James Townsend was an English Whig politician who served as Lord Mayor of London from 1772 to 1773. He also served as a member of Parliament. Townsend is thought to be the first Lord Mayor and first member of Parliament with Black African ancestry. Townsend’s birthdate was not recorded but he was baptized as a child on February 8, 1737. […]

Francis Sumner, a scientist, professor, and Sergeant in the United States Army, 808th Pioneers in World War I, was the first Black American to earn a Ph.D. in psychology in 1920, graduating from Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts. By 1928, Sumner had joined the faculty and served as chair of the psychology department at Howard University in Washington, DC, where […]

King Ezana of Axum, the monarch of the Kingdom of Aksum (Now Ethiopia) from 320’s-360 CE, was credited with embracing Christianity and making it the official state religion. With that decision, Aksum/ Ethiopia became the oldest continuously Christian state in the world. Ezana’s birth date and early life are unknown. His parents, however, were Ella Amida (King Ousanas), who was […]

Wilbur Clarence Gordon was a distinguished physician and real estate developer, born in Ironton, Ohio, on May 9, 1879. He was the son of John Calvin Gordon, originally from Virginia, and Arabelle Finley, who hailed from Ironton. In 1903, Gordon earned a Bachelor of Science and a Doctor of Medicine degree from the Howard University College of Medicine in Washington, […]

Anthony William Hall, Jr., a distinguished former national president of Sigma Pi Phi Fraternity, the Boulé, serving from 1996 to 1998, and a licensed commercial-rated pilot, was born on September 16, 1944, in Houston, Texas, to Anthony William Hall, Sr. and Quintana Wilson Hall Alliniece, a mathematics teacher. His education began in the racially segregated Sunnyside Elementary School and William […]

Legendary CBS Sports anchor, commentator, and gifted storyteller Greg Gumbel was born on May 3, 1946, in New Orleans to Richard Dunbar Gumbel Jr., a probate court judge, and Rhea Alice LeCesne Gumbel. He grew up in the Hyde Park neighborhood of Chicago, where he played baseball as a child. In 1963, Gumbel graduated from De La Salle Institute and […]

Pharoah Narmer was the Egyptian monarch credited with uniting Upper and Lower Egypt in 3100 BCE and thus creating the beginning of the powerful Egyptian state and sophisticated civilization. Narmer’s birth date and earlier life are unknown. Many Egyptologists scholars debate whether Narmer and Pharoah Menes were the same person. Upper Egypt, originally under Narmer, was urbanized along the Nile […]

The Trans-Saharan Salt and Gold Trade was the major economic and cultural exchange between North Africa and West Africa, beginning around 500 BCE and continuing until the 1800s. The trade involved camel caravans transporting goods across the Sahara Desert and in the process helped spread Islam from North Africa to West Africa as well as ideas that influenced art and […]

Africa, the cradle of humanity, is significant in our collective history. It was here that Homo sapiens first evolved, and from this ancient land, our ancestors embarked on a journey that would eventually lead to the population of the entire globe. The earliest known human ancestor lived in Ethiopia between 520 million and 580 million years ago. Over a span […]

Childhood English actress, singer and songwriter Cynthia Onyedinamanasu Chinasaokwu Erivo was born in Stockwell, London, England, on January 8, 1987. Both of her parents were immigrants from Nigeria and separated when Erivo was very young. Her mother, Edith, worked as a nurse and raised Erivo and her sister, Nicolette, in a single-parent home. Erivo performed for the first time at […]