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 Detroit, Michigan, to parents Walker Smith, Sr., and Lelia (Hurst) Robinson. His father was a cotton, peanut, and corn farmer near Ailey, … 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 ( ? — ?)
Touted by the California Eagle as the “greatest undertaking ever put upon our people in America,” the Pacific Beach Club was to be the largest all-black recreational resort in the United States. Built on the shores of Huntington Beach, California between 1925 and 1926 (30 … Read MorePacific Beach Club (1926)
Mel Streeter was born in Riverside, California in 1931. He attended the University of Oregon on a basketball scholarship and was the second African-American basketball player at Oregon after declining an offer by legendary basketball coach John Wooden to attend UCLA, because UCLA did not … Read MoreMel Streeter (1931-2006)
Argued October 12, 1977 Decided June 28, 1978 The Medical School of the University of California at Davis (hereinafter Davis) had two admissions programs for the entering class of 100 students – the regular admissions program and the special admissions program. Under the regular procedure, … Read More(1978) University of California Regents v. Bakke
