IMPORTANT PEOPLE IN BLACK HISTORY

• Robert Abbott
  Born in 1870. Both parents were slvaes. After graduating from Hampton Institute and Kent Law School, he started publishing one of the most widely circulated Black newspapers in the nation, The Chicago Defender, which he used as a pulpit to encourage Black pride, northern migration and political and economic solidarity.
  
  
• Ralph Abernathy
  Born in 1926, Graduated from Alabama State University with a degree in math, and earned an MA in Sociology from Atlanta University. Abernathy was pastor of the First Baptist Church and was a close friend of M.L.K. Jr. Abernathy helped found the Southern Christian Leadership Council and served as Secretary-Treasurer. in 1980 he endorsed Ronald Reagan for President.
  
  
• Ramona Africa
  Born in 1956, Ramona attended catholic high school in Philadelphia and graduated from Temple University. she attended law school in 1980 before dropping out after encountering MOVE. She served a 7 year sentence after being firebombed by Philadelphia police in 1985 where 11 MOVE members (including 5 pre-adolescents) were burned alive.
  
  
• John Africa
  born in 1931, John Africa, along with Donald Glassey, a white college professor, founded MOVE in 1972. their primary beliefs were formed through a "deep interest in philosophy and natural law. MOVE believed in a general distrust and evilness of he government, that the system was corrupt and their goals were sated as to stop the poisoning of air, water and soil, and end to the enslavement of all forms of life, vegetarianism, no drugs or alcohol, and a return to the most natural state of man possible. Group members ate raw and unprocessed foods, did not seek medical treatment and used no electricity and rarely bathed since soap was forbidden, as was the killing of any bug, insect or rodent. Most members took on the surname, "Africa" in reference to the cradle of life.
  
  
• Na'im Akbar
  A Ph.D. clinical psychologist who graduated from Florida State University and the University of Michigan. He currently lectures and writes books concerning the psychology of Africans. He is the author of breaking the chains of psychological slavery; light from ancient africa; visions for black men; natural psychology and human transformation.
  
  
• Ira Aldridge
  Born in 1807, he is considered one of the greatest shakespearean actors of all time and toured extensively to the highest praise, throughout Europe. One of only 33 bronze plaque members of the Shakespeare Memorial Theater in England. Born in New York City, he attended the African Free School, but emigrated to England due to the discrimination and barriers against Black actors in the United States.
  
  
• Raymond P. Alexander
  Born in Philadelphia, Alexander graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1920 and Harvard Law School in 1923. Alexander challenged racism and discrimination and helping to end segregation in a number of Philadelphia institutions, before becoming counsel for NAACP. Between 1933 and 1935 Alexander served as president of the National Bar Association
  
  
• Muhammad Ali
  Born in 1942 as Cassius Marcellus Clay, Jr., he is generally regarded as the greatest heavyweight champion of all time, as well as the greatest showman and self-promotor of any athlete in the United States. At one time, he was the most recognizable person in the world. He Was vastly intelligent in many matters, but rarely did the public get to know anything other than the showman. He earned the scorn of White America when he first joined the nation of islam, and then for changing his name and refusing to fight in Viet-Nam war, stating that he had no quarrel with anyone in South East Asia
  
  
• Richard Allen
  Born in 1760, he founded the Free African Society and the first Bethel African Church, and the first African Methodist Episcopal Church. Richard Allen purchased his freedom for $2,000, after serving two masters (and converting the latter to the Methodist faith. Allen's primary goals were always the moral, religious, and intellectual education of Blacks in America.
  
  
• Arthur Ashe
  Born in 1943, Arthur Ashewon three "Grand Slam" tennis titles. In high school he starred in tennis, basketball and football and won the state championship in Tennis in Virginia, and the won the NCAA championship at UCLA. He was a founding member of the ATP. and he began his activism when he was denied a visa into South Africa for the Open Tennis Tournament. He had heart surgery in 1979 and contracted AIDS. He founded a public health agency and also wrote his memoirs, days of grace. He is remembered for his intelligence, calm and tenacity.
  
  
• Crispus Attucks
  In 1770, Crispus Attucks, a black man, became the first casualty of the American Revolution when he was shot and killed in what became known as the Boston Massacre. In the murder trial of the soldiers who fired the fatal shots, John Adams, (the future 2nd President of the United States) serving as a lawyer for the crown, reviled the "mad behavior" of Attucks. The Boston Gazette and Weekly Journal described Attucks as, "A Mulatto fellow, about 27 Years of Age, named Crispus, 6 feet 2 inches high, short cur'l hair, his knees nearer together than common." Attucks father was said to be an African and his mother a Natick or Nantucket Indian. As a slave in Framingham, he had been known for his skill in buying and selling cattle.
  
  
• Ella Baker
  Born in 1903, Baker developed a sense for social justice early in her life from listened to her grandmother (who was whipped as a slave for not marrying a chosen beau) tell stories about slave revolts. Baker studied at Shaw University in Raleigh, North Carolina and graduated as class valedictorian. In 1930, she joined the Young Negroes Cooperative League. In 1940, Baker began her involvement with the NAACP and in 1957, Baker moved to Atlanta to organize Martin Luther King's new organization, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC).
  
  
• James Baldwin
  Born in 1924, the eldest of 9 children, Baldwin grew up in poverty and was raised by a deeply religious and strict father. After becoming and rejecting the pulpit, Baldwin forever held onto the beauty and redemption of the Church in his novels. After being encouraged By Richard Wright to become a writer, Baldwin plunged himself into his work, producing Go Tell It On The Mountain. He was particularly a noted essayist during the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s. After WWII he left the U.S. and moved to France. His novels, including Giovanni's Room, Another Country and Just Above My Head, all deal with the struggle for individuality against intolerance. He also wrote several plays, including Blues For Mister Charlie, and Evidence of Things Not Seen.
  
  
• Benjamin Banneker
  Benjamin Banneker was born in Maryland on November 9, 1731. His father and grandfather were former slaves. At the age of 22, he borrowed a non-working pocket watch from a well-to-do neighbor. He took it apart and made a drawing of each component, then reassembled the watch and returned it, fully functioning, to its owner. From his drawings Banneker then proceeded to carve, out of wood, enlarged replicas of each part and constructed a working wooden clock that kept accurate time and struck the hours for over 50 years. At age 58, Banneker began the study of astronomy and was soon predicting future solar and lunar eclipses. In 1791, Banneker was a technical assistant in the calculating and first-ever surveying of the Federal District, which is now Washington, D.C. and when Pierre L'Enfant left in a dispute with his plans for the new capitol, Banneker reproduced the drawings from memory in 2 days. In a letter to Jefferson, Banneker advocated for Black equality and used himself as proof that Blacks were not intellectually inferior to European Americans.
  
  
• Amiri Baraka
  Born Everett LeRoi Jones in 1934, Baraka is a poet, dramatist, essayist and critic. In 1957, he was discharged "undesirably" from United States Airforce service and moved to New York's Greenwich Village, where he became influenced by the styles of Allen Ginsberg, Frank O'Hara, and Charles Olson. In 1960, he went to Cuba, which initiated his transformation into a politically active artist. in 1963, he penned, by Blues People: Negro Music in White America, to this day one of the most influential volumes of jazz criticism. In 2002, the state of New Jersey made him poet laureate and then forced him out of that position a year later because of his poem Somebody Blew Up America, which was widely interpreted to mean that Baraka believed the U.S. ruling class was behind the attacks on the World Trade Center.
  
  
• Ebenezer John Carlos Bassett
  born in Litchfield, Connecticut, in 1833. He was educated at the Connecticut normal school, and served for fourteen years as a teacher in Philadelphia. He was United States minister to Hati in 1869.
  
  
• *James Beattie
  Born in 1735 in Scottland, Beattie attended the local parish school and he was always top of the class. while at college, he formed a friendship with James Ramsay, who was to become known for his very strong views favoring the abolition of the slave trade. He debated with the noted philosopher, David Hume, who asserted the superiority of White Men over Blacks. Beattie's essay on the Nature and Immutability of Truth (1770) attacks HumeÍs philosophy as it appears in the latterÍs Treatise of Human Nature . Hume's ïproofÍ of superiority was that there were black slaves throughout Europe, none of whom had ever shown ñany symptoms of ingenuityî. Part III of BeattieÍs Essay demolishes HumeÍs racist argument line by line. Rather than treating the renowned philosopher with deference. Beattie "stripped Hume of all his assumed dignity and 'scourged him."
  
  
• James P. Beckwourth
  Born in 1798, James Pierson Beckwourth was the son ofSir Jennings Beckwith, a descendent of Irish and English nobility, and an African-American/Native American woman. His father saw to it that his son would not suffer the vicissitudes of slavery. Beckwourth became known as a prominent Indian fighter and guide he later became a horse trade. In 1840, in cooperation with Native Americans led by Ute Chief Wakara, they raiding nearly all the ranches from San Gabriel to San Bernadino of over 1,200 horses. Later in his life, Jim recounted his astonishing life to Thomas D. Bonner, who set the book The Life and Adventures of James P. Beckwourth, Mountaineer, Scout, and Pioneer, and Chief of the Crow Nation of Indians to type. His linguistic and stylistic prowess also impresses as being beyond the normal scope of reportage. The lessons of the book have currency, and much can be learned that might help us understand the role of alcohol in occupations, the effect of occupation, as well as massacres and war.
  
  
• Harry Belafonte
  Born in Harlem in 1927 to Jamaican immigrants, Harry Belafonte found fame by studying and performing with the Actors Studio and the American Negro Theater. Belafonte won a Tony Award for his work on Broadway and was the first Black man to win an Emmy award. Two years later, he spearheaded the Calypso music craze with his RCA single "Jamaica Farewell". He received the Kennedy Center Honors in 1989. He was awarded the National Medal of Arts in 1994 and he won a Grammy Award in 2000 for lifetime achievement. Belafonte was an early supporter of the Civil Rights Movement in the 1950s and one of Martin Luther King's confidants. During the McCarthy era he was blacklisted for his Civil Rights work. He bailed Martin Luther King out of the Birmingham City Jail and raised thousands of dollars to release other imprisoned Civil Rights protesters. He financed the Freedom Rides, supported voter-registration drives, and helped to organize the March on Washington in 1963.
  
  
• *Anthony Benezet
  Born in 1713, and a Quaker, Benezet penned, "a plea for the abolition of the slave trade." in his work, he pointed out "Without purchasers," he argued, "there would be no trade; and consequently every purchaser as he encourages the trade, becomes partaker in the guilt of it." He contended that guilt existed on both sides of the Atlantic. There are Africans, he alleged, "who will sell their own children, kindred, or neighbors." Benezet also used the biblical maxim, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you," to justify ending slavery. Insisting that emancipation alone would not solve the problems of people of color, Benezet opened schools to prepare them for more productive lives. He taught slave children and set up the Negro School in Philadelphia. He also founded the first Abolitionist society in 1775 which Benjamin Franklin became President of in 1787
  
  
• Mary McLeod Bethune
  
  
• James G. Birney
  
  
• John Birney
  
  
• Joseph Bologne, Le Chevalier De Saint-George
  
  
• Horace Mann Bond
  
  
• Arna Bontemps
  
  
• Mary Elizabeth Bowser
  
  
• Anne Braden
  
  
• Andrew Brimmer
  
  
• Edward W. Brooke
  
  
• Gwendolyn Brooks
  
  
• Claude Brown
  
  
• H. Rap Brown
  
  
• John Brown
  
  
• Sterling Brown
  
  
• William Wells Brown
  
  
• Blanche K. Bruce
  
  
• Ralph Bunche
  
  
• Anthony Burns
  
  
• Oliver Burns
  
  
• Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton
  
  
• Ambrose Caliver
  
  
• Tunis George Campbell
  
  
• Mary Birkett Card
  
  
• William Carney
  
  
• Robert Carter
  
  
• Susanna McGavock Carter
  
  
• Maj, Gen. William Harding Carter
  
  
• George Washington Carver
  
  
• Horace Cayton, Jr.
  
  
• Maria Weston Chapman
  
  
• Hugo Chavez
  
  
• Lydia Maria Fracis Child
  
  
• Shirley Chisholm
  
  
• John Cinque
  
  
• Kenneth Clark
  
  
• John Henrik Clarke
  
  
• Thomas Clarkson
  
  
• Edridge Cleaver
  
  
• Kathleen Cleaver
  
  
• Price Cobbs
  
  
• W. Montague Cobb
  
  
• Levi Coffin
  
  
• Bessie Coleman
  
  
• Carlos Cooks
  
  
• Anna Julie Haywood Cooper
  
  
• Ellen and William Craft
  
  
• Prudence Crandall
  
  
• Paul Cuffe
  
  
• Ottobah Cugoano
  
  
• Countee Cullen
  
  
• Gloster Curren
  
  
• Angela Davis
  
  
• Ossie Davis/Ruby Dee
  
  
• Thomas Day
  
  
• Alessandro De Medici
  
  
• David Dellinger
  
  
• CL Dellums
  
  
• Moses Dickson
  
  
• Cheikh Anta Diop
  
  
• Aaron Douglas
  
  
• Anna Murray Douglass
  
  
• St. Claire Drake
  
  
• Amos Dressler
  
  
• Charles Drew
  
  
• Shirley Graham DuBois
  
  
• Alexandre Dumas
  
  
• Jean-Baptiste Pont DuSable
  
  Lee Elder
  
  
• Robert Eliot
  
  
• Ralph Ellison
  
  
• Olaudah Equiano
  
  
• Medgar Evers
  
  
• Louis Farrakhan
  
  
• Charles Grandison Finney
  
  
• Christian Abraham Fleetwood
  
  
• Arthur Fletcher
  
  
• Henry O. Flipper
  
  
• James Forten
  
  
• T. Thomas Fortune
  
  
• Abigail Kelley Foster
  
  
• Steven F. Foster
  
  
• John Hope Franklin
  
  
• Franklin Frazier
  
  
• Elizabeth Freeman
  
  
• William Lloyd Garrison
  
  
• Deborah Sampson Garnett
  
  
• Marvin Gaye
  
  
• Ernest J. Gaines
  
  
• Rev. Wesley J. Gaines
  
  
• Margaret Garner, and 16 slaves
  
  
• Henry Highland Garnet
  
  
• Mohandas Ghandi
  
  
• Althea Gibson
  
  
• Jonathan Gibbs
  
  
• Hugh Gloster
  
  
• Joshua Glover
  
  
• Harry Golden
  
  
• Taylor Gordon
  
  
• Neil Gotanda
  
  
• Horace Greeley
  
  
• Beriah Green
  
  
• Richard Greener
  
  
• Angelina Emily Grimke
  
  
• Charlotte Forten Grimke
  
  
• Sarah Moore Grimke
  
  
• Lani Guanier
  
  
• Vincent Guerrero
  
  
• Adam Abdul Hakeem
  
  
• Alex Haley
  
  
• Prince Hall
  
  
• Fannie Lou Hamer
  
  
• Fred Hampton
  
  
• Lorraine Hansberry
  
  
• Francis Hargrave
  
  
• Abram Harris
  
  
• William Hastie
  
  
• Augustus Hawkins
  
  
• Charles Hayes
  
  
• Roland Hayes
  
  
• Rutherford B. Hayes
  
  
• Harry Haywood
  
  
• Josiah Henson
  
  
• Matthew Henson
  
  
• Calvin Hernton
  
  
• Calvin Hicks
  
  
• Rudolph Hobbs
  
  
• Myron Holley
  
  
• Benjamin Hooks
  
  
• Charles Hamilton Houston
  
  
• Langston Hughes
  
  
• Zora Neale Hurston
  
  
• Roy Innis
  
  
• George Jackson
  
  
• William a. Jackson (Jefferson Davis servant)
  
  
• Mumia Abu Jamal
  
  
• C.L.R. James
  
  
• John Jay III
  
  
• Joseph Jekyll
  
  
• Mae Jemison, MD
  
  
• President Andrew Johnson
  
  
• Halle Johnson
  
  
• Jack Johnson
  
  
• James Weldon Johnson
  
  
• W. Mordecai Johnson
  
  
• Eugene Kinkle Jones
  
  
• Barbara Jordan
  
  

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