Image Ownership: Center for Black Music Research (Fair Use) Musician, composer, and conductor Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson was born on June 14, 1932, in Manhattan, New York City. Perkinson’s mother, a talented pianist, organist, and theater director in the Bronx, named her son after the Afro-British composer, … Read MoreColeridge-Taylor Perkinson (1932-2004)
Concert bass-baritone singer, actor, and teacher William Caesar Warfield was born on January 22, 1920 in West Helena, Arkansas to a family of sharecroppers. When Warfield was a young child, his family moved to Rochester, New York, where his father served as a pastor for … Read MoreWilliam Warfield (1920-2002)
Musician, composer, professor, and conductor Fela Sowande was born May 1905 in Abeokuta, Nigeria. He was the son of Emmanuel Sowande, who was an Anglican priest and influential in the development of Nigerian sacred music. Fela Sowande was a musician and composer of music in … Read MoreOlufela Sowande (Fela) Obafunmilayo (1905-1987)
In 1953 baritone Robert McFerrin Sr. made history as the first African American to win the Metropolitan Opera House’s Auditions of the Air radio contest. On January 27, 1955, in the role of Ethiopian King Amonasro in Verdi’s Aida, McFerrin made history again by becoming … Read MoreRobert Keith McFerrin, Sr. (1921-2006)
Caterina Jarboro was born one of three children in Wilmington, North Carolina, to an American Indian mother and a black father who was a local barber. She was christened Katherine Lee Yarborough at St. Thomas Catholic Church in Wilmington. She received elementary school education at … Read MoreCaterina Jarboro (1903-1986)
Florence Beatrice Smith, the first black woman composer to garner an international reputation, was born in Little Rock, Arkansas, in 1887, to James H. Smith, a dentist, and Florence Gulliver Smith, a former school teacher and private lesson piano teacher who also managed several local … Read MoreFlorence Beatrice Smith Price (1887-1953)
Robert A. Pinn, attorney, and Civil War hero, received the Congressional Medal of Honor from President Abraham Lincoln in 1865. Pinn was born free to William and Zilphia Broxton-Pinn, in Stark County, Ohio on March 1, 1843. His father William Pinn escaped from slavery and … Read MoreRobert Alexander Pinn (1843-1911)
Blockbusting refers to the practice of introducing African American homeowners into previously all white neighborhoods in order to spark rapid white flight and housing price decline. Real estate speculators have historically used this technique to profit from prejudice-driven market instability. After intentionally placing an African … Read MoreBlockbusting
Ada Beatrice Queen Victoria Louise Virginia Smith (“Bricktop”), vaudevillian actress, singer, nightclub owner, and international celebrity host, was born August 14, 1894 in Alderson, West Virginia, to Thomas and Hattie Thompson Smith. Her father passed away in 1898 and Mrs. Smith moved Ada and her … Read MoreAda “Bricktop” Smith (1894-1984)
Image Courtesy of Kaiser Health News Otis Brawley is an American physician, oncologist, researcher, author, and health care reform advocate, who is currently the Chief Medical and Scientific Officer and Executive Vice President of the American Cancer Society (the largest non-profit health-oriented charity in the … Read MoreOtis Webb Brawley (1959- )
