The entertainment world lost one of most stellar television actors in Robert Guillaume, who died Tuesday from prostate cancer at the age of 89. Guillaume was an Emmy Award-winning and Tony Award-nominated actor who brought a steady and stately presence in his roles. Born Robert Peter Williams on November 30, 1927, in St. Louis, Missouri, […]
John Chavis is considered the first Black college student in America. Born free, he studied under with the president of what would later become Princeton University and a signer of the Declaration of Independence. Chavis was born in either 1762 or 1763 to free parents in heavily debated places of origins that include North Carolina, […]
The Honorable Elijah Muhammad was born this month in 1897, and the late Nation of Islam leader has remained something of a mystery. Leading the NOI from 1934 until his passing in 1975, the religious figure inspired pride and hope within the Black community while also attracting some controversy. Muhammad was born Elijah Robert Poole […]
A. Leon Higginbotham enjoyed a long career as a federal judge, achieving a number of firsts over the course of his career. On this day in 1962, Higginbotham was named the first Black member of the Federal Trade Commission by President John F. Kennedy. Aloyisus Leon Higginbotham Jr. was born February 25, 1928 in Trenton, […]
Clarence Lightner was Raleigh, North Carolina’s first, and to date, only, Black mayor in its history. The late Lightner attended North Carolina Central University, taking a somewhat unusual path to politics. Lightner was born August 21, 1921, in Raleigh. After leaving NCCU, Lightner earned a degree in Mortuary Science and began working in his father’s funeral […]
History was made in Alabama on this day in 1964 after a run-off election changed the course of the Cotton State’s political scene. Civil rights leader, the Rev. K.L. Buford, and Tuskegee Institute professor Stanley Hugh Smith became the first Black elected officials since the Reconstruction era. Rev. Buford had amassed a reputation in the […]
The late Isabel Sanford enjoyed one of the longest television runs in a lead role as part of CBS hit series, The Jeffersons. On this day in 1981, Sanford become the first Black woman to win an Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series, becoming just the second Black woman to ever win […]
Since 1998, the US Open women’s single title went to a player not named Venus or Serena Williams. Sloane Stephens, who was unseeded in the tournament and ranked 934th just last month, took home the trophy in a rare All-American US Open women’s final match over Madison Keys. Stephens, 24, is a native of Florida, […]
Stephanie Ready has achieved a handful of historic marks and her trailblazer status in basketball broke down what many thought would be an impenetrable barrier. The Coppin State University graduate is the first woman to coach a professional men’s basketball team and is also the first full-time female NBA analyst. Ready, a native of Takoma […]
Chokwe Antar Lumumba was sworn in this past July as Jackson, Mississippi’s youngest mayor. Lumumba followed in the footsteps of his late father, Chokwe Lumumba, carrying on the family legacy with a hopeful message for the people. Lumumba, 34, mirrored his father’s career path. The Tuskegee University graduate became an attorney like his dad, graduating […]
Dr. James Marion Sims has been called the “father of modern gynecology” but his claim to fame and notoriety came at a high price. The doctor helped pioneer a procedure that aided difficult pregnancies, but Sims used enslaved Black women as guinea pigs in a series of experiments that turned fatal. The question of Sims’ […]
The International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and its Abolition has been recognized annually since 1998, marking the start of the Haitian slave rebellion. Also known as the Haitian Revolution, African men and women revolted against being sold into slavery and helped push along an end to the cruel transatlantic slave trade. […]
