The author of the first known work of African American literature (the poem “Bars Fight”), Lucy Terry Prince was kidnapped in Africa as an infant and sold into slavery in Rhode Island. At the age of five, she became the property of Captain Ebenezer Wells … Read MoreLucy Terry Prince (c. 1732-1821)
Lemuel Haynes was a Patriot involved in the American Revolutionary War, a prominent New England Congregational minister, and the first African American in America to receive an honorary college degree. Haynes was born in West Hartford, Connecticut on July 18, 1753. His mother was a … Read MoreLemuel Haynes (1753-1833)
Born in West Africa Jeffrey Brace (born Boyrereau Brinch) was enslaved at the age of sixteen and transported to Barbados, where he was sold to a ship captain from Connecticut who used him as an enslaved sailor-soldier during the Seven Years War. At the war’s … Read MoreJeffrey Brace (ca. 1742-1827)
Reputed to be the first African American in the United States to graduate from college, Alexander Twilight was born on a farm in Corinth, Vermont to a white or fair-skinned mother, Mary Twilight, and a mixed-race father, Ichabod Twilight, who had served as a private … Read MoreAlexander Twilight (1795-1857)
