Popular singer Dionne Warwick was born Marie Dionne Warrick on December 12, 1940, in East Orange, New Jersey, to Mancel Warrick, a Pullman porter, chef, and promoter and distributor of recorded music, and Lee Warrick, who managed the gospel group, Drinkard Singers. Warwick was singing … Read MoreDionne Warwick (1940- )
Composer, librettist, saxophonist Anthony Braxton was born on June 4, 1945, in Chicago, Illinois, to Clarence Dunbar Braxton, Sr., from Greenville, Mississippi, and Julia Samuels Braxton from Tulsa, Oklahoma. Braxton had three brothers. Braxton grew up in Chicago and from 1959 to 1963, he attended … Read MoreAnthony Braxton (1945- )
Doxey Alphonso Lewis Alexander Wilkerson, communist, Marxist, professor, author, editor, and union leader, was born April 24, 1905 in Excelsior Springs, Missouri to Mattie L. Wilkerson of Kentucky (1884-1955) and Methodist minister Alphonso Wilkerson. A 1921 graduate of Sumner High School in Kansas City, Kansas, … Read MoreDoxey Wilkerson (1905-1993)
Pioneer pharmacist Anna Louise James was born Louise Clegget James on January 19, 1886, in Hartford, Connecticut. She was the eighth of eleven children born to Willis Samuel James, who was born enslaved and escaped at age sixteen through the Underground Railroad, and Anna Houston. … Read MoreAnna Louise James (1886 – 1977)
Moses Simons was the first black Yale graduate and the first black lawyer in the nation. Simons practiced law in 1816, decades earlier than some of the more well-known, and believed to be first, black practitioners like Macon B. Allen (1844); George Vashon (1848); and … Read MoreMoses Simons (?- 1822)
Jamaal Bowman is a politician and educator who became the Democratic Representative for New York’s 16th Congressional District in 2021. Bowman was born on April 1, 1976 in Manhattan, New York City to unnamed parents. He lived with his grandmother in the East River Houses … Read MoreJamaal Bowman (1976- )
Adewale “Wally” Adeyemo is a Nigerian-American economist. He is best known for serving as Deputy National Security Adviser for International Economics and Deputy Director of the National Economic Council during President Barack Obama’s administration. In late 2020, Adeyemo was nominated by President-Elect Joseph Biden to … Read MoreAdewale “Wally” Adeyemo (1981- )
Marcella Nunez is a physician and associate professor of medicine and epidemiology at Yale School of Medicine. Most recently she was appointed by President-Elect Joe Biden to be one of three co-chairs of his National COVID-19 Advisory Board, the highest-ranking group in the U.S. studying … Read MoreMarcella Nunez-Smith (1981- )
Activist, existential philosopher, professor, and Unitarian Universalist minister Rev. Dr. William “Bill” Ronald Jones dedicated his career to the analysis and methods of oppression, religious humanism, and liberation theology that influenced Africana philosophers such as Anthony B. Pinn and Lewis R. Gordon. Born July 17, … Read MoreBill Jones (1933-2012)
Cato Laurencin is a physician, surgeon, scientist, engineer, and one of two University Professors at the University of Connecticut. He is just the 8th University Professor in the institution’s almost 140-year history and as such holds the school’s highest academic title. Dr. Laurencin also serves … Read MoreCato Thomas Laurencin (1959- )
