*The Female Literary Association (FLA) was formed on this date in 1831. It was a formal space where Black women exchanged knowledge, skills, attitudes, values, and beliefs and prepared for a public role in abolition and community circles. This association was started in Philadelphia, PA., by Sarah Mapps Douglas, who pushed back against political, racial, or social contexts; […]
learn more*Joanna Moore was born on this date in 1832. She was a white-American Baptist missionary. Born in Clarion County, Pennsylvania, Joanna Patterson Moore went to Island Number Ten in the Mississippi River in November 1863 to work with around 1,000 Black women and children who had gone there seeking protection from the Union Army during the American Civil War. She […]
learn more*The birth of William Henry Johnson in 1833 is celebrated on this date. He was a Black Abolitionist, politician and crusader for the rights of Blacks.
learn more*John Anthony Copeland was born on this date in 1834. He was a free Black carpenter and abolitionist. John Anthony Copeland Jr. was born in Raleigh, North Carolina; his parents were John Anthony Copeland, a slave, and Delilah Evans, born a free Black. Copeland Sr. was emancipated as a boy in about 1815. As a […]
learn more*Isaac Myers was born on this date in 1835. He was a pioneering Black trade unionist, a cooperative organizer, and a caulker. Myers was born free in Baltimore, though Maryland was a slave state. Since the state of Maryland did not offer public education for Black youth, Myers had to acquire his early education from […]
learn more*Hannibal C. Carter’s birth is celebrated on this date in 1835. He was a Black soldier, abolitionist, and politician. Carter was born in New Albany, Indiana, then moved to Toronto, Canada, for his early childhood. He and his brother were sons of George Washington Carter. Although the exact date is unclear, sometime in the […]
learn more*On this date, 1837, the Detroit Anti-Slavery Society was formed. Before the American Civil War, activists in northern cities formed anti-slavery organizations to promote the abolitionist cause. Detroit’s Anti-Slavery Society was founded the same year Michigan became a state. The new state constitution included a ban on slavery. Abolitionists organized to fight the institution of […]
learn more*Helen Appo Cook was born on this date in 1837. She was a wealthy, prominent Black community activist in the women’s club movement. Helen Appo was born to William Appo, a prominent musician, and Elizabeth Brady Appo, who owned a millinery business in New York. Because of William Appo’s music career, the family lived in […]
learn more*Charlotte Grimke was born on this date in 1837. She was a Black abolitionist and poet.
learn more*The birth of Jacob C. White Jr. is celebrated on August 28th 1837. He was a Black educator, intellectual, and abolitionist. Jacob Clement White Jr. was the son of Jacob White Sr. and Elizabeth White. He was raised at 100 Old York Road in Philadelphia’s predominantly white Jenkintown neighborhoods. His father was a barber and physician who […]
learn more*Newton Knight ion was born on this date in 1837. He was a white-American abolitionist, farmer, unionist, and Confederate soldier. Knight was born near the Leaf River in Jones County, Mississippi, a region dominated by virgin longleaf pines, and wolves and panthers roamed the land. Knight married Serena Turner in 1858, and they moved to […]
learn more*Helen Pitts Douglass’s birth is celebrated on August 16, 1838. She was a white-American teacher and suffragist known as Frederick Douglass’s second wife. Helen Pitts was born in Honeoye, New York; her parents were activists in the abolitionist and suffragist movements. She was also a descendant of John Alden and Priscilla Alden, who sailed to America on […]
learn more*Susan Paul Vashon was born in Boston, Massachusetts on this date in 1838. She was an African American teacher and abolitionist.
learn more*This date in 1840 is celebrated as the birth date of James M. Turner, a Black Reconstruction Era politician, activist, educator, and diplomat. James Milton Turner was born into slavery in St. Louis, Missouri. As a child, he was sold on the steps of the St. Louis US Courthouse for $50 (approximately $ 1,500 […]
learn more*William Monroe Trotter was born on this date in 1872. He was an African American news publisher and activist and perhaps the most militant of the known civil rights activist of the 19th century.
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