Benjamin Tucker Tanner was born on Christmas day of 1835 to Hugh and Isabella Tanner of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. As one of twelve children he brought income into the Tanner household by delivering newspapers at age nine. In 1852 Tanner was accepted into Avery College, a … Read MoreBenjamin Tucker Tanner (1835-1923)
Adrienne Kennedy has earned a place as one of contemporary America’s most renowned and admired African American authors, lecturers, and playwrights. Kennedy was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on September 13, 1931 to Cornell Wallace and Etta (Haugabook) Hawkins. Kennedy spent her childhood in Cleveland, Ohio, … Read MoreAdrienne Kennedy (1931- )
Marion Motley was born June 5, 1920, in Leesburg, Georgia. Motley played football at Canton McKinley High School in Canton, Ohio, and went on to South Carolina State University and then to the University of Nevada, where he played football while participating in other collegiate … Read MoreMarion Motley (1920-1999)
Clara Brown was a kind-hearted, generous woman whose determination led her on a life-long quest to be reunited with her daughter. Born in Spotsylvania County, Virginia in 1803, her earliest memory was of being sold on the auction block. She grew up in Logan County, … Read MoreClara Brown (1803-1885)
Born in Michigan in 1869, James David Corrothers became an important literary figure in the 1890s. Corrothers grew up in South Haven, a southern Michigan town established by abolitionists, fugitive slaves, and free blacks during the years before the civil war. For a time he … Read MoreJames David Corrothers (1869-1917)
American poet laureate Rita Frances Dove was born August 28, 1952 in Akron, Ohio. Rita’s father, Ray Dove, was the first African American chemist in the tire industry. Rita Dove excelled in school and in 1970 she received the Presidential Scholar Award. Dove completed a … Read MoreRita Dove (1952- )
“There’s no life in safety,” said three-time National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) Image Award winner Nikki Giovanni who began her own life on June 7, 1943, in Knoxville, Tennessee. She moved with her mother and sister to a small black suburb … Read MoreYolande Cornelia “Nikki” Giovanni (1943- )
Teacher, writer, and women’s activist Hallie Quinn Brown was born on March 10, 1850 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the daughter of former slaves who in 1864 migrated to Ontario, Canada. The Brown family returned to the United States in 1870, settling in Wilberforce, Ohio. Brown attended … Read MoreHallie Quinn Brown (1850-1949)
Alyce Faye Wattleton, born in St. Louis, Missouri on July 8, 1943, became both the youngest person and the first African American president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, a post she held from 1978 to 1992. As only the second woman president of … Read MoreAlyce Faye Wattleton (1943- )
William S. Scarborough was born in 1852 in Macon, Georgia to a free black father and a multiracial mother, who was enslaved. Scarborough learned to read and write from his white neighbors and a free black family in Macon. He continued his education in Macon’s … Read MoreWilliam S. Scarborough (1852-1926)
