Alonzo Harding Mourning Jr is a former National Basketball Association (NBA) star and, more recently, a cancer survivor. Born on February 8, 1970, in Chesapeake, Virginia, to Alonzo Mourning Sr and Julia Hadnot, Mourning’s talent on the high school basketball team was undeniable. His junior … Read MoreAlonzo Harding Mourning Jr (1970- )
Sharon Y. Bowen, the first Black woman to head the New York Stock Exchange, was born on July 23, 1956, in Chesapeake, Virginia, to Leverta Wilson and Allen Dosher Bowen, Sr. She is the youngest of five children. Her father was an electrician at the … Read MoreSharon Y. Bowen (1956- )
Mary Smith Kelsey Peake, a pioneering educator, is one of few African American women to have a school, The Mary Peake Center of Hampton Public Schools, and a street, the Mary Peake Boulevard, named in honor due to her work as the first teacher for … Read MoreMary Smith Kelsey Peake (1823-1862)
Nathan Hare, the founder of The Black Scholar: A Journal of Black Studies and Research and called by many scholars “the father of Black and Ethnic Studies,” was born on April 9, 1933, in Slick, Oklahoma, to Seddie H. Hare, a sharecropper from Arkansas, and … Read MoreNathan Hare (1933-2024)
Robert Charles O’Hara Benjamin, also known as R.C.O. Benjamin, was a Caribbean-born political activist, newspaper editor, minister, poet, teacher, author, and lawyer. He was born on the island of St. Kitts on March 31, 1855. Information about his parents is unknown, but we do know … Read MoreRobert Charles O’Hara Benjamin (1855-1900)
Harrison Williams was born enslaved on a Southampton County, Virginia, plantation in 1847, but by December 1864, he was a free man and a soldier in the Union Army. Over the next four months, he participated in the capture of Richmond, Virginia, and saw the … Read MoreHarrison Williams (Parson Sykes) (1847–1916)
Educator Janie Porter Barrett was the founder of the first Black Settlement House in Virginia, the State Federation of Colored Women’s Clubs in Virginia, and the Virginia Industrial School for Colored Girls. Porter was born in Athens, Georgia, on August 9, 1865, the daughter of … Read MoreJanie Porter Barrett (1865-1948)
Soviet agricultural specialist and one of the first popularizers of turkey breeding in the USSR, George Tynes, was born in 1908 into a large African American family in Norfolk, Virginia. His father was a Methodist minister, and his mother was Native American. His cousin was … Read MoreGeorge Tynes (1908-1982)
Choreographer, dancer, and teacher Lorraine Graves was born Lorraine Elizabeth Graves on October 5, 1957, in Norfolk, Virginia, to Tommy E. Graves Jr., founder and CEO of Graves Funeral Home, and Mildred Odom Graves, a public school teacher. Lorraine had one brother, Tommy E. Graves … Read MoreLorraine Graves (1957-2024)
Healthcare management executive, strategic planner, and project manager Malika Evans was born Malika Romona Barker in 1983 and grew up in Brooklyn, New York. She received the Thomas J. and Marie W. Burke Scholarship, an annual academic scholarship for African Americans or any student of … Read MoreMalika Evans (1983- )
