Westley Sissel Unseld, 6-7 professional basketball player and coach, was born in Louisville, Kentucky, on March 14, 1946, to Charles Dorsey Unseld, a prizefighter, construction worker, oilman, and baseball player for the Indianapolis Clowns, and Cornelia Sissel Unseld. The family had nine children: seven brothers, … Read MoreWestley “Wes” Sissel Unseld (1946-2020)
Frederick Douglas Patterson was the first African American to build motorized cars. His father, Charles Rich Patterson, a former enslaved person, created C. R. Patterson and Sons Company, located in Greenfield, Ohio. Beginning in 1865, the company built fashionable carriages. Frederick Patterson inherited the company … Read MoreFrederick Douglas Patterson (1871-1932)
The Cleveland Buckeyes were a Negro League baseball team established initially as the Buckeyes Baseball Club, in Cincinnati, Ohio. On the eve of World War II, a white Cleveland sports promoter, Wilbur Hayes, approached Erie, Pennsylvania black businessman Ernest Wright about financially backing a Cleveland-based … Read MoreThe Cleveland Buckeyes (1941-1950)
John B (for the Baptist) Stradford was born a free man in Versailles, Kentucky in 1861. His father, J.C. Stradford was a former slave who had been emancipated and was living in Stradford, Ontario (Canada) but who returned to the U.S. and was in Versailles … Read MoreJohn “the Baptist” Stradford (1861-1935)
Activist, existential philosopher, professor, and Unitarian Universalist minister Rev. Dr. William “Bill” Ronald Jones dedicated his career to the analysis and methods of oppression, religious humanism, and liberation theology that influenced Africana philosophers such as Anthony B. Pinn and Lewis R. Gordon. Born July 17, … Read MoreBill Jones (1933-2012)
Donovan Mitchell Jr. is a basketball player who played for the Utah Jazz in the National Basketball Association (NBA). Mitchell was born on September 7, 1996 to Donovan Mitchell Sr and Nicole Mitchell in Elmford, New York. Mitchell also has one younger sister, Jordan Mitchell. … Read MoreDonovan Mitchell Jr. (1996- )
The son of Percival Leonard and Dorothy Stinson Everett, the author Percival Leonard Everett, was born on a military base outside Augusta, Georgia on December 22, 1956, but grew up in Columbia, South Carolina. In 1977 Everett received a bachelor’s degree in philosophy from the … Read MorePercival Everett (1956- )
Yvonne Young Clark, a pioneer in the field of science and engineering, was born April 13, 1929, in Houston, Texas. Her father was Dr. Coleman Milton Young Jr., a medical doctor and surgeon. Her mother was Hortense Houston Young, a library specialist and journalist. Clark … Read MoreYvonne Young Clark (1929-2019)
The South Conference For Human Welfare (SCHW), and the Southern Conference Education Fund (SCEF) which evolved out of it, were part of a broad movement to promote New Deal policies, civil rights, and economic and political reform in the South. Twelve hundred people, about 25% … Read MoreSouthern Conference For Human Welfare (1938-1948)
Daniel Jay Cameron is an attorney, politician, and the 51st Attorney General of Kentucky. Cameron was born on November 22, 1985 in Elizabethtown, Kentucky. His father owned a local coffee shop, and his mother was a professor at Elizabethtown Community & Technical College. Cameron graduated … Read MoreDaniel Jay Cameron (1985- )
