Benjamin Griffith Brawley was a college professor, author and the first dean of Morehouse College. Born in 1882 in Columbia, South Carolina to a middle class family, Brawley was the second son of Edward McKnight Brawley and Margaret Dickerson Brawley. His father was a clergyman … Read MoreBenjamin Griffith Brawley (1882-1939)
Solomon G. Brown, poet, lecturer, and scientific technician, became the first African American employee at the Smithsonian Institution. He also played a significant role in the implementation of the first electric telegraph and was well versed in the study of natural history. Born on February … Read MoreSolomon G. Brown (1829-1906)
Lillian (Evans) Evanti, one of the first African American women to become an internationally prominent opera performer, was born in Washington D.C. in 1891. Evanti was born into a prominent Washington, D.C. family. Her father, Wilson Evans, was a medical doctor and teacher in the … Read MoreLillian Evans Annie/Evanti (1891-1967)
Solomon Michaux was a radio evangelist, entrepreneur, and founder of the Church of God Movement; he was also known as the “Happy Am I Preacher.” Michaux was born around 1885 in Buckroe Beach, Virginia into a devout family of Baptists. He grew up in Newport … Read MoreSolomon Lightfoot “Elder” Michaux (ca. 1885-1968)
Painter and educator Laura Wheeler Waring was born in Hartford, Connecticut in 1887. The fourth child of six born to Reverend Robert Foster and Mary Wheeler, Laura was unusual in some respects because she had the advantage of a superior education and middle and upper … Read MoreLaura Wheeler Waring (1887-1948)
James Theodore Holly emigrationist, missionary, and bishop, was born in Washington, D.C on October 3, 1829. At age fourteen his family relocated to Brooklyn, New York. His father taught him the shoemaking trade. Then in 1848 he began working as an abolitionist with Lewis Tappan, one … Read MoreJames Theodore Holly (1829-1911)
John Wesley Cromwell was a historian, editor, educator and lawyer who was born into slavery on September 5, 1846 in Portsmouth, Virginia. He was the youngest child of Willis Hodges Cromwell and Elizabeth Carney Cromwell, who had twelve children. In 1851 Willis Cromwell obtained his … Read MoreJohn Wesley Cromwell (1846-1927)
Image Ownership: Public Domain David Augustus Straker, author, lawyer, and politician, was born and raised in Bridgetown, Barbados, where he achieved success as a teacher and principal at St. Mary’s Public School. In 1868, he moved to Kentucky, where he taught at a freedman’s school … Read MoreDavid Augustus Straker (1842-1908)
Ella Sheppard, soprano, pianist and reformer, was the matriarch of the Fisk Jubilee Singers, a social reformer, confidante of Frederick Douglass, and one of the most distinguished African American women of her generation. Sheppard was born a slave in 1851 on Andrew Jackson’s Hermitage plantation. … Read MoreElla Sheppard (1851-1915)
Edmonia Lewis, the first woman of African American and Native American ancestry to gain notoriety as a sculptor, was born near Albany, New York on July 4, 1845 to a Chippewa Indian woman and an African American man. Her parents died when she was very … Read MoreEdmonia Lewis (1845-1907)
