People, Locations, Episodes

The Republican Party in America, a story

*The Republican Party was founded on this date, in 1854. Also referred to as the GOP (Grand Old Party), it is one of the two major political parties in the United States; the other is the Democratic Party.   The GOP was founded in Wisconsin at the Republican Schoolhouse, also known as Little White Schoolhouse. This historic former schoolhouse is at 305 […]

George Washington Fields, Lawyer born

*George Washington Fields was born on this date in 1854.  He was a Black Lawyer. Fields was the son of Washington Fields and Martha Ann Berkley, two enslaved people in Virginia. He grew up on a plantation in Hanover Courthouse, Virginia. During an American Civil War skirmish in July 1863, Fields and his family escaped the plantation […]

Issac Payne, Army Scout born

*The birth of Isaac Payne in 1854 is celebrated on this date. He was a Black Seminole scout in the U.S. Army.

Samuel Mahareo, African Chief born

*Samuel Maharero’s birth is celebrated on this date in 1856. He was an African Chief of the Herero people in German Southwest Africa (today Namibia). He is considered a national hero in Namibia. Samuel Maharero was the son of Maharero, an important Herero warrior and cattle raider. He was baptized in 1869 and went to the […]

Henry Cheatham, Educator, and Congressman born

On this date in 1857, Henry Plummer Cheatham was born. He was a Black politician and a member of the House of Representatives in North Carolina.

Alan Minns, Black British Politician born

*Allan Minns was born on this date 1858. He was a Black British doctor and politician and the first black man to become a mayor in England. He was elected Mayor of Thetford, Norfolk in 1904.

Clement G. Morgan, Lawyer and Activist born

*Clement G. Morgan was born on this date in 1859.  He was a Black attorney, civil rights activist, and city official. Clement Garnett Morgan was born into slavery in Stafford County, Virginia. When the Emancipation Proclamation freed him and his parents in 1863, they moved to Washington, D.C., where Clement attended the M Street High School and trained […]

Edwin Henry Hackley, Lawyer born

*Edwin Henry Hackley was born on this date in 1859. He was a Black lawyer and journalist. His parents were John Hackley and Susan Belmore Hackley from Romeo, Michigan. As a child, he had pneumonia that affected his health into adulthood, and he was raised in the Black middle class. After graduating from high school, […]

James Dudley, Educator and Administrator born.

*James Dudley was born on this date in 1859. He was a Black educator and administrator. James Benson Dudley was born into slavery; his parents were owned by Edward B. Dudley, the Governor of North Carolina from 1836 to 1841. Dudley took education to heart, affecting his approach for the rest of his life. Because […]

Warner T. McGuinn, Lawyer born

*The birth of Warner T. McGuinn on November 23rd 1859 is celebrated on this date. He was an African American lawyer and politician.

From Goochland County, near Richmond, Virginia, he was one of three sons of Jared and Fannie McGuinn. His older brother the Rev. Robert A. McGuinn was also born in Virginia and moved to Baltimore. A half-brother, the Rev. William M. Alexander (1852-1919), was pastor of Sharon Baptist Church in Baltimore and the first editor of the Baltimore Afro-American.

Walter Cohen, Politician born

*Walter Louis Cohen was born on this date in 1860. He was an African American politician and businessman.

Cohen was born a free man of color in New Orleans. He was educated at St. Louis Catholic School and Straight College. An active member of Reconstruction politics he was one of the few African Americans to hold political office after Reconstruction. President McKinley appointed him to the office of Customs Inspector, to the position of Registrar of U. S. Land Office by President Theodore Roosevelt, and to the office of Comptroller of Customs by President Harding.

John J. Pershing, Military Officer born

*John Pershing was born on this date in 1860. He was a white-American senior United States Army officer.   John Joseph “Blackjack” Pershing was born on a farm near Laclede, Missouri, to businessman John Fletcher Pershing and homemaker Ann Elizabeth Thompson. Pershing’s great-great-grandfather, Frederick Pershing, originally named Pfersching, emigrated from Alsace, leaving Amsterdam on the ship Jacob and arriving in Philadelphia on October 2, 1749. Pershing’s mother was […]

Ernest A. Lyon, Minister, and Diplomat born

*Ernest Lyon was born on this date in 1860. He was a Black minister, educator, and diplomat. Ernest A. Lyon was born on the coast of Belize, British Honduras, to Emmanuel Lyon and Ann F. Bending. As a child, Lyon attended an English school in Belize. His father died when he was young; Lyon “became a Christian […]

The Confederate States of America is Formed

*On this date, 1861, the Confederate States of America was formed. Commonly referred to as the Confederacy, it was an unrecognized republic in North America that existed from 1861 to 1865.  The Confederacy was originally formed by seven secessionist slave-holding states: South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas in the Lower Antebellum South region.   Their economy depended heavily on agriculture, mainly cotton, and a plantation system that relied upon the labor […]

Fredrick McGhee, Minnesota Lawyer born

On this date in 1861, we mark the birth of Fredrick L. McGhee. He was an African American lawyer and civil rights activist.

From Mississippi, his father could read and write, and passed down to him the benefits of education. As a youngster, the family moved to Knoxville, TN, where he attended school with help from the Freedmen’s Bureau and the Presbyterian Church. Later he went to Chicago and worked as a waiter to pay for law school, graduating in 1885.