Revered as one of the most influential people of the twentieth century, Rosa Parks is best known for her role in the Montgomery Bus Boycott in 1956. Parks was born on February 4, 1913, to Leona and James McCauley in Tuskegee, Alabama. Leona worked as … Read MoreRosa Parks (1913-2005)
Dr. Mayme Clayton was born in Arkansas and transplanted to California, where she served as law librarian at University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA), beginning in 1957. In 1969 she helped put together the university’s African American Studies Center Library. But her most astounding … Read MoreIn Praise of Mayme Clayton: Images of the African American West
Beginning in the late 1960s, Ruby Duncan led the Welfare Rights Movement in Las Vegas, Nevada. She and her group, the Nevada Welfare Rights Organization (NWRO), brought the Federal Food Stamps Program and the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women Infants and Children (WIC) to … Read MoreRuby Duncan (1932- )
Dorothy Hollingsworth, a prominent educator and politician, achieved a number of “firsts” during her years in Seattle. The most important was becoming the first Black woman in Washington State’s history to serve on a school board. Born in Bishopville, South Carolina on October 29, 1920, … Read MoreDorothy Hollingsworth (1920-2022)
Antillean author Maryse Condé was born on February 11, 1937, in Pointe-á-Pitre, Guadeloupe, where her parents were members of the island’s black middle class. After a childhood she describes as “not at all interesting,” Condé left Guadeloupe at sixteen to complete her formal education in … Read MoreMaryse Condé (1937- )
In 1958, Barbara Ann Posey, then a high school student, emerged as one of the most important youth leaders in the campaign which began that year to desegregate the major public accommodations in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Posey’s public stand against racial injustice began when she … Read MoreBarbara Ann Posey Jones (1943- )
Born August 9, 1884 in Reading, Pennsylvania, Daisy Lampkin became one of the most highly-acclaimed African American women of her time. While Lampkin is best known for becoming the first woman to be elected to the national board of the NAACP, she spent much of … Read MoreDaisy Lampkin (1884-1965)
A pioneer playwright and moralistic philosopher of constructive thinking, Garland Anderson was the first African American known to have a serious full-length drama produced on Broadway in New York. Active in the theatre for over 10 years during the 1920s and 1930s, he achieved national … Read MoreGarland Anderson (1886-1939)
In 1944 Sara Dunlap Jackson became one of the first African American professionals hired by the National Archives in Washington, D.C. where she specialized in western, military, social and African American topics. She continued at the Archives until her retirement in 1990. In the following … Read MoreRemembering Sara Dunlap Jackson (1919-1991)
The career of Seattle-based jazz vocalist Ernestine Anderson is noteworthy both for its prolific output of more than 30 albums, and the more than 60-year span of her career. Born in Houston, Texas on November 11, 1928, as a child she joined her father and … Read MoreErnestine Anderson (1928-2016)
