Sister Eliza Healy was both an educator and noted first African American Mother Superior of a Catholic convent. Healy was born on a plantation near Macon, Georgia on December 23, 1846 to a white father, Michael Morris Healy and one of his mulatto slaves, Eliza … Read MoreEliza [Sister Mary Magdalen] Healy (1846-1918)
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)
Legendary entertainer Pearl Mae Bailey was born on March 29, 1918 in Southamption County, Virginia to Rev. Joseph and Ella Mae Bailey. She grew up in Newport News, Virginia. Bailey began her acting and singing career early at the age of 15 with her debut … Read MorePearl Mae Bailey (1918-1990)
Actress Diahann Carroll was born July 17, 1935 in the Bronx, New York but grew up in Harlem. She received her education and her theater training at Manhattan’s School of Performing Arts. At the age of 19, Carroll received her first film role when she … Read MoreDiahann Carroll (1935-2019)
Measha Brueggergosman, Canada’s most recognizable young opera star, is working hard to bring classical music to a popular audience. The Canadian soprano has emerged as one of the most magnificent performers and vibrant personalities of the day. She is critically acclaimed by the international press … Read MoreMeasha Brueggergosman (1977- )
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)
Maggie Porter was born in Lebanon, Tennessee around 1853. At the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861, Henry Frazier, a wealthy planter from Lebanon, took refuge in Nashville with his family and house slaves, among them a Mrs. Porter, his chief domestic servant, her … Read MoreMaggie Porter (1853-1942)
Fisk Jubilee Singer and educator America W. Robinson was born in Murfreesboro, Tennessee in 1855. Though America’s father was his master’s half brother, he enjoyed no special privileges; when his white relations ran into financial difficulty, they sold him to a Virginian named Elliott. An … Read MoreAmerica W. Robinson (ca. 1855-ca. 1920)
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)
Jennie Jackson, Fisk Jubilee Singer, folklorist & impresario, was the granddaughter of President Andrew Jackson’s almost lifelong body servant. Jackson’s mother had been born a slave, and her father, George, also enslaved, had died before Jennie was born. But because her mother was the beneficiary … Read MoreJennie Jackson (1852-1910)
