*Rashida Jones was born on this date in 1976. She is a Black Jewish actress, director, writer, and producer. Rashida Leah Jones was born in Los Angeles, California. Her mother was actress Peggy Lipton and her father, musician/record producer Quincy Jones. She is the younger sister of actress and model Kidada Jones. Jones’s father is Black, […]
learn more*Sue Jorge was born on this date in 1970. He is an Afro Brazilian musical artist, songwriter, and actor. Jorge Mário da Silva (his birth name) was the firstborn of four children in Belford Roxo, Rio de Janeiro. According to a DNA test, Seu Jorge is 85.1% African, 12.9% European, and 2% Amerindian. He belongs to haplogroup […]
learn more*Carole Simpson was born on this date in 1941. She is a Black media broadcast journalist, news anchor, and author. Carole Estelle Simpson was born in Chicago, Illinois. At a young age, she became involved in drama in elementary school and high school, training her to articulate and project her voice for media. In […]
learn more*Dolly Rathebe was born on this date in 1928. She was a Black South African musician, columnist, and actress. Dolly Rathebe was born in Randfontein, South Africa but grew up in Sophiatown, which she describes as having been “a wonderful place”. She was discovered around 1948 after singing at a picnic in Johannesburg. A talent […]
learn more*Jürgen Schadeberg was born on this date in 1931. He was a white German-born South African photographer and artist. Jürgen Schadeberg was born in Berlin, Germany, in 1931 where he grew up during the Nazi regime and World War II. In the aftermath of the war, his mother began a relationship with a British officer in the […]
learn more*William Greaves was born on this date in 1926. He was a Black documentary filmmaker and a pioneer of African American filmmaking. William Greaves was born in Harlem in New York City. He was one of seven children of a taxi driver and minister Garfield Greaves and the former Emily Muir. After graduating from the […]
learn more*Antoine Fuqua was born on this date in 1966. He is a Black Filmmaker. A native of Pittsburgh, Fuqua studied engineering at West Virginia University before moving to New York in 1987 to direct music videos. After forming his own production company, Reel Power, he directed his debut short film ‘Exit.’ Fuqua’s debut feature film, […]
learn more*Tonya Williams was born on this date in 1958. She is a Black Canadian actress, producer, director, and media activist. Williams was born in London, England to Jamaican parents. She lived in London and Kingston, Jamaica as a young child. At age five, she contracted rheumatic fever; she and her mother then moved to Birmingham, […]
learn more*Samuel Wright was born on this date in 1946. He was a Black actor and singer. Samuel Edward Wright was from Camden, South Carolina. He was a student at Camden High School, where he was involved with sports and the arts. His first Broadway role was in the original 1971 cast of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s […]
learn more*Ben Vereen was born on this date in 1946. He is a Black actor, dancer, and singer. Vereen was born Benjamin Augustus Middleton in Laurinburg, North Carolina. While still an infant, Vereen and his family relocated to the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood in Brooklyn, New York City. He was adopted by James Vereen, a paint factory worker, […]
learn more
