Theo Shaw is the E. Barrett Prettyman Fellow at Georgetown University Law Center in Washington, D.C. Shaw obtained his Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from the University of Louisiana at Monroe in 2012. He attended the University of Washington School of Law beginning in … Read MoreTheo Shaw (1989- )
On May 18, 2021, longtime University of Washington Professor Emeritus Thaddeus Spratlen died in Seattle, Washington at the age of 90. Few people knew his name, but his work transformed black economics in the United States. In the article below, Professor William Bradford, former Dean … Read MoreThaddeus H. Spratlen: Scholar and Philanthropist Generating Economic Change in Black America
Who are they: Charles Mitchell was born into slavery in 1847 on the Marengo Plantation in Maryland. He was born to a free white man, also named Charles Mitchell, and a slave woman whose name is unknown. In 1855, he was brought to the Washington … Read MoreCharles Mitchell, Slavery, and Washington Territory in 1860 [Children’s Edition]
Grafton Tyler Brown was a cartographer, lithographer, and painter, widely considered the first professional African American artist in California. Born in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania in 1841, Brown learned lithography in Philadelphia and then became part of a cohort of African Americans who sought better economic and … Read MoreGrafton Tyler Brown (1841-1918)
What happened Dr. Kizzmekia Corbett is an African American viral immunologist on the front lines of the global research for a COVID-19 vaccine. Unlike the common flu, COVID-19 has a significantly higher death rate which has caused a pandemic that has killed millions around the … Read MoreKizzmekia Corbett (1986- ) [Children’s Edition]
Nettie J. Craig Asberry was a suffragist, clubwoman, and music educator who helped found the Tacoma Chapter of the NAACP and the Washington State Federation of Colored Women’s Clubs. Born on July 15, 1865 in Leavenworth, Kansas, Asberry was the youngest of six children born … Read MoreNettie J. Craig Asberry (1865-1968)
Mabel Byrd, a life-long educator, researcher, and civil rights activist, was the first African American to attend the University of Oregon. Born in Cannonsburg, Pennsylvania on July 3, 1895, Byrd was the youngest daughter of Robert Byrd, a bricklayer, and Jennie Byrd. She moved with … Read MoreMabel Janet Byrd (1895-1988)
Louise Alone Thompson Patterson, civil rights activist, communist, and educator, was born in Chicago, Illinois on September 9, 1901 to Lulu (Louise) F. Brown Toles and William J. Toles. After her parents 1904 separation, Thompson lived in Seattle, Washington as well as Utah, Nevada, Idaho, … Read MoreLouise Thompson Patterson (1901-1999)
Tuskegee Airman Rudolph “Val” Archer was born in Woodlawn, a South Side neighborhood in Chicago, Illinois on April 13, 1929 to Osborn Archer, railroad laborer, and artist and homemaker Ruth Luella Seay. Ruth Archer passed away when Rudolph was twelve, and he began to deliver … Read MoreRudolph “Val” Archer (1929-2020)
In 1941 the United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), the construction agent for the War Department, maintained construction battalions that were deemed less valuable than units in other Army branches. Coupling this practice with the racial beliefs dominant in the Jim Crow South, it … Read MoreThe 97th Engineering Regiment (1941-1948)
