People, Locations, Episodes

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.

Georgia Taylor, Jubilee Singer born

Georgia Gordon Taylor’s birth in 1855 is celebrated on this date. She was an African American vocalist.

From Nashville, Tennessee, she had a mulatto mother, Mercy Duke Gordon and a slave father, George Gordon. Mercy’s mother was white, and the law required that children of free mothers were free. Mercy had another child, Elwina, fathered by a white man (a “Doctor Warner”) before she married Gordon. Gordon was allowed to live in his free spouse’s household, hire out his own time, and pay part of his wages to his owner. Mercy and George had two children: Governor B. and Georgia.

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 […]

Henry O. Tanner, Artist born

Henry Ossawa Tanner was born on this date in 1859. He was a Black painter known for his paintings of everyday African American life and for his scenes from the Bible.

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 […]

Flora Batson, Concert Singer born

On this date in 1864, Flora Batson was born. She was an African American concert singer.

From Washington D.C., Batson’s youth was primarily spent in Providence, Rhode Island where she made her first public appearances. Batson sang in churches and a variety of programs promoting women’s temperance. She reached a summit with her career in 1885 with the Bergen Star Company as their lead singer. In 1896, another phase of her singing took place with Black bassist Gerard Miller. The two performed together as a feature duet with the South Before the War Company.

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.

Ernest Hogan, Stage Performer born

*The birth of Ernest Hogan c1865 is celebrated on this date.  He was a Black dancer, musician, comedian, actor, and producer.    He was born Ernest Reuben Crowders in the Shake Rag District of Bowling Green, Kentucky.  Little is known about his childhood, but as a teenager, he traveled with a minstrel troupe called the Georgia Graduate, where […]

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 […]

The ‘Celebration of Freedom by the Colored People in Washington D.C.’ Drawing is Created

*On this date in 1866, this sketch, “Celebration of the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia by the colored people in Washington D.C.,” was created.   The artist, Frederick Dielman. served as a topographer and draughtsman for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in Fortress Monroe and Baltimore from 1866 to 1872.  It was published in Harper’s Weekly on May […]

The Hyers Sisters Debut On Stage

*The Hyers Sisters performed their first stage show on this date in 1867.  They were Black Vaudeville Act singers and pioneers of Black musical theater.   The duo was Anna Madah and Emma Louise.  Their father, Samuel B. Hyers, came west to Sacramento, California, with their mother, Annie E. Hyers (née Cryer), after the Gold […]

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.