Organized in 1836, the Witherspoon Street Church is one of the oldest African American Presbyterian congregations in New Jersey. On March 10, 1836, 90 out of 131 former African American members of the Nassau Presbyterian Church were released from the congregation to form their own … Read MoreWitherspoon Street Church (1836- )
In 1978 Joseph Freeman became the first man of African ancestry to be granted the priesthood after the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) announced that any male could be ordained, regardless of race or color. Freeman was born July 24, 1953, in … Read MoreJoseph Freeman (1953– )
Ann Gregory was a pioneering African American female golfer. Born in Aberdeen, Mississippi, on July 25, 1912, Gregory was the middle child of five born to Henry and Myra Moore. Her parents died in a car accident when she was four, and their former employer, … Read MoreAnn Moore Gregory (1912-1990)
African American artist and dancer Thelma Johnson Streat was born in Yakima, Washington on August 29, 1912, the second of Gertrude Beatrice Carson and James A. Johnson’s five children. Streat’s artistic ability was evident at a young age. She graduated from Washington High School in … Read MoreThelma Beatrice Johnson Streat (1912-1959)
Sylvia Stanfield, a career member of the Senior Foreign Service with the rank of Minister-Counselor, took up her post as U.S. Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States of America to Brunei in November 1999. President William J. Clinton appointed Ambassador Stanfield to the … Read MoreSylvia Gaye Stanfield (1943- )
Career Foreign Service officer Pamela L. Spratlen was nominated by President Barack Obama in July 2014 to become U.S. Ambassador to Uzbekistan, and after confirmation by the U.S. Senate was sworn in on January 6, 2015. This important Central Asian appointment rewarded her outstanding policy … Read MorePamela L. Spratlen (1954- )
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)
“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)
In the account below historian Lorraine McConaghy uses the story of black sailor Robert Shorter to indicate that while the Civil War freed nearly four million slaves, it also set in motion the status decline of antebellum African American seamen. The eleven years Robert Shorter … Read MoreEleven Years in the U.S. Navy: The Strange Saga of Robert Shorter
Ice-T, pioneering West Coast rapper, singer and actor, was born Tracy Marrow in Newark, New Jersey to Solomon and Alice Marrow on February 16, 1958. The Marrows were a working-class African American family who lived in the predominantly white town of Summit, New Jersey, where … Read MoreTracy Lauren “Ice-T” Marrow (1958- )
