*The Afro Surinamese people celebrated this date in 1500. They are the inhabitants of Suriname of Sub-Saharan African ancestry. They are descended from enslaved Africans brought to work on sugar plantations through the middle passage. Origins Most enslaved people imported to Suriname came from West Central Africa. The total number of enslaved people was estimated at 220,000. […]
learn more*The birth of Thomas Fuller is celebrated on this date in 1710. He was a Black African slave and mathematician. He was born between present-day Liberia and Benin. He was one of the millions of Black Africans kidnapped to America as a slave at 14 during the Middle Passage. He was the property of Mrs. […]
learn more*David Livingstone was born on this date in 1813. He was a white-Scottish physician, Congregationalist, and Christian missionary. He was born in Blantyre, South Lanarkshire, Scotland, and grew up in a single tenement room with several siblings. He started working at a cotton mill company as a child and would follow his long work schedule with schooling […]
learn more*The opening of the Nathan Thomas House is celebrated on this date in 1835. This was the location of one of Michigan’s most active Underground Railroad stations. Dr. Nathan M. and Pamela Brown Thomas created the refuge. Built-in 1835, he constructed a building that served as both an office and residence. Five years later, he […]
learn more*Moorfield Storey was born on this date in 1845. He was a white-American lawyer, anti-imperial activist, and civil rights, leader. Moorfield Storey was born in 1845 in Roxbury, Massachusetts. His family descended from the earliest Puritan settlers in New England and had close connections with the abolitionist movement. His father was a Boston lawyer. Young Storey went to the […]
learn more*Harrisburg, PA, was chartered on March 19, 1860. This date is used because this city is home to Tanner’s Alley, a section of Harrisburg that played a part in the abolition movement during American slavery. Settled around 1719, the city was a stop on the Underground Railroad, where runaway slaves were fed and clothed on […]
learn more*The publication of the Memphis Free Speech newspaper is celebrated on this date in 1881. This was a Black newspaper founded in Memphis, Tennessee, by the Reverend Taylor Nightingale, based at the Beale Street Baptist Church. In 1888 the publication’s name was changed to the Memphis Free Speech and Headlight when J. L. Fleming joined Nightingale, a newspaperman from […]
learn more*Jose’ Mendez was born on this date in 1887. He was an Afro Cuban baseball player from Cardenas, Cuba who was a pitcher and shortstop in the Negro Leagues.
learn more*Nancy Elizabeth Prophet was born on this date in 1890. She was an African American sculptor.
An only child from Providence, Rhode Island, her father, William H. Prophet, was employed by that city, and her mother, Rose Walker Prophet, was a housewife. Encouraged by family and friends after high school, Prophet enrolled in the renowned Rhode Island School of Design, working as a domestic to pay her tuition. Her graduation and the Harlem Renaissance occurred at the same time, where she lived briefly.
learn more*The birth of Bessie Bruington Burke, in 1891, is celebrated on this date. She was a Black educator and administrator, from Los Angeles, California.
learn more*This date marks the birthday of Moms Mabley, born in 1897. She was a Black vaudeville performer and comedian, the first Black woman to establish herself as a single act in standup comedy in America.
learn moreDorothy Hayne Whiteside was born on this date in 1905. She was a Black teacher and sorority administrator. She was born in Indianapolis, IN, the daughter of Robert Hanley and Rhoda Samuels. After graduating from Shortridge High School, Whiteside entered the Indianapolis City Normal School. In 1922, when training as a cadet teacher, she met the […]
learn more*Robert McFerrin, Sr. was born on this date in 1921. He was a Black operatic baritone and the first African American man to sing at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City.
learn more*Willie S. Glanton was born on this date in 1922. She was a Black lawyer and politician. Willie Stevenson was born in Hot Springs, Arkansas, the daughter of Ervin S. Stevenson and Willie Ever Parker. She graduated from Tennessee State University and Robert Terrell Law School in Washington, D.C., and was admitted to the Iowa Bar in […]
learn more*The Harlem riot of 1935 took place on this date, 1935. It has been described as the first “modern” race riot in Harlem because it was committed primarily against property rather than persons. At 2:30 in the afternoon on March 19, 1935, an employee at the Kress Five and Ten store at 256 W. 125th Street (just across the street from […]
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