THE URBAN SHAMAN: AN INTERVIEW WITH ELLIOTT RIVERA
“Afrikans are in bondage today because they approach spirituality through religion provided by foreign invaders and conquerors.” ~Haile Selassie I Elliot Rivera, known as the...
Category : African American
Mary Annette Anderson: The first African American woman elected to Phi Beta Kappa
“The sunshine of her life she gives, To everything around her, Though brief the season that she lives Nor lost is her endeavor. She is...
Gwendolyn B. Bennett: The Harlem Renaissance Writer and Painter
Gwendolyn B. Bennett was an African-American poet, essayist, short-story writer, and artist. Although she never published her own volume of poetry, she was one of...
Marie Couvent: A Controversial African-American Philanthropist
“Marie Couvent was the first [Black] woman to set the example of an enlightened charity, and that for a long time she was the only...
Zelda Wynn Valdes: The Creator of the Playboy Bunny Costume
“I just had a God-given talent for making people beautiful…” Zelda Wynn Valdes was a fashion legend who was the first African-American designer to open...
Lucille Clifton: The Award-winning Poet
“I write to celebrate life.” “I would like to be seen as a woman whose roots go back to Africa, who tried to honor being...
Thomas Peters: One of the Black Loyalist Founders of Sierra Leone
In 1999, Thomas Peters, one of the founding fathers of Sierra Leone, was honored by the Sierra Leone government by being included in a movie...
Wilma Rudolph: The fastest woman in the world in the 1960s
Wilma Glodean Rudolph was an African-American athlete who in 1960 became the first American woman to win three gold medals in track and field at...
Mathias De Sousa: The first African-American in Maryland
Mathias de Sousa, possibly of African and Portuguese ancestry, is considered the first known Portuguese immigrant on record to have settled in North America. He...
James Weldon Johnson: Author of “Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing”
James Weldon Johnson was an African-American writer, who distinguished himself in civil rights, diplomacy, education, journalism, law, literature, and music. In 1900, Johnson wrote the...