*The birth of Pope Victor I is affirmed on this date in c 169. He was a Roman African bishop prelate of the early Christian Church who was Bishop of Rome in the late second Century. He was born in the Roman Province of Africa in Leptis Magna, present-day Libya. He was of Berber origin. The primary sources […]
learn more*Shais Rishon was born on this date in 1982. He is a Black Orthodox rabbi, activist, and writer. Shais Rishon, known by the pen name MaNishtana, was born in Brooklyn, New York, to an Ashkenazi Jewish family linked with the Chabad-Lubavitch movement. He says his mother’s ancestors have practiced Judaism since the 1780s. His father, Asher Rishon, […]
learn more*Homer Jack was born on this date in 1916. He was a white-American Unitarian Universalist clergyman, pacifist, and social activist. From Rochester, NY., Homer A. Jack was an only child to active socialist parents. His grandparents had immigrated from central and eastern Europe to escape oppression and poverty. Like his parents, young Jack was a […]
learn more*Cameron Alleyne was born on this date in 1880. He was a Caribbean-American bishop. Cameron Chesterfield Alleyne was born in Bridgetown, Barbados, to Robert Henry Alleyne and Amelia Anna Alleyne. He attended Naparima College in Trinidad between 1899 and 1903 before traveling to the United States for a Bachelor of Arts degree at Tuskegee Institute in […]
learn more*Olive Chapel African Methodist Episcopal Church is celebrated on this date in 1853. The Reverend Jordan Winston Early founded the congregation. Services began in a private home. Also known as Olive Chapel AME Church, it is a historic church at 309 S. Harrison Avenue in Kirkwood, Missouri. It is the oldest Protestant church in Kirkwood. […]
learn more*Jordan Winston Early was born on this date in 1814. He was a Black Methodist preacher. Jordan Early was born into slavery in Franklin County, Virginia. After his mother’s death, when Early was three, he and his siblings were cared for by a maternal aunt, an uncle who taught him astronomy, and an older woman […]
learn more*Abraham Lincoln DeMond was born on this date in 1867. He was a Black minister and civil rights advocate in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Born in Seneca, New York, DeMond was the son of Quam and Phebe (Darrow) DeMond. He was the first black graduate of the State Normal School at Cortland, […]
learn more*Marie Laveau was born on this date in 1801. She was a Black Voodoo practitioner, herbalist, and midwife. Marie Catherine Laveau was born a Creole-free woman of color in New Orleans, Louisiana. Spanish colonial officials still administered Louisiana at the time of her birth. Her mother, Marguerite D’Arcantel, was a free woman of color of African, European, […]
learn more*The First Calvary Baptist Church of Norfolk is celebrated on this date in 1915. This is a historic black Baptist church located in Norfolk, Virginia. It is a four-story, 11-bay, brick church building in the Second Renaissance Revival style. The building features decorative terra cotta and a stained-glass dome. It has a two-tier, engaged entrance portico with […]
learn more*Joseph Ritter was born on this date in 1892. He was a white-American prelate of the Roman Catholic Church and a racial justice activist. Born in New Albany, Indiana, Elmer Joseph Ritter was the fourth of Nicholas and Bertha (née Luette) Ritter’s six children. His father owned and operated the Ritter Bakery (where the family […]
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