People, Locations, Episodes

Eric Williams, Author, and Politician born

*Eric Williams was born on this date in 1911. He was an Afro Caribbean author, politician, and activist. Eric Eustace Williams was born in Trinidad. His father, Thomas Henry Williams, was a minor civil servant. Eliza Frances Boissiere’s mother was a descendant of the mixed French Creole elite and had African and French ancestry. He attended the Tranquillity […]

Lewis Hayden born

*Lewis Hayden was born on this date in 1811.  He was a Black politician and abolitionist.  From Lexington, KY. He was one of 25 children.  His mother was of mixed race, African, European and Native American.  Hayden was first owned by a Presbyterian minister, Rev. Adam Rankin who sold off his brothers and sisters in […]

Helen Gray Edmonds, Educator, and Public Policy Administrator born

*Helen Gray Edmonds was born on this date in 1911. She was a Black educator and political activist.  From Lawrenceville, Va., she was the daughter of John Edward Edmonds and Ann Williams. She attended St. Paul’s High School and St. Paul’s College. Edmonds graduated from Morgan State University in 1933. After this, she earned a master’s degree from […]

Truman Gibson, Government Advisor and Lawyer born.

*Truman Gibson was born on this date in 1912. He was a Black businessman, attorney, government advisor, and boxing promoter. Truman Kella Gibson, Jr., the son of an insurance executive, was born in Atlanta, Georgia. While still young, he moved with his family to Columbus, Ohio. He graduated from the University of Chicago in 1932 […]

Bennett Stewart, H.S. Principal, and Politician born

*On this date, Bennett McVey Stewart was born in 1912. He was an African American high school principal, professor and a former U. S. Representative.

George Leighton, District Court Judge born

George Leighton, an African American attorney, judge and activist, was born on this date in 1912.

Raised in New Bedford, MA, George Neves Leitao (his birth name) is the son of Anna Silva Garcia and Antonio Neves Leitao; both were from Cape Verde. It was in school that he got the name “Leighton” as the teacher claimed she could not pronounce his last name “Leitao.” His parents, wanting no problems for their son, agreed.

William Tolbert Jr., Politician born

*William Tolbert Jr. was born on this date in 1913. He was a Black Liberian politician.  William Richard Tolbert Jr. was born in Bensonville, Liberia, to William Richard Tolbert Sr. and Charlotte Augusta Tolbert, nee Hoff, of Cape Mount, Liberia. The Tolbert and Hoff families were Americo-Liberian families of African American descent, and the Hoff family originated from Virginia. His father was […]

Aimé Césaire, Writer, and Politican born

*Aime Cesaire was born on this date in 1913.  He was an Afro Caribbean, Martinican poet, playwright, and politician.    His mother was a dressmaker in the small town of Basse-Pointe, and his father was the local tax inspector. Cesaire was raised in Martinique with his five siblings. Although their father was well-educated, and they […]

Thomas R. Jones Jr., Lawyer born

*Thomas R Jones was born on this date in 1913.  He was a Black lawyer and politician. Thomas Russell Jones, Jr. was born in Brooklyn, New York City, the son of Thomas Russell Jones, Sr. and Mabel (Ward) Jones, immigrants from Barbados.  Jones graduated from St. John’s University and St. John’s University School of Law. […]

David Pitt, British Politician, and Administrator born

On this date the Registry observes the birth of David Pitt in 1913. He was a physician and one of first Black politicians in Great Britain.

Dorothy L. Brown, Surgeon and Politician born

On this date, Dorothy Lavinia Brown was born in 1919. She was an African American doctor, legislator, and the first Black female surgeon in the South.

Cora M. Brown, Politician born

On this date Cora Brown was born in 1914. She was an African American politician and social worker and the first Black woman in the United States to be elected to the state senate (Michigan 1952).

Cora Mae Brown was from Bessemer, Alabama. She was eight years old when her family moved to Detroit. After graduating from Cass Technical High School and Fisk University in Tennessee, she took a job with the Detroit Police Department. At the same time, she attended the Wayne State University Law School. She graduated in 1948 and was admitted to the Michigan Bar that same year

Crispus A. Wright, Lawyer born

The birth of Crispus Attucks Wright in 1914 is celebrated on this date. He was an African American civil rights lawyer and businessman.

Wright’s father was born a slave in Louisiana. He graduated from Louisiana’s Leland University. The elder Wright was a teacher and high school principal who stressed to his children the importance of an education.

Young Wright came to Los Angeles with his dying father, who wanted to live his final days in what was then the Southland’s cleansing, dry air. Crispus sold newspapers at the Dunbar Hotel on Central Avenue.

Sir William Arthur Lewis, Economist born

*Sir William Arthur Lewis was born on this date in 1915. He was a Black Caribbean economist, educator and Nobel Prize winner.

From St. Lucia, he was the fourth son of George Ferdinand and Ida Lewis. He was educated in St. Lucia up to the secondary Level. He proved during this time to be quite a scholar. Later he entered the London School of Economics where he distinguished himself as a student of Economics. His excellence was rewarded, when at the age of twenty-three, he was made a lecturer. During this time he published numerous papers and pamphlets.

Claude Cargill, Community Activist born

*Claude Cargill was born on this date in 1915. He was a Black policeman and community activist. He was born in Harlem, New York City, the last of eight children. His lifelong love of young people came from one of the earliest Black New York City policemen. He organized and coached Police Athletic League basketball […]