U.S. Army Air Force World War II veteran Joseph Dubois Elsberry was the first Black fighter pilot to shoot down three German aircraft in a single mission. Elsberry was born on April 25, 1921, in Langston, Oklahoma. His father was Joseph Dean Elsberry, and his mother was Beulah Elsberry. Both parents were teachers. He had an older sister, also named […]

Her Honor Chief Justice Sie-A-Nyene Gyapay Yuoh, Liberia’s first female Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, was appointed in 2013. Sie-A-Nyene Gyapay Yuoh was born on June 26, 1956, in Montserrado County, Liberia, to Anthony Kle Yuoh and Maromini Worbor Kollie. She has 21 siblings: Wani Yuoh, Tibui “Blyden” Tidibuo Yuoh, Hne Yuoh, Wesseh Yuoh, Tabioh Yuoh, George Yuoh, Gbobi […]

In the following article, Collins Edigin, a historian at the University of Benin, describes the rule of the Obas of Benin, a continuous dynasty that began in the 13th Century and is one of the oldest in the world. The kingdom of Benin was one of the most important states of the forest region of West Africa. It was renowned […]

U.S. Army Air Force World War II veteran Edward Lucien Toppins was a fighter pilot credited with shooting down four German enemy fighter aircraft during aerial combat, a distinction shared with two other Tuskegee Airmen. Toppins was born in Mississippi on June 12, 1915. His mother was Martha Toppins, who worked in the clothing industry. He had three sisters: Henrietta, […]

Charles V. Brantley, who was trained for aerial combat as a Tuskegee Airman, was born Charles Vernon Brantley in St. Louis, Missouri, on June 1, 1920. He was reared in the Ville neighborhood and graduated from racially segregated Charles H. Sumner High School in 1938. In 1940, Franklin Delano Roosevelt directed the War Department to begin training an all-African American […]

Tuskegee Airman and later College President Roscoe Conkling Brown, Jr., was born March 9, 1922, in Washington, DC to Roscoe Conkling Brown Sr., a dentist, and Vivian Kemp Brown, a teacher. He had an older sister, Portia Brown. Roscoe Brown graduated with honors from racially-segregated Paul Laurence Dunbar High School in Washington, DC in 1940. He enrolled in Springfield College […]

Tuskegee Airman Earl Roscoe Lane was born in the rural all-Black town of Red Bird, Oklahoma, on July 22, 1920 to Levi and Christine Lane. In 1930, when he was 10, his family moved to Wickliffe, Ohio. His younger sisters were Barbara Lane Martin and Lizzie Mae Lane Smith. Lane attended Wilberforce University, an HBCU in Wilberforce, Ohio. Afterward, he […]

Tuskegee Airman Edward Creston Gleed, World War II combat fighter pilot, was born on November 5, 1916, in Lawrence, Kansas, to Herbert Joseph Gleed Sr. and Carrie Syphax Joseph Gleed, a professor at Tuskegee Institute (now University). Their other son was Herbert Joseph Gleed, Jr., one year older. Gleed graduated from the University of Kansas on June 9, 1941, with […]

The Charleston Cigar Factory Strike was a labor strike that involved workers at the Charleston Cigar Factory in Charleston, South Carolina, from October 22, 1945, to April 1, 1946. The strike resulted from the company refusing to institute raises and racial discrimination. The modern version of the gospel hymn and civil rights anthem that would become popular in the 1960s, […]

Healthcare management executive, strategic planner, and project manager Malika Evans was born Malika Romona Barker in 1983 and grew up in Brooklyn, New York. She received the Thomas J. and Marie W. Burke Scholarship, an annual academic scholarship for African Americans or any student of promise to be able to benefit from a Saint Michael’s College education. Evans graduated from […]