People, Locations, Episodes

Horace Cayton Jr., Sociologist, and Author born

*Horace R. Cayton, Jr. was born on this date in 1903. He was an African American sociologist, newspaper columnist, and author.

From Seattle, Washington, he was the son of newspaper publisher Horace R. Cayton, Sr. and Susie Revels. His mother was daughter of Hiram Rhodes Revels, the first black American elected to the United State Senate.

Countee Cullen, Poet, and Publisher born

*Countee Cullen was born on this date in 1903. He was an African American poet and prominent member of the Harlem Renaissance society.

From New York City Cullen was essentially a lyric poet whose work was influenced by that of the English poet John Keats. Much of Cullen’s best work dealt with themes pertinent to the lives of Black Americans, but without emphasizing dialect or stereotypes; he perceived art as universal. His several volumes of poetry include Color; Copper Sun; The Black Christ and On These I Stand, his selection of poems by which he wished to be remembered.

George Padmore, Pan-Africanist born

*George Padmore was born on this date in 1903.  He was an Afro Caribbean Pan-Africanist, journalist, and author.   Malcolm Ivan Meredith Nurse, better known by his pen name George Padmore, was born in the Arouca District, Tacarigua, Trinidad, of the British West Indies. His paternal great-grandfather was an Asante warrior who was taken prisoner and sold into slavery in Barbados, where his grandfather was born.  His father, James […]

Gladys Hayford, Writer born

*Gladys May Casely-Hayford was born on this date in 1904. She was an African writer.

Norman Forgue, Print Publisher born

*Norman W. Forgue was born on this date in 1904.  He was a Black printer, publisher, and author.  He was born in Chicago. His family lived at several houses in Chicago’s Near West Side neighborhood, where his father had an ice delivery business in the 1910s. In an unpublished memoir of his youth (Suddenly I […]

John P. Davis, Journalist born

*John P. Davis was born on this date in 1905. He was a Black journalist, lawyer, and activist administrator. John Preston Davis was born in Washington, D.C., the son of Dr. William Henry Davis and Julia Davis. In the 1920s, his father was Secretary to the Presidential Commission investigating the economic conditions in the Virgin […]

Una Marson, Feminist, writer and Publisher born.

*Una Marson was born on this date in 1905. She was an Afro Caribbean feminist, activist, and writer who produced poems, plays, and radio programs. Una Maud Victoria Marson was born in Sharon village, near Santa Cruz, Jamaica. She was the youngest of six children of Solomon Isaac Marson and Ada Wilhelmina Mullins. She had […]

Ariel Williams Holloway, Poet, and Teacher born

*Ariel Williams Holloway was born on this date in 1905. She was a Black music teacher and poet. Holloway was born Lucy Ariel Williams in Mobile, Alabama. Her mother was Fannie Brandon, a teacher and choir singer, and her father was Dr. H. Roger Williams, a physician and pharmacist. She studied at Emerson Institute, Mobile, […]

Rosey Pool, Author and Activist born

*Rosey Pool was born on this date in 1905. She was a white Jewish-Dutch poet and anthologist of African American poetry. Rosa Eva Pool was born and raised in a secular Jewish family in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. In the 1920s, she participated in Dutch Popular Front youth movements, such as the socialist Arbeiders Jeugd Centrale (AJC) […]

Dorothy Porter Wesley, Librarian, and Writer born

On this date in 1905, Dorothy Porter Wesley was born. She was an African American writer and librarian.

Era Thompson, Journalist born

*This date in 1905 marks the birth of Era Bell Thompson. She was an African American writer and journalist.

From Des Moines, Iowa, she grew up a child of the only black family in Driscoll, N.D in 1917. After attending secondary schools in the Driscoll-Steele area and graduating from Bismarck High School in 1924, she was a track star for two years at the University of North Dakota. Then she attended Morningside College in Iowa where earned a journalism degree. After graduation she began her career in Chicago in 1933, first finding work as a housekeeper then with The Chicago Defender.

‘Moon Illustrated’ Magazine is Published

*On this date in 1905, Moon Illustrated published its first issue. The Moon Illustrated Weekly magazine was founded and edited by W.E.B. Du Bois. The magazine was the first nationally illustrated weekly produced by and for Blacks. The experience was short-lived, however, with only thirty-four issues produced from the end of 1905 through July or early August of 1906. […]

Frank M. Davis, Writer born

*Frank Marshall Davis was born on this date in 1905. He was an African American poet.

Elmer S. Campbell, Cartoonist born

Elmer Simms Campbell was born on this date in 1906. He was the first African American cartoonist to publish his work in general-circulation magazines.

Campbell was born in St. Louis, and while still attending high school, he won a nationwide contest in cartooning. He later studied at the University of Chicago and the Art Institute of Chicago. He then worked as a railroad dining-car waiter, amusing himself by drawing caricatures of the passenger. One of them was so impressed with his work, hed gave him a job in a commercial-art studio in St. Louis.

Waring Cuney, Poet, and Composer born

*Waring Cuney was born on this date in 1906. He was an African American poet and composer.