John Henry: African American folk hero
“This old hammer killed John Henry But it won’t kill me, it won’t kill me.” John Henry is an African American folk hero of extraordinary...
Tag : African-American
Lear Green: Escaped to freedom in a small sailor’s chest
Lear Green was an enslaved African American young woman who escaped from Baltimore slaveholder James Noble by hiding in an old wooden sailor’s chest. The...
Frederick Bruce Thomas: The Black Russian
Frederick Bruce Thomas also known as Fyodor Fyodorovich Tomas was an African American who led an extraordinary life in Russia and later, Constantinople (now known...
Peter Hill: The First African-American Clockmaker
Peter Hill was the first known African American clockmaker, and the only Black clockmaker known to have worked in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth...
Azie Taylor Morton: The First African American Treasurer of the US
“It isn’t luck, and it isn’t circumstances, and it isn’t being born a certain way that causes a person’s future to become what it becomes.”...
Jackie Robinson: Breaking Major League Baseball’s Color Barrier
Jackie Robinson made history in 1947 when he broke baseball’s color barrier to play for the Brooklyn Dodgers. A talented player, Robinson won the National...
Richard Greener: The first Black graduate of Harvard University
Richard Theodore Greener, the African-American educator, lawyer, consular officer and reformer was the first Black graduate of Harvard University and dean of the Howard University...
Sarah Loguen Fraser: A Pioneering Pediatrician
Sarah Loguen Fraser was one of the first African American women to earn a medical degree, the first African American female physician specializing in obstetrics...
Jenny Slew: The first enslaved person to win her freedom via jury trial
Jenny Slew was a Black woman kidnapped into American slavery, who later petitioned for her freedom in court. Slew was the first ‘enslaved’ person to...
Richmond Barthé: A Distinguished American Sculptor
[dropcap size=big]R[/dropcap]ichmond Barthé was an African-American sculptor associated with the Harlem Renaissance. Barthe was one of the first sculptors to focus on Black people as...