In the early twentieth century Progressive era reformers largely ignored the needs of African American women. Lacking settlement houses and other resources African American reformers such as Elizabeth Ross Haynes turned to one of the few institutions available to them, the YWCA. Ross Haynes was … Read MoreElizabeth Ross Haynes (1883-1953)
Edward Franklin Frazier, the most prominent African American sociologist of the 20th Century, was born on September 24, 1894 in Baltimore, Maryland. Best known for his critical work on the black middle class, Black Bourgeoisie (1957), Frazier was also a harsh critic of Jim Crow … Read MoreE. Franklin Frazier (1894-1962)
Dred Scott, was an enslaved person noted mainly for the unsuccessful lawsuit brought to free him from bondage. The decision rendered by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1857 in the Dred Scott case, said that no blacks slave or free were U.S. citizens and allowed … Read MoreDred Scott (1795-1858)
Cora Mae Brown was part of a generation of African American women who translated their community work into political struggle during the first half of the twentieth century. Born on April 19, 1914 in Bessemer, Alabama, Brown’s family migrated to Detroit, Michigan when she was … Read MoreCora Mae Brown (1914-1972)
Hoping for a much better life outside the racially oppressive South and Alexandria, Louisiana where Arnaud Wendell Bontemps was born on October 13, 1902, the middle-class Bontemps family moved to the Watts community just south of Los Angeles. They soon abandoned Catholicism and became devout … Read MoreArna Bontemps (1902-1973)
David Abner, black Texas legislator, was born enslaved in Selma, Alabama, in 1826 and brought to Texas in 1843 by the daughter of his master who, with her husband, settled in Upshur County. Abner remained there until after the Civil War. In 1866 he moved … Read MoreDavid Abner Sr. (1826-1902)
Andrew Young, Jr., came into prominence as a civil rights activist and close associate of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., during the modern civil rights movement in the United States. Young worked with various organizations early in the movement, but his civil rights work was … Read MoreAndrew Young (1932- )
An unusual incidence of interracial solidarity between blacks and Asian Americans occurred during Booker T. Washington’s visit to Seattle. In March 1913, Washington embarked on a national speaking tour in order to raise money for Tuskegee Institute, the chronically underfunded “Normal and Industrial School” in … Read MoreBooker Washington in Seattle, 1913
Born in 1837 in North Carolina, Sara G. Stanley was a member of a free, educated and economically secure family. She attended Oberlin College and later moved to Delaware after her family immigrated there. Following the tradition of other free black women Sara joined the … Read MoreSara G. Stanley (1837-1918)
Leroy Robert Paige, one of the few African American baseball athletes to play in both the Negro Baseball Leagues and in Major League Baseball. He was also the first player to be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame because of his career in the … Read MoreLeroy Robert “Satchel” Paige (1906-1982)
