People, Locations, Episodes

Ben Vereen, Dancer, and Singer born

*Ben Vereen was born on this date in 1946. He is a Black actor, dancer, and singer. Vereen was born Benjamin Augustus Middleton in Laurinburg, North Carolina. While still an infant, Vereen and his family relocated to the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood in Brooklyn, New York City. He was adopted by James Vereen, a paint factory worker, […]

Chester Higgins Jr., Photographer born

*The birth of Chester Higgins Jr. is celebrated on this date in 1946. He is a Black photographer. Higgins was born in Fairhope, Alabama, and grew up in New Brockton, Alabama. He attended Tuskegee Institute (now Tuskegee University), where he met the school’s official photographer, Prentice H. Polk. He graduated in 1970 with a bachelor’s degree in business […]

Samuel Wright, Actor, and Singer born

*Samuel Wright was born on this date in 1946. He was a Black actor and singer. Samuel Edward Wright was from Camden, South Carolina. He attended Camden High School, where he was involved in sports and the arts. His first Broadway role was in the original 1971 cast of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “Jesus Christ Superstar.” […]

Afeni Shakur, Activist, and Author born

*Afeni Shakur was born on this date in 1947. She was a Black political activist, author, and journalist.   Alice Faye Williams was born in Lumberton, North Carolina, the daughter of Rosa Belle, a homemaker, and Walter Williams Jr., a trucker. She had a sister, Gloria Jean. She had a troubled beginning and grew up […]

Peggy Cooper Cafritz, Artisan and Philanthropist born

*Peggy Cooper Cafritz was born on this date in 1947. She was a Black art collector, educator, activist, philanthropist, and socialite. Born Pearl Alice Cooper, Peggy Cafritz belonged to one of Mobile, Alabama’s wealthiest black families. She later changed her name legally to her childhood nickname, “Peggy.” The Cooper family gained their wealth through Peggy’s […]

Cathy Hughes, Media Entrepreneur born

*Cathy Hughes was born on this date in 1947.  She is a Black entrepreneur, radio and television personality and business executive.   Born Catherine Elizabeth Woods to Helen Jones Woods and William Alfred Woods.  Her mother Helen Woods, was a trombonist with the International Sweethearts of Rhythm and her father was the first Black to earn an accounting degree from […]

Tamara Dobson, Model, and Actress born

*Tamara Dobson was born on this date in 1947. She was an African American actress and fashion model.

WDIA Radio, a story

*WDIA radio went on the air on this date in 1947. WDIA (1070 AM) is a Black radio station in Memphis, Tennessee. Active since WW 2, it soon became the first radio station in the United States programmed entirely for African Americans. It featured Black radio personalities; its success in building an audience attracted radio […]

Günther Kaufmann, Actor born

*Günther Kaufmann was born on this date in 1947.   He was a Black German Gay actor.  Born in Munich, Germany, Kaufmann’s Black GI father, whom he never knew, returned to the US before he was born. Some Germans call him a “Besatzungskind,” one of the many children born between 1945 and 1949 due to relationships […]

Carl Weathers, Actor born.

*Carl Weathers was born on this date in 1948.  He was a Black football player and actor. From New Orleans, LA., Weathers started performing in plays as early as grade school. In high school, athletics took him down another path, but he would reunite with his first love later in life. Weathers played college football […]

Phylicia Rashad, Actress born

Phylicia Rashad, an African American actress. was born on this date in 1948.

Nell Carter, Singer, and Actress born

*Nell Carter was born on this date in 1948. She was an African American singer and actress.

From Birmingham, Alabama while growing up, Carter listened to her mother’s recordings of Dinah Washington and B. B. King, and her brother’s Elvis Presley records. She liked Doris Day, the Andrews Sisters, Johnny Mathis, and admired the work of Cleo Laine and Barbra Streisand. Early in her career, she performed as a singer on the gospel circuit. She moved on to coffeehouses and nightclubs in her hometown, before going on to New York.

Samuel L. Jackson, Actor, and Producer born

*Samuel Jackson was born on this date in 1948. He is a Black actor and film producer.   Samuel Leroy Jackson was born in Washington, D.C., the son of Elizabeth Harriett Montgomery and Roy Henry Jackson. He grew up as an only child in Chattanooga, Tennessee. His father lived away from the family in Kansas City, Missouri, and later died from […]

Lynn Thigpen, Actress born.

Lynne Thigpen was born on this date in 1948. She was an African American actress.

Born in Joliet, IL, she was first seen on the New York stage in the 1975 “The Night That Made America Famous.” Unfortunately, it didn’t make her famous (not overnight, anyway), but she stuck with her craft, and not long thereafter, won a Theatre World Award for her performance in “Tintypes.” Thigpen was also in films, including “Warriors” (1979), “Godspell” (1981), “Tootsie” (1981), “Lean on Me” (1985) and “Impulse” (1988). Other films were “Bob Roberts,” “Random Hearts,” “Shaft,” and “The Insider.”

Teresa Graves, Television Actress born

*Teresa Graves, an African American singer and actress, was born on this date in 1949.

She was born in Houston. She started her career as a singer with the Doodletown Pipers. Later she turned to acting full time. Graves’ first big television appearance was on Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In program in 1969 and 1970. Graves appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show and on several Bob Hope television specials in 1970 and 1971; she had a feature role in “The Funny Side,” a television series in 1971 and 1972.