*John Wesley Cromwell was born on this date in 1846. He was a Black lawyer, teacher, civil servant, journalist, historian, and activist. John Wesley Cromwell was born into slavery in Portsmouth, Virginia, the youngest of twelve children. His parents were Willis H. and Elizabeth (Carney) Cromwell. Cromwell’s father worked as a ferryman on the Elizabeth […]
learn more*On this date in 1847, James Storum was born. He was a Black educator and Professor. From Buffalo, New York, his mother, Mary Canady, was from Sussex County, and his grandfather, Charles Storum, was a soldier in the Revolutionary War. Storum’s mother was a woman who was profoundly religious and full of energy and enterprise. […]
learn more*Maritcha Remond Lyons was born on this date in 1848. She was a Black educator, civic leader, suffragist, and public speaker in New York City and Brooklyn, New York. She taught in public schools in Brooklyn and was the second black woman to serve as an assistant principal in their system. She was born at 144 Centre Street in New York […]
learn more*Susan King Taylor was born on this date in 1848. She was a Black writer.
learn more*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, club woman, 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 […]
learn moreThis date marks the birth of Thomas Ezekiel Miller in 1849. He was a Black politician and educator who was elected to the South Carolina Congress and served from 1889 to 1891.
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 to be 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 […]
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 […]
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