Rhythm and Blues singer Savannah Valentine Churchill surged to national prominence in 1945 with her hit song, “Daddy, Daddy.” Churchill was born Savannah Valentine Roberts on August 21, 1920, in Colfax, Louisiana to Creole parents, Emmett Roberts and Hazel Hickman. An only child, her parents took her to Brooklyn, New York at the age of three. She attended St. Peter […]

James Perkins Jr. became the first African American mayor of Selma, Alabama on September 13, 2000. Perkins was born on January 15, 1953. His parents were James Perkins, Sr., an R.B. Hudson High School teacher in Selma and Etta Perkins, a nurse. In 1971, Perkins was part of the first racially-integrated class to graduate from the newly established Selma High […]

Elizabeth Mason Harden Gilmore was a trailblazing figure, a distinguished entrepreneur, and a significant civil rights leader. She was the first black woman to serve as a licensed funeral director in Virginia. Together with her husband, Silas Elihue Harden, she co-founded Harden-Harden Funeral Services in Kanawha County, West Virginia, where they lived and worked.  By 1988, the house, now known […]

Jane Serepta “Jennie” Dean, a former slave, missionary, and pioneering educator, founded the Manassas Industrial School for Colored Youth in Northern Virginia in October 1894. The Manassas School existed for 40 years as the only secondary school for students in northern Virginia. In 1906, Dean, her students, and teachers were invited to meet United States President Theodore Roosevelt at the […]

Frances Thompson, a transgender woman and anti-rape activist became one of five Black women to testify before a congressional committee that, at the time, was investigating what occurred during the Memphis Riots of 1866. As a result of the testimony, Thompson is the first transgender woman in United States History to testify before a committee of the United States Congress. […]

Basil Dorsey, born enslaved in Maryland, became famous for his role in successfully freeing himself. Dorsey was born in 1808 to unnamed parents in Libertytown, Frederick County, Maryland. Much of Dorsey’s earlier life is unknown, but he was enslaved to Sabrick Sollers. While enslaved, Dorsey married an enslaved woman named Louisa and they had two children, Eliza and John Richard. […]

Abyssinian Meeting House is a historic church building at 73-75 Newbury Street, Portland, Maine. It is considered to be Maine’s oldest African American church building. The Abyssinian Meeting House was built in 1828 as a place of worship for African Americans in the city of Portland. The church was founded when worshippers Christopher Christian Manuel, Reuben Ruby, Caleb Jonson, Clement […]

Uyaiedu Ikpe-Etim is a Nigerian director, screenwriter and producer extoled for her depiction of LGBTQ+ lives in a humane light. Uyaiedu Ikpe-Etim was born in Lagos, Nigeria on June 7, 1989, to Patrick Ikpe-Etim, a federal civil servant who worked with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and a homemaker mother. She has several brothers and sisters, including Nollywood actress […]

Dr. Hobart Sidney Jarrett (1915-2005) was a respected scholar, educator, and leader in Black community organizations. His contributions to African American literature, civil rights advocacy, and Black fraternity history underscore his legacy as a dedicated advocate for education and social progress. Hobart Jarrett was born in 1915 in Arlington, Texas, and raised in Tulsa, Oklahoma where he survived the Tulsa […]

Douglas Palmer, the first Black mayor of Trenton, New Jersey, was born Douglas Harold Palmer on October 19, 1951, in the city, to George H. Palmer, a native of Charleston, South Carolina, and Dorothy Vaughn Palmer from Trenton. Douglas’s sibling is Karen Palmer Richardson. Palmer’s early education began in public grade school in the West Ward but he graduated from […]