Today Ferdinand L. Barnett is best known as the husband of anti-lynching crusader, Ida Wells Barnett. However by 1879, Barnett, a graduate of Chicago’s College of Law and editor the Chicago Conservator, the city’s first black newspaper, which he founded in 1878, was one of … Read More(1879) Ferdinand L. Barnett, “Race Unity”
As African Americans increasingly realized that Reconstruction would not usher in permanent citizenship rights and in fact did not protect them from violence, some black leaders began to call for alternative approaches. Not surprisingly a some again urged African American colonization in Africa. In October, … Read More(1877) John E. Bruce, “Reasons Why the Colored American Should Go to Africa”
York was an African American slave best known for his participation in the (Meriwether) Lewis and (William) Clark Expedition of 1804-1806. York was born in Caroline County, Virginia in 1770. York, his father, mother (Rose), and younger sister and brother (Nancy and Juba) were all … Read MoreYork (1770-1832)
William Levi Dawson was a well-known Chicago, Illinois lawyer who became one of the city’s most influential politicians. His career paralleled the rising significance of African Americans in the Democratic Party. Dawson was born in Albany, Georgia on April 26, 1886. Little is known of … Read MoreWilliam Levi Dawson [Politician] (1886-1970)
Olympic athlete and scientist James Ellis Lu Valle was born in San Antonio, Texas on November 10, 1912 but grew up in Los Angeles where he made use of a library card even before entering elementary school. Academics was always uppermost in his mind despite … Read MoreJames E. Lu Valle (1912-1993)
George L. Vaughn was a black lawyer and civic leader in St. Louis, Missouri best known for representing J.D. Shelley and Herman Willer in the landmark civil rights case Shelley v. Kraemer (1948). Born to former slaves and raised in Kentucky, Vaughn graduated from Lane College … Read MoreGeorge L. Vaughan (1885-1950)
Newspaper publisher and civil rights activist Daisy Lee Gatson Bates was influential in the integration of the Little Rock Nine into Little Rock, Arkansas’s Central High School in 1957. She was born Daisy Lee Gatson on November 11, 1914, in Huttih, Arkansas. Her mother, Millie … Read MoreDaisy Lee Gatson Bates (1914-1999)
Sarah Blair was born into slavery on Christmas Day, 1855, on the Blair Plantation near Greensboro, North Carolina. After the Civil War Sarah lived with an aunt in Knoxville, Tennessee and changed her name to Gammon, the aunt’s name. In 1870, Knoxville Judge John L. … Read MoreSarah Gammon Bickford (1855-1931)
Dr. Rosalie Reddick Miller was the first African American woman dentist to practice in the state of Washington. She was born on December 29, 1925 in Waycross, Georgia. She attended the all-black public schools in Columbus, Georgia, and in 1946 received a B.A. from Fisk … Read MoreRosalie Reddick Miller (1925-2005)
Described as the “most untalked about, unappreciated, unknown giant in the African American community,” by Dr. Levi Watkins, Jr., Vivien Thomas received an honorary doctorate from Johns Hopkins University in 1976, and while this was undoubtedly memorable, the decades which preceded this moment were equally … Read MoreVivien Thomas (1910-1985)
