On December 6, 1865, the 13th Amendment was ratified by the Congress of the United States, abolishing slavery. This pivotal moment also saw the birth of Walden University, named in honor of John Morgan Walden, the thirty-fifth Bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church from Lebanon, Ohio, and corresponding secretary of the Western Freedman’s Aid Commission and the Methodist Freedman’s Aid […]

John Thomas Salley is a former National Basketball Association (NBA) basketball star, television and motion picture actor, and a major figure in the emerging U.S. cannabis industry. Salley was born on May 16, 1960, to Quille Salley and Mazie Salley in Brooklyn, New York. Salley attended Canarsie High School in Brooklyn, New York, where he played for the high school […]

Edna May Griffin, often referred to as ‘the Rosa Parks of Iowa,’ was a prominent American civil rights pioneer in her state. This nickname underscores her pivotal role in civil rights campaigns in Iowa, notably the 1948 Katz Drugstore Sit-In Protests in Des Moines. Born on October 23, 1909, in Lexington, Kentucky, Griffin’s early life was marked by frequent relocations, […]

Founded as the Nashville Normal and Theological Institute and by the American Baptist Home Mission Society, a Christian missionary society from New York City, Roger Williams University (RWU) was named in honor of the abolitionists and founder of the Colony of Rhode Island. The historically Black institution in Nashville, Tennessee, began in 1866, a year after the Civil War ended, […]

First Missionary Baptist Church of Decatur was established in 1866 in northwest Alabama by 21 former slaves in the home of Ms. Jane Young under the leadership of the Rev. Alfred Peters following the Civil War and passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1866. In 1873, under the leadership of Rev. Crawford Peters, the church purchased its first sanctuary, […]

Educator, political campaigner, and women’s rights activist Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti was born Frances Abigail Olufunmilayo Olufela Folorunso Thomas on October 25, 1900, in Abeokuta, Nigeria, to prominent farmer Chief Daniel Olumeyuwa Thomas and dressmaker Lucretia Phyllis Omoyeni Adeosolu. Ransome-Kuti was one of only six girls admitted to Abeokuta Grammar School in 1914. Her education there was the springboard to an all-girls […]

Daunte Demetrious Wright, a 20-year-old African American man, tragically lost his life during a traffic stop in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota. Wright was born on October 27, 2000, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, to parents Katie Wright and Aubrey Wright.  He had two siblings and attended Patrick Henry High School in 2019 before dropping out. The incident that led to Wright’s death began […]

The Arkansas Freedom Summer, also known as the Arkansas Summer Project, was a pivotal event in the Civil Rights Movement in Arkansas during the summer of 1965. It occurred one year after the more famous Freedom Summer in Mississippi. Michael Simmons, a Temple University student at the time, visited the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia. Inspired […]

Nathan Hare, the founder of The Black Scholar: A Journal of Black Studies and Research and called by many scholars “the father of Black and Ethnic Studies,” was born on April 9, 1933, in Slick, Oklahoma, to Seddie H. Hare, a sharecropper from Arkansas, and Tishia Lee Hare, a housekeeper. Hare’s early education began in 1938 at L’Ouverture Elementary School […]

Louisiana Freedom Summer, also known as CORE’s Louisiana Project, was a Civil Rights campaign in Louisiana during the summer of 1964. It co-occurred simultaneously with the more famous Mississippi Freedom Summer Project. Like its Mississippi counterpart, the Project relied on volunteers from across the United States working in Louisiana Parishes (Counties) on various racial justice efforts. Louisiana Freedom Summer started […]