Edward Wilmot Blyden (1832 – 1912)

Edward Wilmot Blyden was born on August 3, 1832 in St. Thomas, (now the U.S Virgin Islands) as the third of seven children to free and literate Romeo and Judith Blyden. In 1842, the family moved to Porto Bello, Venezuela where Blyden became fluent in Spainsh and began to notice the global suppression of blacks. Blyden returned to St. Thomas three years later and became a student of Rev. John P. Knox, who became his mentor and helped guide Blyden into being a clergyman. In 1850, Blyden accompanied Mrs. Knox to the U.S to enroll into Rutgers’ Theological College in New Jersey but was refused admission due to his race. After this incident, Blyden turned his attention to Africa, and went to Liberia that same year. He worked as a journalist from 1855 to 1856 and edited the Liberia Herald and wrote the column “A Voice From Bleeding Africa” and contributed to newspapers in the British colonies Nigeria and Sierra Leone. He was also serving as editor at The Negro and The African World and published work in the African Repository and Colonial Journal. Between 1856 and 1887 Blyden authored four books, A Voice From Bleeding Africa (1856); A Vindication of the African Race; Being a Brief Examination of the Arguments in Favor of African Inferiority (1862); Africa for the Africans (1872); and Christianity, Islam and the Negro Race (1887) in which he made the case for Pan-Africanism. As the Liberian Secretary of State (1862-64), Secretary of Interior (1880-82), and an ambassador for Liberia, Blyden traveled to the United States and spoke to major black churches about his belief that Black Americans could end their suffering of racial discrimination by returning to Africa and helping to develop it. Although this perspective led to criticism by African Americans who wanted to gain full civil rights in the, United States, this philosophy was a catalyst to the Pan-African movement in the United States. His ideas have influenced many twentieth-century figures including Marcus Garvey, George Padmore and Kwame Nkrumah and cemented him as the father of Pan-Africanism. Drawing on both scriptures and science, Blyden challenged the arguments about black inferiority that were increasingly popular in Europe and North America during this period.  He argued black equality and used examples of little known but successful persons of African ancestry. In 1885, Blyden ran for President of Liberia but was defeated due to his promotion of Black Americans to come to Liberia, leaving the native Liberians disgruntled. After his defeat he went into self-imposed exile in neighboring Sierra Leone where he died on February 7, 1912.

This information was derived from the internet @ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Wilmot_Blyden & https://blackpast.org/gah/edward-wilmot-blyden-1832-1912

Mary Beatrice Davidson Kenner (1912 – 2006)

Mary Kenner was born in Monroe, North Carolina and credited her father with giving her a thirst for discovering things. This thirst led her to be able to invent the sanitary belt (maxi pads) with moisture-proof napkin pocket during an era when talk of periods was taboo. However, the sanitary napkin wasn’t used until 1956, thirty years after she had first invented it due to racial discrimination. This did not detour her and she continued to invent amazing items such as a the carrier attachment for an invalid walker in 1959, bathroom tissue holder in October 19, 1982, and a back washer mounted on the shower or bathtub wall in 1987. Between 1956 and 1987 she received five patents for her household and personal item creations. She later stated, “My inventions were never about money. I just want to help make life easier for people.” She worked as a professional floral arranger and had her own business in the field of Washington DC area.

This information was derived from the internet @ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Kenner & https://www.revolvy.com/page/Mary-Kenner

John Brown Russwurm (1799 – 1851) 

John Brown Russwurm was born in Jamaica on October 1, 1799 to an English father and an enslaved mother. Russwurm and his father moved to Quebec, Canada without his mother and later to Maine, where he attended Bowdoin College and went on to become the first Black person to graduate from there and only the second Black person to earn a college degree in 1826. His graduation speech focused on the Haitian Revolution. The next year he moved to New York and befriended Samuel Cornish, a Black Presbyterian minister and editor, and they would collaborate to publish the first issue of Freedom’s Journal on March 16, 1827. Freedom’s Journal was the first newspaper in the United States to be owned, operated, published and edited by Black people. Upon becoming senior editor in September 1827, Russwurm used his position to change the paper’s opposition to the colonization of Africa by Blacks to advocating  for relocation and taking on white publishers who long denigrated and attacked free Blacks. These strong views alienated many of the readers, who opposed Blacks being encouraged to leave the United States. Russwurm departed from the Freedom’s Journal in early 1829 due to his frustration over the seeming impossibility of ending slavery and relocated to Liberia as part of the American Colonization Society. While in Liberia Russwurm found love and married Sarah McGill, the daughter of the Lieutenant-Governor of Monrovia in 1833 and would go on to have a daughter and three sons. By 1836 Russwurm was selected as Governor of Maryland in Liberia, a small colony set up nearby by the Maryland State Colonization Society. Russwurm would spend the next 22 years learning African languages and serving as governor until his death in 1851. At the time of his death, nearly 30 African American newspapers existed in the United States, all devoted to ending slavery. A statue of John Russwurm was erected at his burial site at Harper, Cape Palmas, Liberia. The colony was annexed to Liberia in 1857.

This information was derived from the internet @ http://www.blackpast.org/aah/russwurm-john-1799-1851 & https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Brown_Russwurm

Mary Church Terrell (1863 – 1954)         Mary Eliza Church was born on September 23, 1863, in Memphis, Tennessee. Her parents, Robert Reed Church and Louisa Ayers, were both former slaves who used their freedom to become small-business owners Her mother owned a hair salon and her father, was the first black millionaire in the South due to his business and real estate dealings. Church’s parents divorced when she and her brother were young and she left Memphis, Tennessee, and moved to Ohio where she grew up. She attended Oberlin Academy and Oberlin College, earning B.A. in Classical Languages in 1884, becoming one of the first Black women to do so, and later a Master’s degree in 1888. Church became a teacher at Wilberforce College in Ohio before moving to Washington, D.C. in 1887 to join the faculty at M Street Colored High School, which later became Dunbar High School. While in D.C. Mary fell in love with Robert Heberton Terrell, who would eventually become Washington, D.C.’s first black municipal judge, and they married in 1891 in spite of her having to quit teaching due to the regulations at that time. In 1892 a dear friend of Mary Terrell, was lynched back in Memphis, motivating Terrell to work with Frederick Douglass to appeal to President Benjamin Harrison to condemn lynching. President Harrison failed to act, spurning Terrell to form the Colored Women’s League in Washington to address social problems facing black communities and also helped create the National Association of Colored Women (NACW) from 1896 through 1901. As president of the NACW, her tenure as president focused on racial uplift through education and community activism and supported the women’s suffrage movement, even as segregationists tried to exclude black women from the cause. Terrell also served on Washington’s Board of Education in an unpaid position twice from 1895 to 1901, and again from 1906 to 1911. In 1909, Terrell signed the charter that established the National Association for the Advancement for Colored People (NAACP) at the behest of W.E.B. DuBois. Terrell would go on to write an autobiography of her life in 1940 entitled, A Colored Woman in a White World, which details her own battles with gender and race discrimination in the United States. In 1949 Terrell became the first Black person admitted to the Washington chapter of the American Association of University Women and helped bring down segregated restaurants in Washington, D.C. when she and several activist sued these establishments and ruled as unconstitutional one year prior to the Brown V Board of Education in 1954. Mary Church Terrell died on July 24, 1954 at 90. Mary Church Terrell’s home in Washington, D.C. has been named a National Historic Landmark.

This information was derived from the internet @   http://www.blackpast.org/aah/terrell-mary-church-1863-1954#sthash.FFDj2iYj.dpuf & http://www.biography.com/people/mary-church-terrell-9504299#synopsis

Patricia Roberts Harris  (1924 – 1985) 

Patricia Roberts Harris was born on May 31, 1924, in Mattoon, Illinois, the daughter of a Pullman car waiter. Raised by her mother after her father left, she excelled at school and won a scholarship to Howard University in 1941. While at Howard, Harris served as vice chairman of the university’s student branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. As a part of the organization’s civil rights efforts, she participated in a protest against a restaurant that only served whites. Harris graduated from Howard in 1945 with honors and continued her education at the University of Chicago, where she studied industrial relations. Harris worked at Delta Sigma Theta as a director in the 1950’s and also attended George Washington University’s National Law Center and graduated in 1960 as the top student in her class. After graduating, Harris spent a year with the Department of Justice and then returned to teach at Howard University where she was an activist for many social causes. She was appointed by President John F. Kennedy to co-chair the National Women’s Committee for Civil Rights, which oversaw approximately 100 women’s organizations across the nation. In 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson appointed Harris to be the first Black women to serve as a US ambassador (assigned to Luxembourg). She held the position for two years and then returned to teaching at Howard where she became the dean of the law school in 1969, again making her the first Black woman to do so. By 1970, Harris became a corporate attorney at a large law firm and also served on the boards of IBM, Scott Paper Company, and Chase Manhattan Bank (to name a few) with the intent to help foster social change. In 1977, Harris was appointed to President Jimmy Carter’s Cabinet as secretary of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), and for the third time became the first Black woman, this time to head a Cabinet department and hold a Cabinet post. While leading HUD, Harris increased assistance to the poor, put a stop to discriminatory housing and employment practices, worked hard to rebuild urban neighborhoods, and encouraged businesses to invest in troubled areas. Encouraged by her success at HUD, Carter later made Harris the secretary of what is now known as health and human services. Harris left the position after Carter lost the 1980 election. After losing the Democratic primary to incumbent Marion Barry for mayor of Washington D.C., she returned to teaching and was a professor at George Washington University Law School until her death on March 23, 1985.

This information was derived from the internet @   http://www.biography.com/people/patricia-roberts-harris-205630#synopsis

Maulana Karenga  (1941 – )

Ronald McKinley Everett was born on July 14, 1941, in Parsonsburg, Maryland. Everett was one of 14 children of a Baptist minister and tenant farmer, who employed his family to work in the fields. At age 18, Everett moved to Los Angeles, California, where he attended Los Angeles Community College and became active in the Civil Rights Movement. After earning his associate’s degree, Everett earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in political science at the University of California, Los Angeles. While pursuing his doctorate, he taught African culture classes and changed his name to Maulana (Swahili-Arabic for “master teacher”) Karenga (Swahili for “keeper of tradition”). He rejected the Eurocentric view of America and advocated a Black Nationalist philosophy. After the Watts riots of 1965, Karenga helped establish the Black Congress among residents of Watts district to help restore the community. This action led to the formation of US, a community organization calling for a cultural revolution among blacks. US was instrumental in building independent schools, African-American studies departments and black student unions. Karenga also helped set up black power conferences in several major U.S. cities, providing blacks with a platform for social change. In 1966, Karenga created Kwanzaa, a pan-African holiday based on African agricultural activities that encourage blacks to celebrate their cultural roots. Karenga also urged the establishment of a separate African-American political structure and worked with the major political leaders across the country to help rebuild community relations after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1968. In the late 1960s, Karenga and US were investigated by the FBI’s COINTELPRO operation and placed on a watch list of dangerous, revolutionary organizations, while simultaneously engaged in a violent conflict with the Black Panther Party for supremacy in the Black community. This led to a 1969 shootout at UCLA, in which two Panthers were killed. By 1971, many Black leaders rejected Karenga’s overbearing manner, philosophy of black separatism and chauvinist attitudes. That same year, he was arrested and convicted of assaulting a female US member and was sent to prison, and led to the fall of US, which disbanded in 1974. After his release from prison, Karenga went back to school and earned two doctorate degrees and began to encourage Blacks to work toward common goals. Karenga exhibited this attitude again after the 1992 riots in Los Angeles when he became a voice of healing and was on the organizing committee and authored the mission statement of the Million Man March in 1995. Karenga has authored numerous scholarly articles and books, including Maat, The Moral Ideal in Ancient Egypt: A Study in Classical African Ethics and the authoritative text Kwanzaa: A Celebration of Family, Community and Culture, and has served as chair of the Department of Black Studies at the University of California at Long Beach.

This information was derived from the internet @   http://www.biography.com/people/maulana-karenga-21315383

Martin Robison Delany (1822-1885)

Martin Robison Delany was born in Charles Town, Virginia (now West Virginia) to a slave father and a free mother. Delany’s mother took her children to Pennsylvania in 1822 to avoid their enslavement and persecution for teaching her children to read and write, which was illegal. In 1833 Martin Delany began an apprenticeship with a Pittsburgh physician and soon opened a successful medical practice. By 1843 he began publishing a newspaper in Pittsburgh called The Mystery, and would later work with Frederick Douglass to produce and promote The North Star in Rochester, New York. In 1850 Delany entered Harvard Medical School in 1850 to finish his formal medical education, but was dismissed after three weeks due to petitions from white students. Two years later Delany published The Condition, Elevation, Emigration, and Destiny of the Colored People of the United States noting abolitionists would never accept blacks as equals and advocated for Black people to return to Africa and later led an emigration commission to West Africa in 1859. However, Delaney returned to the United States in 1861 when the Civil War started to recruit thousands of men for the Union Army and later even persuaded President Abraham Lincoln to create an all Black Corps in February 1865. Delaney was commissioned a Major in the 52nd U.S. Colored Troops Regiment, making him the first Black line officer in U.S. Army history. When Reconstruction began Delany was assigned to the Freedman’s Bureau in South Carolina where he would go on to became active in local Republican politics and served briefly as a judge in Charleston. However by 1878 Delany renewed his calls for emigration, and become an official in the Liberian Exodus Joint Stock Steamship Company but would later withdraw two years. His philosophy of racial pride and purity made Delany the “father of black nationalism” and was spelled out in his 1879 book The Principia of Ethnology. Martin R Delany died January 12, 1885 at Wilberforce College in Xenia, Ohio.

This information was derived from the internet @   http://www.blackpast.org/aah/delany-major-martin-robison-1812-1885 

Alexander Twilight (1795-1857)

Alexander Lucius Twilight was born September 23, 1795, at Corinth, Vermont. His father Ichabod Twilight was free, of mixed-race, and a Revolutionary War veteran. His mother Mary, also free, was described as white or light-skinned. Twilight worked for a neighboring farmer in Corinth, when he was eight years old. For the next 12 years he read, studied, and learned mathematics while working in various farm labor positions. He enrolled in Randolph’s Orange County Grammar School in 1815 at the age of 20. From 1815 to 1821, he completed all secondary school courses as well as the first two years of a college-level curriculum. He then attended Middlebury College in 1821, where he graduated in 1823. His baccalaureate degree made him the first Black person to receive a degree from an American institution of higher learning. Twilight’s career was in ministry and education. His first job was teaching in Peru, New York where he taught from 1824 through 1828. There, Twilight married Mercy Ladd Merrill in 1826 and became a licensed preacher at Champlain Presbytery of Plattsburgh. In 1828 Twlight moved to Vergennes, Vermont to teach and in 1829 he was hired as principal of the Orleans County, Vermont Grammar School in Brownington, the only secondary school in a two-county area. Twilight also served as a minister of the Congregational Church, building a house for his family shortly after arrival, which still stands. Wanting to ensure a place for students from out of town, from 1834-1836 Twilight designed, raised funds for, and had built a massive four-story granite building, which he called Athenian Hall. The first granite public building in Vermont, it served as a dormitory for the co-educational school, also known as the Brownington Academy. In 1836, Twilight was elected to the Vermont General Assembly, becoming the first Black to be elected to a state legislature. After his death on June 19, 1857, Twilight was buried in the churchyard in Brownington. Alexander Twilight’s House still stands across the street from the hall, and serves as headquarters for the Orleans County Historical Society and is within the Historic District is listed on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) and Athenian Hall is now operated by the Orleans County Historical Society as the Old Stone House Museum, and anchors the Historic District of Brownington.

This information was derived from the internet @   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Twilight

Marie Maynard Daly (1921-2003)

Marie Maynard Daly was born and raised in Corona, Queens. When Marie was young she found her love for science through books that she would read at in her grandparents house in D.C. Marie’s grandparents had an extensive library and books like The Microbe Hunters by Paul de Kruif’s influenced her to become a scientist. After Daly graduated from all-girls Hunter College High School, she enrolled in Queens College, in Flushing, New York majoring in chemistry and earning the honor of magna cum laude with her bachelor’s degree in chemistry in 1942. Daly remained at Queens College for another year, working as a laboratory assistant while attending graduate school at New York University. She completed her masters in Chemistry in 1 year and enrolled in the doctoral program at Columbia University, where she worked under Dr. Mary L. Caldwell and completed her Ph.D. in chemistry in 1947 making her the first Black woman in the United States to earn a Ph.D. in chemistry. Daly served two years as a physical science instructor at Howard University. After being awarded an American Cancer Society grant to support her postdoctoral research, she joined Dr. A. E. Mirsky at the Rockefeller Institute, where they studied the cell nucleus.  By 1960 Daly had moved on to Yeshiva University at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City. At Yeshiva, Marie would continue her research and teach biochemistry courses. She enjoyed teaching medical students and was dedicated to increasing the number of minority students enrolled in medical schools.  As the years progress Marie would go on to get married to Vincent Clark in 1961, serve as an investigator for the American Heart Association, and become a member of the prestigious Board of Governors of the New York Academy of Sciences. Daly retired from the Einstein College of Medicine in 1986, and would go on to start a Queens College scholarship fund in her father’s honor to assist minority students majoring in chemistry or physics. She would die in 2003.

This information was derived from the internet @   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marie_Maynard_Daly 

Samuel Sharpe (1801-1832)

Samuel Sharpe was born in the parish of St James. Although he was a slave most of his life, he was well-educated. Due to his education, Sharpe was able to become a well-known preacher and leader giving him respect among the slaves.  Sharpe was a deacon at the Burchell Baptist Church in Montego Bay and spent most of his time traveling to different parishes in Jamaica, educating the slaves about Christianity and freedom.  Sharpe organized a peaceful general strike across many estates in western Jamaica to protest working conditions.  On Christmas day of 1831 lead by Sharpe, the slaves would refuse to work unless, their grievances concerning better treatment and the consideration of freedom, were accepted by the state owners and managers.  Sharpe explained his plan to his chosen supporters after his religious meetings and made them kiss the Bible to show their loyalty. They, in turn took the plan to the other parishes until the idea had spread.  Word of the plan reached the ears of some of the planters. Troops were sent into St. James and warships were anchored in Montego Bay and Black River, with their guns trained on the towns.  By December 27, the Kensington Estate Great House was set on fire, as a signal that the Slave Rebellion had begun. A series of other fires broke out in the area.  Sharpe’s originally peaceful protest turned into Jamaica’s largest slave rebellion. Hundreds of slaves and 14 whites died in the violence. The colonial government used the armed Jamaican military forces to put down the rebellion, suppressing it within two weeks. The government tried, convicted, and hanged many of the ringleaders, including Sharpe, in 1832.  Just before he was hanged for his role in the rebellion, Sharpe said: “I would rather die among yonder gallows, than live in slavery.”  He was 31 years old. The rebellion provoked two detailed Parliamentary Inquiries, which arguably contributed to the 1833 Abolition of Slavery across the British Empire.  In 1975, the government of independent Jamaica proclaimed Sharpe a National Hero with the posthumous title of Rt. Excellent Samuel Sharpe and his image is used on the modern Jamaican $50 bill.

This information was derived from the internet @  http://jis.gov.jm/heroes/samuel-sharpe/ & http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Sharpe

John Albert Burr (1848-1926)

John Burr was born in Maryland in 1848 the son of freed slaves. Burr would work as a field hand until he was about 17 and at 18 he managed, with the patronage of wealthy African American activists, to attend engineering classes at a nearby private university in Maryland. Burr excelled in his studies and was one of the brightest students in his class. Burr made a comfortable living as a machinist servicing farm equipment, being a repairman, and a capable steelworker. He moved to Chicago in the 1870s and continued to work in repair and maintenance. On May 9, 1899, Burr patented an improved rotary blade lawn mower designing a lawn mower with traction wheels and a rotary blade that would not get clogged easily from lawn clippings. Burr also improved the design of lawn mowers by making it possible to mow closer to building and wall edges. Burr’s rotary innovation would pave the way for much safer and easier labor. Over time, Burr would continue to improve on his original design and invent several devices for sifting and dispersing mulch. Most of Burr’s inventions centered on easing the burden of farm workers and laborers, revolutionizing lawn care. John Albert Burr would die of influenza in 1926 in comfortable obscurity, holding over 30 U.S. patents and becoming a quiet activist for the poor and downtrodden.

This information was derived from the internet @ http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/bl_John_Albert_Burr.htm and http://invent.answers.com/famous-inventors/john-burr-inventor-of-the-lawnmower

Mwende Window Synder (1976 – )

Mwende Window Snyder is the daughter of an American father and a Kenyan-born mother, Wayua Muasa.  Synder was Director of Security Architecture at @stake and was a senior security strategist at Microsoft in the Security Engineering and Communications organization (most notably as security lead and sign off on Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 2 and Windows Server 2003). In 2004, Synder co-authored the 2004 online security guide Threat Modeling, which has become an industry standard, and is considered a game changer in her field. That same year, she co-founded a security company that was sold to Symantec for $49 million.  After leaving Microsoft in 2005, Snyder worked as a principal, founder, and CTO at Matasano Security.  By September of 2006, Synder had joined Mozilla but would only stay through December 2008.  On 1 March 2010, Snyder began work at Apple Inc. where she became the security and privacy product manager.  Snyder has led Apple’s team when the company made its first official appearance at the vaunted Black Hat security conference in Las Vegas in 2012. In the ever-changing, always-on world of cyberactivity, Snyder is charged with keeping Apple’s products and customers away from cyber-harm. One of the best methods is to think like a hacker, and Snyder made her mark doing just that.

This information was derived from the internet @ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Window_Snyder and http://www.theroot.com/articles/lists/2012/10/theroot_100/window_snyder.html

Nanny of The Maroons (1685 – 1733 [?])

Nanny was born in Ghana and belonged to the Ashanti tribe and was later brought to Jamaica as a slave, due to her family members being involved in intertribal conflict and her village being captured.  As a child, Nanny was influenced by other slave leaders and maroons. This influenced both Nanny and her brothers, Accompong, Cudjoe, Johnny, and Quao to run away from their plantation and hide in the Blue Mountains area of northern Saint Thomas Parish.  While in hiding, they split up to organize more Maroon communities across Jamaica.  Nanny and Quao founded communities in Portland Parish where she would marry a Maroon named Adou.  The strategic location of Nanny Town was a major reason that all of its inhabitants were able to fight off the British.  Nanny Town was on a 900 ft ridge and only had one entrance/exit to the town.  This design by Nanny allowed them to fight off the British soldiers even though they were severely outnumbered.  The Maroons at Nanny Town also organized look-outs for an attack as well as designated warriors who could be summoned by the sound of a horn called an Abeng.  Maroons were skilled at disguising themselves as bushes and trees and utilized decoys to trick the British into a surprise attacks.  By 1720, Nanny and Quao had settled and controlled an area in the Blue Mountains, which consisted of the 500 acres of land granted to the runaway slaves.  For over 30 years, Nanny freed more than 800 slaves, and helped them to resettle in the Maroon community.  Nanny also was regarded for her knowledge of herbs and other traditional healing methods making her not only a military leader, but also a physical and spiritual healer to her community.  Between 1728 and 1734, Nanny Town and other Maroon settlements were frequently attacked by British forces and held them off during what is known as The First Maroon War.  However, in March of 1733, she was believed to have been killed by Black Shots, who were slaves used by the British to snuff out revolts.  Even with newspaper reporting’s of Nanny’s death, the exact date of her death remains a mystery, in part because the term “Nanny” is an honorific title and many high-ranking women were called that in Maroon Town.  After Nanny’s “death,” many Maroons of Nanny Town travelled across the island to unite with the Leeward Maroons.  By 1739, the British governor in Jamaica signed a treaty with the Maroons, promising them 2500 acres in two locations. They were to remain in their five main towns Accompong, Trelawny Town, Mountain Top, Scots Hall, Nanny Town, living under their own chief with a British supervisor.  In exchange, they agreed not to harbour new runaway slaves and fight for the British in the case of an attack from the French or Spanish.  Nanny is known as one of the earliest leaders of slave resistance in the Americas, and one of very few women.  The government of Jamaica declared Queen Nanny a National Heroine in 1976 and her portrait graces the $500 Jamaican dollar bill, which is colloquially referred to as a “Nanny”.

This information was derived from the internet @ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanny_of_the_Maroons

Richard Allen (1760 – 1831) 

Richard Allen was born into slavery in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on February 14, 1760. Known as “Negro Richard,” he and his family were sold to a Delaware farmer, Stokeley Sturgis, in 1767. Allen converted to Methodism at the age of 17, after hearing a white itinerant Methodist preacher rail against slavery. His owner, who had already sold Richard’s mother and three siblings, also converted and eventually allowed Richard and his brother to purchase their freedom for $2,000 each. After attaining his freedom, Richard took the last name “Allen” and returned to Philadelphia. There, he worked at odd jobs, as a shoemaker and as manager of a chimney-sweeping company. Allen soon joined St. George’s Methodist Episcopal Church, where blacks and whites worshiped together. There, he became an assistant minister and conducted prayer meetings for blacks. Frustrated with the limitations the church placed on him and black parishioners, in 1787 Allen left the church with the intention of creating an independent Methodist church. That same year, along with the Reverend Absalom Jones, Allen helped found the Free African Society, a non-denominational religious mutual-aid society dedicated to helping the black community. A century later, NAACP founder W.E.B. Du Bois called the FAS “the first wavering step of a people toward organized social life.” In 1794, Allen and 10 other black Methodists founded the Bethel Church, a black Episcopal meeting, in an old blacksmith’s shop. Bethel Church became known as “Mother Bethel” because it birthed the African Methodist Episcopal Church (1816). Helped by his wife, Sarah, Allen helped to hide escaped slaves. The basement of the Bethel Church was a stop on the “Underground Railroad” for blacks fleeing slavery. In 1799, Allen became the first African American to be ordained in the ministry of the Methodist Episcopal Church. Then, in 1816, with support from representatives from other black Methodist churches, Allen founded the first national black church in the United States, the African Methodist Episcopal Church, and became its first bishop. Today, the AME Church boasts more than 2.5 million members. Understanding the power of an economic boycott, Allen went on to form the Free Produce Society, where members would only purchase products from non-slave labor, in 1830. With a vision of equal treatment for all, he railed against slavery, influencing civil rights leaders such as Frederick Douglass and Martin Luther King Jr.

This information was derived from the internet @ http://www.biography.com/people/richard-allen-21056735

Claudia Jones (Cumberbatch) (1915 – 1964) 

Claudia Vera Cumberbatch was born in Belmont, Port of Spain, Trinidad, on 15 February 1915. When she was nine years old, her family emigrated to New York City. Her mother died five years later, and her father eventually found work to support the family. In 1932, due to poor living conditions, she was struck with tuberculosis, a condition that irreparably damaged her lungs and plagued her for the rest of her life. She graduated from high school and was academically bright, but broke with few valid job options so Jones began working in a laundry and other retail work in Harlem. In 1936, trying to find organizations supporting the Scottsboro Boys, she joined the American Communist Party (ACP). By 1937 she joined the editorial staff of the Daily Worker, rising by 1938 to become editor of the Weekly Review. After the Young Communist League became American Youth for Democracy during World War II, Jones became editor of its monthly journal, Spotlight. After the war, Jones became executive secretary of the Women’s National Commission, secretary for the Women’s Commission of the Communist Party USA (CPUSA), and in 1952 took the same position at the National Peace Council. In 1953, she took over the editorship of Negro Affairs. An elected member of the National Committee of the Communist Party USA (CPUSA), she also organized and spoke at events. As a result of her membership of CPUSA and various associated activities, in Jones was arrested and sentenced to the first of four spells in prison in 1948. Following a hearing by the Immigration and Naturalization Service, she was found in violation of the McCarran Act for being an alien (non-US citizen) who had joined the Communist Party and was ordered to be deported on 21 December 1950. In 1951, she was tried and convicted of “un-American activities” under the Smith Act, specifically activities against the United States government. The Supreme Court refused to hear her appeal and by 1955, Jones began her sentence of a year and a day at the Federal Reformatory for Women at Alderson, West Virginia. She was released on 23 October 1955. She was refused entry to Trinidad and Tobago, but was eventually offered residency in the United Kingdom on humanitarian grounds. Jones arrived in London two weeks later only to find that many British communists were hostile to a black woman and England was just as oppressive to “minorities” as the United States at that time. She began to get involved in the British African-Caribbean community to organize both access to basic facilities, as well as the early movement for equal rights. Supported by her friends Jones campaigned against racism in housing, education, and employment. She addressed peace rallies and the Trade Union Congress, visited Japan, Russia, and China, meeting with Mao Zedong. Jones helped organize campaigns against the 1876 Immigration Act, which would make it harder for non-Whites to migrate to Britain. She also campaigned for the release of Nelson Mandela, and spoke out against racism in the workplace. In 1958 she founded and thereafter edited the anti-imperialist, anti-racist paper, The West Indian Gazette and Afro-Asian Caribbean News (WIG). The paper became a key contributor to the rise of consciousness within the Black British community. Jones’s most well-known lasting contribution in the UK is considered to be the Notting Hill Carnival which came as a response to race riots in Notting Hill. Funds raised from the event were used to pay the court fees and fines of convicted young black men. Jones died on Christmas Eve 1964, aged 49, found on Christmas Day at her flat. A post-mortem declared that she had died of a massive heart attack, due to heart disease and tuberculosis. Her funeral on 9 January 1965 was a large and political ceremony, with her burial plot selected to be that located to the left of her hero, Karl Marx, in Highgate Cemetery, North London. Always strapped for cash, WIG folded eight months and four editions after Jones’s death in December 1964.

This information was derived from the internet @ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claudia_Jones

Daniel Hale Williams (1856–1931)

Daniel Hale Williams was born in the city of Hollidaysburg, Pennsylvania and lived with his family, (father “free negro” barber, mother who was Scot-Irish, and his brother and five sisters). His family eventually moved to Annapolis, Maryland where his father would later die of tuberculosis. Williams’ mother could not manage the entire family and sent some of the children to live with relatives. Williams stayed in Maryland but eventually rejoined his mother who moved to Illinois. He later moved to Wisconsin with one of his sisters and opened a barbershop. While in Wisconsin, Williams became fascinated with a local physician and decided to follow his path. He began working as an apprentice to Dr. Henry W. Palmer for two years and in 1880 entered Chicago Medical College, now known as Northwestern University Medical School, graduating in 1883. However, black doctors were not allowed to work in Chicago hospitals. As a result, in 1891, Williams started the Provident Hospital and training school for nurses in Chicago, Illinois; the first non-segregated hospital in the United States. This was established mostly for African-American citizens. In 1893 Williams became the second to have successfully performed pericardium surgery to repair a wound (Henry Dalton was the first). He performed this surgery, without the benefit of penicillin or blood transfusion on 10 July 1893, though it would not be reported until 1897. In 1893, during the administration of President Grover Cleveland, Williams was appointed surgeon-in-chief of Freedman’s Hospital in Washington, D.C., a post he held until 1898 when he married Alice Johnson and moved back to Chicago. Williams would later become a teacher of Clinical Surgery at Meharry Medical College in Nashville, Tennessee and an attending surgeon at Cook County Hospital in Chicago. He worked to create more hospitals and for accessibility to African Americans. In 1895 he co-founded the National Medical Association for African American doctors, and in 1913 he became a charter member and the only African American doctor in the American College of Surgeons. Williams would die of a stroke in Idlewild, Michigan on August 4, 1931 seven years after his wife. In 2002, scholar Molefi Kete Asante listed Daniel Hale Williams on his list of 100 Greatest African Americans. He also received honorary degrees from Howard and Wilberforce Universities.

This information was derived from the internet @ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Hale_Williams

Dorothy Irene Height (1912–2010)

Dorothy Height was born in Richmond, Virginia in 1912. During childhood, she moved with her family to Rankin, Pennsylvania where she graduated from Rankin High School in 1929 when she was admitted to Barnard College.  However, she was denied entry because of the school’s unwritten policy of admitting only two black students per year.  Height instead elected to enrolled at New York University, earning an undergraduate degree in 1932 and a master’s degree in educational psychology in 1933.  She pursued further postgraduate work at Columbia University and the New York School of Social Work (the predecessor of the Columbia University School of Social Work).  Height started working as a caseworker with the New York City Welfare Department, and at the age of 25, began a career as a civil rights activist, joining the National Council of Negro Women.  In 1957, Height was named president of the National Council of Negro Women, a position she held until 1997.  During the civil rights movement, she organized “Wednesdays in Mississippi,”(brought together black and white women from the North and South to create a dialogue of understanding) and a founding member of the Council for United Civil Rights Leadership.  Even American leaders regularly took her counsel, including First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, President Dwight D. Eisenhower, and President Lyndon B. Johnson.  Height served on a number of committees, including as a consultant on African affairs to the Secretary of State, the President’s Committee on the Employment of the Handicapped, and the President’s Committee on the Status of Women.  In 1974, she was named to the National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research, which published the Belmont Report[10] a response to the infamous “Tuskegee Syphilis Study” and an international ethical touchstone for researchers to this day.  Height continued to work for the rights of women and blacks well into the later stages of her life.  In 1990, Height, formed the African-American Women for Reproductive Freedom and was the chairperson of the Executive Committee of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, the largest civil rights organization in the USA.  On March 25, 2010, Height was admitted to Howard University Hospital in Washington D.C. for unspecified reasons.  She died three weeks later, on April 20, 2010, at the age of 98. Her funeral service at the Washington National Cathedral on April 29, 2010 was attended by President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama, as well as many other dignitaries and notable people.  She was later interred at Fort Lincoln Cemetery in Colmar Manor, Maryland.  Here are just five of the many awards she received during her lifetime:

• Presidential Citizens Medal (1989)
• Presidential Medal of Freedom (1994)
• National Jefferson Award for Greatest Public Service Benefiting the Disadvantaged (2001)
• Listed on Molefi Kete Asante’s list of 100 Greatest African Americans (2002)
• Congressional Gold Medal by President George W. Bush on behalf of the United States Congress (Approved 2003, awarded 2004)

This information was derived from the internet @ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorothy_Height

Edward Alexander Bouchet (1852–1918)

Edward Alexander Bouchet was born in New Haven, Connecticut, in 1852.  Edward Alexander Bouchet’s father, William, was a former slave that worked his way into becoming a porter at Yale University.  The youngest of four children, Bouchet attended New Haven High School from 1866 to 1868 and continued his education at the Hopkins Grammar School, where he studied mathematics and history in addition to learning Latin and Greek. Bouchet graduated valedictorian of his class from Hopkins in 1870.  That fall, Bouchet entered Yale College (later renamed Yale University) in pursuit of a bachelor’s degree and attained it, graduating from Yale in 1874.  Bouchet continued his education at Yale for two more years and completed his Ph.D. in physics in 1876, making him one among the few people to have a Ph.D. in physics and the first African American to earn a doctorate degree in the United States.  In spite of his accomplishments, Bouchet could not find work as a college professor due to discrimination.  Instead of giving up Bouchet worked at the School for Colored Youth in Philadelphia; one of the few institutions that offered African Americans a rigorous academic program.  For the next 25 years Bouchet taught chemistry and physics at the school.  From 1902 until his retirement in 1913, Bouchet held a variety of high school jobs including serving as a principal.  Bouchet returned to his hometown of New Haven where he would die in 1918.  Since Bouchet’s death, Yale University installed a tombstone to remember him in 1998, and the school’s Graduate School of Arts and Sciences established the Edward Alexander Bouchet Graduate Honor Society in his name. Yale also gives out the Bouchet Leadership Award to academics who help advance diversity in higher education.

This information was derived from the internet @ http://www.biography.com/people/edward-alexander-bouchet-21317497#synopsis

Mary Eliza Mahoney (1845-1926)

Mary Mahoney was born on May 7, 1845 (some sources say April 16), in Boston, Massachusetts. She was admitted to the nursing school of the New England Hospital for Women and Children,(now the Dimock Community Health Center).  For fourteen years Mahoney work as a private nurse to children and the elderly until being accepted into its nursing school in 1878.  In 1879 Mahoney became the first black woman to complete nurse’s training.  Subsequently, she became one of the first black members of the Nurses Associated Alumnae of the United States and Canada (later renamed the American Nurses Association), as well as the cofounder of the newly founded National Association of Colored Graduate Nurses. From 1911 to 1912 she served as director of the Howard Orphan Asylum for black children in Kings Park, Long Island, New York later returning back to Massachusetts.  In addition to her pioneering efforts in nursing, Mahoney was also a strong supporter of women’s equality and the women’s suffrage movement.  In 1920, she was among the first women in Boston to register to vote following the ratification of the 19th Amendment, granting women’s right to vote on August 26, 1920.  Mary Eliza Mahoney died in Boston on January 4, 1926, at the age of 80.  Mahoney was inducted into the Nursing Hall of Fame in 1976 and received induction into the National Women’s Hall of Fame in 1993.

This information was derived from the internet @ http://www.biography.com/people/mary-mahoney-41021#synopsis and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Eliza_Mahoney

Fred Shuttleworth(1922-2011)

Fred Shuttleworth was born Frederick Lee Robinson in Mount Megis, Alabama on March 18, 1922.   His family moved to Birmingham when he was a toddler, and his mother, Alberta, married William Shuttlesworth, whose name he took as his own.  He would later go on to graduate as valedictorian from his high school, and would work assorted jobs before studying at the ministerial institution at Selma University and earning his B.A. in 1951 and later earning his B.S. from Alabama State College.  Shuttlesworth became pastor of Birmingham’s Bethel Baptist Church in 1953.  After the Brown v. Board of Education ruling, he was further inspired to actively participate in the growing Civil Rights Movement calling for the hiring of African-American police officers and establishing the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights in 1956.  He also co-founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) with other leaders, including Martin Luther King Jr. and Bayard Rustin.  Shuttlesworth, with King and fellow minister Ralph D. Abernathy, would later be seen as one of the movement’s “Big Three.  After the desegregation of Montgomery busses due to the citywide boycott inspired by Rosa Parks, Shuttlesworth was organizing efforts in his city to implement bus desegregation as well when his residence was bombed on Christmas, with the pastor inside. He nonetheless steadfastly proceeded with plans; later, when he and his wife took their daughter to integrate a white school, the couple were brutally attacked by a Ku Klux Klan mob.  Shuttlesworth was combative, headstrong and sometimes blunt-spoken to the point that he frequently antagonized his colleagues. He alienated some members of his congregation by devoting as much time as he did to the civil rights movement, at the expense of ordinary church functions.  By 1961 Shuttlesworth moved to Cincinnati, Ohio, to take up the pastorage of the Revelation Baptist Church where he remained intensely involved in the Birmingham struggle and frequently returned to help lead actions.  Shuttlesworth would go on to organized the Greater New Light Baptist Church in 1966, found the “Shuttlesworth Housing Foundation” to assist families who might otherwise be unable to buy their own homes in 1988, and became an early signer and supporter of the Birmingham Pledge, a grassroots community commitment to combating racism and prejudice in 1998.  On January 8, 2001, he was presented with the Presidential Citizens Medal by President Bill Clinton and in 2004 received the Award for Greatest Public Service Benefiting the Disadvantaged, an award given out annually by Jefferson Awards.  Shuttlesworth was fearless, even though he was aware of the risks he ran. Other committed activists were scared off or mystified by his willingness to accept the risk of death. Shuttlesworth himself vowed to “kill segregation or be killed by it.”  He would later die on the same day as Apple Co-founder Steve Jobs, which eclipsed the honor that he so richly deserved in media coverage and attention for his lifetime commitment to making this country a better place.

This information was derived from the internet @ http://www.biography.com/people/fred-shuttlesworth-21389361#civil-rights-leader& and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Shuttlesworth 

Frederick McKinley Jones (1893 – 1961)

Frederick McKinley Jones was born on May 17, 1893 in Cincinnati, Ohio.  His mother died when he was nine, and he was forced to drop out of school.  A priest in Covington, Kentucky, raised him until he was 16.  Upon leaving the rectory, Jones began working as a mechanic’s helper at the R.C. Crothers Garage in Cincinnati.  Jones would spend much of his time observing the mechanics as they worked on cars, taking in as much information as possible.  These observations, along with an insatiable appetite for learning through reading helped Jones develop an incredible base of knowledge about automobiles and their inner workings. Within three years his skills and love for cars had netted him a promotion to shop foreman.  By nineteen, he had built and driven several cars in racing exhibitions and soon became one of the most well know racers in the Great Lakes region.  Later he would join the U.S. Army during World War I, serving in France as an electrician.  While serving, he rewired his camp for electricity, telephone, and telegraph service.  In 1919, after being discharged by the Army, he moved to Hallock, Minnesota where he began his study of electronics, eventually building a transmitter for a local radio station.   Over the next few years he would invent more and more innovative machines including a portable x-ray machine that could be taken to the patient. Unfortunately, like many of his early inventions, Jones never thought to apply for a patent.  Impervious, Jones began new projects including a radio transmitter, personal radio sets, and eventually motion picture devices all of which he did patent.   In 1927, Joseph Numero, the head of Ultraphone Sound Systems, hired Jones as an electrical engineer.  While there Jones converted silent-movie projectors into talking projectors by using scrap metal for parts.  In addition, he devised ways to stabilize and improve the picture quality.   In 1939, Jones invented and received a patent for an automatic ticket-dispensing machine to be used at movie theaters which he later sold the rights to to RCA. Eventually, Numero and Jones formed a partnership called the U.S. Thermo Control Company, with Jones as vice president.  While there Jones set to work and his automatic refrigeration system, the Thermo King, was invented and modified so it could be outfitted for trains, boats, and ships. The Thermo King transformed the shipping and grocery businesses. Grocery chains were now able to import and export products that previously could only have been shipped as canned goods. As a result, the frozen food industry was born and for the first time consumers could enjoy fresh foods from around the globe and U.S. Thermo became a multimillion-dollar company. During World War II, a need for a unit for storing blood serum for transfusions and medicines led Jones into further refrigeration research.  For this, he created an air-conditioning unit for military field hospitals and a refrigerator for military field kitchens.  As a result, may lives were saved.  A modified form of his device is still in use today. When he died on February 21, 1961, Jones had more than sixty patents.  In honor of his tremendous achievements as an inventor, he was posthumously awarded the National Medal of Technology.  Jones was the first black inventor to ever receive such an honor. 

This information was derived from the internet @  http://www.blackpast.org/aah/jones-frederick-mckinley-1893-1961

Otis Boykin (1920 – 1982)

Otis Boykin was born on August 29, 1920 in Dallas, Texas.  His mother was a homemaker and his father was a carpenter turned minister.  Otis attended Booker T. Washington High School in Dallas, where he was the valedictorian, graduating in 1938.  He attended Fisk University on a scholarship and worked as a laboratory assistant at the university’s nearby aerospace laboratory.  He graduated from Fisk College in 1941 and took a job as a lab assistant with the Majestic Radio and TV Corporation in Chicago, Illinois where he ultimately became a supervisor.  He then would take a position with the P.J. Nilsen Research Laboratories where he was discovered by Dr. Hal F. Fruth, an engineer and inventor with his own laboratory.  Fruth and Boykin would collaborate on a number of research projects and would later start a business called Boykin-Fruth Incorporated.  After 1947, Boykin began researching and inventing on his own and would receive a patent for a wire precision resistor on June 16, 1959.  The resistor would later be used in radios and televisions.  In 1961 Boykin created a cheaper and more reliable breakthrough device that could withstand extreme changes in temperature and pressure.  The device was demanded by the United States military for guided missiles and IBM computers.  In 1964, Boykin moved to paris, creating electronic innovations for a new market of customer which included his most famous invention, a control unit for pacemakers.  The device essentially uses electrical impulses to maintain a regular heartbeat.  Ironically, Boykin died in Chicago in 1982 as a result of heart failure.  Upon his death, he had 26 patents to his name.

This information was derived from the internet @ http://www.biography.com/people/otis-boykin-538792 and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otis_Boykin.

Charlotte E. Ray  (1850 – 1911)

Charlotte E. Ray was born in New York City on January 13, 1850 and grew up in a large family of nine.  Her father, Charles, was a minister, an abolitionist, an editor for the Colored American(an abolitionist publication) and helped in the underground railroad.  During the 1860’s, Ray attended the Institution for the Education of Colored Youth in Washington DC.  The institution was one of only a handful of places that offered a quality education to young, black women.  By the end of the 1860’s, she had become a teacher at the preparatory school associated with Howard University and then applied to the university’s law program using only her initials to possibly disguise her gender.  Ray was admitted and graduated from Howard University School of Law in 1872 and became one of the first women admitted to the DC Bar and the first black female lawyer.  She was also the first women permitted to argue cases in front of the US Supreme Court in the capital. After her graduation, Ray started her own law office, specializing in commercial law.  However, widespread prejudices of the time made it too difficult for her, as a black women, to attract enough clients to keep her practice going.  In 1879, Ray moved to New York, where she worked as a teacher in the Brooklyn public schools.  She married soon after, taking, her husband’s last name Fraim and continued to champion a number of social causes outside of her classroom becoming involved in the women’s suffage movement and joining the National Association of Colored Women.  Ray died on January 4, 1911, in Woodside, New York.

This information was derived from the internet @ http://www.biography.com/people/charlotte-e-ray-11380

Gaspar Yanga  (1545 – ????)

Gaspar Yanga led one of colonial Mexico’s first successful slave uprisings and would go on to establish one of the America’s earliest free Black settlements.  Although Yanga was rumored to be of royal lineage in West Africa, Yanga was a slave in the sugarcane plantations of Veracruz, Mexico.  In 1570, Yango and his followers escaped the mountainous regions near Cordoba and established a settlement of former slaves.  With Yanga as the spiritual and military leader, the escaped slaves lived in their settlement untouched by Spanish authorities for nearly 40 years.  During that time, Yanga and his militia known as Cimarrones, were implicated in the disruption and looting of trade goods between Veracruz and Mexico City and held responsible for attacking nearby haciendas and kidnapping indigenous women.  Perceived as dangerous to the colonial system of slavery, New Spain’s Viceroy called for the annihilation of Yanga’s settlement.  In 1609, Spainish authorities sent a well-armed militia to defat Yanga and his Cimarrones twice, but were defeated.  Yanga offered to make peace but with 11 conditions, the most important being recognition of the freedom of all of the settlements residents prior to 1608, acknowledgement of the settlement as a legal entity which Yanga and his descendants would govern, and the prohibition of any Spanish in the community.  Yanga, in turn, promised to serve and pay tribute to the Spanish crown.  By 1618, the town of San Lorenzo de Los Negros was officially recognized by the Spanish authorities as a free Black settlement and is often referred to as Yanga, after its founder.  Gaspar Yanga would go on to be known as “the First Liberator of the Americas.”

This information was derived from the internet @ http://www.blackpast.org/?q=gah/yanga-gaspar-c-1545

Whitney Moore Young  (1921 – 1971)

Whitney Moore Young was born in Shelby County, Kentucky, on July 31, 1921.  His father was the President of the Lincoln Institute and his mother was the first female postmistress in Kentucky and the second Black postmistress in the United States.  Young would earn a B.S. degree from Kentucky State University and would later earn a Masters degree from St.Paul University in Minnesota where he met his wife.  He would also join the military during World War II.  His service in the military and the circumstances that he witnessed and was subjected to influenced Young into a career in race relations.  While in Minnesota, Young joined and later led the St. Paul Minnesota branch of the National Urban League and eventually becomes the Executive Director of the National Urban League.  From 1961 to 1971, he played a leading role in persuading America’s corporate elite to provide better opportunities for Black people by doing everything from working with President Lyndon Johnson on civil rights and anti-poverty programs to calling for a “domestic Marshall Plan” (similar to U.S. aid to revive Europe after World War II).  He was one of the leaders of the 1963 March on Washington and in 1964 he organized the Community Action Assembly to fight poverty in Black communities.  He was awarded the Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, in 1969.  In 1971, Young drowned in Lagos, Nigeria while participating in an annual African-American dialogue on relations between the two continents.

This information was derived from the internet @ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whitney_Young & http://www.black-collegian.com/african/aaprofil.shtml#julian

Virginia Hamilton (1934 – 2002)

Virginia Esther Hamilton is among one of the most accomplished children’s book writers of all time.  She was born on March 12, 1934 and was the youngest of five children. She grew up in the farmlands of  southwestern Ohio where her mother’s family had settled since the late 1850’s, when Virginia’s grandfather, Levi Perry was brought into the state as an infant via the Underground Railroad.  Virginia graduated at the top of her high school class and received a full scholarship to Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio.  In 1956, she transferred to the Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio and majored in literature and creative writing.  She moved to New York City in 1958 where she studied fiction writing at the New School for Social Research while holding down several odd jobs and met poet Arnold Adoff who she would later marry in 1960.  Virginia devoted her attention to her work until the birth of her two children.  In 1969, Virginia and Arnold built their dream home in Yellow Springs on the last remaining acre of the old Hamilton/Perry family farm.  Virginia wrote and published 41 books in multiple genres that spanned from picture books and folk tales to realistic novels and biographies.  Her books have a deep concern with memory, tradition, and generational legacy, especially as they helped define the lives of Black Americans.  She described her work as “Liberation Literature” , and was reward for it winning every major award in youth literature.  She died of breast cancer in 2002.

This information was derived from the internet @ http://www.virginiahamilton.com/biography/

Percy L. Julian (1899 – 1975 )

 Dr. Percy L. Julian was born in 1899 in Montgomery, Alabama.  Julian’s mother and father instilled education in him and his siblings early.  He would go on to attend DePauw University  in Greencastle, Indiana where he would suffer many humiliating situations due to segregation.  Despite these hardships he was still able to graduate as valedictorian in 1920 and eventually earn his PhD in 1931 from the University of Vienna.  Similar to George Washington Carver’s extraordinary use of the peanut, Julian was able to do amazing things using the soybean.  The most important use that came of his experiments was extracting an ingredient to relieve inflammatory arthritis.  Until this discovery Europe had a monopoly on the production of sterol, which was the basis of Julian’s research.  These sterol were originally extracted from the bile of animals at a cost far greater to the consumer.  By substituting sterol from the oil of the soybean, Julian reduced the cost from several hundred dollars per gram to less than 20 cents a gram.  Because the cost of sterol dropped so low, cortisone (a sterol derivative) was made available at a cost that most could afford.  In 1954 he founded Julian Laboratory, Inc. which had research centers in Chicago, Mexico City, and Guatemala.  These research centers were vital to the development of synthetic cortisone.  Before his death, Dr. Julian found a way to mass produce the drug physostigmine, used to treat glaucoma, and perfected the mass production of sex hormones which led the way to birth control pills.  During his lifetime, Dr. Julian had amassed more than 130 patents and became the first Black scientist inducted into the National Academy of Sciences.  Dr. Percy L. Julian died in 1975 from liver cancer.

This information was derived from the internet @ http://www.black-collegian.com/african/aaprofil.shtml#julian & http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Percy_Lavon_Julian

Mark Dean (1957 – )

Mark E. Dean was born in Jefferson City, Tennessee and has grown to be one of the brightest computer/engineers in the world.  Dean holds a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from the University of Tennessee, a master degree in electrical engineering from Florida Atlantic University and a Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Stanford University.  Dean lead a team that developed the interior architecture (ISA systems bus) that enables multiple devices, such as modems and printers, to be connected to personal computers. Dean also lead the design team responsible for creating the first 1-gigahertz RISC processor chip, another significant step in making computers faster and smaller.  Dean is the first Black person to become an IBM Fellow, which is the highest level of technical excellence at the company and was inducted to the national Inventors Hall of Fame in 1997.  He became IBM’s Vice President overseeing the company’s Almaden Research Center in San Jose, California and is currently the CTO for IBM Middle East and Africa.  Dean holds 20 patents, three of which are IBM’s original nine PC patents.

This information was obtained from the internet at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Dean_(computer_scientist)

Matthew Gaines (1840-1900)

Matthew Gaines was born on August 4, 1840 near Alexandria, Louisiana to a female slave owned by Martin Despallier.  Gaines taught himself to read from smuggled books.  After being sold from the Despallier family, he briefly escaped from his new owner, but was later captured and returned to his master.  In 1859, Gaines was again sold, this time to Christopher Columbus Hearne where Gaines tried and failed to escape in 1863.  Gaines was enslaved in Fredericksburg, Texas until the end of the Civil War.  After the emancipation, Gaines settled in Washington County, where he established himself as a leader of the freedmen, both as a Baptist preacher and a politician.  In 1869, Gaines was elected Senator of the Texas 16th district and in the 12th Texas Legislature.  Among the many issues that Gaines addressed as a Texas Senator, he was best known for being a guardian for African-Texans rights, addressing the issues of public education, prison reform, the protection of Black voters, and tenant farming reformation.  These touchy issues made Gaines a threat to both Democrats and Republicans.  Gaines would only serve four of his six year term because of fallacious charges of bigamy in 1871, causing his seat to be challenged.  He was removed from office despite the fact that the charge was overturned.  Despite Gaines losing his seat, he continued to be active in politics and made his political views known in conventions, public gatherings, and the pulpit until his death in 1900.

This information was obtained from the internet at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_Gaines

Robert F. Williams (1925-1996)

Robert F. Williams was born in Monroe, North Carolina.  As a young man he joined the Great Migration and moved to Detroit and by 1944 had joined the Marines.  By 1955 Williams had returned home to Monroe to fight against “Jim Crow” as the president of the local chapter of the NAACP.  However, this chapter was unique because it had working class member and leadership and because they armed themselves with machine guns, dynamite, and Molotov cocktails.  Williams was suspended as the president because of his fight violence with violence stances.  Williams would move away from the NAACP and would go on to write Negroes With Guns, in 1962.  This book had a profound effect on Huey P. Newton, the cofounder of the Black Panthers, and advocated the use of self-defense as the way to gain self-determination.  By the time the book was published, Williams was in Cuba, fleeing the United States after being falsely accused of kidnapping by the FBI.  While in Cuba,Williams established Radio Free Dixie that would air in the southeastern part of America.  He also lived in China and Vietnam for a time, urging Black soldiers to use their arms against the United States during the war.  He returned to the United States in 1969 and served as the president of a Detroit-based group, Republic of New Afrika.  When he died in 1996, Rosa Parks was among the people who attended his funeral.

This information was obtained from the internet at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_F._Williams and  Civil Rights Chronicle: The African American Struggle for Freedom, pg. 203

Charles Drew (1904-1950)

Dr. Charles Drew was born in Washington D.C., and won honors in many of his educational and athletic endeavors.  While a student at Amherst College, he was not only the halfback on the football team but also went on to become a doctor and a scientist and was chosen as the student who brought the greatest honor to the college.  However, Dr. Charles Drew’s greatest accomplishment came during World War II.  In 1940, he developed a process of changing blood into plasma and made one of the most important single contributions to the Allied victory.  This has saved countless lives and is still as valuable today as it ever was.  Ironically, Dr. Charles Drew died from loss of blood, after an automobile accident.

This information was obtained from Edu-Cards

Mary Elizabeth Bowser (1839-????)

Mary Elizabeth Bowser was a Union spy during the Civil War.  Bowser began her life as a slave on the plantation of John Van Lew. When John Van Lew died in 1851, his daughter Elizabeth freed Bowser.  Bowser stayed with the family until the late 1850s. Mary was educated at a Quaker school in Philadelphia and later married a free black man Mr.(William or Wilson) Bowser.  Bowser’s espionage work began in 1861.  Elizabeth Van Lew convinced a friend to bring Bowser along to work as a servant for Varina Davis, the wife of the President of the Confederacy, Jefferson Davis.  As a spy for the Union, Bowser read a number of military documents she had access to, including lists of troop movements, reports on moving Union prisoners, military strategies, and treasury reports. She passed the information along to Van Lew and others in the Union intelligence operation.  Her colleagues in the Union intelligence operation praised her for her excellent memory and the information she discovered.  In January 1865, Mary Bowser fled from Richmond never to be heard from again.  Before she left, Mary attempted to burn down the Confederate White House, but was unsuccessful.  Her story was reconstructed from research into the Union intelligence operation during the Civil War, and from memoirs of her colleagues in the operation. In 1995 Bowser was admitted to the Military Intelligence Hall of Fame.

This information was obtained from these two web addresses – http://www.lkwdpl.org/wihohio/bows-mar.htm and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Bowser

Patricia E. Bath (1942-)

Patricia Era Bath is the first African American woman doctor to receive a patent for a medical purpose.  After graduating high school early, Bath received her Bachelor of Arts in chemistry from New York’s Hunter College in 1964 and went on to receive her doctoral degree in 1968 from Howard University College of Medicine.  From 1970 to 1973 she became the first African American to serve her residency in ophthalmology at New York University.  In 1981 she began to develop the Laserphaco Probe.  By 1988 she had completed and patented the Probe.  The Probe quickly and nearly painlessly dissolves the cataract with a laser, irrigates and cleans the eye and permits the easy insertion of a new lens.  Her Laserphaco Probe has continued to improve throughout the years and has successfully restored vision to people all around the world.  Bath holds a total of four patents and is also the founder of the American Institute for the Prevention of Blindness.  Bath was placed in Hunter College’s “hall of fame” in 1988 and Howard University declared her a “Howard University Pioneer in Academic Medicine” in 1993.

This information was obtained from this web address – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patricia_Bath

Jan Matzeliger (1852-1889)

Jan Matzeliger invented a machine that made it possible for an ordinary person to purchase a pair of shoes.  After serving his apprenticeship in Philadelphia, Jan moved to Lynn, Massachusetts to work in a shoe factory.  After observing highly skilled workers only churn out 40 to 50 pairs of shoes a day, Matzeliger had an idea to reduce the amount of manual labor with a machine that would sew the uppers to the soles of the shoes with the same quality.  After 10 years, he completed his machine and increased the pair of shoes completed in a day by 10 times.  This caused shoe production to leap from about one million a year to approximately 11 million. He received a patent on his machine in 1883.

This information was obtained from Edu-Cards

W.E.B. DuBois (1868 -1963)

William Edward Burghardt DuBois led protest movements, edited magazines, composed renowned works of American thought, challenged white supremacists and debated rival black figures.  Dubois was the first Black to earn a PhD from Harvard and is best known for his political involvement as head of the Niagara Movement and the NAACP.  He helped established these groups because he did not believe that economic opportunity alone would solve the problems of Black Americans.  His third book The Souls of Black Folks(1903) earned him nationwide acclaim even from the most hostile of elements in American society and is still viewed as a classic and made to read at universities to this day.  By the 1930’s, DuBois writings moved away from the integrationist thrust of the NAACP, which cost him his job as the editor of the organizations magazine The Crisis.  In 1961 DuBois left America and became a citizen of Ghana where he died at the age of 95.

This information was obtained from Edu-Cards and Civil Rights Chronicle: The African American Struggle for Freedom, pg 71.

Ivan Van Sertima (1925 – 2009)

Ivan Van Sertima is one of the most renowned historians in the field of African studies.  He was educated at the School of Oriental and African Studies at London University where he graduated with honors.  He came to the United States in 1970, where he completed his post graduate studies at Rutgers University in New Jersey.  Dr. Van Sertima began his teaching career as an instructor at Rutgers in 1972, and ended it as a Professor of African studies in the Department of Africana Studies.  The cornerstone of Dr. Van Sertima’s legacy was his groundbreaking book They Came Before Columbus: The African Presence in Ancient America. According to Van Sertima: “The African presence in America before Columbus is of importance not only to African and American history, but to the history of world civilizations. The African presence is proven by stone heads, terra cottas, skeletons, artifacts, techniques and inscriptions, by oral traditions and documented history, by botanical, linguistic and cultural data.”  Although there are many detractors from his theory, Ivan Van Sertima remained an academic giant until his death.

This information was obtained from Runoko Rashidi of Global African Presence http://www.cwo.com/~lucumi/vansertima.html

Shirley Chisholm (1924 -2005)

Shirley Chisholm was the first Black women to serve in the US Congress.  Before entering politics, Shirley was a school teacher and a educational consultant for New York State Department of Social Services.  She also sponsored the SEEK program (Search for Elevation, Education, and Knowledge) to help non high school graduates qualify for college.  She learned politics by joining a Democratic club and getting involved by doing grunt work such as going door to door and licking envelopes.  In 1964 she won a state assembly seat and later the newly created congressional seat from Brooklyn over fellow civil rights leader James Farmer( former head of Congress of Racial Equal [CORE]) in 1968.  In 1972 Chisholm became the first black candidate to make a credible run for the White House.  She never had more than seven percent of the Democratic Primaries confidence, but she served as an example of how a Black candidate can put Black issues on the national agenda.

This information was obtained from Civil Rights Chronicle: The African American Struggle for Freedom, pgs 356 and 381.

Granville T. Woods (1856-1910)

A man of tremendous inventive talents, Granville T. Woods was called “the greatest electrician in the world,” in 1888 by the “American Catholic Tribune.”  Most of his designs were in the field of improvements in the railroad and electrical industries.  Granville T. Woods held about 35 patents in various countries .  He contributed to the development of the “third rail” and he invented devices which he sold to Alexander Graham Bell, Thomas Edison, and George Westinghouse. He is best known for his invention of an automatic  air brake.

This information was obtained from Edu-Cards

John Lewis (1940 – )

John Lewis was one of the most committed and bravest civil rights activist and was instrumental in forming the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC).  He was arrested on approximately 40 occasions and suffered severe beatings during the 1961 Freedom Rides. By 1963 Lewis was elected chairman of SNCC and was one of  the “Big Six” civil rights leaders who participated in the march on Washington and was a key note speaker at the age of 23.  In 1966 John Lewis was replaced by the more charismatic Stokely Carmichael and later left the organization.  In 1986 he was elected to the US Congress from Georgia’s Fifth Congressional District where he has remained since.

This information was obtained from Civil Rights Chronicle: The African American Struggle for Freedom, pgs 184 and 201.