“Image Ownership: Preston Mack/Darden” Corporate CEO Clarence Otis was born April 11, 1956, in Vicksburg, Mississippi. His father, Clarence Otis Sr., worked as a janitor while his mother, Calanthus Hall Otis, stayed home to raise their three children. The family moved to the Watts section … Read MoreClarence Otis (1956– )
The murder of Mack Charles Parker is considered one of the last civil rights era lynchings. On the night of April 24, 1959, a mob abducted Parker from the Pearl River County Jail in Poplarville, Mississippi, where he was awaiting trial for the alleged crime … Read MoreMack Charles Parker (1936-1959)
In the following essay independent historian Robert Fikes explores the eclectic experiences of African Americans in the world’s largest nation in the 19th and 20th Centuries It was in May 1824 that Nancy Gardner Prince, rescued from a life of poverty and hardship in Massachusetts … Read MoreIn the Land of Czars and Commissars: African Americans in Russia, the Soviet Union, and Post-Soviet Russia, 1824-2015
“Image Ownership: Public Domain” Ambassador Joyce Anne Barr was born in 1951 in Tacoma, Washington. She received her Bachelor of Arts degree in Business Administration from Pacific Lutheran University in 1976, where she graduated Magna Cum Laude. Ambassador Barr earned her Master of Public Administration … Read MoreJoyce A. Barr (1951- )
Image Ownership: Public Domain” Cornell William Brooks, currently the President of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), was born in El Paso, Texas, in 1961. His family moved to Georgetown, South Carolina, just before he began junior high school. After graduating … Read MoreCornell William Brooks (1961- )
“Image Ownership: Washington Informer” William James Raspberry, who wrote a prominent public affairs column for The Washington Post for nearly 40 years, was one of the first extensively read African American journalist commentators with a wide readership in the mainstream press. From 1995 to 2008 … Read MoreWilliam James Raspberry (1935-2012)
Born in Jackson, Mississippi in 1934, Henry Thomas Sampson, Jr. was a prolific inventor and pioneer in the field of nuclear engineering. Sampson was also a pioneer in the technology that is used in modern cell phones, but contrary to a widely held belief, he … Read MoreHenry Thomas Sampson (1934-2015)
In the extended article that appears below historians Daudi Abe and Quintard Taylor explore the history of African Americans in King County from 1858 to 2014. They analyze the forces which encouraged people of African ancestry to settle in the county and discuss the rapid … Read MoreFrom Memphis and Mogadishu: The History of African Americans in King County, Washington, 1858-2014
Samuel (“Sammy”) Leamon Younge Jr. was a 21-year-old civil rights activist who was shot to death on January 3, 1966 when he attempted to use a whites-only restroom at a gas station in Macon County, Alabama. He was a navy veteran studying political science at … Read MoreSamuel (“Sammy”) Leamon Younge, Jr. (1944-1966)
Memorial to James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner at Mt. Zion United Methodist Church “Image Ownership: Public Domain” On June 15, 2014, as part of the commemoration of the fiftieth anniversary of the Mississippi Freedom Summer, Rita Bender returned to Mt. Zion United Methodist … Read More(2014) Rita Bender, “Thoughts for the People of Mt. Zion United Methodist Church”
