Elliot C. van Zandt had a major impact on the development of Italian sports from 1947 to 1959. Born in Arkansas in 1915, van Zandt lost his father at a very early age. Census records indicate that Elliot’s widowed mother, a seamstress, probably left him … Read MoreElliot C. Van Zandt (1915-1959)
The black presence in Alaska has been severely under recorded. This is particularly the case for the role of African American women. One of the most remarkable black leaders was Blanche Louise Preston McSmith, a native of Marshall, Texas, who, like the majority of African … Read MoreBlanche McSmith (1920-2006)
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- )
Lee Patrick Brown, known as “The Father of Community Policing,” became the first African American Mayor of Houston, Texas in 1997. Brown was born to sharecropper parents Andrew and Zelma Brown in the town of Wewoka, Oklahoma in 1937. He received a B.A. in criminology … Read MoreLee P. Brown (1937- )
Reverend Emanuel Cleaver II, born in Waxahachie, Texas in 1944, is best known as the first African American mayor of Kansas City, Missouri. Cleaver, who grew up in a public housing project in Wichita Falls, Texas, graduated from Prairie View A & M University in … Read MoreEmanuel Cleaver (1944- )
Evelyn Boyd was born in Washington, D.C. on May 1st, 1929, the second daughter of William and Julia Boyd. Though she was raised by a single working class mother and attended segregated schools, Boyd became the second black woman in the United States to earn … Read MoreEvelyn Boyd Granville (1924- )
James “Jim” Kelly, born in Williamson County, Texas, was the son of manumitted slaves, “Uncle Amos” and “Aunt Phoebe” Kelly, who had belonged to the Olive clan, a family of powerful Texas cattlemen. After 1865 Kelly worked for Isom Prentice (Print) Olive, a former Confederate … Read MoreJames Kelly (c. 1839-1912)
Image Ownership: Public Domain James Farmer was born in Marshall, Texas on January 12, 1920, the grandson of a slave, and son of a minister and college professor, who was believed to be the first black man from Texas to obtain a doctorate. Farmer obtained … Read MoreJames Farmer Jr. (1920-1999)
Image Ownership: Public Domain George Edward Foreman was born in Marshall, Texas on January 10, 1949 and raised in Houston’s Fifth Ward. He took up boxing in his teens while working in the Job Corps. A successful amateur career was capped with a gold medal … Read MoreGeorge Foreman (1949 – )
In 1921, Bessie Coleman became the first black woman to gain an international permit to fly. After learning French, she attended the famous flight school Ecole d’Aviation des Frères Caudron in Northern France. No schools in America would train a black person. She was inspired … Read MoreBessie Coleman (1892–1926)