Albert Irving Cassell, a prominent African American architect, planner, engineer, educator, and entrepreneur, was born on June 25, 1895, in Towson, Maryland. His parents were Albert and Charlotte Cassell. Albert’s father was a coal truck driver and trumpet player and his mother washed laundry to … Read MoreAlbert I. Cassell (1895-1969)
Psychiatrist and anti-colonial cultural theorist, Frantz Fanon was born in the French West Indies, in Fort-de-France, Martinique on July 20, 1925. His father, Félix Casimir Fanon, was a black customs service inspector. His mother, Eléanore Médélice, was half French and owned a hardware and drapery … Read MoreFrantz Fanon (1925-1961)
Jeremiah Haralson was born near Columbus, Georgia on April 1, 1846. The slave of Georgia planter John Haralson, he was taken to Alabama where he remained in bondage until 1865. It is unclear as to what he did in the earlier years of his freedom, … Read MoreJeremiah Haralson (1846-1916)
Image Ownership: Public Domain Born on December 25, 1840, in Baltimore, Maryland, John Henry Murphy grew up as a slave and freed by the Emancipation Act of 1863. He enlisted in the military at age 24, during the Civil War and quickly progressed to … Read MoreJohn Henry Murphy Sr. (1840-1922)
Clarence M. Mitchell, Jr. the chief lobbyist for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) from 1950 to 1978 played a central role in winning passage of the landmark civil rights legislation that transformed the nation in the 1950s and 1960s. Clarence … Read MoreClarence M. Mitchell, Jr. (1911-1984)
Levi Coppin was an editor, educator, missionary and the 30th Bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church. Coppin was born in Frederick Town, Maryland in 1848 to Jane Lily and John Coppin. He had six siblings. Coppin’s mother taught him to read and write … Read MoreLevi Jenkins Coppin (1848-1924)
Daniel Coker (born Isaac Wright) was a writer, activist, and a founder of the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church who eventually emigrated from the United States to Sierra Leone as a missionary and colonist. Coker was born in 1780 in either Baltimore County or Frederick … Read MoreDaniel Coker (1780-1846)
In the article below University of California, Riverside historian Ralph Crowder describes this fascinating but little known attempt by Joe Louis and Fidel Castro to encourage middle class African American tourism to Cuba in the first year of the new regime. When Fidel Castro successfully … Read MoreAfrican Americans and Cuba’s First Experiment in Castro-Era Tourism: The Joe Louis Commission in Post Revolutionary Havana, 1959-1960
Hiram Rhodes Revels was a Republican U.S. Senator, minister in the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church, and the first African American to serve in the U.S. Senate. Revels was born in Fayetteville, North Carolina on September 27, 1827, to a family that had been free … Read MoreHiram Rhodes Revels (1827-1901)
Kweisi Mfume was born as Frizzel Gray in Baltimore, Maryland on October 24, 1948, the eldest of four children. Gray experienced a troubled childhood with the abandonment of his father and death of his mother as well as economic instability, but made a successful return … Read MoreKweisi Mfume (Frizzel Gray) (1948- )
