*Moorfield Storey was born on this date in 1845. He was a white-American lawyer, anti-imperial activist, and civil rights leader. Moorfield Storey was born in 1845 in Roxbury, Massachusetts. His family descended from the earliest Puritan settlers in New England and had close connections with the abolitionist movement. His father was a Boston lawyer. Young Storey attended the Boston […]
learn more*On this date, in 1845, Frances Anne Rollin Whipper was born. She was a Black activist, teacher, doctor, and author. Frances Rollin was born in 1845 in Charleston, South Carolina, into a free family of color who came from Santo Domingo (now known as the Dominican Republic). Her father was a well-to-do lumber merchant. She lived her early life as a […]
learn more*On this date in 1846 the American Missionary Association (AMA) was founded. The AMA trained and educated slaves, it was the first such organization to teach southern slaves in a creditable and organized manner.
learn more*Isaiah Montgomery was born on this date in 1847. He was a Black politician, administrator, and civil rights activist. Born into slavery, he was the son of Ben Montgomery, a slave whose owner, Joseph Davis, promoted him to overseer. The younger Montgomery learned to read and write due to his father’s influential position on the Davis Bend plantation. Davis wanted to […]
learn more*The Pittsburgh Saturday Visiter newspaper, published on this date in 1847, was an abolitionist and women’s rights newspaper printed in Pittsburgh. Jane Swisshelm edited the paper, and Robert M. Riddle printed it. Swisshelm funded the work through money in her estate; at the time, the abolitionist newspaper in Pittsburgh had closed. Crowds were waiting in the […]
learn more*The birth of Redoshi is celebrated on this date in c. 1848. She was a 12-year-old Black West African girl kidnapped, enslaved, and taken to the United States. Redoshi lived in a village in West Africa, in today’s Benin. Her village was attacked in a raid by the Dahomey people, who killed her father. […]
learn more*On this date, in 1848, Albert Parsons was born. He was a white-American socialist, newspaper editor, orator, and labor activist. Albert Richard Parsons was born in Montgomery, Alabama, the tenth child of a shoe and leather factory owner originally from Maine. His parents died when he was a small child, leaving him to be raised by his eldest brother, who was married […]
learn more*Archibald Grimké was born on this date in 1849. He was a Black lawyer, intellectual, journalist, and activist. Archibald Henry Grimké was born into slavery near Charleston, South Carolina, in 1849. He was the eldest of three sons of Nancy Weston, who was also born into slavery, daughter of an enslaved black African woman […]
learn moreOn this date in 1853, Harriet Tubman began her work with the Underground Railroad. This was a network of antislavery activists who helped slaves escape from the South.
On her first trip, Tubman brought her own sister and her sister’s two children out of slavery in Maryland. A year later she rescued her brother, and in 1857 returned to Maryland to guide her aged parents to freedom.
Over a period of ten years Tubman made an estimated 19 expeditions into the South and personally escorted about 300 slaves to the North
learn more*Rodolphe Desdunes was born on this date in 1849. He was an African American civic leader, author and scholar.
Rodolphe Lucien Desdunes spent much of his professional life as a clerk with the U.S. Customs Service, but his contribution to history lies in his efforts to promote the achievements of his Blacks and to challenge the legality of Jim Crow laws. On September 5, 1891, he helped to organize the Comite des Citoyens, which backed Homer Plessy’s unsuccessful attempt to challenge segregation in public transportation.
learn moreAmanda America Dickson was born on this date in 1849. She was an African American aristocrat.
She was born on the Hancock County plantation of white agricultural reformer Davis Dickson, who raped her Black slave mother, Julia Frances Lewis. At the time, David Dickson was the wealthiest planter in the county. Young Dickson grew up in the house of her white grandmother and owner, where she learned to read, write, and play piano–unusual opportunities for a slave child. Records show that her father doted on her openly and her mother became his concubine and housekeeper.
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*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 moreThe birth of Julia A. B. Hooks in 1852 is celebrated on this date. She was an African American musician, educator and social worker.
learn more*On this date we recall the birth of Lucy Parsons in 1853. She was a Black socialist and anarchist whose work made her a prominent figure in American politics.
Accounts differ as to Parson’s birth place but some historians have said she was born a slave in Texas. Certainly her marriage to Albert Parsons, a former Confederate soldier turned Radical Republican, was viewed as controversial. Shortly after their 1871 marriage, they left Waco, Texas, for Chicago, then a center of labor unrest and radical political movements.
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