Cleveland Sellers was born on November 8, 1944 in Denmark, South Carolina. Cleveland became interested in the Civil Rights Movement with the murder of Emmett Till in 1955. In 1960 at 15, he organized his first sit-in protest at a Denmark, South Carolina lunch counter, … Read MoreCleveland Sellers (1944- )
Charles Waddell Chesnutt was born the son of free black parents on June 20, 1858 in Cleveland, Ohio. His parents had recently moved to Cleveland from Fayetteville, North Carolina in response to the growing restrictions placed on free blacks in that slave state. By 1866, … Read MoreCharles Waddell Chesnutt (1858-1932)
Roger Arliner Young, born in Clifton Forge, Virginia in 1889, was the first Black woman to earn a Ph.D. in zoology and to conduct research at the prestigious Marine Biological Laboratory at Woods Hole, Massachusetts. Young researched the anatomy of paramecium and the effects of … Read MoreRoger Arliner Young (1889-1964)
Born Lottie Hawkins in Henderson, North Carolina, in 1883, her family moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts, early in her childhood to avoid racial discrimination in their home state. In Cambridge, she attended Allston Grammar School, Cambridge English High School and Salem State Normal School in Salem, … Read MoreCharlotte Eugenia Hawkins Brown (1883-1961)
Oscar Micheaux was the quintessential self-made man. Novelist, film-maker and relentless self-promoter, Micheaux was born on a farm near Murphysboro, Illinois. He worked briefly as a Pullman porter and then in 1904 homesteaded nearly 500 acres of land near the Rosebud Sioux Indian Reservation in … Read MoreOscar Micheaux (1884-1951)
With the beginning of World War II African Americans would get their chance to be in “the toughest outfit going,” the previously all-white Marine Corps. The first recruits reported to Montford Point, a small section of land on Camp Lejeune, North Carolina on August 26, 1942. By October, only 600 recruits had … Read MoreMontford Point Marines (1942-1949)
Born into slavery in Edenton, North Carolina on February 11, 1813, Harriet Ann Jacobs was the daughter of slaves, Delilah and Daniel Jacobs. Harriet Jacobs is best known for her autobiography, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, edited by white abolitionist Lydia Maria Child, … Read MoreHarriet Jacobs (1813-1897)
Jack Johnson, the first African American and first Texan to win the heavyweight boxing championship of the world, was born the second of six children to Henry and Tiny Johnson in Galveston on March 31, 1878. His parents were former slaves. To help support his … Read MoreJack Johnson (1878-1946)
Peter William Cassey was born in Philadelphia in 1831, the son of renowned African American abolitionist Joseph Cassey. Cassey learned political activism from his father. He also learned the barbering trade which he pursued after his arrival in San Francisco in 1863. In 1859 Cassey … Read MorePeter William Cassey (1831-?)
The legacy of architect Julian Francis Abele was brought into focus in the mid-1980s when in the midst of a student protest at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, his great grandniece reminded the campus community that her long unsung ancestor was responsible for the … Read MoreJulian F. Abele (1881-1950)
