*Félix Houphouët-Boigny was born on this date in 1905. He was a Black African politician and physician. Houphouët-Boigny was born in Yamoussoukro, the Ivory Coast, to a family of hereditary chiefs of the Baoulé people. His first name, Dia, means “prophet” or “magician.” His father was N’Doli Houphouët. When N’Go was murdered in 1910, Dia […]
learn more*William Bustamante was born on February 24, 1884. He was a Creole Jamaican politician and leader of the Labor Party. William Alexander Clarke Bustamante was born in Jamaica to Mary Clarke (née Wilson), a woman of mixed race, and her husband, Robert Constantine Clarke, a White Irish Catholic. His grandmother, Elsie Clarke-Shearer, was also the […]
learn more*Elizabeth Waring was born on this date in 1895. She was a white-American philanthropist and activist. Elizabeth Amy Avery was born in Detroit, Michigan. Married twice, she was the wife of Wilson Mills (1915) and Henry Hoffman (1934), both wealthy businessmen. In those years, she and her first husband would often spend winters in South […]
learn more*Cecil Brath was born on this date in 1936. He was a Black Pan-African activist. Cecil Elombe Brath was born in Brooklyn, New York, where his father had migrated from Barbados in the 1920s. Brath and his brother, Kwame Brathwaite, grew up in Harlem and Hunts Point, attending the High School of Industrial Art (now […]
learn more*Kwame Brathwaite was born on this date in 1938. He was a Black photojournalist and activist. Born Gilbert Ronald Brathwaite in Brooklyn and brought up in the South Bronx, to immigrant parents from Barbados, who chronicled the cultural, political, and social developments of Harlem, Africa, and the African diaspora. His parents were Cecil and Margaret […]
learn more*Debra Lee was born on August 8, 1954. She is a Black lawyer and media administrator. Debra L. Lee was born in Fort Jackson, South Carolina, and grew up in Greensboro, North Carolina. She attended James B. Dudley High School. In 1976, Lee graduated from Brown University with a bachelor’s degree in political science, emphasizing […]
learn more*Raymond Cannon was born on January 28, 1892. He was a Black pharmacist and lawyer. Raymond Winfield Cannon was from Northfield, Rice County, Minnesota. He was the youngest of three sons of Mack Oliver Cannon and Mattie Belle Boone. By 1900, the family lived in Minneapolis, where Cannon was a 1912 Minneapolis Central High School […]
learn more*Janabelle Taylor was born on December 3, 1920. She was a Black administrator and social worker. Born Janabelle Murphy in St. Paul, Minnesota, Murphy was the oldest of three children. She attended local schools, graduating from Central High School in 1939, and then moved on to the University of Minnesota, graduating in 1944 with a […]
learn more*Dudley High School (North Carolina) is celebrated on this date in 1929. This is a four-year public high school located in Greensboro, North Carolina. Dudley High School was founded in 1929 as the first Black high school in Guilford County, in a school system segregated by law. The school was named after James Benson Dudley, […]
learn more*The birth of Lynnae Quick is celebrated on this date in 1984. She is a Black planetary geophysicist and Ocean Worlds Planetary Scientist. Lynnae C. Quick was born and raised in Greensboro, North Carolina, and graduated from James Benson Dudley High School. In high school, she became interested in astronomy after learning about the death […]
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