Dr. Levi Watkins Jr. was a cardiac surgeon who, in 1980, performed the first implantation of an automatic defibrillator into a human heart. He was also a professor of cardiac surgery and associate dean at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore, Maryland. Watkins … Read MoreLevi Watkins Jr. (1944-2015)
Most Americans are now familiar with the contribution of nearly 300,000 black soldiers and sailors to the Union cause during the U.S. Civil War. Less well known is the role of a dedicated group of black doctors and nurses in uniform who worked diligently to … Read MoreAfrican Americans in Medicine in the Civil War Era
Perry Young Jr, an airplane and helicopter pilot, was the first African American person to be hired by a commercial airline with regularly scheduled passenger flights. Young was born to his parents Henry Young Sr. and Edith Lucille Young on March 12, 1919 in Orangeburg, … Read MorePerry Young Jr. (1919-1998)
In the following article Melissa Milewski, a graduate student in history at New York University, describes her research which has uncovered the surprising success of African American litigants in court cases in the post-Civil War South. As slaves, black southerners were treated only as property … Read MoreFrom Slave to Litigant: African Americans in Court in the Post-Civil War South
Cecil Francis Poole, the first African American U.S. Attorney in the continental United States and the first African American federal judge in Northern California, was born in Birmingham, Alabama on July 14, 1914, to William and Eva Poole. In 1918, the Poole family moved to … Read MoreCecil F. Poole (1914-1997)
Barrington Irving is the first African American to fly solo around the world and, as of 2010, the youngest person to complete the feat. He made his flight at the age of 23. Irving was born in Kingston, Jamaica on November 11th, 1983. He was … Read MoreBarrington Irving (1983- )
J. Max Bond, Sr., an educator who worked in the United States and abroad, was born in Nashville, Tennessee in 1902. His father was a Congregationalist minister and his mother was a schoolteacher. Bond’s undergraduate education came from what would become Roosevelt University in Chicago, … Read MoreJ. Max Bond Sr. (1902-1991)
Carmen McRae, a jazz singer and songwriter, was born on April 8, 1920 in Harlem, New York. Her father Osmond Llewelyn McRae was born in Santa Cruz, Jamaica in 1891; he moved from Jamaica to Costa Rica to Cuba and then to New York City, … Read MoreCarmen McRae (1920-1994)
By 1964 George C. Wallace, the Governor of Alabama, had become the national symbol of opposition to the civil rights movement and to federal governmental intervention to protect the rights of African Americans. In the address below he denounces President Lyndon B. Johnson for signing … Read More(1964) George C. Wallace, “The Civil Rights Movement: Fraud, Sham, and Hoax”
Anne Wortham, a prolific academic who has opposed aspects of the traditional civil rights movement, was born on November 26th 1941 in Jackson, Tennessee. The first of five children, she was raised in the segregated South where her parents instilled in her religious beliefs and … Read MoreAnne Wortham (1941- )
