Born near Thomasville, Georgia on March 21, 1856, Henry O. Flipper rose to prominence as the first African American graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1877. Despite being born into slavery to Festus, a shoemaker, and Isabella Flipper, Henry was … Read MoreHenry Ossian Flipper (1856-1940)
The self-trained historian and journalist Drusilla Dunjee Houston was born in Harper’s Ferry, West Virginia in 1876. Her parents were Rev. John William and Lydia Taylor Dunjee. Drusilla’s younger brother Roscoe was a journalist and Civil Rights activist in Oklahoma City. In 1915 he founded … Read MoreDrusilla Dunjee Houston (1876-1941)
Roscoe Dunjee was a prolific journalist and civil rights activist. He was the son of Rev. John William Dunjee, a Baptist minister, and Lydia Ann Dunjee. Although his father was born in Jefferson County, West Virginia, Roscoe worked for various African American newspapers in Oklahoma … Read MoreRoscoe Dunjee (1883-1965)
Horace Mann Bond served as the first president of Fort Valley State College from 1939 to 1945 and president of Lincoln University from 1945 to 1957. He was a notable educator and scholar holding degrees from Lincoln University (B.A. in 1923 and a LL.D. in … Read MoreHorace Mann Bond (1904-1972)
Arthur Fletcher is perhaps best known as the Father of Affirmative Action for his authorship of the Revised Philadelphia Plan, which required federal government contractors to hire ethnic minorities. Fletcher was born in Phoenix, Arizona on December 22, 1924, to Britt Allen and Edna Miller. … Read MoreArthur Fletcher (1924-2005)
Silas Jefferson, also known as Ho-tul-ko-micco –“Wind Clan chief” — was born in 1835 at Taskigi Town (or Tuskegee) in the Old Creek Nation. His parents were Betsey and Jeffery Manac (McNac). Jefferson emigrated with his parents to the Creek lands in the Indian Territory … Read MoreSilas Jefferson (1835-1913)
Tullahassee Manual Labor School was a boarding school for Creek freedmen funded by the Creek Nation in the Indian Territory. The Tullahassee school was originally founded in 1850 as the first of three boarding schools for the education of Creek children by the Creek Nation. … Read MoreTullahassee Manual Labor School (1850-1924)
Sarah Davis was one of the leading free African Creek merchants who lived in the Creek Agency settlement, west of present day Muskogee before (and after) the Civil War. Sarah Davis was born in the Old Creek Nation in 1799 and was formerly a slave … Read MoreSarah Davis (1799-1886)
After a faction of the Creek tribe had negotiated and signed a treaty with the Confederacy in July 1861, a group of Upper Creek chiefs led by Opothleyohola repudiated the treaty and declared their neutrality. Opothleyohola’s followers and their families gathered together on Opothleyohola’s plantation/ranch … Read MoreOpothleyohola’s Exodus to Kansas (Nov. 1861-Jan. 1862)
Jesse Franklin was an influential African Creek politician and minister who lived in the Creek Agency settlement in the years after the Civil War. Franklin was born about 1817 as a slave in the Creek Nation in Alabama. He emigrated to the Indian Territory in … Read MoreJesse Franklin (1817-1882)
