People, Locations, Episodes

Alfred Xuma, Agronomist, and Activist born

*Alfred Xuma was born on March 8, 1893. He was a Black South African agronomist, activist, and doctor. Alfred Bahtini Xuma was from the Manzana, Ngcobo District, in the Eastern Cape of South Africa. Xuma was the seventh child of Abraham Mangali Xuma and Elizabeth Cupase Xuma, devout members of the Wesleyan Church. Xuma and […]

Walter F. White, NAACP Leader born

Walter Francis White was born on this date in 1893. He was an African American activist and administrator.

His father was a postman and his mother a schoolteacher in Atlanta. Because Atlanta had Jim Crow laws, as a child, White attended segregated Black schools, sat in the rear of buses, and experienced many other indignities of racism. When he was 13, White witnessed a race riot in Atlanta.

Charles S. Johnson, Sociologist born

This date marks the birth of Charles Spurgeon Johnson in 1893. He was an African American sociologist, and authority on race relations.

Freda Kirchwey, Journalist, Professor, and Activist born

Freda Kirchwey was born on this date in 1893. She was a White American civil rights activist and peace advocate.

She was born in Lake Placid, N.Y., where her father, George Washington Kirchwey, was a professor at the Columbia University Law School. He helped establish the New York Peace Society in 1906, supported women’s suffrage, and the development of trade unions.

Otto Huiswoud, Political Activist born

*Otto Huiswoud was born on this date in 1893. He was a black Surinamese political activist and journalist. Otto Eduard Gerardus Majella Huiswoud was born in Paramaribo, a South American coastal city in Suriname. He was the son of Rudolf Huiswoud, a formerly enslaved person who had gained his freedom as a boy and was a […]

James W. Ford, Labor Activist born.

*James W. Ford was born on this date in 1893. He was a Black labor activist and a politician. Ford was born in Pratt City, Alabama. His father, a former resident of Gainesville, Georgia, had come to Alabama in the 1890s to work in the coal mines and steel mills. He worked for 35 years […]

The Colored Women’s League of D.C. is Founded

*The Colored Women’s League (CWL) of Washington, D.C., was incorporated on this date in 1894. This women’s club’s primary mission was the national union of women of color. Several prominent Black women in Washington, D.C., met to discuss creating a club devoted to improving the conditions of black children, women, and the urban poor. Some of […]

The Daughters of the Confederacy, a story

*The Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC) was founded on September 10, 1894. UDC is an American neo-Confederate hereditary association for female descendants of Confederate Civil War soldiers. Established in Nashville, Tennessee, the group venerated the Ku Klux Klan during the Jim Crow era. In 1896, the organization established the Children of the Confederacy to impart […]

Eleanor Roosevelt, Political Emissary, and Writer born

*Eleanor Roosevelt was born on this date in 1884. She was a White American diplomat, First lady, writer, humanitarian and Civil Rights activist.

Lovett Fort-Whiteman, Socialist born

*On this date in 1894, we mark the birth of Lovett Fort-Whiteman.   He was a Black political activist and Communist International functionary.   Lovett Huey Fort-Whiteman was born in Dallas, Texas. His father, Moses Whiteman, was a slave in South Carolina and relocated to Texas in 1887, where he worked as a janitor and a small-scale cattle rancher. At the age of 35, Moses Whiteman married the […]

Beulah Webb, Community Activist born

*Beulah Webb of Sioux City was born on this date in 1895. She was a Black community service leader. In 1927, she organized the Sioux City Association of Colored Women to promote culture, education, literature, and art and to alleviate racial problems. She was selected to attend the National Federation of Colored Women’s Clubs Convention in 1938. […]

Flossie Bailey, Activist born

*The birth of Flossie Bailey is celebrated on this date in 1895. She was a Black anti-lynching and civil rights activist. Katherine Harvey (her birth name), the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Charles Harvey, was born in Kokomo, Indiana, in 1895. Known as “Flossie,” she grew up in Kokomo and attended Kokomo High School. She married […]

The First National Conference of the ‘Colored Women of America’ is Held

*On this date in 1895, the First National Conference of the Colored Women of America was held. Representatives of 42 Black women’s clubs from 14 states—including the Colored Women’s League of Washington, the Women’s Loyal Union of New York, and the Ida B. Wells Club of Chicago gathered in Berkeley Hall with Josephine Ruffin presiding. […]

William Stuart Nelson, Activist born

*William Stuart Nelson was born on this date in 1895.  He was a Black theologian and human rights activist. William Nelson was born in Paris, Kentucky, and graduated from Lincoln High School in Paducah, KY. He served in World War I and received his BA from Howard University in 1920. After attending schools in France and Germany, […]

The Northeastern Federation of Colored Women’s Clubs Begins

*On this date in 1896, the Northeastern Federation of Colored Women’s Clubs (NFCWC) was founded. This umbrella organization represented black women’s clubs in the northeastern United States. The organization was affiliated with the National Association of Colored Women’s Clubs (NACWC). It was one of the first umbrella organizations for Black women’s clubs in the United States, predating […]