Sometime in 2013, the African American consumer market exceeded the trillion dollar mark for the first time. To put this figure in perspective, that market is larger than the market for the entire nation of Spain. In the article below business historian Robert Weems briefly … Read MoreThe Trillion Dollar African American Consumer Market: Economic Empowerment or Economic Dependency?
Communist Party Leaders: Claudia Jones, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, Pettis Perry & Betty Gannet, ca. 1951 “Image Ownership: Public Domain” U.S. Communist Party leader Pettis Perry was born on January 4, 1897, on a tenant farm near Marion, Alabama. His mother died when he was a … Read MorePettis Perry (1897-1965)
“Image Ownership: Public Domain” In 2004 former President Clinton’s and former First Lady Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s official oil portraits were revealed in the East Room at the executive mansion. The artist, Simmie Lee Knox, became in 2002 the first African American artist to get … Read MoreSimmie Lee Knox (1935- )
Samuel (“Sammy”) Leamon Younge Jr. was a 21-year-old civil rights activist who was shot to death on January 3, 1966 when he attempted to use a whites-only restroom at a gas station in Macon County, Alabama. He was a navy veteran studying political science at … Read MoreSamuel (“Sammy”) Leamon Younge, Jr. (1944-1966)
Civil rights activist Virna Mae Canson was born in Bridgeport, Oklahoma, to William A. and Eula Gross Dobson on June 10, 1921. Both of her parents were schoolteachers. She grew up in Lima, Oklahoma, a mostly African American town where her father served as mayor. … Read MoreVirna Mae Canson (1921-2003)
Freddie Mae Gautier with Elisa Miranda, 1990 “Image Ownership: El Centro de la Raza” Freddie Mae Gautier, civil rights activist, political advisor, businesswoman, and mentor was arguably the most politically influential black woman in Seattle in the latter half of the twentieth century. Born at … Read MoreFreddie Mae Hurd Gautier (1930–2001)
“Image Ownership: Public Domain” Hawaii State Senator Charles M. Campbell was born in North Carolina in 1918. He grew up there and received an A.D. degree from North Carolina College in Durham. He also received an M.A. degree from Howard University and a second M.A. … Read MoreCharles M. Campbell (1918-1986)
Eddie Gardner Crossing the Mississippi River at St. Louis, 1929 “Image Courtesty of Charles Kastner” In the following account, sports historian Charles Kastner describes the remarkable athletic career of Eddie “the Sheik” Gardner of Seattle, Washington. Gardner was arguably the greatest ultramarathoner in Pacific Northwest … Read MoreEddie “the Sheik” Gardner: An Ultramarathoning Legend and Unsung Hero in the Struggle for Racial Equality in America.
William Manning Marable was an influential social commentator, writer, and professor of political science, public affairs, history, and African American studies. He was born on May 13, 1950 in Dayton, Ohio to James and June Morehead Marable. Previously married twice, he married anthropologist Leith Mullings … Read MoreManning Marable (1950-2011)
(Image Courtesy of the Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley) Nathaniel Sextus Colley, the first African American attorney in Sacramento, California, was born on November 21, 1918 in Carlowsville, Alabama. The youngest of six brothers, Colley grew up in Snow Hill, Alabama, and graduated from … Read MoreNathaniel Sextus Colley (1918-1992)
