Thomas J. “Tom” Bradley, five-term Mayor of Los Angeles and the first major black candidate for Governor of California, was born in Calvert, Texas, on December 29, 1917, the son of Lee Thomas Bradley, a railroad porter, and Crenner Bradley, a maid. He was the … Read MoreTom Bradley (1917-1998)
The Azusa Street Revival, beginning in the spring of 1906, largely spawned the worldwide Pentecostal movement. It commenced in a former African Methodist Episcopal church building located at 312 Azusa Street in Los Angeles, California. The primary leader was evangelist William J. Seymour, who came … Read MoreAzusa Street Revival (1906-1909)
Dr. Ruth Janetta Temple was born in Natchez, Mississippi in 1892. After her father’s death, the Temple family moved to Los Angeles, California in 1904 where her mother worked as a practical nurse and Ruth cared for her five siblings. Temple’s interest in medicine surfaced … Read MoreRuth Janetta Temple (1892-1984)
Robert “Bumps” Blackwell was a musician, producer, and composer who worked with the top names in early jazz and rock and roll. Blackwell was born in Seattle, Washington on May 23, 1918. By the late 1940s his Seattle-based “Bumps Blackwell Junior Band” featured Ray Charles … Read MoreRobert “Bumps” Blackwell (1918-1985)
Peter Lester moved with his wife Nancy and five children to San Francisco from Philadelphia in 1850, where he was appalled to find that slavery was still a fact of life in the free state of California. In an attempt to do something about this, … Read MorePeter Lester (1814- ? )
Born in 1920 in Hopkinton, Massachusetts, Percy Steele was one of eight children. Steele graduated from North Carolina Central College in Durham, North Carolina, after which he attended Atlanta University, where he completed a Master’s degree. From 1945 to 1946, he was a staff member … Read MorePercy H. Steele Jr. (1920–2002)
Wallace Thurman was born in Salt Lake City, Utah on August 16, 1902 to Beulah and Oscar Thurman. He was reared by his maternal grandmother, Emma Jackson, who was among the founders of Calvary Baptist Missionary Church—the first black church in Utah. Young Thurman lived … Read MoreWallace Thurman (1902-1934)
“Sugar” Ray Robinson is generally acknowledged as the greatest pound for pound fighter in boxing history. Born Walker Smith, Jr. on May 3, 1921 in Detriot, Michigan to parents Walker Smith, Sr., and Lelia (Hurst) Robinson. His father was a cotton, peanut, and corn farmer … Read More“Sugar” Ray Robinson (1921-1989)
John Gibbs St. Clair Drake was an American anthropologist and sociologist and the founding Director of Stanford University’s African and African American Studies Department in 1968. Drake was born in Suffolk, Virginia on January 2, 1911. Drake’s father immigrated to the United States from the … Read MoreSt. Clair Drake (1911-1990)
Opal C. Jones was born in Texas sometime in the 1920s and moved to Los Angeles in the early 1950s where she became a social worker at the Avalon-Carver Community Center, established in 1940 to provide multiple resources to low-income residents in south central Los … Read MoreOpal C. Jones ( ? — ?)
