Leon Bridges is recorded as the founder of the second African American-owned firm in Seattle. He was born on August 18, 1932 in Los Angeles, California. In high school he was told by a counselor that he couldn’t become an architect because he was black, … Read MoreLeon Bridges (1932- )
Joseph Sylvester Jackson became the first executive secretary of the newly founded Seattle Urban League when it received its charter from the national headquarters in New York in 1930. Little is known about Jackson before 1928. That year he graduated from Livingston College in Salisbury, … Read MoreJoseph Sylvester Jackson (?–?)
John T. Gayton, one of Seattle, Washington’s earliest black residents, a community leader, and patriarch of one of the city’s most outstanding black families, came to Seattle in 1889. He was born in Benton, Mississippi to former slaves. With little formal education, he moved to … Read MoreJohn T. Gayton (1866-1954)
John Newington Conna was a pivotal figure in the early history and development of Washington State. Born enslaved near San Augustine, Texas in 1836, Conna was a free man by the time of the Civil War because he served in the 1st Louisiana Native Guards, … Read MoreJohn N. Conna (1836-1921)
Born on Aug. 6, 1865 in Chillicothe, Ohio to George R. and Mary Elizabeth (Gatliffe) Ryan, John Henry Ryan was one of twelve children. Ella (Alexander) Ryan’s origins are more unclear; however she was raised in Missouri as one of at least three children. John … Read MoreElla & John Ryan
John A. Coleman was born a slave in 1852 in Talladega County, Alabama. After he received his freedom at the end of the Civil War, Coleman attended the newly established Talladega College for three years. He worked on a Mississippi River steamboat and then migrated … Read MoreJohn A. Coleman (1852-?)
The painter and sculptor James Washington, Jr. was a leading member of the Northwest School, a group of artists, writers, and sculptors who became internationally prominent in the mid-20th Century. Washington was born on November 10, 1908 and raised in Gloster, Mississippi, one of six … Read MoreJames Washington, Jr. (1908-2000)
Jacob Lawrence, born in 1917 in Atlantic City, N.J., moved to New York City at age thirteen. Gwendolyn Knight, born in 1913, in Barbados, West Indies, arrived in the U.S. at age seven, and spent her first years in St. Louis. She arrived in New … Read MoreJacob Lawrence & Gwendolyn Knight
Hazel Scott was born on June 11, 1920, in Port of Spain, Trinidad. In 1924, Scott and her parents migrated to Harlem, New York, where Hazel, a musical prodigy, studied classical piano with Paul Wagner, a Juilliard professor. In the late 1930s and early 1940s, … Read MoreHazel Scott (1920-1981)
The daguerreotypist James Presley (J.P.) Ball was born in 1825 in Virginia, probably a freeman. As a young man he learned daguerreotyping and opened his first studio in Cincinnati, Ohio at age twenty. The city was a center for anti-slavery activity as well as the … Read MoreJames Presley Ball (1825-1904)
