In January 2025, Daphne Barbee-Wooten, a Hawaii historian and social activist attorney wrote the article below describing the campaign to make the Aloha State recognize the birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King as a state holiday. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s birth date (January 15) became a federal holiday within the federal government in 1985. All federal employees were able […]

Henry Louis Gates Jr. is an award-winning filmmaker, literary scholar, journalist, and cultural critic. He was born on September 16, 1950, in Keyser, West Virginia, to Henry Louis Gates Sr. and Pauline Augusta Coleman Gates. He has one brother, Paul Edward Gates. In 1968, Gates graduated as the valedictorian of his class from Piedmont High School, becoming one of the […]

Michigan State Representative Amos O’Neal was born on July 17, 1961, in Saginaw, Michigan. He attended Saginaw Public Schools and graduated with a business degree from Northwood University in Midland, Michigan. O’Neal raised his three daughters in Saginaw with his late wife, Sherry, who was a public school teacher. After graduating from Northwood University, O’Neal worked as a Director of […]

Harlem began in 1658 as a Dutch village founded by settlers who named it after the city of Haarlem, in the Netherlands. In 1873 the village was annexed to Manhattan. The annexed section was a 45-block area stretching from the north end of Central Park (110th Street) to 155th Street. At the time of the annexation, there were a few […]

Penfield Tate II was a politician, LGBTQ supporter, and Boulder, Colorado’s first African American mayor. Tate was born on June 11, 1931, to Penfield Tate Sr and Vera Jane Houston Tate in New Philadelphia, Ohio. He was the second eldest of ten children. Growing up, Tate worked in steel mills in Ohio and attended segregated schools. Tate attended Kent State […]

The Colored Farmers’ National Alliance and Cooperative Union was established by a small group of Black farmers on December 11, 1886, in Houston County, Texas. The Colored Alliance was established because the Southern Farmers’ Alliance barred Blacks from joining their organization due to their race. The Colored Farmers’ Alliance was also founded on the farm of R.M. Humphrey, a white […]

George Carroll made history in 1964, as the first African American to be elected mayor of Richmond, California which made him the first black mayor of any large American city. Carroll was born on January 6, 1922, to unnamed parents in Brooklyn, New York. Growing up, Carroll joined the United States Military during World War II. After the war, Carroll […]

The first African American mayor of Buffalo, New York, Byron Brown, was born on September 24, 1958 in Hollis, Queens, New York.  He attended PS 134 in Hollis and, later, junior high at PS 109. He attended August Martin High school and, after graduation, enrolled in Buffalo State College. He and his sister were the first in their family to […]

The first African American mayor of Hattiesburg, Mississippi, Johnny DuPree was also the longest serving mayor of that city. DuPree was born in Fort Benning, Geogia to  poor, illiterate parents who separated when he was young. At the age of eight his mother moved to Hattiesburg with Johnnie and his siblings. Johnnie attended local schools and after high school graduation […]

Williams Stanford Hart Sr was a politician who served as mayor of East Orange, New Jersey between 1970 and 1978. This made him the first African American mayor of a major New Jersey city. Hart was born on November 19, 1925, to Margaret and John Hart in Irondale, Jefferson County, Ohio. Hart attended Delaware State University, an HBCU in Dover, […]