Roy Emile Alfredo Innis is the current National Director of the Congress for Racial Equality. He is a controversial civil rights activist whose conservative stance on many issues continues to draw national attention. Innis was born in the U.S. Virgin Islands on June 6, 1934. … Read MoreRoy Innis (1934- )
Casper Holstein was a prominent New York philanthropist and mobster involved in the Harlem “numbers rackets” during Prohibition. He, along with several other rivals, most notably Stephanie St. Clair, were responsible for resurrecting illegal gambling in Harlem after several years of inactivity following the conviction … Read MoreCasper Holstein (1876-1944)
Edward Wilmot Blyden, widely known as the father of Pan-Africanism, was born on August 3, 1832 in Saint Thomas, in what are now the U.S Virgin Islands. Blyden was the third of seven children and was born to Romeo and Judith Blyden, a tailor and … Read MoreEdward Wilmot Blyden (1832-1912)
William Henry Hastie Jr., attorney and diplomat, was born on November 17, 1904 in Knoxville, Tennessee to parents William Henry Hastie Sr. and Roberta Childs. He spent his childhood in Tennessee until his family moved to Washington, D.C. Hastie graduated from Dunbar High School in Washington, … Read MoreWilliam Henry Hastie (1904-1976)
Although little remembered today, Leidesdorff was a social, economic, and political force in pre-gold rush San Francisco, California with a number of “firsts” credited to his name. When he was named the U.S. Vice Consul to Mexico in 1845, he became the nation’s first African … Read MoreWilliam Alexander Leidesdorff (1810-1848)
Walter Francis White was a leading civil rights advocate of the first half of the twentieth century. As executive secretary of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) from 1931 to 1955, he was one of the major architects of the modern … Read MoreWalter F. White (1893-1955)
