Little Known Black History Facts
Gado Images, a business that provides historical photo licenses and prints, has announced the release of new technology called Open Computer Vision which uses facial recognition from scanned photos to search by person, specifically from the photo collection of the Afro-American newspapers. The Afro-American was founded in 1892 by a former slave named John H. […]
In Little Rock, Arkansas, 1927, a racial riot erupted over the lynching of John Carter, a black man who was the fall guy for the homicide of a 12-year old white girl named Floella McDonald. The child was found in First Presbyterian Church. Originally, the blame fell on the church janitor who found the girl […]
President Barack Obama’s family lineage has supposedly been linked to the very first slave in the United States. Ironically, the slave, John Punch, has been connected to the President’s mother, who was white. Punch was an indentured servant in Virginia and is considered the first enslaved African in the colonies that formed America. He evidently […]
A trailblazer of civil rights history, Dr. Benjamin Hooks left a remarkable legacy as the first African-American judge in the South since Reconstruction, the first black appointed to the board of the FCC, and the former executive director of the NAACP. The former Reverend of Greater Memphis Baptist Church and Greater New Mt. Moriah Missionary […]
On display at the convention for the United Federation of Doll Clubs this year are African-American dolls that were made between 1850-1870. Twelve hundred collectors gathered in New Orleans to view the most unique doll collections in the world, including those belonging to former slaves. Among the collection are dolls that have no legs but […]
Dominique Dawes became the first African-American Olympic gymnast to win a medal in any individual gymnastics event. She took home the bronze medal in Atlanta for her floor exercise and a team gold medal. The three-time medal winner is also the only American to win medals in three Olympic gymnast games. Dawes has a permanent […]
On October 11, 1896, Richard Etheridge, a former slave from Roanoke Island, earned his stripes as a Surfman and the Keeper of the United States Life Saving Station #17 on Pea Island. That night in October, Richard Etheridge convinced his team of men to swim voluntarily into deadly waters during a hurricane to save a […]
Griqua was the name given to a mixed race culture in the Cape Colony of South Africa, around the 17th and 18th Century. During apartheid, however, the Griqua were called “Coloured” by Europeans. The group originated through the interracial marriages and relations between the KhoiKhoi people and the European Colonists. The actual name was derived […]
Riverside General Hospital (RGH) in Houston, Texas is the only remaining historically black hospital in the United States. Formerly known as the Houston Negro Hospital, the 1927 facility was the dream project of several black doctors. Funded by a wealthy white Texas oilman named J. S. Cullinan, Houston Negro Hospital was dedicated to the black […]
U.S. Army 2nd Lieutenant Emily Perez a.k.a. "Kobe" was the first black woman at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point to reach the rank of Corps Commander Sergeant Major. She was nicknamed "Kobe" because she "always made the shots" according to family and friends. A 2005 graduate, Perez was fluent in German and a […]
William Raspberry was a Pulitzer-Prize winning Washington Post journalist for over 40 years. Among the first black journalists to receive a nationally syndicated column, Raspberry was called a man who, “had a way of telling you to go to hell and making you look forward to the trip.” He told the many stories of civil […]
Benjamin Rucker, a.k.a. “Black Herman” was a groundbreaking and prominent African-American magician in the early 1900’s. He got his start with a white magician that went by Prince Herman, and the two would peddle tonics and elixirs on the road along with performing magic hand tricks. Hence, Rucker was called Black Herman. Black Herman’s most […]
