The New Year’s Day March, the first major civil rights demonstration in South Carolina, was a 1,000-person march that protested segregated facilities at the Greenville, South Carolina Municipal Airport (Now Greenville Downtown Airport) on January 1, 1960. The march was prompted by Jackie Robinson and Richard Henry being barred from using a whites-only waiting room. In February 1959, Richard Henry, […]

Actor and comedian Kenan Thompson was born on May 10, 1978, to Fletcher and Elizabeth Ann Thompson in Columbus, Ohio. When he was nine months old, his family moved to Atlanta, Georgia. At age five, his mother enrolled him in acting classes. Thompson’s first acting role was in a church production of The Wiz as the character, Toto. He acted […]

Madagascar’s queen, Ranavalona III, was born Princess Razafindrahety in Amparibe, Manjakazafy, Madagascar, on November 22, 1861. She was the last sovereign of the Kingdom of Madagascar. Reared as a Protestant, her formal education was completed privately by London Missionary Society instructors. Her parents were Andriantsimianatra and his wife and cousin, Princess Razafindrahety, who was the great-granddaughter of King Andrianampoinimerina. Her […]

Retired Lieutenant Colonel Rose Kanyange Kabuye rose to the highest rank in the Rwandan Army. She was also an advocate for the training of women leaders. Rose Kanyange was born on April 22, 1961, in Muvumba, Rwanda, to Kabuye Kanyange of the ‘Bazigaba’ clan. Information regarding her mother is not available. She was reared in a Ugandan refugee camp after […]

Gisèle Rabesahala, a political and human rights activist and councilwoman, was born Marie Gisèle Aimée Rabesahala on May 7, 1929, in Antananarivo, Madagascar, which had been a French colonial possession since 1896. Her father was a non-commissioned officer of the French army, and Rabesahala’s childhood was spent in France, Tunisia, and what is now Mali. She graduated from Jean Joseph […]

Crystal Nix-Hines is an attorney, screenwriter, producer, and diplomat who was born in Wilmington, Delaware on August 23, 1963. Her father, Theophilus R. Nix Sr., was the second African American attorney admitted to the Delaware bar, and her mother, Dr. Lulu Mae Nix, was the founder of several social service organizations. Hines received her BA in International Relations from Princeton […]

Stafford Fitzgerald Haney, an international businessman and diplomat, was born in Nashville, Tennessee on January 3, 1969 but grew up in Naperville, Illinois, a Chicago suburb. He graduated from Central High School in Naperville and then attend the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service, where he received a B.S. in international economics (1990) and an M.S. in international business and […]

The 5th Regiment Massachusetts Colored Volunteer Cavalry was a Union Army cavalry regiment during the Civil War. The cavalry regiment was organized at Camp Meigs, Readville, Massachusetts, during the Fall of 1863. On January 9, 1864, Company A was mustered into service and by May 5, 1864, Company M, the last company, was called. Henry S. Russell, a one-time officer […]

Fani Taifa Willis is the first Black woman to hold the office of District Attorney of Fulton County, Georgia. Willis was born on October 27, 1971 in Inglewood, California and raised by her father John Clifford Floyd III in Washington, DC. Learning at the feet of her father—a civil rights activist, civil rights defense attorney, and former Black Panther—Willis developed […]

Queen Nandi was a South African Zulu Queen, mother to Shaka Zulu. She was born Nandi Ndlovukazi kaBhebe in Melmoth, a small town in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa in the 1760s. The word, Nandi, means The Sweet One. Her father, Bhebhe, was a minor chief. According to Zulu customs, she would have become a helper to her mother by the age […]