The Freedmen’s Savings and Trust Company, commonly referred to as The Freedmen’s Bank, was incorporated on March 3, 1865. It was created by the United States Congress along with the Freedmen’s Bureau to aid the freedmen in their transition from slavery to freedom. By late … Read MoreFreedmen’s Savings and Trust Company (1865-1874)
On January 15, 2009 Roland Wallace Burris was sworn in as the U.S. Senator from Illinois. Burris’s appointment made him the third African American U.S. Senator from the state and the sixth black U.S. Senator in the history of the United States. The appointment, however, … Read MoreRoland Burris (1937- )
Valerie Jarrett, senior advisor to President Barack Obama, was born on November 14, 1956. She is a Chicago, Illinois attorney, businesswoman, and community leader most prominently known for her role as one of the three campaign co-chairs of Barack Obama’s historic 2008 presidential campaign. Jarrett … Read MoreValerie Jarrett (1956- )
In the article below Seattle Times columnist Jerry Large provides his perspective on the importance of the Obama victory for the Presidency on Nov. 4, 2008 and the way it forever changed the United States. Barack Obama’s victory opened a new door of possibilities for … Read MoreA New Era Begins: The Significance of the Barack Obama Victory, 2008
Forrester Blanchard Washington was an African American pioneer in social work first with the Detroit Urban League and later with the Franklin D. Roosevelt Administration. Washington was born in1887 in Salem, Massachusetts. He graduated from Tufts College (University) in 1909 and received graduate degrees from … Read MoreForrester B. Washington (1887-1963)
The United Negro College Fund (UNCF) was founded on April 25, 1944 in Washington, D.C. by Frederick Patterson, president of the Tuskegee Institute, and Mary McLeod Bethune, an adviser to the Franklin Roosevelt Administration, to provide a steady, consistent stream of funding to 27 financially … Read MoreUnited Negro College Fund (1944- )
The National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders was organized by President Lyndon B. Johnson on July 28, 1967 to investigate the urban rebellions erupting in cities across the nation between 1964 and 1967. The findings of the seven-month study were published in March of 1968. … Read More1967 National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders (Kerner Commission)
Frederick Drew Gregory was a National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) astronaut, administrator, and the first black man to command a space shuttle mission. Born January 7, 1941 to Francis A. and Nora Drew Gregory, he grew up in Washington, D.C. where he was an … Read MoreFrederick Drew Gregory (1941- )
Macon Bolling Allen is believed to be the first black man in the United States who was licensed to practice law. Born Allen Macon Bolling in 1816 in Indiana, he grew up a free man. Bolling learned to read and write on his on his … Read MoreMacon Bolling Allen (1816-1894)
The American Colonization Society (ACS), also known as the American Society for Colonizing the Free People of Color in the United States, emerged in 1816 as a national organization dedicated to promoting the manumission of the enslaved and the settlement of free blacks in West … Read MoreAmerican Colonization Society (1816-1964)
