*G. Caliman Coxe was born on May 7,1907. He was a Black artist and educator. Gloucester Caliman Coxe was a native of Carlisle, Pennsylvania, and moved to Louisville, KY. in 1924. In his 40s, he entered the University of Louisville to study art. He was the first African American to receive a Hite art scholarship […]
learn moreRudolph Dunbar was born on this date in 1907. He was a Guyanese conductor, clarinetist, and composer.
Dunbar was born in Nabaclis, British Guyana. He was 14 when he joined the British Guiana Militia Band as a clarinet-playing apprentice. He immigrated to the United States five years later, and began studying at the Institute of Musical Art, (now the Juilliard School) in New York, where he was also involved with the Harlem jazz scene. During this time, he was a recording artist, playing clarinet solos. He also established a friendship with Black composer William Grant Still.
learn moreOn this date we celebrate the birth of Charles Alston in 1907. He was an African American artist and teacher.
Charles Henry Alston was born in Charlotte, N.C. His father died when he was three. Soon after, his mother moved to New York and married Harry P. Bearden (the uncle of artist Romare Bearden). Alston attended DeWitt Clinton High School, taught there, and graduated from Columbia University in 1929. In 1931, he received a master’s degree from Columbia’s Teachers College.
learn more*Irene Britton Smith was born on this date in 1907. She was an African and Native classical composer and educator. Irene Britton was born in Chicago, Illinois, the youngest of four siblings. She was of African, Crow, and Cherokee descent. Smith attended Ferron Grammar School, Doolittle Grammar School, and Wendell Phillips High School. Britton attended […]
learn more*Samuel Felrath Hines Jr. was born on this date in 1913. He was a Black visual artist and art conservator. Born in Indianapolis, Indiana, Hines began studying art in 1926 after receiving a scholarship for youth classes at the John Herron School of Art Saturday School. After graduating high school in 1931, Hines worked for the Civilian […]
learn moreL. C. “Speedy” Huggins, an African American dancer and musician, was born on this date in 1913.
Huggins was born in Ft. Smith, AR. His family later moved to Kansas City, Kansas, where he attended Northeast Junior High School. A self-taught tap dancer, by the time he graduated from the eighth grade in 1928, he was dancing in nightclubs throughout the 18th and Vine district. In 1933, he performed on the opening night of the Cherry Blossom Club, one of the area’s premier nightclubs. Huggins performed throughout Europe while serving in the Army during World War II.
learn more*Samba, also known as samba urbano carioca, is an Afro Brazilian music and dance genre that became popular in the early 20th century. It is celebrated on this date in 1916. It originated in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; it has roots in the cultural expression of West Africa and Brazilian folk traditions, especially those linked […]
learn more*Robert H. McNeill was born on this date in 1917. He was a Black still photographer. He was born in Washington, D.C., the son of a doctor and a schoolteacher, and grew up in the Shaw neighborhood. He became interested in photography at a young age after observing a demonstration on developing photographs. He joined […]
learn more*Talley Beatty was born on this date in 1918. He was a Black dancer and choreographer. Talley Beatty was born in Cedar Grove, Louisiana, a section of Shreveport, but grew up in Chicago, Illinois. At the age of fourteen, he began studying dance with Katherine Dunham. He learned her style of dancing, which was heavily based […]
learn more*Pearl Primus was born on this date in 1919. She was a Trinidadian American dancer, choreographer, and anthropologist. Her work helped establish the importance of African American dance in United States culture.
learn more*Norma Miller was born on this date in 1919. She was a Black lindy hop dancer, choreographer, actress, author, and comedian known as the “Queen of Swing.” Norma Miller was born in Harlem, New York, to her mother, Alma, and father, Norman, a soldier from Bridgetown, Barbados. She was named after her father, who died from pneumonia a month before her birth. […]
learn more*Roy DeCarava was born on this date in 1919. He was an African American artist and photographer.
Roy Rudolph DeCarava was born in Harlem, New York the only child of Elfreda, a Jamaican, and Andrew DeCarava. At five he began to express his artistic ability: he made jewelry with his friends, chalk drawings in the streets where he played, and sketches of “cowboys and Indians.” From early childhood through high school, he shined shoes, sold newspapers on the subway, making deliveries, or hauled ice. DeCarava attended Textile High School’s annex in Harlem, which was segregated.
learn more*Vincent Smith was born on this date in 1929. He was a Black artist, painter, printmaker, and teacher known for his depictions of black life. Vincent DaCosta Smith was born in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn to Beresford Leopold Smith and Louise Etheline Todd. Both were immigrants from Barbados. He was raised in Brownsville, Brooklyn, and […]
learn more*Noel Da Costa was born on this date in 1929. He was a Black Nigerian-Jamaican composer, jazz violinist, and choral conductor. Noel G. Da Costa was born in Lagos, Nigeria, to parents from Kingston, Jamaica, who were Salvation Army missionaries. After returning to Jamaica while Da Costa was young, they emigrated to Harlem, New York. […]
learn more*Sam Gilliam was born on this date in 1933. He was a Black color field painter and lyrical abstractionist artist. Sam Gilliam was born in Tupelo, Mississippi, and the seventh of eight children was born to Sam and Estery Gilliam. The Gilliams moved to Louisville, Kentucky, shortly after he was born. His father worked on […]
learn more