National Afro-American League, Pioneer Black

Marjorie Joyner

Marjorie Stewart Joyner was born in Monterey, Virginia on October 24, 1896, the granddaughter of a slave and a slave-owner. In 1912, an eager Marjorie moved to Chicago, Illinois to pursue a career in cosmetology. She enrolled in the A.B. Molar Beauty School and in 1916 became the first Black women

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Source: Black History Resources

Nov

26

2012

Gentrification, Integration or Displacement?: The Seattle Story

In the following article, Henry W. McGee, Jr., a Seattle University Professor of Law and Central District resident, discusses the recent dramatic transformation of the area from a predominately working class African American community into an area of high income white, Asian American and African

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Source: Black Past

Muddy Waters

Muddy Waters was a twentieth century African American blues musician. He is deemed the “father of modern Chicago blues” and influenced the 1960s generation of England which resulted in the appearance of British

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Source: Black History Resources

Apr

4

1913

Gwendolyn Brooks

Born on June 7, 1917, to a family who belonged to Kansas but later moved to Chicago, Gwendolyn Brooks was an American poet and teacher. Even though both of her parents wanted to pursue their careers as doctors but were unable to do so due to financial constraints, they were supportive of their

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Source: Black History Resources

Jun

7

1917

Livingstone College [Salisbury] (1879-- )

Livingstone College is a private, four-year coeducational historically black liberal arts university located in Salisbury, North Carolina. The large, urban campus is located about 40 miles northeast of Charlotte, North

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Source: Black Past

Serena Williams

Serena Jameka Williams is a professional tennis player, ranked No. 1 in women’s singles tennis as of August 2014, a rank she has held 5 times in her career. She is the younger sister of tennis star Venus Williams. She was born on September 26, 1981 in Saginaw, Michigan to Richard and Oracene

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Source: Black History Resources

Sep

26

1981

Collins, George Washington (1925-1972)

Born on March 5, 1925 in Chicago, Illinois, George Washington Collins graduated from Waller High School and immediately joined the United States Army in 1943 at the age of 18. He rose to the rank of sergeant and was discharged in 1946. Collins attended the Central Y.M.C.A. College in

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Source: Black Past

Philips, 1st Black nominated president

Rev. Channing E. Philips of Washington, D.C., became first Black nominated for president by a major national party. Philips was nominated as favorite son candidate by District of Columbia delegation at Democratic convention in Chicago and received 671/2 votes.

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Source: Blackfacts.com

Aug

28

1968

Fango, Gobo (1855-1886)

Gobo Fango was born in the Eastern Cape Colony in what is now South Africa around 1855, just before the beginning of the eighth of the nine Xhosa Wars (Cape Frontier Wars) against British and Boer settlers. Fango was a member of the Gcaleka tribe, a sub-group of the Xhosa peoples. These frontier

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Source: Black Past

Larsen, Nella (1891-1963)

Nella Larsen, nurse, librarian, and, writer, was born Nella Marie Larsen in Chicago in 1891 to a Danish mother and a black West Indian father. Knowing little about her father after his death when she was two years old, she was reared in the home with her mother, remarried to a Danish man, and her

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Source: Black Past

May

3

1919

Ida Bell Wells-Barnett

Born: 7/16/1862 Holly Springs, MississippiDied: 3/25/1931 Chicago, IllinoisIda Bell Wells-Barnett, more commonly known as Ida B. Wells, was an African-American journalist, newspaper editor, suffragist, sociologist, Georgist, and an early leader in the Civil Rights MovementBusiness

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Source: Blackfacts.com

Rollins, Ida Gray Nelson (1867-1953)

Ida Gray Nelson Rollins, the first African American Woman dentist, was born in Clarksville, Tennessee, on March 4, 1867. She became an orphan when her mother, Jennie Gray, died in her early teens. Rollins’ white father, whose name is not known, played no role in her childhood or education. After

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Source: Black Past

Portrait of Black Chicago

The captions are John White`s own, written some time after he took his photographs. In some cases White used virtually the same caption for several

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Source: Archives Library Information Center (ALIC)

Bernie Mac

Bernard Jeffrey “Bernie” McCullough, or Bernie Mac, was an American comedian and actor, born on October 5, 1957 in Chicago, Illinois, U.S.A. After losing his mother at the age of 16, Mac would set up stand-up comedy shows for neighborhood kids and spent most of his 20s serving various

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Source: Black History Resources

Aug

9

2008

Charles Henry Turner

Born: 2/3/1867 Cincinnati, OhioDied: 2/14/1923 Chicago, IllinoisCharles Henry Turner was an American research biologist, educator, zoologist, and comparative psychologist born in Cincinnati, Ohio. In 1892, Turner became the first African American to receive a graduate degree at the University of

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Source: Blackfacts.com

Douglas, H. Ford (1831-1865)

Captain H. Ford Douglas was born in Virginia in 1831 to a white man named William Douglas, and an enslaved mother named Mary. He escaped from slavery sometime after his fifteenth birthday, and moved to

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Source: Black Past

Jul

26

1862

Metcalfe, Ralph Harold (1910-1978)

Ralph Metcalfe, was an outstanding U.S. sprinter, track coach, and politican born in Atlanta, Georgia and raised in Chicago, Illinois. During Metcalfe’s years as a student at Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin from 1932 through 1934, he was arguably the world’s fastest human. His strong

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Source: Black Past

Holden, Oscar (1887-1969)

Oscar Holden, often called the patriarch of Seattle jazz, was one of the earliest of Seattle, Washington’s influential jazz musicians. Holden was born in Nashville, Tennessee in 1887. Before moving to Chicago, Illinois to escape from the South, Holden had played on Fate Marable’s famous

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Source: Black Past

Lemon, Don (1966- )

Don Carlton Lemon is a prominent, award-winning black television anchor in the United States. In 2011, he publicly came out as a gay man. In so doing, he became the most prominent African American journalist to announce his sexual orientation and was immediately considered a major role model for

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Source: Black Past

Mar

1

1966

Firefight: The Century-Long Battle to Integrate the New York City Fire Department

In the following article Ginger Adams Otis, a staff writer at the New York Daily News and a longtime city reporter, describes her more-than-decade-long research following the evolution of a landmark civil rights case brought by the Vulcan Society, a determined group of activist black New York City

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Source: Black Past

Morgan Freeman

Morgan Freeman is a successful and widely respected American actor and director, who has received 4 Oscar nominations along with winning the Best Supporting Actor Oscar Award for the movie “Million Dollar Baby”. Freeman was born in Memphis, Tennessee in June 1937. He lived with his

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Source: Black History Resources

Brooks, Gwendolyn Elizabeth

Brooks, Gwendolyn Elizabeth, 1917–2000, American poet, b. Topeka, Kans. She grew up in the slums of Chicago and lived in that city until her death. Brookss poems, technically accomplished and written in a variety of forms including quatrains, free verse, ballads, and sonnets, deal with the

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Source: Fact Monster - Black History

DuSable Abandons Chicago

On this date in 1800, Jean Baptiste Pointe DuSable, frontier trader, fur trapper, farmer, businessman and father of Chicago sold all his property for $1,200 and left the area. He died 18 years later, almost penniless, and was buried in St. Charles, Missouri.

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Source: Blackfacts.com

May

7

1800

Hunter, Alberta (1895-1984)

Alberta Hunter was born in Memphis, Tennessee, but left for Chicago, Illinois at age 11 after her father died. She peeled potatoes in a boarding house until she could find a job singing blues, the first opportunity was at a Chicago brothel, as entertainment for the prostitutes and their

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Source: Black Past

Documentary Films on Blackpast.org

Capra, Frank The Negro Soldier 1943

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Source: Black Past

Taye Diggs

Taye Diggs was born on January 2, 1971 in Newark, New Jersey. He is the oldest of five children born to Marcia and Andre Young. Diggs grew up in Rochester, New York where he attended Allendale Columbia School. He later transferred to School of the Arts. He also received a Bachelor of Fine Arts from

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Source: Black History Resources

Jan

2

1971

Jazz Migration

Jazz migration began. Joe Oliver left New Orleans and settled in Chicago and was joined by other stars.

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Source: Blackfacts.com

Dec

11

1917

Murphy, John Henry, Sr. (1840-1922)

Born on December 25, 1840, in Baltimore, Maryland, John Henry Murphy grew up as a slave and freed by the Emancipation Act of 1863. He enlisted in the military at age 24, during the Civil War and quickly progressed to the rank of Sergeant by the end of the conflict. When he returned home to

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Source: Black Past

Dec

25

1840

Killings in Civil Rights demonstrations

Jonathan M. Daniels, white Episcopal seminary student from Massachusetts, killed and Richard F. Morrisroe, white Roman Catholic priest from Chicago, seriously wounded by shotgun blasts fired by white special deputy sheriff in Hayneville, Alabama. They were participating in civil rights

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Source: Blackfacts.com

Aug

12

1965

Terrence Howard

Terrence Howard is a celebrated American actor known for his strong performances in movies such as “Hustle & Flow” and “Ray & Crash”. He was born on March 11, 1969 in Chicago, Illinois to Tyrone Howard and Anita Williams. He came from a family of actors; his maternal

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Source: Black History Resources

Mar

11

1969

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