*William J. Hale was born on this date in 1874. He was a Black educator and administrator. He was from Marion County, Tennessee, the oldest mulatto child in a low-income family of four boys and two girls. William Jasper Hale worked in various East Tennessee towns during his school days. Hale found substantial employment in Dayton and […]
learn more*Emma Clarissa Clement was born on this date in 1874. She was an African American theological educator.
Emma Clarissa Williams was born in Providence, RI. She was a graduate of Livingston College and she later married George C. Clement, Bishop, and AME Zion Church. She was named American Mother-of-the-Year on May 1, 1946, she was the first Black woman so honored. As the granddaughter of a slave, Clement accepted the award “in the name of million of Negroes in the United States and in the name of all mothers.”
learn more*Mary Rice Hayes Allen was born on this date in 1875. She was a Black educator and administrator. Mary Rice was born in Harrisonburg, Virginia. She was the illegitimate daughter of former slave Malinda Rice and a former Confederate general, John R. Jones. She attended Hartshorn Memorial College. In 1895, she married the educator Gregory W. […]
learn more*Mary Hayes Allen was born on this date in 1875. She was a Black educator, administrator, and activist. Mary Magdalene Rice was born in Harrisonburg, Virginia. She was the illegitimate daughter of former slave Malinda Rice and a white former Confederate general, John R. Jones. She attended Hartshorn Memorial College. In 1895, she married educator […]
learn moreThe founding of the Alabama Agricultural and Mechanical University (A&M) in 1875 is celebrated on this date.
Alabama A&M University is one of over 100 historically Black colleges and universities in America. Alabama A&M of Huntsville is a land-grant university supported by state and federal funds. Its first president, Dr. William Hooper Councill, an ex-slave, established this university. The Huntsville Normal School opened on this date in 1875 with an appropriation of $1,000 per year and an enrollment of 61 pupils and two teachers.
learn moreCharles Sumner High School’s opening in 1875 is celebrated on this date.
Founded in St. Louis, it was the first such institution for Black students west of the Mississippi. Established at Eleventh and Spruce Streets, it relocated at Fifteenth and Walnut in 1895 and moved to its present location at 4248 Cottage Avenue in 1910. It was the only secondary school for Blacks in St. Louis until 1927, when Vashon High was opened.
learn moreMary McLeod Bethune, African American civil rights administrator and educator was born on this date in 1875.
learn more*James Shepard was born on this date in 1875. He was a Black pharmacist, community activist, and educator. James Edward Shepard was born in Raleigh, North Carolina. He was the son of Rev. Augustus and Harriet Whitted Shepard. Shepard received undergraduate and professional training at Shaw University, graduating in 1894. The following year, he married Annie […]
learn more*Knoxville College opened on this date in 1875. It is a Historically Black liberal arts college (HBCU). Founded by the United Presbyterian Church, it is also a United Negro College Fund member school. Knoxville College is rooted in a mission school established in Knoxville in 1864 to educate the city’s freedmen. In 1875, the […]
learn moreCarter Godwin Woodson was born on this date in 1875. He was an African American writer, educator and historian.
Born to a poor family in Buckingham County, Virginia, Woodson supported himself by working in the coal mines of Kentucky as a teenager and was, as a consequence, unable to enroll in high school until he was 20. After graduating in less than two years, he taught high school, wrote articles, studied at home and abroad, and received his Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1912. Woodson also studied at Berea College and the University of Chicago.
learn more*Grace Morris Allen Jones was born on this date in 1876. She was a Black educator, school administrator, clubwoman, and writer. Grace Morris Allen was born in Keokuk, Iowa, to James Addison Morris and Mary Ellen Morris, née Pyles. The family was educated and well-off financially. Grace’s grandmother was abolitionist Charlotta Gordon Pyles, and she […]
learn more*Charles Chapman was born on this date in 1876. Chapman was a Black educator and advocate for agribusiness. Born in Cayuga County, New York, he studied at Howard and Cornell University. Chapman was one of the seven founders (commonly referred to as Jewels) of the Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity at Cornell University in 1906. During the organizational stages of […]
learn moreThis date celebrates the founding of Meharry Medical College in Nashville, TN. It is one of over 100 Historically Black Colleges and Universities in America.
Meharry Medical College was founded in 1876 as the Medical Department of Central Tennessee College of Nashville , under the auspices of the Freedman’s Aid Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church. In 1900, Central Tennessee College became Walden University, and by 1915, the college gained a separate corporate existence from the university.
learn moreEartha Mary Magdalene White was born on this date in 1876. She was an African American vocalist, educator, administrator, and humanitarian.
learn more*Blanche Wilkins Williams was born on this date in 1876. She was a Black teacher and disability advocate specializing in educating the deaf through the intersectionality of self. She was the daughter of Charles Wilkins and Estelle Griffin Wilkins, both from North Carolina, and was from Lacrosse, WI. Wilkins was the first deaf Black woman […]
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