Jasmine Twitty is the youngest judge to be appointed or elected in Easley, South Carolina, and one of the youngest judges ever in the history of the United States. Twitty was born on December 4, 1989 in Greenville, South Carolina. She attended St. Anthony of … Read MoreJasmine Twitty (1989- )
Lisa LaTrelle Blunt Rochester has served in the cabinet of two Delaware governors, including five years as Deputy Secretary of Health and Social Services and three years as the Secretary of Labor for Governor Tom Carper, and as State Personnel Director for Governor Ruth Ann … Read MoreLisa Blunt Rochester (1962- )
Insurance executive Ivan James Houston was born in Los Angeles, California on June 15, 1925 to Norman Oliver Houston and Doris Talbot (Young) Houston. He attended public schools in Los Angeles and graduated from John H. Francis Polytechnic High School in 1943. Later that year … Read MoreIvan James Houston (1925-2020)
Elmer Simms Campbell was an early syndicated cartoonist and jazz critic. Born on January 2, 1906 in St. Louis, Missouri, Campbell was the son of Elmer Cary Campbell, a high school chemistry teacher and assistant principal, and Elizabeth Simms Campbell, also a teacher. Inspired by … Read MoreE. Simms Campbell (1906-1971)
Livingston Leroy Wingate was a Harlem civic leader and a state supreme court judge in Manhattan, New York. Wingate was born on September 2, 1915 in Timmonsville, South Carolina, a small town of two thousand residents. Wingate lived with his father, a barber, and his mother, who did domestic work. In … Read MoreLivingston Wingate (1915-1995)
Julia Pearl Hughes (Coleman-Robinson) was the first African American woman to successfully own and operate her own drugstore. Hughes was born to John and Mary Hughes in Melville Township, Alamance County, North Carolina. She attended the local schools and graduated in 1893 from Scotia Seminary (now Barber-Scotia College) … Read MoreJulia Pearl Hughes (1873-1950)
Jesse O. Thomas, early 20th century civil rights leader and protégé of Booker T. Washington, established the Atlanta, Georgia chapter of the National Urban League, a civil rights organization based in New York City, New York in 1919. Thomas was born in McComb, Mississippi to Amanda Johnson and Jefferson Thomas on December 21, 1885. Until the … Read MoreJesse O. Thomas (1885-1972)
Taylor Emmanuel Gordon was born in 1893 in White Sulphur Springs, Montana, one of six children of a cook and a laundress. He is best known for his career as a singer in the Harlem Renaissance in the 1920s. After leaving Montana in 1910 for a job in Minnesota, … Read MoreTaylor Emmanuel Gordon (1893-1971)
Civic leader, civil rights advocate, and police commissioner John Wesley Mack was born on January 6, 1937 in Kingstree, South Carolina, to Abram Mack, a Methodist minister, and Ruth Wynita, a school teacher. Shortly after he was born, his family moved to Darlington, South Carolina. Mack attended North Carolina Agricultural and … Read MoreJohn Wesley Mack (1937-2018)
Harry Cole, the first black justice on the Maryland Supreme Court, was born on January 1, 1921, in Washington, D.C., to a tailor and his wife. Shortly after his birth, Cole’s father died, and his mother moved him and his four siblings to her hometown, Baltimore, Maryland. Cole attended Douglass High School, … Read MoreHarry A. Cole (1921-1999)
