World-renowned debate coach, philosopher, minister, and orator Thomas Freeman was born Thomas Franklin Freeman on June 27, 1919, in Richmond, Virginia, to Louis H. Freeman Sr. and Louise E. Willis. Young Thomas preached his first sermon at nine years old. He had seven brothers and three sisters. Freeman graduated from Armstrong High School in 1934 at 15 and received a Bachelor […]

Floyd Adams Jr. made history as the first African American to be elected mayor of Savannah, Georgia’s oldest city. Adams was born on May 11, 1945, to Floyd “Pressboy” Adams, Sr., and Wilhelmina Anderson Adams, founders of The Herald Newspaper and Printing Company, a weekly newspaper covering Savannah’s African American community. The couple had three other children: Jacquelyn, Carl, and […]

In 2021 Ed Gainey was elected the 61st mayor of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He was the first African American to be mayor of the city. Ed Gainey was born on February 20, 1970 in East Liberty, Pennsylvania to a single, teenage mother, Darlene Gainey-Craig. His mother, extended family, and local community supported young Gainey, encouraging him to do well in school. […]

The first African American mayor of Las Cruces, New Mexico, Albert Morris Johnson was born in Lebanon, Tennessee. His birth, like those of many African Americans in Tennessee at the time, was not officially recorded but he recalled that the year was 1935. He was the son of Allen P. Johnson and Louise Ricks. Johnson attended Pearl High School in […]

Ronald Blackwood was the first African American mayor of Mount Vernon, New York, a suburb of New York City. Blackwood was born on Jan 19, 1926, in St. Andrew Parish, Jamaica. In search of a better life, he immigrated to the United States at the age of 28 and settled in Mount Vernon, New York to attend nearby Iona College […]

Born September 25, 1946, in Temple, Texas, Charles Edward Greene would be known to posterity by another name, “Mean Joe” Greene, and as one of the most dominant football players of his era at the professional level. With limited collegiate football options after playing on a mediocre high school football team and graduating from Temple Dunbar High School, Greene attended […]

Kenneth “Kenny” Alexander, the first African American mayor of Norfolk, Virginia was born in that city on October 17, 1966. Alexander attended local schools graduating from Lake Taylor High School in 1985. After graduation he attended Brightpoint Community College (formerly John Tyler Community College) earning an associate degree in mortuary science. He then received a bachelor’s degree in political science […]

Altadena, California, has one of California’s oldest and most affluent middle-class Black neighborhoods. That neighborhood was affected by the 2025 Eaton Canyon fire, which destroyed more than 1,000 homes across the entire Altadena community. Before the fire, Altadena was known for its cozy bungalows and elegant craftsman homes along tree-lined streets, as well as its scenic hiking and equestrian trails. […]

Contralto, pianist, pedagogist, administrator, and advocate Lulu Vere Childers had a profound impact on African American Spirituals and European classical music.  Childers was the seventh child of 12 born in Dry Ridge, Kentucky, on February 28, 1870, to former enslaved parents, Alex Childres and Eliza Butler Childers originally from New Orleans, Louisiana.  Lulu’s siblings were Agnes A. Childers, Della A. […]

James Robert Ford was a politician, businessman, and the first African American mayor of Tallahassee, Florida. That election also made him the first Black mayor of a US state capital city. Ford was born on December 1, 1925, to unnamed parents in Leon County, Florida. He attended segregated schools and then Florida A&M University in Tallahassee, Florida, where he earned […]