that was given to him by a sympathetic white … Read MoreJohn Adams Hyman (1840-1891)
Emmett B. Reed was born in Virginia but moved at age 16 to work in the coal mines of British Columbia. Within 10 years he had become a licensed minister, and in 1919 was called to pastor Calvary Baptist Church of Spokane, beginning a tenure … Read MoreEmmett B. Reed (1878-1961)
Alice Ruth Moore Dunbar-Nelson was an educator, poet, activist, and playwright. Moore was born on July 19, 1875 in New Orleans, Louisiana, into a family of mixed black, white, and Indian ancestry. Her mother, Patricia Wright, was formerly enslaved, and worked as a seamstress and … Read MoreAlice Ruth Moore Dunbar-Nelson (1875-1935)
