People, Locations, Episodes

W.E.B. Du Bois, Sociologist born

*This date marks the birth of W.E.B. Du Bois in 1868. He was an African American sociologist, one of the most important Black protest leaders in the United States during the first half of the 20th century.

Adelaide Casely-Hayford, Writer born

*Adelaide Casely-Hayford was born on this date in 1868.  She was a Black African Creole cultural nationalist, educator, writer, and feminist.   Adelaide Smith was born to an elite family in Freetown, British Sierra Leone, to a mixed-race father (William Smith Jr, of English and royal Fanti parentage) from the Gold Coast and a Creole mother, Anne Spilsbury, of English, Jamaican Maroon, and Sierra Leone Liberated African ancestry. She was the second […]

Sol White, Baseball Player, and Author born

*”Sol” White was born on this date in 1868. He was a Black professional baseball infielder, manager, writer, and executive, and one of the pioneers of the American Negro Leagues. Born in Bellaire, Ohio, King Solomon White’s early life is not well-documented. According to the 1870 and 1880 U.S. Census, his family (parents and two […]

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.

Edward N. Harleston, Poet and Journalist born.

*Edward N. Harleston was born on this date in 1869. He was a Black poet and journalist. Born in Charleston, South Carolina, Edward Nathaniel Harleston worked as a carpenter and machinist and later owned a funeral home. After his first wife, Mattie Gadsen, died in 1895, he moved to Atlantic City and became superintendent of the Heinz […]

James Corrothers, Writer born

*James Corrothers was born on this date in 1869. He was a Black poet, journalist, and minister.  James David Corrothers was born in Michigan and grew up in a small town of anti-slavery activists who settled before the American Civil War. His parents were James Richard Carruthers (later spelling changed to Corrothers), a black soldier […]

Thomas Blue, Librarian, and Minister born

The 1870 birth of Reverend Thomas F. Blue is celebrated on this date. He was an African American minister, educator, administrator, and librarian.

The son of former slaves, Blue was born in Farmville, Virginia. He graduated from Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute in 1888. He taught in Virginia, and earned a Bachelor of Divinity degree in 1898 from Richmond Theological Seminary. Around the turn of the last century, he was a secretary of the YMCA, serving Spanish-American War soldiers, moving to Louisville in the same capacity from 1899 to 1905.

John Langalibalele Dube, Essayist, and Politician born

*John Langalibalele Dube was born on this date in 1871. He was a Black South African activist, essayist, philosopher, educator, politician, publisher, editor, novelist, and poet. John Langalibalele was born in Natal at the Inanda mission station of the American Zulu Mission (AZM), South Africa. This was a branch of the American Board of Commissioners […]

Ruth G. Sheldon, Playwright born

*Ruth Shelton was born on this date in 1872. She was a Black writer and playwright.  Ruth Gaines-Shelton was from Glasgow, Missouri, the daughter of AME Church minister the Reverend George W. Gaines and his wife, Elizabeth Gaines. Her mother died when she was young, and she helped her father with church work at Old […]

Paul Laurence Dunbar, Poet, and Lyricist born

*Paul Laurence Dunbar was born in Dayton, Ohio on this date in 1872. He was an African American poet.

Dunbar was one of the first black writers to gain national prominence. He published his first volume of verse “Oak and Ivy,” at his own expense. His second book of poetry was “Majors and Minors.” In 1896 the best of his poems appeared in a single volume, “Lyrics of Lowly Life,” with an introduction by American writer William Dean Howell’s who noted that Dunbar was the first Black poet to express the lyrical qualities of Black life and the Black dialect.

Delilah L. Beasley, Journalist born

Delilah L. Beasley was born on this date in 1872. She was an African American newspaper journalist.

Geraldine Trotter, Publisher, and Activist born

*Geraldine Trotter was born on this date in 1872.  She was a Black publisher, editor, writer, and activist.  From Everett, MA., Geraldine Pindell was the daughter of Charles Edward Pindell and Mary Francis Pindell.  Pindell received her initial education at the Everett Grammar School, then enrolled in a local business college. For ten years after […]

Florence Curtis, Librarian born.

*Florence Curtis was born on September 30, 1873. She was a white-American library educator and teacher. Florence Rising Curtis was born in Ogdensburg, New York. Her father was General Newton Martin Curtis, and her mother was Emeline Clark Curtis. She attended Wells College from 1891 to 1894 and, in 1898, received a diploma from the […]

Maud Hare, Writer, and Musician born

*Maud Cuney-Hare was born on this date in 1874. She was an African American musician and writer.

From Galveston, TX, her parents were Adelina (Dowdy) and Norris Wright Cuney. After graduating from Central High School in Galveston in 1890, she studied piano at the New England Conservatory of Music. While there she successfully resisted the pressure that white students exerted on the school’s administrators to have her barred from living in the dormitory.

Alice Dunbar Nelson, Writer, and Critic born

On this date, Alice Nelson Dunbar was born in 1875. She was an African American novelist, poet, essayist, and critic associated with the early period of the Harlem Renaissance during the 1920s and ’30s.