Black students remain significantly underrepresented in engineering. Tara Moore/DigitalVision via Getty Images Diversifying the science, technology, engineering and math fields has long been a top priority of many universities and tech companies. It’s also a goal of the National Science Foundation, the biggest funder of university-led research and development in the U.S. But in the field of engineering, at least, […]

First graders led the desegregation of New Orleans’ public schools in November 1960. Bettmann via Getty Sixty-four years ago this November, public schools in New Orleans began to desegregate. School buildings once designated as “white” opened their doors to Black students. The integration process, which deeply divided the city, was led by four first-grade girls. Tessie Prevost, Leona Tate and […]

fizkes/Shutterstock Students at UK universities are less likely to get a top degree – a first or 2:1 – if they are from an ethnic minority. This is known as the race or ethnicity award gap. It is measured by comparing the proportion of white undergraduates who recieve a top degree with the proportion of students of colour who do […]

Francine Gálvez, a multi-talented actress, journalist, and newscaster, holds the distinction of being the first Black woman to anchor a news program in Europe. That achievement came when she took on the role at Televisión Española (TVE) as anchor of the weekend edition of Telediario (TV Everywhere network/ authenticated streaming) in Spain in 1990. Born as Francine Nicolasa Gálvez Djouma […]

The John Hope Franklin Reconciliation Park, on two and a half acres at the intersection of the African American community of Greenwood (Black Wall Street) and downtown Tulsa, is one of the most unusual parks in the United States. Situated in Tulsa, which currently has a population of 70,000, including 9,000 African American residents, the Park recalls one of the […]

Wilmont A. Barclay, a professional escape artist, mind reader, and hypnotist, was one of the most successful Black magicians of the early 20th Century. Barclay was born in St. Andrew Parish (now the Kingston and St. Andrew Corporation), Jamaica, West Indies, on February 28, 1877. He was also known as “Professor Maharajah,” a stage name that reflected the exoticism and […]

Six-foot-eight NBA Superstar legend Connie Hawkins, one of the first basketball players capable of swooping and soaring in flights to the hoop, was born Cornelius Lance Hawkins on July 17, 1942, in Brooklyn, New York. A playground legend, he was dunking at the age of 11, inspired and encouraged by his blind mother, Dorothy Hawkins, and his father, Isaiah Hawkins. […]

Dr. Oscar James Cooper, a physician, is most remembered as one of the co-founders of Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, Inc., the first Greek letter fraternity founded by students at an HBCU (Howard University). Other cofounders were his classmates Edgar Amos Love and Frank Coleman and his faculty advisor, the renowned biologist Dr. Ernest Everett Just. Cooper was born in Washington, […]

George F. Bowles, born enslaved in 1844 in Charleston, South Carolina, was one of the most prominent figures in Reconstruction and post-Reconstruction era Mississippi. He was a lawyer, newspaper editor, politician, and businessman. His early life remains somewhat unclear, with conflicting accounts of his parent’s status, whether one or more were enslaved or free: one source claims his father was […]

Anthony “Spice” Adams is a former American football player for the National Football League (NFL), actor, comedian, and television host. He was born on June 18, 1980, to Anthony Adams Sr. and Constance Davis in Detroit, Michigan. Adams, who had two siblings, attended Martin Luther King Jr. Senior High School in Detroit, Michigan, graduating in 1999. Adams then attended Pennsylvania […]