The Chicago Defender was founded in 1905 by Robert Sengstacke Abbott. Abbott published the first issue, a run of 300 copies, on May 6, 1905. The Defender began as a four-page weekly handbill filled with local news and reproductions of clippings from other newspapers. Abbott … Read MoreChicago Defender (1905- )
Frances Mary McHie Rains, an African American community worker, educator, businesswoman, and nurse, was born on January 29, 1911 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Inspired by local black activist and businesswoman W. Gertrude Brown, McHie decided to become a social worker. After graduating from high school she … Read MoreFrances Rains (1911-2006)
Carrie Meek was born on April 29, 1926, in Tallahassee, Florida. Her parents were sharecroppers and her childhood neighborhood was racially segregated. Meek attended and graduated from Florida A&M University. Graduate schools in Florida were still segregated at this time so she was forced to … Read MoreCarrie Meek (1926-2021)
Charles Diggs was born in Detroit, Michigan in 1922. His father was Charles Coles Diggs and his mother was Mayme Jones Diggs. Young Diggs had an upper middle class background; his father, a prominent mortician and real estate developer, served in the Michigan State Senate. … Read MoreCharles Diggs (1922-1998)
Glenn C. Loury was the first African American Professor to earn tenure at Harvard. He also achieved prominence as a public intellectual, first as a conservative and then as a more liberal commentator. Born in 1948, Loury grew up on Chicago, Illinois’ South Side. His … Read MoreGlenn C. Loury (1948- )
The son of Asa and Ruth Sheffey who named him Asa Bundy at birth, poet Robert Hayden was born in Detroit, Michigan and reared in “Paradise Valley,” an inner city ghetto. Adoptive parents, William and Sue Ellen Westerfield Hayden, gave him the name by which … Read MoreEarl Robert Hayden (1913-1980)
During the summer of 1930 street vendor Wallace D. Fard appeared in Detroit, Michigan‘s Paradise Valley community, proclaiming himself to be the leader of the Nation of Islam (NOI) and proselytizing among his customers according to his Islamic beliefs. Fard’s doctrine revolved around the claim … Read MoreNation of Islam (1930– )
Elijah Muhammad, the most prominent leader of the Nation of Islam (NOI), was born Elijah Poole in Sandersville, Georgia, on October 7, 1897. He was the son of sharecropper and Baptist minister Wallace Poole and his wife, Mariah. During his childhood in the racially segregated … Read MoreElijah Muhammad (1897-1975)
In response to the mass exodus from the south in 1879 and 1880, Kansas Governor and Quaker John St. John established the Kansas Freedman’s Relief Association (KFRA). The Association was created in 1879 to “aid destitute freedmen, refugees and immigrants” who were migrating to Kansas. … Read MoreKansas Freedman’s Relief Association (1879-1881)
Robert Franklin Williams was a militant civil rights leader whose open advocacy of armed self-defense anticipated the movement for “black power” in the late 1960s and helped inspire groups like the Student National Coordinating Committee, the Revolutionary Action Movement, and the Black Panther Party. Williams … Read MoreRobert F. Williams (1925-1996)
