Chadwick Aaron Boseman was born on November 29, 1976 in Anderson, South Carolina, to Carolyn and Leroy Boseman. His mother was a nurse, and his father was a factory worker. Boseman played little league baseball and basketball in his youth and attended T.L. Hanna High … Read MoreChadwick Aaron Boseman (1976-2020)
The Peekskill Riot was a series of violent attacks by mobs of white citizens directed against African Americans and Jews attending a civil rights benefit concert in Westchester County, New York, in 1949. More than 150 people were injured in the riots. The concert, planned … Read MorePeekskill Riot (1949)
Miriam Esther Jiménez Román, professor, editor, archivist, curator, social theorist, author, and activist was born on June 11, 1951 in the coastal city of Aguadilla, Puerto Rico to Arcelia Román Ruiz (1931-2009) of Vega Baja and Afro-Puerto Rican Baldomero Jiménez Font (1928-1999) of Piedras Blancas. … Read MoreMiriam Jiménez Román (1951-2020)
Ron O’Neal was a charismatic and gifted actor who never fulfilled the early promise he had shown on the New York Off-Broadway stage following his appearance as a flashy drug dealer in the hit blaxploitation film Super Fly (1972), the role that made him a … Read MoreRon O’Neal (1937-2004)
Lisa Gelobter is a computer scientist, entrepreneur, and technology executive. Gelobter worked on several pioneering internet technologies, and she is credited with developing the animation used to create GIFs. She served as the Chief Digital Service Officer for the U.S. Department of Education during the … Read MoreLisa Gelobter (1971- )
In 1969, Byron Eugene Lewis opened UniWorld Group (UWG), the oldest multicultural advertising and communications firm in the United States. From the outset, he focused on a Black and Brown target audience that was not well-represented in the media. Over the next few decades, UWG … Read MoreByron Eugene Lewis Sr. (1931- )
On July 2, 2018, Lieutenant General Darryl A. Williams became the first African American to be sworn in to lead the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York. Born in Alexandria, Virginia, the son of former Army officer Lonnie Buford Williams, Darryl A. … Read MoreDarryl Atwell Cecil Williams (1961- )
As a child, concert violinist and professor Elwyn A. Adams was a musical prodigy of some notoriety in the African American community of Cleveland, Ohio, where he was born on August 3, 1933. At age five he gave his first violin recital at East Mt. … Read MoreElwyn Albert Adams (1933-1995)
Patricia Ann McGrath is founder and CEO of a cosmetic business which in 2018 was valued in excess of $1 billion and she is heralded as the world’s most influential make-up artist. Born June 11, 1970 in Northampton, England, she is the daughter of Jean … Read MorePatricia Ann McGrath (1965- )
Nigerian-born Njideka Akunyili Crosby is a leading contemporary artist. In early 2018 a typically large-scale painting by Crosby sold for $3 million, just a few months after she had won a MacArthur Foundation “genius” award worth $624,000. Born in 1983 in Enugu, Nigeria, she is … Read MoreNjideka Akunyili Crosby (1983- )
