Wilberforce University was established near Xenia, Ohio in 1856 as a joint venture between the Methodist Episcopal Church and the African Methodist Episcopal Church. Named after 18th century abolitionist William Wilberforce, it was the first private, historically black university in the United States. It was … Read MoreWilberforce University (1856- )
Marcia Fudge is now the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development in the Joseph Biden Administration. Before then she was a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, representing the 11th Congressional District of Ohio since November 2008. She was the first female African American … Read MoreMarcia Fudge (1952- )
Eduardo Mondlane, an educator, nationalist, and leader of the Mozambique independence movement, was born on June 20, 1920, in the Gaza District of Southern Mozambique, which at the time was under the colonial rule of the Portuguese. He was the child of a Tsonga chief, … Read MoreEduardo Chivambo Mondlane (1920-1969)
Gladys E. Kidd, educator, nutritionist, mentor, philanthropist, and granddaughter of slaves was born on October 11, 1925 in Columbus, Ohio to Henry Wesley Cooper, a Presbyterian minister and Charlotte Melinda Cooper, a schoolteacher. She attended the all black elementary and middle schools. While in high … Read MoreGladys Kidd Jennings (1925- )
Ralph Alexander Gardner, hard plastics pioneer and one of the scientists and technicians who worked on the Manhattan Project which developed the atomic bomb, was born December 3, 1922 in Cleveland, Ohio, son of Vivian and Clarence Gardner. Gardner developed an early love of chemistry, … Read MoreRalph Gardner-Chavis (1922- )
Curt Flood, an American Major League Baseball player best known for his challenge of the “reserve clause,” was born January 18, 1938 in Houston, Texas and was raised in Oakland, California. Flood began playing baseball as a youth. Showing great promise he signed a contract … Read MoreCurtis Charles Flood (1938-1997)
A supporter of the Gandhian philosophy of nonviolent protest, the Reverend James M. Lawson, Jr. was one of the Civil Rights Movement’s leading theoreticians and tacticians in the African American struggle for freedom and equality in the 1950s and 1960s. Raised in a household of … Read MoreJames Lawson (1928- )
Hastings Kamuzu Banda, the first president of Malawi, was initially presented to the Malawi people by British Colonial officials as the best person who could lead them into independence. Later as the country’s self-declared “life president,” Banda transformed this African democracy into a repressive dictatorship … Read MoreHastings Banda (ca. 1896-1997)
Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth was born on March 18, 1922 in Mount Meigs, Alabama to Vetta Green and Alberta Robinson. However, his mother and stepfather, William Nathan Shuttlesworth, a farmer in Oxmore, Alabama raised Fred Shuttlesworth. Shuttlesworth attended Oxmore Elementary School. He graduated from Rosedale High … Read MoreFred Shuttlesworth (1922-2011)
Adrian Malik Fenty was born to Philip and Jan Fenty, an interracial couple, on December 6, 1970, in Washington, D.C. Fenty’s parents were both runners and they owned the athletic shoe store Fleet Feet in Washington, D.C. Fenty graduated from Woodrow Wilson Senior High School … Read MoreAdrian M. Fenty (1970- )
