Silas Jefferson, also known as Ho-tul-ko-micco –“Wind Clan chief” — was born in 1835 at Taskigi Town (or Tuskegee) in the Old Creek Nation. His parents were Betsey and Jeffery Manac (McNac). Jefferson emigrated with his parents to the Creek lands in the Indian Territory … Read MoreSilas Jefferson (1835-1913)
Sarah Davis was one of the leading free African Creek merchants who lived in the Creek Agency settlement, west of present day Muskogee before (and after) the Civil War. Sarah Davis was born in the Old Creek Nation in 1799 and was formerly a slave … Read MoreSarah Davis (1799-1886)
The trusted slave of legendary Texas independence leader and later governor, Sam Houston, Joshua Houston, after Emancipation, succeeded in business and politics, founded numerous institutions, and became a symbol of racial autonomy and progress. Born a slave in 1822 and later willed to Margaret Lea … Read MoreJoshua Houston (1822-1902)
Jesse Franklin was an influential African Creek politician and minister who lived in the Creek Agency settlement in the years after the Civil War. Franklin was born about 1817 as a slave in the Creek Nation in Alabama. He emigrated to the Indian Territory in … Read MoreJesse Franklin (1817-1882)
Zora Neale Hurston, known for her audacious spirit and sharp wit, was a talented and prolific writer and a skilled anthropologist from the Harlem (New York) Renaissance to the Civil Rights Era. Born on January 7, 1891 in Notasulga, Alabama, she grew up in the … Read MoreZora Neale Hurston (1891-1960)
Dr. Margaret Abigail Walker Alexander’s contributions to American letters—four volumes of poetry, a novel, a biography, and numerous critical essays—mark her as one of this country’s most gifted black intellectuals. These accomplishments are even more remarkable given that she achieved most of them after 1943 … Read MoreMargaret Walker (1915-1998)
Joe Louis Barrow, known popularly as Joe Louis, was the second African American heavyweight boxing champion in the 20th Century. Louis was born on May 13, 1914 in Chambers County Alabama to sharecropper parents Monroe and Lilly Reese Barrow. He was the seventh of eight … Read MoreJoe Louis [Barrow] (1914-1981)
Bayard Rustin was one of the most important, and yet least known, Civil Rights advocates in the twentieth century. He was born in West Chester, Pennsylvania on March 17, 1912 and raised by his maternal grandparents. His grandmother, Julia, was both a Quaker and an … Read MoreBayard Rustin (1912-1987)
William Levi Dawson was an African American composer, choir director, and professor specializing in black religious folk music. He was born on September 26, 1899, in Anniston, Alabama to Eliza Starkey and George Dawson, the first of their seven children. His father, a former slave, … Read MoreWilliam Levi Dawson (1898-1990)
Born in Hattiesburg, Virginia on November 5, 1926, Victoria Jackson Gray Adams became one of the most important Mississipians in the Civil Rights Movement. Her activities included teaching voter registration courses to domestics and sharecroppers, opening of the Freedom Schools during Mississippi’s Freedom Summer of … Read MoreVictoria Jackson Gray Adams (1926-2006)
