Bernard Squires was the president of the Omaha, Nebraska chapter of the Urban League from 1935 to 1939 and the Seattle chapter of the Urban League from 1939 to 1943. Squires was born in Toledo, Ohio in 1904. He graduated from high school in Toledo, … Read MoreBernard Squires (1904-1947)
Veteran of the Spanish Civil War and World War II, Walter Garland was born in New York City on 27 November 1913. After serving in the U.S. Army for two years, he enrolled at Brooklyn College where he studied mathematics. Garland joined the Communist Party … Read MoreWalter Benjamin Stephen Garland (1913-197?)
Born in 1837 in North Carolina, Sara G. Stanley was a member of a free, educated and economically secure family. She attended Oberlin College and later moved to Delaware after her family immigrated there. Following the tradition of other free black women Sara joined the … Read MoreSara G. Stanley (1837-1918)
Born 13 July 1913 in Akron, Ohio, Salaria Kee was orphaned in her infancy and raised by family and friends. After high school, she resolved to become a nurse but was denied by three nursing schools on account of her race. Leveraging connections to Eleanor … Read MoreSalaria Kee O’Reilly (1913-1991)
The son of a sailor, Richard Theodore Greener, a native of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania became the first African American to graduate from Harvard College. He later was assigned to serve the United States in diplomatic posts in India and Russia. Greener lived in Boston, Massachusetts and … Read MoreRichard T. Greener (1844-1922)
Paul Laurence Dunbar, hailed as the Poet Laureate of the Negro Race, was born in Dayton, Ohio in 1872. His father, Joshua Dunbar, was an escaped slave who joined the 55th Massachusetts Regiment of the Union Army and served in the Civil War. Joshua married … Read MorePaul Laurence Dunbar (1872-1906)
Leroy Robert Paige, one of the few African American baseball athletes to play in both the Negro Baseball Leagues and in Major League Baseball. He was also the first player to be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame because of his career in the … Read MoreLeroy Robert “Satchel” Paige (1906-1982)
Born in Schenectady, New York, to former slaves, Julia was converted at age fifteen. Several years later, she married George Foote, a sailor, moved to Boston, and joined an African Methodist Episcopal Zion (AMEZ) Church, where she began to testify about her experiences of conversion … Read MoreJulia Foote (1823-1900)
John T. King was born in Girard (now Phenix City), Alabama in 1846. He was the son of covered bridge designer and builder Horace King. John King carried on the family business by designing and building bridges, houses, and commercial buildings in Georgia and Alabama. … Read MoreJohn Thomas King (1846-1926)
Athlete, actor, and political activist James Nathaniel Brown was born February 17, 1936, in St. Simon Island, Georgia. A talented athlete from an early age, Brown earned 13 letters playing a variety of sports at Manhasset High School in New York. Over the course of … Read MoreJames Nathaniel [“Jim”] Brown (1936-2023)
