With expertise in the mechanisms and kinetics of the oxidation of transitions metals, and in agricultural chemistry, Fillmore Freeman has become one of the three most frequently cited African American chemists in the nation (the other two being Donald J. Darensbourg at Texas A&M University … Read MoreFillmore Freeman (1936- )
Emmett Till was a fourteen year-old African American boy who was tortured and killed in Money, Mississippi in 1955 after allegedly insulting a white woman. Born in Chicago, Illinois, Till lived with his mother, Mamie Till. His father, Louis Till, died while serving in the … Read MoreEmmett Louis Till (1941-1955)
The Azusa Street Revival, beginning in the spring of 1906, largely spawned the worldwide Pentecostal movement. It commenced in a former African Methodist Episcopal church building located at 312 Azusa Street in Los Angeles, California. The primary leader was evangelist William J. Seymour, who came … Read MoreAzusa Street Revival (1906-1909)
Susie Sumner Revels, a daughter of Hiram Revels, the first U.S. Senator of African descent, arrived in Seattle, Washington from Mississippi in 1896. Her reason, she stated, during a 1936 Washington Pioneers Project interview, was “the man she was going to marry was here.” He … Read MoreSusie Revels Cayton (1870-1943)
Dr. Ruth Janetta Temple was born in Natchez, Mississippi in 1892. After her father’s death, the Temple family moved to Los Angeles, California in 1904 where her mother worked as a practical nurse and Ruth cared for her five siblings. Temple’s interest in medicine surfaced … Read MoreRuth Janetta Temple (1892-1984)
Rev. Peter Barrow moved his family from Mississippi to Spokane, Washington in 1889. Almost immediately upon arriving, he began to involve himself politically and religiously in the city’s early life. According to Union Army Pension Records, Barrow was born into slavery in 1840 near Petersburg, … Read MorePeter Barrow (1840-1906)
Considered by many as the dean of African American composers, William Grant Still, the son of educators, was born in Woodville, Mississippi on May 11, 1895. His father, a musician who once taught music at Alabama A&M College, died when he was an infant; his … Read MoreWilliam Grant Still (1895-1978)
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)
Roy Wilkins, one of the leading US civil rights activists of the twentieth century, was born in St. Louis, Missouri. Wilkins’ mother died of tuberculosis when he was four; he and his siblings were then raised by an aunt and uncle in a poor but … Read MoreRoy Wilkins (1901-1981)
Best-selling author, social critic and influential literary figure Richard Wright was born on September 4, 1908, to Nathan Wright and Ella Wilson, both children of slaves, on a plantation near Roxie, Mississippi. His father was an illiterate sharecropper and his mother was a schoolteacher. Finding … Read MoreRichard Wright (1908-1960)
