People, Locations, Episodes

Mary E. Webb, Orator, and Actress born

*Mary E. Webb’s birth is celebrated on this date in 1828. She was a Black actress and orator known for her dramatic poetry and literature readings. Mary Espartero Webb was born in New Bedford, Massachusetts, three weeks after her mother escaped slavery in Virginia. Her father, described as “a Spanish gentleman of wealth, had made […]

Antonio C. Gomes, Composer born

Antonio Carlos Gomes was born on this date in 1836. He was an African Brazilian composer, one of the most distinguished 19th century operatic composers in the world.

Harriet Powers, ‘Story Quilt’ Artist born

Harriet Powers was born on this date in 1837. She was a Black artist who worked in textile needlework.

The Ethiopian Serenaders Are Formed

*The Ethiopian Serenaders are noted on this date in 1840. From Boston, they were a white-American Blackface minstrel troupe successful in the 1840s and 1850s. They were managed and directed by James A. Dumbolton through various line-ups and are sometimes mentioned as the Boston Minstrels, Dumbolton Company, or Dumbolton’s Serenaders. The group was formed in […]

Antonín Dvořák, Classical Composer born

*Antonín Dvořák was born on this date in 1841.  He was a white-European Czech composer and advocate of American Black Spiritual Music. Antonín Leopold Dvořák was born in Nelahozeves, near Prague, in the Austrian Empire, and was the eldest son of František Dvořák and his wife, Anna, née Zdeňková.  František worked as an innkeeper, a professional player of […]

Ella Robinson Madison, Actress, and Singer born

*The birth of Ella Robinson Madison is celebrated on this date in 1854. She was an African American actress and singer.

Mary Eliza Walker Crump, Choral Singer born

*The birth of Mary Eliza Walker Crump is celebrated on this date in 1857. She was a Black contralto singer and Choir manager. Mary Eliza Walker was born in slavery near Nashville, Tennessee. “My mother belonged to Wesley Greenfield and my father to John W. Walker of Nashville,” she wrote in an 1873 publication. Her […]

Minnie Tate, Choral Singer born

*The birth of Minnie Tate is celebrated on this date in 1857. She was a choral singer and was the youngest original member of the Fisk Jubilee Singers. Minnie Tate was born in Nashville, Tennessee, the daughter of Andrew L. Tate and Adelle A. Livingston Tate. Her grandmother, Dicey Tanner, and mother, Adelle, were freed from […]

William Edmondson, Sculptor born.

On this date we recall the birth of William Edmondson in 1863. He was a black sculptor and the first Black artist to achieve a one-man exhibition in America.

A child of slaves, he was born in the Hillsboro section of Davidson County, next to Nashville, Tennessee. His father died while he and his siblings–four brothers and a sister–were young.

Jesse Shipp Sr., Playwright born

*Jesse Shipp was born on this date in 1864.  He was a Black actor, playwright, and theatrical director.   Born in 1864 in Cincinnati, Jesse Allison Shipp, Sr’s father, Thomas Shipp, was born a slave in South Carolina. His mother, Ellen Shipp, was of bi-racial heritage and was born around 1830 in the slave state of Kentucky.  Sometime before the American Civil War, both had managed to leave the Southern […]

Richard B. Harrison, Stage Actor born

Richard Berry Harrison was born on this date in 1864. He was an African American actor, teacher, dramatic reader, lecturer, and elocutionist.

Amanda Aldridge, Opera Singer and Opera Teacher born

*Amanda Aldridge was born on this date in 1866. She was a Black British opera singer, teacher, and composer. Amanda Christina Elizabeth Aldridge was born in Upper Norwood, London, the third child of Black actor Ira Frederick Aldridge and his second wife, Amanda Brandt, who was Swedish. She had two sisters, Rachael and Luranah, and […]

Pat Chappelle, Vaudeville Pioneer born

*Pat Chappelle was born on this date in 1869. He was a Black stage showman, theatre owner, and entrepreneur.  Patrick Henry Chappelle was from Jacksonville, Florida, the son of Lewis Chappelle and his wife Anna, who had been slaves in Newberry County, South Carolina. After slavery was abolished, they left South Carolina with their relatives […]

Olivia Bush, Writer, and Drama Coach born

Olivia Ward Bush-Banks, an African American writer and drama instructor, was born on this day in 1869.

Born in Sag Harbor, Long Island, New York, Olivia was the daughter of Eliza Draper and Abraham Ward, both of whom were of African and Montauk descent. Ward’s mother died when was about one year old. She and her father moved to Providence, R.I., where he married again, but he handed young Ward over to her mother’s sister, Maria Draper, who reared Olivia as her own child.

Adrienne Herndon, Actress, and Designer born

*Adrienne Herndon was born on this date in1869. She was an African American actress, and designer.