Sissieretta Jones was a world-famous soprano who in June 1892 became the first African American to perform at Carnegie Hall in New York City, New York. Touring internationally in the late 1800s and early 1900s, she sang both classical opera and performed in musical comedies … Read MoreSissieretta Jones (1869-1933)
Blanche Kelso Bruce was born a slave in 1841 in Prince Edward County, Virginia but was raised in Missouri. Shortly after the beginning of the Civil War, Bruce fled to Kansas, becoming a free man before Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation. After the Civil War he returned … Read MoreBlanche Kelso Bruce (1841-1898)
Recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, attorney Oliver White Hill spent more than 60 years in a practice devoted to civil rights causes. He was in the forefront of the legal effort to desegregate public schools, participating in the … Read MoreOliver W. Hill (1907-2007)
William Henry Brisby was born free in New Kent County, Virginia in 1831 and lived on 32 acres of land that he inherited from his father. He later bought additional land and eventually had a 179 acre farm. Brisby worked mostly as a blacksmith and … Read MoreWilliam H. Brisby (1831-1916)
The First Baptist Church, founded in 1780 by Joshua Morris, emerged in the aftermath of the Great Awakening religious revival movement (1730s-1770s) that spread across the South. In contrast to the other churches in Richmond organized during the same time, the First Baptist attracted both … Read MoreFirst Baptist Church, Richmond, Virginia (1780- )
U.S. Ambassador Orison Rudolph Aggrey was born in Salisbury, North Carolina, the son of James Emman Kwegyir, an African immigrant who became an American college professor, and Rose Rudolph (Douglass) Aggrey, an African American woman. He earned a B.S. degree from Hampton Institute, where he … Read MoreOrison Rudolph Aggrey (1926-2016 )
Sally Hemings was born into slavery in Virginia, probably at Guinea Plantation in Cumberland County, the youngest of six children of Elizabeth Hemings allegedly fathered by her white master John Wayles. Her mother was herself the child of an enslaved African woman and an English … Read MoreSally Hemings (1773-1835)
Reverend John Jasper is arguably one of the most famous black ministers of nineteenth-century Richmond, Virginia, who gained popularity for his electrifying preaching style and his ability to spiritually move both black and white Baptists. He began his career in the early 1840s, preaching at … Read MoreJohn J. Jasper (1812-1901)
Jordan Hatcher was a seventeen-year-old enslaved tobacco worker in Richmond, Virginia, who in 1852 rose from obscurity to notoriety when charged with assaulting and killing white overseer William Jackson. According to newspaper accounts and trial records, Hatcher was working at the Walker & Harris tobacco … Read MoreJordan Hatcher Case (1852)
Following the momentum of student-led sit-ins in Greensboro, North Carolina and Nashville, Tennesssee in early 1960, an interracial group of activists, led by Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) Executive Director James Farmer, decided to continue to challenge Jim Crow segregation in the South by organizing … Read MoreFreedom Rides (1961)
