Born November 16, 1963 in Houston, Texas, tennis star Zina Garrison was the youngest of seven children and was raised by her widowed mother, Mary Garrison. She began playing tennis at the age of 10 through the MacGregar Park Tennis Program. The program was run … Read MoreZina Garrison (1963- )
Mary Lou Williams was an African American jazz pianist, composer, and arranger who wrote hundreds of compositions and arrangements and recorded over one hundred records. Williams was born as Mary Elfireda Scruggs on May 8, 1910 in Atlanta, Georgia, but grew up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. … Read MoreMary Lou Williams (1910-1981)
Mabel Keaton Staupers, R.N., was instrumental in ending the United States Army’s policy of excluding African American nurses from its ranks in World War II. In 1948 Staupers also successfully lobbied for full integration of the American Nurses Association. Mabel Keaton Staupers (née Doyle) was … Read MoreMabel Keaton Staupers (1890-1989)
Judith Ann Jamison is among the most influential African American dance figures of the late 20th century. She began her dance career at the age of ten and served as the Artistic Director at the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater from 1989 to 2011. Her … Read MoreJudith Ann Jamison (1943- )
Willie Mae “Big Mama” Thornton was a blues singer and songwriter whose recordings of “Hound Dog” and “Ball ‘n’ Chain” later were transformed into huge hits by Elvis Presley and Janis Joplin. Willie Mae Thornton was born on December 11, 1926 outside of Montgomery in … Read MoreWillie Mae “Big Mama” Thornton (1926-1984)
Juanita Long Hall, a 20th Century actor and singer, was born in Keyport, New Jersey on Nov. 6, 1901 to an African-American father, Abram Long, and an Irish American mother, Mary Richardson. Raised by maternal grandparents, Long attended New York City, New York’s Juilliard School … Read MoreJuanita Hall (1901-1968)
Jewel Plumber Cobb, a cell biologist and cancer researcher, was born in Chicago, Illinois on January 17, 1924 to Frank V. Plummer, a physician, and Carriebel (Cole) Plummer, a physical education teacher. An only child, Jewel Plummer began reading her father’s scientific journals to supplement … Read MoreJewel Plummer Cobb (1924- )
Nanny, known as Granny Nanny, Grandy Nanny, and Queen Nanny was a Maroon leader and Obeah woman in Jamaica during the late 17th and early 18th centuries. Maroons were slaves in the Americas who escaped and formed independent settlements. Nanny herself was an escaped slave … Read MoreQueen Nanny of the Maroons (? – 1733)
Ina Ray Hutton led the Melodears, one of the first all-female swing bands to be recorded and filmed. She passed as white throughout her musical career, as the leader of several bands from the 1930s through the 1960s. But when Hutton was a child, United … Read MoreIna Ray, née Odessa Cowan Hutton (1916-1984)
The brief entry for “Dorcas the blackmore” that appears in the Records of the First Church at Dorchester in New England, 1636-1734 suggests that Dorcas may have been one of the first enslaved persons to be freed in British North America. On April 13, 1641, … Read MoreDorcas the blackmore (ca. 1620-?)
