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)
Longtime civil rights organizer and later U.S. Ambassador, Franklin Hall Williams was born on October 22, 1917, in Flushing, New York. His mother died in 1919. Williams was raised by his maternal grandparents. He graduated from Lincoln University in Chester County, Pennsylvania in 1941. After … Read MoreFranklin Hall Williams (1917-1990)
Harold Jenkins was an African American entrepreneur and owner of the renowned Slim Jenkins Supper Club in Oakland, California, popular from the 1930s to the 1960s. Jenkins was born July 22, 1890, in Monroe, Louisiana and relocated to Oakland shortly after World War I, and … Read MoreHarold “Slim” Jenkins (1890-1967)
Ronald Kenneth Noble is the first African American to serve as Secretary General of the International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol) headquartered in Lyon, France. Born in 1956 at Fort Dix, New Jersey, Noble is the son of an African American soldier and a German mother. … Read MoreRonald Noble (1956 -)
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.
“Image Ownership: Public Domain” Noah Webster Griffin is best known as the first director of the West Coast Regional Office of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), established by the national headquarters in 1942. Griffin was born in 1896 to formerly … Read MoreNoah Webster Griffin Sr. (1896-1974)
Dean P. Baquet is primarily known as a Pulitzer Prize winner in journalism and the first African American executive editor of the New York Times. Baquet was born on September 21, 1956 in New Orleans, Louisiana, into a middle class family which included four other … Read MoreDean P. Baquet (1956- )
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 Ownership: Public Domain” Historians rarely compare the mostly working-class and poor Korean population in Japan and African Americans seeking economic justice in the United States. Japanese scholar Kazuyo Tsuchiya of Kanagawa University takes on that task in her new book, Reinventing Citizenship: Black Los … Read MoreThe TransPacific Struggle over Citizenship: Seeking Welfare Rights in Kawasaki City, Japan and Los Angeles, California,1962-1982
The Philadelphia Plan was a federal affirmative action program established in 1967 to racially integrate the building construction trade unions through mandatory goals for nonwhite hiring on federal construction contracts. Declared illegal in 1968, a revised version was successfully defended by the Nixon Administration and … Read MoreThe Philadelphia Plan (1967-1970)
