Alexander H. Johnson: The first drummer boy
Alexander H. Johnson enlisted at the age of 16 as a drummer boy in the Massachusetts 54th Regiment. He was the first Black musician to...
Category : Biographies
Anthony Burns: The Bostonian Fugitive
Anthony Burns (31 May 1834 – 17 July 1862), was a principal in a fugitive Maafa (slavery) case. He was born enslaved in Stafford County,...
Ida B Wells Barnett: A Crusader for Justice
“One had better die fighting against injustice than to die like a dog or a rat in a trap.” Ida B. Wells was a journalist...
Assata Shakur: Political activist, author and fugitive
“My name is Assata (“she who struggles”) Olugbala ( “for the people” ) Shakur (“the thankful one”), and I am a 20th century escaped slave....
Maggie Lena Walker: First Woman Bank President
In 1903, Maggie Lena Walker became the first woman bank president in the United States when she founded the Saint Luke Penny Savings Bank in...
Vivian Malone: Civil rights hero who defied racial segregation
Vivian Juanita Malone Jones was one of the first two African American students to enroll at the University of Alabama in 1963 and the university’s...
Maulana Karenga: The creator of Kwanzaa
“History is the struggle and record of humans in the process of humanizing the world, i.e., shaping it in their image and interests.” (Black history...
Gideon Smith: Warrior of His Time
Gideon Edward Smith sometimes referred to as G. E. Smith, was an American football player and coach. Smith was the first African-American varsity athlete in...
Wole Soyinka: Noble Prize Literary Genius
Akinwande Oluwole “Wole” Babatunde Soyinka, born 13 July 1934, is a Nigerian playwright and poet. He was the first African to win the Nobel Prize...
William T. Shorey: The Black Whaling Captain
William T. Shorey was a late 19th-century Caribbean-American whaling ship captain affectionately known to his crew as the Black Ahab, after Moby Dick’s protagonist. He...