*The birth of Hezekiah Grice is celebrated on this date in c 1801. Hezekiah Grice was a Black abolitionist, machinist, and businessman. Grice was born in rural Calvert County, Maryland. Despite Maryland’s status as a slave state, Grice received some formal education and became a machinist. Grice migrated to Baltimore, where he became a mathematician […]
learn more*Gloria Wekker was born on this date in 1950. She is an Afro Surinamese Dutch gender activist, emeritus professor, and writer. Gloria Daisy Wekker was born in Paramaribo, Suriname. Her family migrated to the Netherlands when she was a one-year-old infant and lived in a neighborhood in Amsterdam that had formerly been predominantly Jewish before WWI. […]
learn more*Paul Cornely was born on this date in 1906. He was a Black physician, public health pioneer, and activist. Paul Bertau Cornely was born in Pointe-à-Pitre, Guadeloupe. His mother was Adrienne Mellon, and his father was Eleodore Cornely. At the age of three, his family moved to Puerto Rico. He moved to the United States as […]
learn more*Homer Phillips was born on this date in 1880. He was a Black lawyer and public policy advocate. Homer Gilliam Phillips was born in Sedalia, Missouri. He was the son of a Methodist minister, but he was orphaned in infancy and raised by an aunt. Phillips’s interest in law led him to Washington, D.C., where […]
learn more*Virginia McLaurin was born on this date in 1909. She was a Black seamstress, community volunteer, and supercentenarian. McLaurin was born in Cheraw, South Carolina. McLaurin said she “was birthed by a midwife and the birthday put in a Bible somewhere.” She worked in the fields, sharecropping with her parents as a child, shucking corn, and picking […]
learn more*On this date in 1957, we celebrate the American Society of African Culture (AMSAC). AMSAC was an organization of African American writers, artists, and scholars. The society was founded because of the Congress of Negro Writers and Artists in 1956 based on the idea of the French fr: Société Africaine de culture. In the summer of 1957, five […]
learn more*The Palladium of Liberty published its first issue on this date in 1843. This was the first newspaper published by Black Ohioans to promote African American civil rights in Ohio. David Jenkins and other Black community leaders launched the Columbus-based weekly. Charles Langston was one of its editors. Its motto was “Devoted to the Interests of the Colored People […]
learn moreJulie Landsman is a teacher (retired), author, artist, and diverse classroom education, consultant. In this segment, she shares two episodes where she supported school choice and racial Justice.
learn more*The Colored Women’s League (CWL) of Washington, D.C., was incorporated on this date in 1894. This woman’s club’s primary mission was the national union of women of color. A group of several prominent black women in Washington, D.C., met to discuss creating a club devoted to improving the conditions of black children, women, and the urban […]
learn more*Maxwell Frost was born on this date in 1997. He is an Afro Cuban American activist and politician. From Miami, Florida, Maxwell Alejandro Frost is the son of a Puerto Rican woman of Lebanese descent and a Haitian man. His biological mother had several children and had been experiencing violence. He was adopted as an infant; his […]
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