Today the phrase “Uncle Tom” evokes a powerfully negative image in American society. It depicts a weak, subservient, cringing black man who betrays his race and its struggle for liberation. David Reynolds, an English professor in the Graduate School of the City University of New … Read MoreUncle Tom Revisited: Rescuing the Real Character from the Caricature
Noted historian Charles Harris Wesley was born in Louisville, Kentucky on December 2, 1891, and attended local schools as a boy. He graduated from Fisk University in 1911 and, in 1913, earned a Master’s degree from Yale University. In 1925, Wesley became the third African … Read MoreCharles H. Wesley (1891-1987)
Born March 4, 1908, Theodore Roosevelt Mason Howard was a wealthy doctor, successful entrepreneur, and civil rights activist. Born and raised in Murray, Kentucky, Howard seemed destined to follow in his father’s footsteps as a tobacco twister until a white doctor at Murray’s local hospital … Read MoreT.R.M. Howard (1908-1976)
Academic, leading educator, World War I veteran, and president of Kentucky State College for Colored Persons (later Kentucky State College for Negroes and now Kentucky State University), Rufus Ballard Atwood was born on March 15, 1897 near Hickman, Kentucky. The child of former slaves, Atwood … Read MoreRufus B. Atwood (1897-1963)
Harold M. Kingsley, Congregational minister and political activist, was born in Mobile, Alabama in 1887. The son of a wealthy white man and a poor black woman, Kingsley was raised by Baptists but sent to an Episcopal church because his family believed it was closely … Read MoreHarold M. Kingsley (1887-1970)
Established in 1942, Koinonia is a collective farm in Sumter County, Georgia that supports interracialism as an element of Christian community values. Inspired by both his Christian faith and his training in agriculture at the University of Georgia, founder Clarence Jordan believed that poor white … Read MoreKoinonia Farm (1942- )
Ted Poston, the first African American journalist to work at a mainstream newspaper, was born on July 4, 1906, in Hopkinsville, Kentucky. His mother, Mollie Cox, died when he was ten and he was raised mostly by his eight older siblings, while his father, Ephraim, … Read MoreTed Poston (1906-1974)
During his life historian Lawrence Dunbar Reddick used his scholarly expertise to fight for civil rights. Born in Jacksonville, Florida, on March 3, 1910, Reddick received his Bachelor’s and Master’s in history from Fisk University in 1932 and 1933, respectively. He went to the University … Read MoreLawrence Dunbar Reddick (1910-1995)
Charles Harmon Bullock was a prominent leader in the early 20th Century Colored Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) movement. Born in Charlottesville, Virginia, on March 2, 1875, the son of former slaves Burkley and Mary Washington Bullock, Charles Bullock later graduated as salutorian of his … Read MoreCharles H. Bullock, Sr. (1875-1950)
Born into slavery in Charleston, South Carolina on June 29, 1849, William J. Simmons served as the second president of what would later become Simmons College of Kentucky between 1880 and 1890. He was also a prominent historian and biographer of African American men. Simmons’s … Read MoreWilliam J. Simmons (1849-1890)
