Jennie R. Patrick became the first African American woman to earn a PhD in chemical engineering when she completed graduate studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1979. Patrick was born in Gadsden, Alabama on January 1, 1949. Her parents only had sixth … Read MoreJennie R. Patrick (1949- )
Peter Magubane was a South African photojournalist best known for his photos that exposed that nation’s Apartheid injustice and humanitarian crisis to the west. He was born outside Johannesburg, in Vrededorp, on January, 18, 1932, and grew up in Sophiatown. Magubane started his photographic career … Read MorePeter Sexford Magubane (1932-2024)
Dr. Lawrence Howland Knox, noted chemist, was born on September 30, 1906 in New Bedford, Massachusetts to William Jacob and Estella Knox. Knox was one of five children, two girls and three boys, and remarkably for that time, all of the boys earned PhDs; the … Read MoreLawrence Howland Knox (1906-1966)
The Prince Hall Masons are the oldest and largest group of Masons of African origin in the world. Today there are forty Grand Lodges of Prince Hall Freemasonry in the United States, Canada, the Bahamas, and Liberia. These Grand Lodges preside over more than 5,000 … Read MorePrince Hall Masons (1784- )
John Van Surly DeGrasse was a commissioned physician with the Union Army during the American Civil War and was the first black to be admitted to a United states medical society. He was born in June 1825 in New York City, New York to Count … Read MoreJohn Van Surly DeGrasse (1825-1868)
William B. Powell Jr., one of the first African American physicians to receive a contract as a surgeon with the Union Army, was free born in New Bedford, Massachusetts in 1834. His father, William Powell Sr., also in the medical practice, was African American, and … Read MoreWilliam B. Powell Jr. (1834-1915)
Late 19th and early 20th century African American playwright, novelist, and columnist Pauline Hopkins was born in Portland, Maine in 1859. Hopkins was born to free parents of color who raised her in Maine for a short period before moving to Boston, Massachusetts. Hopkins’s father, … Read MorePauline Elizabeth Hopkins (1859-1930)
Harlem Renaissance writer Dorothy West was born on June 2, 1907 in Boston, Massachusetts. She was the only child of Rachel Pease Benson and Isaac Christopher West. Isaac West was a former slave from Virginia whose small-business success afforded his daughter a childhood of relative … Read MoreDorothy West (1907-1998)
By 1854 William Lloyd Garrison was the most prominent abolitionist in the United States. Beginning with his newspaper, the Liberator, which he established in Boston in 1831, Garrison led the effort to end slavery in the nation. In this 1854 speech in Boston which appears … Read More(1854) William Lloyd Garrison, “No Compromise with the Evil of Slavery”
