An outline of Double Dutch is celebrated on this date’s Registry. Double Dutch is historically a jump rope game played originally by Black children (mainly girls) in rural and urban areas in America.
learn more*William Richmond was born on this date in 1763. He was a Black boxer.
From (Cuckold’s Town) near, Richmond, VA, he moved to Staten Island, New York where he became a free black and the first black professional boxer in America. Richmond worked as a shipyard laborer and was noticed by a British commander named Hugh Percy on the docks having a fight with a dock sailor. Percy convinced Richmond’s parents to let him travel to England where he could establish a better life. Richmond became a cabinetmaker, and took up boxing for self-defense.
learn moreThe birth of York in 1770 is celebrated on this date. He was a Black slave and explorer.
York was born in Caroline County, Virginia. He lived near the county’s York River where as a child he ran basically naked and barefoot most of the year. His diet would have been high in starch and low in protein. He lived in a cabin surrounded by a dirt yard.
learn moreTom Molineaux, a Black boxer was born on this date in 1784.
Born a slave in Georgetown, Virginia, he began boxing other slaves while plantation owners wagered on the bouts. Finally after defeating a man from another plantation, he was given his freedom and $500.
learn more*The birth of Jean Louis in 1785 is celebrated on this date. He was a Black French fencer and teacher.
From Haiti, Louis was arguably the finest fencer who ever lived. In his youth, Jean Louis took part in a winner take all tournament to the death. In the final Jean-Louis, a short, around 5′ 2″, dueled for 1 hour with a Spanish opponent who was 6 ft tall. Then as the Spaniard lost concentration Jean-Louis finished him. Louis served as a soldier in the French army under Napoleon.
learn moreJames Pierson Beckwourth was born on this date in 1798. He was a Black explorer who played a major role in the early discovery and settlement of the American West.
James Beckwourth was born in 1798 in Frederick County, Virginia to an African American slave mother and English father, Sir Jennings Beckwourth. Beckwourth’s family moved to Missouri in the early 1800’s, and he was apprenticed to a Blacksmith in St. Louis when he was a young man. In the summer of 1824 he signed on with General William Ashley for a trapping expedition to the Rocky Mountains.
learn moreOn this date we celebrate the birth of George Bonga in 1802. He was a Black fur trader and trapper.
learn more*The birth of Aaron Hewlett is celebrated on this date, c. 1820. He was a Black college instructor and administrator. Aaron Molyneaux Hewlett was born in New York City to Isaac and Rachel Hewlett. He lived in Brooklyn, worked as a Pullman porter, and taught boxing and wrestling. The New York Clipper, the leading New York […]
learn moreMary Fields was born a slave on this date in 1832. She was a Black entrepreneur and stagecoach driver.
Fields was born a slave in Tennessee; she grew up an orphan, never married, and had no children. Fields lived by her wits and her strength. She traveled north to Ohio, settled in Toledo, and worked for the Catholic convent where she formed a strong bond with Mother Amadeus. The nuns of her early life were her family. When the nuns moved to Montana and Mary learned of Mother Amadeus’ failing health, she went west to help out.
learn more*John Ware’s birth is celebrated on this date in 1845. He was a Black Canadian cowboy who was influential in the early years of the burgeoning ranching industry in Southern Alberta. John Ware was born into slavery on a plantation near Georgetown, South Carolina. However, on his marriage certificate, Ware stated that he was born […]
learn more*George Grant was born on this date in 1847. He was a Black inventor, dentist, and the first Black professor at Harvard. George Franklin Grant was born in Oswego, New York, to Phillis Pitt and Tudor Elanor Grant. Grant entered the Harvard School of Dental Medicine in 1868 and graduated in 1870. He then took […]
learn more*The birth of Johanna July is celebrated on this date in 1850. She was a Black Seminole cowgirl. From northern Mexico, July was the daughter of a Seminole Native American and a Black African slave. Her family had left Florida and settled in northern Mexico after the Seminole War ended in 1842. Around 1871, they […]
learn more*George Godfrey was born on this date in 1853. He was a Black Canadian boxer.
From the Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island (P.E.I.) neighborhood known as “The Bog” he left P.E.I. in his youth and worked as a porter in Boston, Massachusetts. It was there that he started training to box at Professor Bailey’s Hub City gym. At age 26, Godfrey began fighting competitively in the bare knuckles tour.
learn more*Phillip ‘Daddy’ Reid was born on this date in 1854. He was a Black businessman, baseball administrator, and manager. Phillip Edward Reid was from Frankfort, Kentucky. Not much is known about his childhood other than he grew up in a slave-holding state and would have been very young at the end of the American Civil […]
learn more*The birth of Nat Love in 1854 is celebrated on this date. He was an African American Pullman porter, and cowboy.
Born on his master’s plantation in Davidson County in Tennessee, Love was raised out of an old log cabin. His master Robert Love, an extensive planter and the owner of many slaves owned his father and mother. Love’s father was a foreman of the slaves on the plantation, and his mother worked the kitchen at the master’s big house waiting tables, milking the cows, running the loom and weaving clothing for the other slaves.
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