Henry Walton Bibb was the eldest of the seven male children of Mildred Jackson. Henry was told that his father, whom he never met, was a man named James Bibb. He grew up in bondage in the Deep South, and claims to have been owned … Read MoreHenry Bibb (1815-1854)
Born March 1, 1927 as Harold George Bellanfanti Jr. in Harlem, New York, to parents Melvine Love Bellanfanti, a Jamaican housekeepter, and Harold George Bellanfanti, Sr., of Martinique, who worked as a chef for the National Guard. Belafonte grew from being a troubled youth to … Read MoreHarry Belafonte (1927- )
First organized in 1916 as the 15th New York National Guard Infantry Regiment and manned by black enlisted soldiers with both black and white officers, the U.S. Army’s 369th Infantry Regiment, popularly known as the “Harlem Hellfighters,” was the best known African American unit of … Read More369th Infantry Regiment “Harlem Hellfighters”
Granville T. Woods was a prominent inventor and electrical engineer who developed inventions that were awarded 27 patents by the U.S. Patent Office between 1884 and 1903. Because of his significant electrical inventions he is known as the “Black Edison.” Woods was born on April … Read MoreGranville T. Woods (1856-1910)
Dr. George Franklin Grant was the first African American professor at Harvard. He was born in Oswego, New York to former slaves. When he was fifteen years old a local dentist, Dr. Albert Smith, hired him as an errand boy. He soon became a lab … Read MoreGeorge Franklin Grant (1847-1910)
Born December 18, 1897 to a middle class family in Cuthbert, Georgia, Fletcher Henderson grew up to become one of the key figures in the development of the form and style of the large jazz orchestra. Despite the fact that he grew up in a … Read MoreFletcher Hamilton Henderson, Jr. (1897-1952)
Elizabeth Freeman was born into slavery in Claverack, New York in 1742. During the 1770s, she lived in the household of Colonel John Ashley of Sheffield, a prominent citizen who at that time also served as a judge of the Berkshire Court of Common Pleas. … Read MoreElizabeth Freeman (Mum Bett) (1742-1829)
Charles L. Reason was born on July 21, 1818 in New York City. His parents, Michiel and Elizabeth Reason, were immigrants from Haiti who arrived in the United States shortly after the Haitian Revolution of 1793. His parents emphasized the importance of education, and very … Read MoreCharles Lewis Reason (1818-1893)
A major figure in Harlem community politics and the Communist Party during the 1930s and 1940s, Benjamin Davis, Jr. was born into a prominent African American family in Atlanta, Georgia in 1903. He migrated north to Massachusetts to attend college at Amherst, where he was … Read MoreBenjamin Davis, Jr. (1903-1964)
Trinidad-born dental surgeon and Spanish Civil War veteran Arnold Donowa was born on December 1895 in Trinidad. Very little is known about his childhood there but by the early 1920s he was living in the United States and earned his D.D.S. from Howard University in … Read MoreArnold Bennett Donowa (1896-1964)
