Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. founded in 1906 on the campus of campus of Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, is the first Greek letter collegiate fraternity established by African American men. The fraternity’s major nonpartisan think tank, The World Policy Council (WPC), was established in 1996 at Howard University. The non-profit Council applies sustained intellectual energy to explore alternative […]

Scott Turner is the 19th Secretary of Housing and Urban Development. He is the first African American to hold a cabinet position in the Administration of the 47th President of the United States, Donald J. Trump. Eric Scott Turner was born on February 26, 1972, in Richardson, Texas. He is a fourth generation Texan. Turner’s parents divorced when he was […]

In the article below, Quintard Taylor, the founder of BlackPast.org, describes the recent attempts to marginalize African American history and why he believes those attempts will fail. On March 27, President Donald Trump issued an Executive Order titled “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History.” The order, which targeted what the President called “anti-American ideology,” described the “concerted and widespread […]

Saartjie (Sara) Baartman was one of the first black women known to be subjugated to human sexual trafficking. She was derisively named the “Hottentot Venus” by Europeans as her body would be publicly examined and exposed inhumanly throughout her young life.  Moreover, her experience reinforced the already existing and extremely negative sexual fascination with African women’s bodies by the people […]

Mississippi State Penitentiary, or Parchman Prison, has long influenced the Mississippi cultural landscape, functioning as a literary setting in many iconic works. Stretching from the early 1900s to the contemporary era, Parchman has loomed over Mississippi culture. The prison has been an important motif in iconic works of fiction, from Mary Hamilton’s pioneer biography, Trial of the Earth, to William […]

Dingane ka Senzangakhona, a Zulu prince became the second king of the Zulu Kingdom after the death of its founder, Shaka Zulu. Dingane was born in 1795 in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. His parents were Chief Senzangakhona and Mpikase kaMlilela Ngobese, Senzangakhona’s sixth and “great wife.” Dingane had 14 siblings. In 1828, Dingane became king of the Zulu Kingdom with the […]

Cederic Bradford Glover is an American politician who became the first African American mayor of Shreveport, Louisiana in 2006. Glover was born on August 9, 1965, to Elizabeth Bradford Glover and Clarence Ernest Glover Sr. in Shreveport, Louisiana. Glover attended Caddo Magnet High School in Shreveport. After high school, Glover attended Grambling State University, an HBCU in Grambling, Louisiana and […]

Dingiswayo, meaning “one in distress or exile,” was a Paramount Chief of the Mthethwa, a title that signified his leadership over various northern Nguni groups. He was born in 1760 in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. He was also known as Godongwana or Ngodongwa and the first-born of Chief Jobe kaKhayi of what was then a small clan known as Zulu who […]

Theologian and Sigma Pi Phi Fraternity Grand Sire Archon Calvin O. Pressley was born Calvin Oliver Pressley on November 10, 1937, in Harlem, New York. He was the third of six children born to Washington Pressley, a railroad worker, and Pansy Pressley, a schoolteacher from Kingstree, South Carolina. His siblings included George, Alex, Raymond, Francine, and Lois Pressley. Pressley’s early […]

Stephen Bishop was an American cave explorer and geologist who became one of the first people to explored Mammoth Cave located in the Edmonson, Hart, and Barren counties, Kentucky. The Mammoth Cave is considered the longest cave system in the world. In 1842, Bishop created a map of the cave which was hand drawn from memory off site that became […]