Pioneer Pharmacist Anna Louise James was born Louise Clegget James on January 19, 1886, in Hartford, Connecticut, to Willis Samuel James who was born enslaved and escaped at age 16 through the Underground Railroad, and Anna Houston. Louise Clegget was the eighth of 11 children. … Read MoreAnna Louise James (1886-1977)
The Lincoln Giants were a Negro baseball team based out of Harlem, New York. Two white brothers, Edward and Jess McMahon, established the team in 1911, and employed player, Sol White as their manager. White in turn signed pitchers Joe “Cyclone” Williams and Dick “Cannonball” … Read MoreThe Lincoln Giants (1911-1930)
Edward G. Irvin was a co-founder of Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity. Irvin was born on August 13th, 1893, in Spencer, Indiana, as the seventh of nine siblings. His father was an African Methodist Episcopal (AME) preacher. Irvin grew up in Spencer but was part of … Read MoreEdward Giles Irvin (1893-1982)
John B (for the Baptist) Stradford was born a free man in Versailles, Kentucky in 1861. His father, J.C. Stradford was a former slave who had been emancipated and was living in Stradford, Ontario (Canada) but who returned to the U.S. and was in Versailles … Read MoreJohn “the Baptist” Stradford (1861-1935)
Richard “Cannonball Dick” Redding was a pitcher, outfielder, and manager in the Negro Leagues. Redding was born on April 15, 1893 in Atlanta, Georgia. Much of his early life is unknown. Redding’s baseball career started in 1911 when at 18 he played with the Philadelphia … Read MoreRichard “Cannonball Dick” Redding (1893-1948)
Maude Craig, public school teacher, suffragist, civil rights and community activist, was born in Austin, Texas in February 1880 to Marie Sanders Craig, a homemaker, and George Washington Craig, a grocer. In 1900, Craig graduated from Prairie View State Normal and Industrial College (now Prairie … Read MoreMaude E. Craig Sampson Williams (1880-1958)
James Wormley Jones is the first African American FBI agent in the United States. Jones was born on September 22, 1884 to John Bradford Jones and Sally Jones in Fort Monroe, Virginia. Jones had one sibling, a brother named Paul W. Jones. His family later … Read MoreJames Wormley Jones (1884-1958)
Marcel Pliat was one of several French nationals who served in the Russian Imperial Army during World War I but he was the only black man to serve in the Russian Imperial Air Force. Pliat was born in French Polynesia (now Tahiti) around 1890. His … Read MoreMarcel Pliat (ca. 1890-1917?)
On August 4, 1914, Britain joined the Great War. The First World War, 1914-1918, is usually viewed as a predominantly white European conflict. In fact, many Africans, Asians, black Britons, and Caribbeans fought for the British Empire. At the beginning of the war, the British War Office, however, was reluctant to allow blacks to enlist … Read MoreBritish West Indian Regiment (BWIR) (1915-1918)
The 1919 race riots in Great Britain’s seaport areas such as Liverpool, Cardiff, and Salford were stoked by social, economic, and political anxieties and anger by white union workers and demobilized white servicemen against blacks, Arabs, Chinese, and ethnic minority communities and businesses. It was one of Britain’s … Read MoreBritain’s 1919 Race Riots
