In 2018, Ayanna Soynini Pressley became the first African American woman elected to represent the 7th District in Massachusetts. She unseated ten-term congressman Michael Capuano, a Democrat, in the August primary of that year. Ayanna Soynini Pressley was born on February 3, 1974, in Chicago, … Read MoreAyanna Pressley (1974- )
Merze Tate, a historian, political author, world traveler, and philanthropist, was the first African American to graduate from Oxford University. She was born during a terrible blizzard in rural Blanchard, Michigan on February 6, 1905 to Charles and Myrtle Tate, both farmers. Her grandparents were … Read MoreVernie Merze Tate (1905-1996)
Toussaint Tourgee Tildon was a physician and psychiatrist with the Hospital for Sick and Injured Colored World War Veterans (1923), later named the Veterans Administration of Tuskegee, Alabama (1923) from October 1923 until his retirement as Hospital Director on January 31, 1958. Tildon’s writing on African American veterans appeared in the VA Medical Bulletin (1925) and the Journal … Read MoreToussaint Tourgee Tildon, M.D. (1893-1964)
Kofi Atta Annan, born on April 8, 1938 in Kumasi, Ghana, served as the seventh Secretary-General of the United Nations (UN) between 1997 and 2006. He was the first person of African descent to hold that post. Annan grew up in Kumasi but attended Mfantsipim School, … Read MoreKofi A. Annan (1938-2018)
The 25th Infantry Bicycle Corps was a unit of black soldiers commanded by a white officer, Lt. James A. Moss, which was formed in 1896 to test the combat viability of bicycle-mounted troops by riding from Missoula, Montana to Saint Louis, Missouri. Moss, a West Point graduate and … Read More25th Infantry Bicycle Corps (1896-97)
Located in the Sandhills of Cherry County, Nebraska, the settlement of DeWitty was established in 1908 by black homesteaders who constructed housing made of stacked sod. These settlers farmed some of the least hospitable land in the state. The families were spurred to the area by the 1904 … Read MoreDeWitty/Audacious, Nebraska (1908- )
Lieutenant General Larry R. Jordan is a former Army officer, former Senior Vice President of Burdeshaw Associates, Ltd., and current Principal of LNJ Group, LLC. Jordan served for 35 years as member of the U.S. Army, completing two active combat tours in Vietnam and Operation Desert Storm(Iraq). Jordan ended his … Read MoreLarry R. Jordan (1946- )
Robert Morris became one of the first black lawyers in United States after being admitted to the Massachusetts bar in 1847. Morris was born in Salem, Massachusetts on June 8, 1823. At an early age, Morris had some formal education at Master Dodge’s School in Salem. With the agreement … Read MoreRobert Morris Sr. (1823–1882)
Image Ownership: Public Domain Scholar and civil rights activist Julius Lester was born January 27, 1939 in St. Louis, Missouri, the son of a Methodist minister. Lester spent much of his childhood in Missouri, where in the 1940s and 1950s he dealt with southern attitudes about race and segregation before and during the … Read MoreJulius Lester (1939- )
Former Naval officer Gerald Eustis Thomas served as United States Ambassador to Guyana and Kenya. Born in Natick, Massachusetts on June 23, 1929 to Walter and Leila Thomas, President Ronald W. Reagan appointed Gerald E. Thomas to both ambassadorships. Thomas began his undergraduate studies at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln in Lincoln, Nebraska. He transferred to Harvard University … Read MoreGerald E. Thomas (1929- )