*The Dawn settlement was formed on this date in 1842. Often called Dawn, this was a Canadian refuge community and a place of work for former American slaves. Josiah Henson and Hiram Wilson formed it with 200 acres of property purchased. Henson also purchased an additional 200 acres of land adjacent to the community, later […]
learn more*Vera Pigee was born on this date in 1924. She was a Black businesswoman and civil rights worker. Vera Mae Berry was born to sharecropper Wilder Berry and his wife, Lucy Wright Berry, near Glendora in Leflore County, Mississippi. When she was fourteen, she married Paul Pigee Jr., who was four years older, and their […]
learn more*This date in 1791 is celebrated as the birth date of Edward Strutt Abdy, a white English legal academic and abolitionist. Edward Strutt Abdy was born in the U.K., the fifth and youngest son of Thomas Abdy, of Albyns, Essex, by Mary, daughter of James Hayes, of Holliport, a bencher of the Middle Temple. He […]
learn more*The National Civil Rights Museum was established on April 23, 1991. The Institution is a complex of museums and historic buildings in Memphis, Tennessee; its exhibits trace the history of the American abolitionist and American civil rights movement from the 17th century to the present. The site opened as the 16-room Windsor Hotel in 1924 […]
learn more*Patricia Banks was born on this date in 1937. She is a retired Black flight attendant, administrator, and counselor. Patricia Noisette Banks was born to parents Sadie and Joseph Banks in New York City. She graduated from Aquinas High School in 1955. Banks Edmiston attended Queens College for a year to study psychology. While attending, […]
learn more*Vic Rosenthal was born on this date in 1955. He was a white Jewish-American community organizer, educator, and social, racial, and economic justice activist. Victor Rosenthal was born in the Bronx in New York City after his grandparents fled the Russian Pogroms. He was raised in Yonkers and received his B.A. in history from SUNY […]
learn more*On this date in 1791, the Saint-Domingue revolt began. This was a confrontation by African and Indigenous people against French slave traders. At the time, Saint-Domingue occupied approximately one-third of the western portion of Hispaniola, the island Christopher Columbus claimed for Spain in 1492. Spanish exploitation quickly reduced the native Arawakan population to such a […]
learn more*Rev. William Henry Jernagin was born on this date in 1869. He was a Black Baptist pastor, American civil rights, and Pan-African activist. William Henry Jernagin was born in Mashulaville, Mississippi, to Allen Fletcher Jernagin and Julia Ruth Walker. While his parents were mostly illiterate, they obtained a 40-acre farm to grow fruits and vegetables. […]
learn more*Alfred Xuma was born on March 8, 1893. He was a Black South African agronomist, activist, and doctor. Alfred Bahtini Xuma was from the Manzana, Ngcobo District, in the Eastern Cape of South Africa. Xuma was the seventh child of Abraham Mangali Xuma and Elizabeth Cupase Xuma, devout members of the Wesleyan Church. Xuma and […]
learn more*Gladys Mae Sellers’s birth is celebrated on this date in 1889. She was a Black singer and one of the first Black Cantors in America. Born in Illinois as Gladys Mae Sellers, she grew up in the city of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. By the 1910s, she led musical programs at the St. Mark AME Church and […]
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