*Cyril Ramaphosa was born on this date in 1952. He is a Black South African businessman and politician. Matamela Cyril Ramaphosa was born in Soweto, Johannesburg, to Venda parents. He is the second of the three children of Erdmuth and retired policeman Samuel Ramaphosa. He attended Tshilidzi Primary School and Sekano Ntoane High School in […]
learn moreDawn Stevens is a retired TV news anchor and reporter. In this segment, she shares her advice for young people who wish to pursue a career in broadcast news journalism.
learn more*O.T. Jackson was born on this date in 1862. He was a Black businessman and entrepreneur. Oliver Toussaint Jackson was born in Oxford, Ohio. He was one of eight children born to Hezekiah Jackson and his wife Caroline, both of whom were former slaves. He was educated in Ohio and had an entrepreneurial spirit from […]
learn more*William Bustamante was born on February 24, 1884. He was a Creole Jamaican politician and leader of the Labor Party. William Alexander Clarke Bustamante was born in Jamaica to Mary Clarke (née Wilson), a woman of mixed race, and her husband, Robert Constantine Clarke, a White Irish Catholic. His grandmother, Elsie Clarke-Shearer, was also the […]
learn more*Kwame Brathwaite was born on this date in 1938. He was a Black photojournalist and activist. Born Gilbert Ronald Brathwaite in Brooklyn and brought up in the South Bronx, to immigrant parents from Barbados, who chronicled the cultural, political, and social developments of Harlem, Africa, and the African diaspora. His parents were Cecil and Margaret […]
learn moreSheletta Brundidge is an author, entrepreneur, podcaster, and community activist. In this segment, she briefly shares her family history.
learn more*Beuford Smith was born on April 12, 1936. He was a Black photographer and educator. Born in Cincinnati, Ohio, his father, Theodore Smith, worked as a porter, and his mother, Beulah Conner Smith, managed the household. Smith was an only child. He developed an interest in photography at a young age and taught himself photography. […]
learn more*Louis Draper was born on this date in 1935. He was a Black art photographer. Louis Hansel Draper was born in Richmond, Virginia. He and his sister Nell attended a private Catholic school near Richmond, the Van deVere Institute, and Virginia Randolph High School in Glen Allen, VA. In 1953, he enrolled in Virginia State […]
learn more*Emily Meggett was born on this date in 1932. She was a Black Geechee-Gullah community leader, chef, and author. Emily Meggett was born in Edisto Island, South Carolina. She grew up with Gullah culture, a set of food, rituals, and language that took root when West and Central Africans were brought to the Southern United […]
learn more*The National Black Chamber of Commerce (NBCC) is affirmed on July 16, 1993. Incorporated as The National Black Chamber of Commerce, Inc., it is a nonprofit, nonpartisan, nonsectarian organization dedicated to the economic empowerment of African American communities. The NBCC is a very young national organization when compared to the NAACP and the Congress of […]
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