James D. Lynch, a Reconstruction era politician, is best known for his position as Secretary of the State of Mississippi from 1869 to 1872. Lynch was the first African American to hold a major political office in that state. Born in 1838 in Baltimore, Maryland, … Read MoreJames D. Lynch (1838-1872)
Septima Poinsette Clark is perhaps the only woman to play a significant role in educating African Americans for full citizenship rights without gaining sufficient recognition. Clark was born the second of eight children in Charleston, South Carolina, to Peter Poinsette, a former slave, and his … Read MoreSeptima Poinsette Clark (1898-1987)
Eartha Mae Kitt was born on January 26, 1928, in the city of North in South Carolina. Her sharecropper parents abandoned Kitt and her half-sister as young children, forcing them to live with a foster family until they moved to New York City, New York … Read MoreEartha Mae Kitt (1928-2008)
Moranda Smith was a union organizer and rank-and-file leader of tobacco workers in North Carolina, who throughout the 1940s initiated a challenge to the racial discrimination, disfranchisement, and economic exploitation of workers in the South. The first African-American woman to sit on an international union’s … Read MoreMoranda Smith (1915-1950)
Robert Carlos DeLarge was born a slave in Aiken, South Carolina on March 15, 1842. Rare for that period, DeLarge graduated from Wood High School in Charleston and worked as a tailor and farmer before becoming involved in politics. He served as an agent for … Read MoreRobert Carlos DeLarge (1842-1874)
Robert Smalls was born in Beaufort, South Carolina, on April 5, 1839 and worked as a house slave until the age of 12. At that point his owner, John K. McKee, sent him to Charleston to work as a waiter, ship rigger, and sailor, with … Read MoreRobert Smalls (1839 -1915)
The Fifty-fourth Massachusetts Infantry Regiment was the first Northern black volunteer regiment enlisted to fight in the Civil War. Its accomplished combat record led to the general recruitment of African-Americans as soldiers. They ultimately comprised ten percent of Union Army and Navy. The Fifty-fourth’s successful … Read More54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment (1863-1865)
The phrase “forty acres and a mule” evokes the federal government’s failure to redistribute land after the Civil War and the economic hardship that African Americans suffered as a result. As Northern armies moved through the South at the end of the war, blacks began … Read MoreForty Acres and a Mule
William and Ellen Craft were born into slavery. William was born in Macon, Georgia to a master who sold off his family to pay his gambling debts. William’s new owner apprenticed him as a carpenter in order to earn money from his labor. Ellen was … Read MoreWilliam and Ellen Craft (1824-1900; 1826-1891)
William Harvey Carney was born a slave in Norfolk, Virginia in 1840. His father William Sr. had escaped slavery through the Underground Railroad and eventually earned enough money to buy the freedom of his wife and son. After freeing his family, the reunited Carneys moved … Read MoreWilliam H. Carney (1840-1908)
