*Edward Toppins was born on this date in 1915. He was a Black U.S. Army Air Force pilot and commanding officer. Edward Lucien Toppins was born in Mississippi to Martha E. Toppins Davis, a dressmaker. He was the only brother of three sisters: Henrietta, Delphine, and Naomi. After living in Louisiana in the 1930s, Toppins […]
learn more*Joseph D. Elsberry was born on this date in 1921. He was a Black U.S. Army Air Force officer and fighter pilot. Joseph Dubois Elsberry was born in Langston, Oklahoma. Elsberry was the youngest child and only son of Joseph Dean Elsberry, a teacher and civic leader, and Beulah Earle Meeks Elsberry, also a teacher. […]
learn more*Brick Junior College was established on this date in 1895. This Black school, founded after the American Civil War, was the first accredited African American school in North Carolina. The American Missionary Association founded the Joseph Keasley Brick Agricultural, Industrial, and Normal School. Land and money for buildings came from Julia Brick, a wealthy Brooklyn […]
learn more*Black history and the Women’s Air Force Service Pilots (WASP) are affirmed on this date in 1943. Also known as the Women’s Army Service Pilots or Women’s Auxiliary Service Pilots, the WASP was a civilian women pilots’ organization whose members were United States federal civil service employees. Although most WASP pilots were white, they were […]
learn more*Harry Stewart Jr. was born on this date in 1924. He was a Black soldier and fighter pilot. Harry Thaddeus Stewart Jr. was born in Newport News, Virginia. When he was two years old, after living near Langley Field Air Force Base between Hampton and Newport News, Virginia, Stewart and his family moved to Queens […]
learn more*Herbert E. Carter was born on this date in 1919. He was a Black military pilot and a United States Air Force officer. Herbert Eugene Carter was born in Amory, Mississippi, and was one of ten children. His father, George Washington Carter, was African American, and his mother, Willie Ann Sykes Carter, was Native American. […]
learn more*Mildred Louise Hemmons Carter was born on this date in 1921. She was a Black airplane pilot, the first Black female pilot in Alabama. Mildred Louise Hemmons was born to Mamie and Luther Hemmons in Benson, Alabama. Her mother was the town’s postmaster, while her father was the foreman of a sawmill. She lived in […]
learn more*Susan Elizabeth Frazier was born on this date in 1864. She was a Black teacher and civic leader focused on women’s issues and the rights and capacity of African Americans. Susan Elizabeth Frazier was born in New York City to Helen Eldridge Frazier and Louis M. Frazier. She was the great-granddaughter of Black Revolutionary War […]
learn more*David Richmond was born on this date in 1941. He was a Black counselor and activist. David Leinail Richmond was born in Greensboro, North Carolina, graduating from James B. Dudley High School in 1959. At DHS, Richmond was a popular student, participating in many sports and clubs; he even set the state record for the […]
learn more*The Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC) was founded on September 10, 1894. UDC is an American neo-Confederate hereditary association for female descendants of Confederate Civil War soldiers. Established in Nashville, Tennessee, the group venerated the Ku Klux Klan during the Jim Crow era. In 1896, the organization established the Children of the Confederacy to impart […]
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