People, Locations, Episodes

Peter Meyerhoff, Business Equity Advocate born

*Peter Meyerhoff was born on this date in 1925.  He was a white Jewish-American mechanical engineer and philanthropist. Born in Germany, Pete arrived in the United States as a teenager during World War II. He graduated from high school and then joined the Army, where he was made a citizen. When he returned, he obtained […]

The Chicago Bee Weekly Newspaper is Published

*The Chicago Bee was first published on this date in 1925.   Chicago Sunday Bee was a Chicago-based weekly newspaper.  The paper’s founder and owner, Anthony Overton, a wealthy industrialist, owned several concerns, including the Overton Hygienic Company, a successful cosmetics firm. He had also made a previous venture in publishing in the form of the Half-Century […]

Thomas Stropshire, Businessman born

*Thomas Shropshire was born on this date in 1925.  He was a Black businessman and administrator.  From Little Rock, Arkansas, Thomas B. Shropshire attended Little Rock’s Dunbar High School and later earned his B.S. Degree from Lincoln University, Missouri, in 1950.  He did his graduate work at the New York University School of Business Administration.  […]

The American Negro Labor Congress Holds Its First Meeting

*On this date in 1925, the first meeting of the American Negro Labor Congress took place.   It was established by the Communist Party as a vehicle for advancing the rights of African Americans, propagandizing communism within the Black community, and recruiting Black members for the party.   The organization opened in Chicago. It attacked the segregationist practices of many unions affiliated with the American […]

Smalls Paradise (nightclub) Opens

*Smalls Paradise, a jazz nightclub in Harlem, New York City, is celebrated on this date in 1925. Entrepreneur Ed Smalls owned a small venue in Harlem, the Sugar Cane Club, from 1917 to 1925, which catered primarily to residents. When Smalls opened Smalls Paradise, he arranged a lavish gala for the club’s opening, which almost 1,500 people attended. At […]

The Pacific Beach Club (Orange County, CA), a story

*The Pacific Beach Club is affirmed on this date in 1926. It was a planned African American beach resort outside Huntington Beach, Orange County, California. The Pacific Beach Club was intended to be the “grandest of escapes” and to fulfill the dream of a resort where Black people who were restricted from most of California’s […]

Moneta Sleet, Photographer born

*On this date 1926, Moneta Sleet was born. He was an African American photographer.

From Owensboro, KY, he began taking photographs after his parents gave an old box camera. After graduating from high school, Sleet attended Kentucky State College and later he relocated to New York City. It was there that he earned a M.A. in journalism from NYU. In 1955, Sleet joined the staff at Ebony Magazine, covering many prominent moments of the Civil Rights Movement, the Nobel Peace Prize, and other world events.

The Savoy Ballroom Opens

*On this date in 1926, the Savoy Ballroom opened in Harlem, New York. Called the “Home of Happy Feet,” it was Harlem’s first and greatest Swig Era dance palace.

It was opened by Moe Gale (Moses Galewski), Charles Galewski, and Harlem real-estate businessman Charles Buchanan, who functioned as the ballroom’s manager. The Savoy was billed as the world’s most beautiful ballroom; it occupied the second floor of a building that extended along the whole block between 140th and 141st streets, and featured a large dance floor (200 feet by 50 feet), two bandstands, and a retractable stage.

Nathan Johnson, Architect born

*The birth of Nathan Johnson is celebrated on this date in 1926. He was a Black architect. Born in Herington, Kansas, he came to Detroit to work as a draftsman for White and Griffin before forming his firm in 1956. He pursued an adventurous modern style in church architecture with some of Detroit’s most historic […]

Yolanda Vargas Dulché, Writer born

 *Yolanda Vargas Dulché de la Parra was born on this date in 1926. She was a Mexican writer principally known for creating the comic book character of Memín Pinguín and various telenovelas for Mexican television. Vargas Dulché was born to parents Armando Vargas de la Maza and Josefina Dulché in Mexico City, along with one sister, Elba. The family […]

Lea Pride, Business, and Community Advocate born

*On this date in 1926, Leatrice Pride was born. She was an African American administrator, activist, and social director.

From St. Paul, Minnesota, Leatrice Inez Dodd Pride was the only child of Raymond and Timm Dodd. Her father worked as a Pullman porter. Young Leatrice was raised by Benjamin and Lola D. Edwards along with there only daughter Beneta. Leatrice and Beneta were cultured in an area of St. Paul called the Rondo district. Between WW I and WW II, segregation was a fact of everyday life in Black Minnesota.

Faye Tredwell, Business Manager born

*Faye Treadwell was born on this date in 1926. She was an African American music business manager.

The oldest of four children of a Baptist minister father and a schoolteacher mother, she was born Fayrene Lavern Johnson in Okolona, Ark. She graduated from Arkansas Baptist College in Little Rock and moved to Los Angeles in 1950 and was working for the Los Angeles school board when she met her future husband George Treadwell, a veteran music manager whose clients included Sarah Vaughan, Dinah Washington, Billie Holiday and Sammy Davis Jr.

Andrew Brimmer, Economist and Author born

*Andrew Brimmer was born on this date in 1926. He is an African American economist, businessman, and author.

Born in Newellton, Louisiana Brimmer was the son of sharecroppers and attended racially segregated schools. He served in the Army from 1945-1946 and then attended the University of Washington receiving his bachelors and master’s degrees. In 1951 Brimmer received a Fulbright scholarship to study in India. He returned to the United States enrolled in Harvard University in 1952, receiving his PhD in 1957.

Charles Tisdale, News Publisher born

*Charles Tisdale was born on this date in 1926. He was a Black Newspaper publisher and civil rights activist. Charles Wesley Tisdale was the sixth of fifteen children born in Athens, Alabama. At age seven, he ran away from home and began working at a newspaper, pouring lead into molds in linotype machines. At fourteen, […]

George E. Johnson, Businessman born

On this date in 1927, George Ellis Johnson Sr., an African American businessman, was born.

He was raised in a three-room sharecropper’s shack in Richton, MS. Johnson’s parents separated and he and his mother, Priscilla, moved to Chicago in 1929. He began working at the age of eight, shining shoes while attending Doolittle Elementary School, and then Wendell Phillips High School for three years before quitting to work full-time. Johnson worked during the day as a busboy and in the evenings he set pins in a bowling alley.