Charles Wilber “Bullet” Rogan, also known as Bullet Joe, was a pitcher and outfielder who played most of his baseball career for the Kansas City Monarchs in the Negro Baseball Leagues. Rogan was born on July 28, 1893 in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. His mother died … Read MoreCharles Wilber “Bullet” Rogan (1893-1967)
During the American Civil War, Fort Wagner was a Confederate stronghold that protected the harbor of Charleston, then the largest city in South Carolina. The fortress walls were made of sand and earth, and stood over 30 feet tall, and the fort itself was protected … Read MoreThe Second Battle of Fort Wagner (1863)
The first instance of Black soldiers engaging in significant combat during the Civil War was the Battle of Island Mound on Oct 29th, 1862 in Bates County, Missouri. With the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation issued on September 22nd, 1862, black soldiers had for more than one … Read MoreBattle of Island Mound (1862)
Historian and scholar Dr. Ralph Le Roy Crowder was born on March 29, 1947 in Des Moines, Iowa, to parents Ralph L. Crowder and Allie Crowder. An only child, Crowder attended public schools in Des Moines where he played football, basketball, and track. He graduated … Read MoreRalph L. Crowder (1947-2020)
American actor of stage and screen. He is perhaps best known known for films such as Shaft (1971), Ragtime (1981), and Heartbreak Ridge, (1986). He won his first Obie Award for his portrayal as Aaron in Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus, and was nominated for a Tony … Read MoreMoses Gunn (1929-1993)
Jeff Fort is a co-founder and former leader of the Chicago, Illinois street gang known by various names over time as the Blackstone Rangers, the Blackstone Nation, and the El Rukns. Fort was born on February 20, 1947 in Aberdeen, Mississippi to Annie Fort and … Read MoreJeff Fort (1947- )
Marion William Dial was the first African American elected to a city-wide office in Missouri. Dial was born in Chetopa, Kansas, on June 27, 1903. After receiving bachelors and master’s degrees from the Kansas State Teachers College (now Pittsburg State University), Dial embarked on a … Read MoreMarion William Dial (1903-1972)
Katherine Carper Sawyer is one of the nearly-forgotten plaintiffs in the famous Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision in 1954. While most attention was focused on Linda Brown’s central role in the most important school desegregation case in the nation’s history, in 1952 … Read MoreKatherine Carper Sawyer (1942- )
McKinley Langford Burnett was a little-known but significant figure in the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court case that theoretically desegregated public schools across the United States. Burnett was born in Oskaloosa, Kansas, a racially integrated small town, in 1897 to parents who … Read MoreMcKinley Langford Burnett (1897-1968)
Fred “The Hammer” Williamson is an African American actor-director-writer-producer who built and sustained a long career as a black action hero from the “blaxploitation” era of the 1970s to well into the twenty-first century. Born on March 5, 1938 in Gary, Indiana to parents Frank … Read MoreFred Williamson (1938- )
