People, Locations, Episodes

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Politician born

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf was born on this date in 1938. She is an African politician and former president of Liberia.

John Kufuor, Lawyer and Politician born

*John Kufuor was born on this date in 1938. He is a Black African lawyer and politician. From a royal, aristocratic maternal lineage, John Kofi Agyekum Kufuor was born in the Ashanti Region of Ghana and started his primary and elementary school at the Kumasi Government School. From 1951 to 1953, he continued his primary education at Osei Tutu Boarding […]

Riley Gilchrist, Policeman and Community Activist born

*Riley Gilchrist was born on this date in 1939. He was a Black police officer. From Minneapolis, he was the son of Doris and Riley Gilchrist Sr. In 1957, he had three younger brothers and two sisters: Wendell, Gary, Jay Helen, and Diane. He graduated from Minneapolis Central H. S. In 1970, he became a […]

Lloyd McDermott, Aboriginal Athlete, and Lawyer born.

*Lloyd McDermott, also known as Mullenjaiwakka, was born on this date in 1939. He was an Aboriginal Australian lawyer and rugby union player. Born in Eidsvold, Queensland, Lloyd Clive McDermott had links to the Mununjali clan and the Wakka Wakka people. Lloyd McDermott’s academic and sporting prowess, the son of a farm laborer, won him a scholarship […]

Tom Hayden, Activist and State Politician born

*Tom Hayden was born on this date in 1939. He was a white-American social and political activist, author, and politician.  Thomas Emmet Hayden was born in Royal Oak, Michigan, to parents of Irish ancestry, Genevieve Isabelle (née Garity) and John Francis Hayden. His father was a former Marine who worked for Chrysler as an accountant […]

John Lewis, Politician, and Activist born

*John Lewis was born on this date in 1940. He is an African American Lawyer, congressman and activist.

Lewis is from Troy, Alabama and the son of a family of sharecroppers. He grew up on his family’s farm and attended segregated public schools in Pike County, Alabama. At an early age, Lewis developed an unwavering commitment to the Civil Rights Movement. He holds a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Religion and Philosophy from Fisk University; and he is a graduate of the American Baptist Theological Seminary in Nashville, Tennessee.

Jim Clyburn, Politician born

*Jim Clyburn was born on this date, in 1940. He is a Black politician and retired educator. James Enos Clyburn was born in Sumter, South Carolina, the son of Enos Lloyd Clyburn, a fundamentalist minister, and his wife, Almeta (née Dizzley), a beautician. He is a distant relative of George W. Murray, an organizer for the Colored […]

Wellington Webb, Politician, and Administrator born

*Wellington Webb was born on this date in 1941. He is an African American politician and administrator and the first African American Mayor of Denver, CO.

Charlene Drew Jarvis, Educator and Politician born.

*Charlene Drew Jarvis was born on this date in 1941. She is a Black educator, a scientific researcher, and a politician. From Washington, D.C., Charlene Rosella Drew) is the daughter of Charles Drew and the sister of Sylvia Drew Ivie. Jarvis earned her Bachelor of Arts degree from Oberlin College in 1962, a Master of […]

Ron Brown, Politician born

Ron Brown was born on this date in 1941 in Washington, D. C. He was a businessman and politician who was the first African American to serve as chairman of a national political party.

William Gray III, Politician born

*William Gray III was born on this date in 1941.  He was a Black politician and minister.   William Herbert Gray III was born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, but grew up in St. Augustine, Florida, where his father was president of Florida Normal and Industrial Institute (later renamed Florida A and M University), and later in North Philadelphia, Pennsylvania where he graduated from Simon […]

Bernie Sanders, Activist, and Politician born

*Bernie Sanders was born on this date in 1941. He is a white Jewish-American (former) civil rights activist and politician from Brooklyn, New York City. Bernard Sanders’ father, Elias Ben Yehuda Sanders, was born to a Jewish family in Słopnice, Galicia, in Austria-Hungary (now part of Poland). In 1921, Elias immigrated to the United States […]

Mae Jackson, Social Worker, and Mayor born

*Mae Jackson was born on this date in 1941. She was a Black social worker. Mae Allison Jackson was born in the east-central Texas town of Teague. Despite the difficulties of growing up in a Jim Crow Southern town during the 1940s and 1950s, Jackson determined a successful course for her life. Jackson learned the value of […]

Ernest Green, Lawyer and Activist born

*Ernest Green was born on this date in 1941. He is a Black lawyer, administrator, and one of the Little Rock Nine. Ernest Gideon Green was born in Little Rock, Arkansas, to Lothaire and Ernest Green, Sr. Ernest had a brother, Scott, and a sister, Treopia Washington. As a child, Green attended church and was a […]

Black Women’s History in Welding and Government Industry, a story

*Black women’s history in welding and other government industries is affirmed on Pearl Harbor Day, 1941. With the entry of the United States of America into World War II, Black women became vital to the war effort. Already on the move as part of the Great Migration, they sought to leave behind dead-end, often demeaning work […]