Caterina Jarboro was born one of three children in Wilmington, North Carolina, to an American Indian mother and a black father who was a local barber. She was christened Katherine Lee Yarborough at St. Thomas Catholic Church in Wilmington. She received elementary school education at … Read MoreCaterina Jarboro (1903-1986)
Robert A. Pinn, attorney, and Civil War hero, received the Congressional Medal of Honor from President Abraham Lincoln in 1865. Pinn was born free to William and Zilphia Broxton-Pinn, in Stark County, Ohio on March 1, 1843. His father William Pinn escaped from slavery and … Read MoreRobert Alexander Pinn (1843-1911)
Deborah “Debbie” Allen, dancer, choreographer, actress, director, and producer was born January 16, 1950 in Houston, Texas to Arthur Allen, a dentist and Vivian Ayers, a poet. Allen comes from a creative family: Allen’s brother “Tex” Allen is a jazz musician, and older sister Phylicia … Read MoreDebbie Allen (1950- )
Elizabeth Hobbs Keckley is best known as Mary Lincoln’s dressmaker and confidant and as the author of Behind the Scenes By Elizabeth Keckley, Formerly a Slave, But More Recently Modiste, and Friend to Mrs. Abraham Lincoln, Or, Thirty Years a Slave, and Four Years in … Read MoreElizabeth Hobbs Keckley (1818-1907)
Clayton Pitre was a longtime Seattle, Washington-based community activist, former Chief Housing Developer for the Central Area Motivation Project (CAMP), and a retired Montford Point Marine. Born on June 30, 1924, to Gilbert Pitre and Eugenie Lemelle, Clayton Pitre was the fourth child of seven … Read MoreClayton Pitre (1924-2020)
Melody Barnes was chosen by then President-elect Barack Obama to serve as the Director of Domestic Policy Council shortly after the presidential election in 2008, a position she held until her resignation at the end of 2011. Born in Richmond, Virginia to Charles and Mary … Read MoreMelody Barnes (1964- )
Vernon Earl “Earl the Pearl” Monroe, a retired National Basketball Association (NBA) player, was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1944. During his NBA career Monroe was an All-Star guard for the Baltimore Bullets and New York Knicks. Monroe was a student at Philadelphia’s Bertram High … Read MoreVernon Earl “Earl the Pearl” Monroe (1944- )
Alan Gilbert, University of Denver political scientist and anti-racist activist, is the author of Black Patriots and Loyalists: Fighting for Emancipation in the War for Independence, one of the few works that examines the free and enslaved blacks who joined the American Patriots and the … Read MoreFighting for Freedom on Both Sides of the American Revolution
The Republic of New Africa (RNA) is a black nationalist organization that was created in 1969 on the premise that an independent black republic should be created out of the southern United States of South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana, which were considered “subjugated … Read MoreRepublic of New Africa (1968- )
William Loren Katz has devoted his life to researching and writing African American history. In the following account written to describe the reissue of one of his most successful books, Black Indians, he describes how he became an historian of African America and particularly the … Read MoreBlack Indians: A Personal and Historic Journey
