Cassandra Quin Butts is Deputy White House Counsel to President Barack Obama on issues relating to civil rights, domestic policy, healthcare, and education. She brought seventeen years of experience in politics and policy to her position. She is a long-time friend of the President, acting … Read MoreCassandra Quin Butts (1965- )
Vanessa Lynn Williams was born in Tarrytown, New York on March 18, 1963. She is the daughter of Helen and the late Milton Williams who were music teachers. She has a younger brother, Christopher, who is also an actor. Williams was the first African American … Read MoreVanessa Williams (1963- )
Koko Taylor, dubbed the “Queen of the Blues,” was one of the most revered female blues singers in history. She was born Cora Walton on September 28, 1928 in Bartlett, Tennessee to sharecropper parents who nicknamed her Koko for her love of chocolate. It was … Read MoreKoko Taylor (Cora Walton), (1928-2009)
Diana Sands, the first black actress to be cast in a major Broadway play without regard to color, was born in New York City in 1934 to Rudolph Thomas, a carpenter, and Shirley Sands, a milliner. Sands made her first stage debut in George Bernard … Read MoreDiana Sands (1934-1973)
Sarah A. Campbell, one of the first non-Native women in the Black Hills of South Dakota, accompanied Colonel George Armstrong Custer’s 1874 Expedition there as a cook, prospected for gold and silver, and was co-founder of the Custer Park Mining Company. Campbell was born on … Read MoreSarah A. Campbell (1823-1888)
Queen Nzinga (Nzinga Mbande), the monarch of the Mbundu people, was a resilient leader who fought against the Portuguese and their expanding slave trade in Central Africa. During the late 16th Century, the French and the English threatened the Portuguese near monopoly on the sources … Read MoreQueen Nzinga (1583-1663)
Zenzile Miriam Makeba, world renowned South African singer, was born in Johannesburg on March 4, 1932. She studied music for eight years at the Kilmerton Training Institute in Pretoria, South Africa and toured with amateur groups before beginning her professional career in 1954 with the … Read MoreMiriam Makeba (1932-2008)
Marita Odette Bonner (Occomy) was an African American writer, essayist, and playwright associated with the Harlem Renaissance Era. Born on June 16, 1899 to Joseph Andrew and Anne Noel Bonner in Boston, Massachusetts, she and her three siblings grew up in Brookline, a suburb of … Read MoreMarita Odette Bonner (1899-1971)
By the 1970s Lucy Mvubelo had become a powerful force in the black South African Labor Union Movement. Born in Johannesburg in 1920 she first joined the Garment Workers Union in 1946 and eventually became the first black woman on the National Executive Council of … Read More(1973) Lucy Mvubelo, “My Plea to the International Labor Organization”
Elizabeth “Libba” Cotten, an American folk and blues musician, made her professional debut in 1959 at the age of 67. Discovered by the musically-renowned Seeger family in the 1950s, Cotten was soon recognized for her unique self-taught guitar and banjo picking style and her songs … Read MoreElizabeth “Libba” Cotten (ca. 1892-1987)
