*Joan Howard was born on this date in 1848. She was a Black educator and principal. Joan Imogen Howard was born in Boston. Her father, Edwin Frederick Howard, was a well-known citizen of that City, and her mother, Joan Louise Turpin Howard, was a native of New York. She had one sister, Adeline Turpin Howard, […]
learn more*James Gregory was born on this date in 1849. He was a Black Professor, author, and Dean. James Monroe Gregory was born in Lexington, Virginia, to Maria A. (Gladman) Gregory and Henry L., a local minister. As a child, the family moved to Lynchburg, Virginia. In 1859, they moved to Cleveland, Ohio, where James entered public schools. The family […]
learn more*On this date in 1849, we celebrate Colored School #4. This school was built in New York City as an early segregated education building for Black students. The former Colored School No. 4 is a three-story mid-block brick school building constructed in 1849-50 on West 17th Street in the Chelsea neighborhood. It is the only […]
learn more*On this date in 1849, the Allegheny Institute was chartered. Along with the institute, it included Mission Church, north of Pittsburgh. Charles Avery funded this school to offer elementary and advanced education to qualified Black students without regard to sex. The racial and coeducational features of the program were controversial, and the school’s connection […]
learn more*Sara Iredell Fleetwood’s birth is celebrated on this date in 1849. She was a Black nurse, clubwoman, and teacher. Sara Louise Iredell was born in St. Louis, Missouri, to Elizabeth Susan (née Webb) and Geoffrey George Iredell. Her father was originally from Edenton, North Carolina, and was the son of an enslaved person who had […]
learn more*William J. Simmons was born on this date in 1849. He was an educator, minister, and college administrator. William J. Simmons was born a slave in Charleston, South Carolina, to Edward and Esther Simmons. While William was young, his mother fled slavery with her three children, William and his two sisters, Emeline and Anna. They […]
learn more*On this date we mark the birth of William Councill in 1849. He was a Black teacher, college president, and editor.
learn more*On this date in 1849, we celebrate the opening of New York Central College. This college was the first in the United States founded on the principle that all qualified students were welcome. It was an abolitionist institution called New York Central College, McGrawville, and Central College. It was founded by Cyrus Pitt Grosvenor and […]
learn moreThis date marks the birth of Charlotte E. Ray in 1850. She was a Black teacher and the first Black female lawyer in the United States.
learn more*The Tullahassee Mission was founded on this date in 1850. It was a school in the Creek Nation, Indian Territory of Oklahoma, serving formerly enslaved Black Africans. While in the Southeast and soon after the Indian Removal Act, most Muscogee Creek opposed all white-American missionaries and their schools. They did not want their traditional culture disrupted […]
learn moreThis date marks the birth of Hallie Quinn Brown in 1850. She was a Black educator and elocutionist who pioneered in the movement for Black women’s clubs in the United States.
learn more*The Woman’s Medical College of Pennsylvania (WMCP) founding is celebrated on this date in 1850. This was the second medical institution established to train women in medicine to earn the M.D. degree and one of the earliest colleges a Black woman could earn a medical degree. The New England Female Medical College had been established […]
learn more*Zelia Ball Page was born on this date in 1850. She was a Black teacher. Zelia R. Ball was born in Alexandria, Virginia, to a freedman Black woman who raised her in Washington, D. C. Her mother worked with the Underground Railroad, and fearing for her daughter’s safety, she arranged with Dr. Peter Parker […]
learn more*Felix Adler was born on this date in 1851. He was a white Jewish-American professor, rationalist, lecturer, and social reformer. Felix Adler was born in Alzey, Rhenish Hesse, Grand Duchy of Hesse, Germany, the son of a rabbi, Samuel Adler, a leading figure in European Reform Judaism. The family immigrated to the United States from Germany when Felix was six so his father could accept the appointment as head rabbi at Temple Emanu-El in New […]
learn more*The birth of Mary Sanderson-Grases is celebrated on this date in 1851. She was a Black school teacher. Mary Jane Sanderson was born in Wareham, Massachusetts, to Jeremiah Burke (“J.B.”) Sanderson and Catherine Molyneaux (Sanderson). She was the second oldest of 8 children and came to California with her mother and siblings about 1861 to join […]
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