Anthony “Van” Jones is a social-environmental activist and the Obama administration’s former “Green Czar.” He was born in 1968 in Jackson, Tennessee. His mother and father were a high school teacher and junior-high principal respectively. While growing up, Jones was a stereotypical “geek,” going so … Read MoreAnthony “Van” Jones (1968- )
Elwood Watson, a professor of history at East Tennessee State University, is one of the few African American cultural historians to focus his research on the Miss America pageant. In the article below he examines the success of eight black women in winning the pageant … Read MoreThe Racial Politics of Miss America
Visual artist, storyteller and feminist activist, Faith Ringgold was born on October 8, 1930 in Harlem Hospital, New York City to Andrew Louis Jones, Sr. and Willie Edell Jones (Willi Posey), a fashion designer and dressmaker. An arts graduate from City College in New York … Read MoreFaith Ringgold (1930-2024)
Neil deGrasse Tyson is an American astronomer and astrophysicist and Frederick P. Rose Director of the Hayden Planetarium in New York City. Tyson was born on 5 October 1958 to Sunchita Feliciano Tyson and Cyril deGrasse Tyson, a sociologist who would later become active in … Read MoreNeil deGrasse Tyson (1958- )
The Civil Rights Movement and investigative journalism combined in the early 1960s, inciting a nation to address the growing problem of poverty in America. A 1963 New York Times series on Appalachian poverty and Michael Harrington’s The Other America (1962) inspired discontent young Americans as … Read MoreWar on Poverty
Lisa Perez Jackson, the first African American Administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), brings a wealth of experience to that agency. A scientist by profession, she has spent more than 20 years working as an advocate for the better use and awareness of … Read MoreLisa Perez Jackson (1962- )
Wyatt Tee Walker, civil rights leader, pastor, and theologian, was born on August 16, 1928, in Brockton, Massachusetts to John Wise and Maude Pinn Walker. Wyatt attended elementary and high school in Merchantville, New Jersey. He earned a B.S. in chemistry and physics from Virginia … Read MoreWyatt Tee Walker (1928-2018)
“I am astounded. I cannot account for it, no one can. No one understands it,” a St Louis man uttered after watching Blind Tom perform in concert in 1866. His mystification was by no means isolated. Few other performers on the nineteenth century stage aroused … Read MoreConfounded: The Enigma of “Blind Tom” Wiggins
John W. Rogers Jr., business executive, investor, and entrepreneur, was born in Chicago, Illinois on March 31, 1958. Rogers’s mother was Jewel S. Lafontant, a prominent Republican attorney and federal government official and his father was John W. Rogers, a Chicago circuit court judge. Rogers … Read MoreJohn W. Rogers (1958- )
Carl Lewis was a successful track and field athlete whose career spanned two decades from 1979 to 1997. He won ten medals as a member of five Olympic teams and won ten World Championship medals. Carl Lewis was born in Birmingham, Alabama, on July 1, … Read MoreFrederick Carlton “Carl” Lewis (1961- )
