John Jones, apprentice tailor, writer, and politician was born in 1817 in Green City, North Carolina to a German father and an African American mother. Born a free man, he taught himself to read and write. Jones started his own tailoring business and eventually became … Read MoreJohn Jones (1817-1879)
Marcelino Manoel da Graca, anglicized Charles Grace, and best known as Sweet Daddy Grace, was founder of the United House of Prayer for All People. Born off the coast of West Africa on Brava, Cape Verde Islands, he was one of nine children born to … Read MoreCharles Manuel “Sweet Daddy” Grace (1881-1960)
John Chavis, early 19th Century minister and teacher, was the first African American to graduate from a college or university in the United States. Chavis was born on October 18, 1763. His place of birth is debated by historians. Some scholars think that Chavis hailed … Read MoreJohn Chavis (1763-1838)
An influential African American economist who is known for his controversial views on race, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status, Thomas Sowell was born in Gastonia, North Carolina in 1930. When he was eight, his family moved to Harlem, New York. His father, a construction worker, did … Read MoreThomas Sowell (1930- )
Born into slavery in Henderson, North Carolina, Henry Cheatham was the child of an enslaved domestic worker about who little is known. An adolescent after the American Civil War, Cheatham benefited from country’s short lived commitment to provide educational opportunities to all children. He attended … Read MoreHenry Plummer Cheatham (1857-1935)
A politically motivated attack by whites against the city’s leading African American citizens, the Wilmington Race Riot of 1898 documents the lengths to which white Democrats went to regain political domination of the South after Reconstruction. The violence began on Thursday, November 10 in the … Read MoreWilmington Race Riot of 1898
Moranda Smith was a union organizer and rank-and-file leader of tobacco workers in North Carolina, who throughout the 1940s initiated a challenge to the racial discrimination, disfranchisement, and economic exploitation of workers in the South. The first African-American woman to sit on an international union’s … Read MoreMoranda Smith (1915-1950)
On February 1, 1960, four Black college students in Greensboro, North Carolina, demanded service at a Woolworth’s lunch counter. When the staff refused to serve them, they stayed until the store closed. In the following days and weeks, this “sit-in” idea spread through the South. … Read MoreStudent Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, SNCC (1960-1973)
Selma Hortense Burke was a nurse, a teacher, and an influential American artist. Born in Mooresville, North Carolina, she was one of ten children born to Neal Burke, a Methodist minister and chef, and Mary Jackson Burke, a homemaker and teacher. She attended high school … Read MoreSelma Hortense Burke (1900 -1995)
Born Eunice Kathleen Waymon in Tyron, North Carolina in 1933, Nina Simone began playing the family piano at the age of three. Her mother Mary Kate Waymon, a minister and choir director at a Methodist church in Tyron, interpreted her daughter’s gift as a God-given … Read MoreNina Simone (1933-2003)
