Little Known Black History Facts

Little Known Black History Facts

Composer Scott Joplin is known historically as the father of the “Ragtime” sound that led the late 1800’s. His famous song called “The Entertainer” was a highlight of the movie “The Sting.”  But Scott Joplin wasn’t just about a hit music genre. He used his expertise to fight for the education of African-Americans. Though ragtime […]

Little Known Black History Facts

African-American author Natasha Tretheway has been named Poet Laureate of the United States. The Pulitzer-Prize winner and Professor at Emory University is the first black to hold the honor since 1993. Natasha Tretheway has written three collections of poetry and one nonfiction book. The 46-year-old author is known for several works including “Beyond Katrina: A […]

Little Known Black History Facts

Greg Page was the World Boxing Association Heavyweight champion in 1984 for one year. His professional record after his retirement in 2001 was 58-17-1 with 48 Knockouts. He started fighting while growing up in Louisville and was sparring with Muhammad Ali by the time he was 15. He became the National Golden Gloves heavyweight champion […]

Little Known Black History Facts

When the students at the University of Pennsylvania enter the Veterinary school, one of the first portraits they encounter is of African-American pioneer, Augustus Nathaniel Lushington. Augustus Lushington of Trinidad was the first black degreed veterinarian in the United States. Lushington also worked as a meat inspector and weekend probation officer to make ends meet. […]

Little Known Black History Facts

There was a gentleman from Oklahoma City that fans of swing, jazz and blues would come to know as “Mister Five by Five” and his name was Jimmy Rushing. A child of musicians, Rushing was practically born on the stage with his mother, who was a singer, and his father, a horn blowing piano player […]

Little Known Black History Facts

Albert Makaula was the son of a South African prince whose son became the first black footballer in Kent, England. Born in 1865, Makaula was of the Bhoca people in South Africa, but was poor as a child. He was adopted by a missionary named Charles White, and took his adopted family’s last name. Like […]

Little Known Black History Facts

Grammy award winning singer Koko Taylor, A.K.A. the "Queen of the Blues,” was known primarily for her rough and powerful vocals and traditional blues style. The Shelby County Tennessee native left her Memphis Roots in 1952 to move to Chicago with her husband Robert “Pops” Taylor and worked as a house cleaner. Taylor sat in […]

Little Known Black History Facts

Mary Ellen Pleasant, a.k.a “Mammy Pleasant,” was an abolitionist, millionaire and conductor of the Underground Railroad. From Nantucket, Massachusetts and born around 1814, Pleasant earned a reputation as the “Mother of Human and Civil Rights in California.” She stated in her memoirs that she was born a slave to a voodoo priestess and the youngest […]

Little Known Black History Facts

Decades after WWII, two American fighter pilots, one, Herb Heilbrun, a white B-17 pilot, and the other, John Leahr, a black Red-Tail Tuskegee Airman, found one another 50 years post war. Heilbrun and Leahr discovered that not only did Leahr serve as a Tuskegee escort pilot for Heilbrun during WWII, the two men had attended […]

Little Known Black History Facts

On May 31, 1921, Otis G. Clark was 18 years old. He was also living in the middle of one of the deadliest, racially-motivated events in American history: The Tulsa Race Riots. That night in May, Clark, a Greenwood, Oklahoma native, escaped flying bullets and angry white mobs, only to witness his family home burn […]

Little Known Black History Facts

Commander Wesley Brown became the first black Naval Academy graduate on June 3, 1949. Brown, who served in WWII, the Korean War and the Vietnam War, was admitted to the Naval Academy with five other black candidates in 1945. The Howard University Graduate attended Annapolis alongside President Jimmy Carter, who was his friend and colleague […]

Little Known Black History Facts

Jasper, Texas drew national attention in June of 1998 when James Byrd, a black man, was killed by three3 white supremacists. Byrd’s body was discovered by Rodney Pearson, who was the first black highway patrolman in Jasper. For a short while, the city was united, and they even tore down the segregated cemetery walls. Now, […]