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...
Tag : African-American
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 honoured by the Sierra Leone government with inclusion in a movie celebrating...
“SPEECH TO THE YOUNG, SPEECH TO THE PROGRESS-TOWARD” by Gwendolyn Brooks
Say to them, say to the down-keepers, the sun-slappers, the self-soilers, the harmony-hushers, “even if you are not ready for day it cannot always be...
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...
The Horrific Lynching of Mary Turner
Mary Turner was a young African-American woman lynched on May 19, 1918, near Valdosta, Georgia, in a horrific manner. She was eight months pregnant at...
Her name was Redoshi: The last survivor of the Maafa in America?
Redoshi was born in modern-day Benin and abducted from her home aged 12 before being sold as a child bride. She was renamed Sally Smith...
McHenry Boatwright: An African-American Bass-Baritone Opera Singer
John McHenry Boatwright was one of the leading baritone-bass opera singers in America. Boatwright made numerous appearances as a recitalist, and a soloist with orchestras...
Jacob Carruthers: An Intellectual Warrior
“We must restore the historical consciousness of the African people. The reawakened Africans would then create a new African reality and be a major factor...