Benjamin “Pap” Singleton was born a slave in Nashville, Tennessee in 1809 and worked for much of his life as a cabinet maker. After being sold to the Deep South Singleton escaped to Canada, but it was not long before he moved to Detroit, Michigan … Read MoreBenjamin “Pap” Singleton (1809-1892)
Born in 1822 to a Virginia slave and a white plantation owner, Barney L. Ford grew up in South Carolina where he learned to read and write from another servant. Ford escaped slavery at age twenty-six when his master hired him out to work on … Read MoreBarney L. Ford (1822-1902)
T. Thomas Fortune—African American journalist, editor, and writer—was born into slavery on October 3, 1856 to Sarah Jane and Emanuel Fortune. Raised in Marianna, Florida, as a child he witnessed the politically-motivated violence of the Ku Klux Klan. Despite minimal formal education, Fortune worked in … Read MoreT. Thomas Fortune (1856-1928)
Robert Tanner Freeman is the first professionally trained black dentist in the United States. A child of slaves, he eventually entered Harvard University and graduated only four years after the end of the Civil War on May 18, 1869. Robert Tanner Freeman was born in … Read MoreRobert Tanner Freeman (1846-1873)
Amanda Berry Smith was a Methodist holiness evangelist, missionary to Africa and founder of an orphanage for African American children. Amanda was born into slavery on January 23, 1837 in Long Green, Maryland to parents Samuel Berry and Miriam Matthews Berry, while they were held … Read MoreAmanda Berry Smith (1837-1915)
Prince Hall was an important social leader in Boston following the Revolutionary War and introduced freemasonry to elite Black society. His birth and childhood are unclear; although, it is assumed that he was enslaved to a Boston leather worker and gained freedom from bondage in … Read MorePrince Hall (ca. 1735-1807)
The author of the first known work of African American literature (the poem “Bars Fight”), Lucy Terry Prince was kidnapped in Africa as an infant and sold into slavery in Rhode Island. At the age of five, she became the property of Captain Ebenezer Wells … Read MoreLucy Terry Prince (c. 1732-1821)
Born into slavery near New Markey, Maryland on December 23, 1815, Henry Highland Garnet escaped from bondage via the Underground Railroad with his parents, George and Henrietta Trusty in 1824. After residing briefly in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, the family settled in New York City, New … Read MoreHenry Highland Garnet (1815-1882)
Henry Walton Bibb was the eldest of the seven male children of Mildred Jackson. Henry was told that his father, whom he never met, was a man named James Bibb. He grew up in bondage in the Deep South, and claims to have been owned … Read MoreHenry Bibb (1815-1854)
Born into slavery on a plantation in Tennessee, George Washington Woodbey was largely self-educated and as young man supported himself as a miner and factory worker before becoming an ordained minister in 1874, and pastoring churches in Kansas, Missouri, and Nebraska. By the mid-1880s Woodbey, … Read MoreGeorge Washington Woodbey (1854-?)
