Although the facts regarding his birthplace and biological parents are inconclusive, Countee Cullen’s formative years were spent in New York City. The adopted son of Reverend Dr. Frederick A. Cullen, pastor of Salem Methodist Episcopal Church and president of the Harlem branch of the National … Read MoreCountee Cullen (1903-1946)
Noted historian, scholar, and educator Benjamin Author Quarles was born in Boston, Massachusetts on January 23, 1904. His father Arthur Benedict Quarles was a subway porter, and his mother Margaret O’Brien Quarles was a homemaker. In his twenties, Quarles enrolled at Shaw University in Raleigh, … Read MoreBenjamin A. Quarles (1904-1996)
Ida B. Wells emerged in the 1890s as the leading voice against the lynching of African Americans following the violent lynching of three of her friends. Beginning with an editorial in newspaper she owned, Memphis Free Speech in 1892 shortly after their deaths, she organized … Read More(1893) Ida B. Wells, “Lynch Law In All Its Phases”
In 1894 Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin founded the Women’s New Era Club, a charitable organization of sixty prominent black women in Boston. Soon afterwards she began editing its monthly publication, the Women’s Era. Encouraged by the success of the New Era Club and heartened by … Read More(1895) Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin, “Address to the First National Conference of Colored Women”
On July 27, 2004 Illinois Senatorial Candidate Barack Obama was propelled onto the national stage when he was chosen to give the keynote speech at the Democratic National Convention. Obama, then an Illinois State Senator, easily won his campaign the following November and became the … Read More(2004) Barack Obama Keynote Address At The Democratic National Convention, Boston
After World War II organized labor began to penetrate into some industrialized areas of the South where it inevitably confronted the issue of race. Unions such as the Food and Tobacco Workers affiliated with The Congress of Industrial Organizations, promoted racial integration and helped develop … Read More(1947) Moranda Smith Addresses The Congress Of Industrial Organizations Annual Convention, Boston
Wyatt Mordecai Johnson was born in Paris, Tennessee in 1890. A lifelong educator, Johnson held degrees from a number of institutions including a 1911 A.B. from Morehouse College and a Doctor of Divinity degree from Howard University. Three years after his graduation from Howard he … Read More(1922) Wyatt Mordecai Johnson, “The Faith of the American Negro“
Roscoe Conkling Bruce, born in 1879, was the only son of U.S. Senator Blanche K. Bruce and his wife Josephine. He attended Phillips Exeter and graduated from Harvard Phi Beta Kappa in 1902. Bruce became an educator. From 1903 to 1906 he supervised Tuskegee Institute’s … Read More(1905) Roscoe Conkling Bruce, “Freedom Through Education”
Long termed a “race riot,” the turmoil that enveloped Wilmington, North Carolina on November 10, 1898 is now called an armed insurrection. White supremacists drove from power all of the black and white elected officials of this predominately African American city in what was believed … Read More(1898) Rev. Charles S. Morris Describes The Wilmington Massacre of 1898
In an 1867 speech in Boston, Frederick Douglass challenged most social observers and politicians (including most African Americans) by advocating the acceptance of Chinese immigration. His argument is presented below. As nations are among the largest and the most complete divisions into which society is … Read More(1867) Frederick Douglass Describes The “Composite Nation”
