In 2011, Adrienne S. O’Neal, career Foreign Service officer with the rank of Minister Counselor, was appointed by President Barack Obama to serve as ambassador to the Republic of Cabo Verde (or Cape Verde). O’Neal was born in Durham, North Carolina in 1954 to Samuel … Read MoreAdrienne S. O’Neal (1954- )
Ambassador Elizabeth Davenport McKune was born on November 15, 1947 in Detroit, Michigan. She became a Foreign Service officer in 1973 and specialized in the Middle East. McKune is the daughter of West Point graduate Colonel Clarence M. Davenport, Jr. and distinguished National Institute of … Read MoreElizabeth Davenport McKune (1947- )
Grafton Tyler Brown, the most successful African American artist in the 19th Century west, lived his adult life as a white man. This says more about America’s racial structure than it does about his choice to pass for white. Brown was born on February 22, … Read MoreGrafton Tyler Brown (1841-1918)
In the extended article that appears below historians Daudi Abe and Quintard Taylor explore the history of African Americans in King County from 1858 to 2014. They analyze the forces which encouraged people of African ancestry to settle in the county and discuss the rapid … Read MoreFrom Memphis and Mogadishu: The History of African Americans in King County, Washington, 1858-2014
Clarence Wesley Wigington, architect, was born April 21, 1883 in Lawrence, Kansas to Wesley Wigington and Jennie Mary Roberts. He was the fourth of twelve children. Between 1884 and 1908 the family moved seven times finally settling in Omaha, Nebraska where young Wigington was raised … Read MoreClarence Wesley Wigington (1883-1967)
Pilgrim Baptist Church in Saint Paul, Minnesota, is the oldest African American church in the state of Minnesota. A group of escaped slaves began worshiping together in 1863, and under the leadership of fellow escaped slave Robert Thomas Hickman, the church officially became Pilgrim Baptist … Read MorePilgrim Baptist Church, Saint Paul, Minnesota (1863- )
African American engineer, architect, and mathematician Archie Alphonso Alexander was born on May 14, 1888 in Ottumwa, Iowa, the oldest of Price Alexander’s and Mary Hamilton Alexander’s nine children. In order to help his educational opportunities, when he was 11 years old Alexander’s family moved … Read MoreArchie Alphonso Alexander (1888-1958)
Former professional football player Warren Harold Moon is best known as one of the earliest African American quarterbacks in the National Football League (NFL). In 2006 he was the first black quarterback inducted into the National Football League Hall of Fame. During the 1989 season, … Read MoreHarold Warren Moon (1956- )
Jason Collins, a National Basketball Association center, made history in May 2013 by becoming the first professional athlete in a major American team sport to reveal his homosexuality in an interview which appeared in Sports Illustrated magazine. The oldest by eight minutes, Jason and his … Read MoreJason Paul Collins (1978- )
In the following article historians Bruce Glasrud and Cary Wintz discuss their new book, The Harlem Renaissance in the American West which argues that the literary and artistic outpouring by African Americans during the third decade of the 20th Century was a national phenomenon which … Read MoreThe Harlem Renaissance in the American West
