Maria Louise Baldwin, a pioneering educator, made history in 1881 by becoming a teacher at the Louis Agassiz School, an all-white school for the children of Harvard University professors and white citizens of Cambridge, Massachusetts. She supervised 12 white teachers and educated over 500 white students. By 2004, the Cambridge School Committee renamed the Agassiz School, the Maria L. Baldwin […]

Scientist, inventor, and activist William Conan Davis, the first African American to earn a doctorate from the University of Idaho, was born on August 22, 1926, in Waycross, Georgia. His father, Kince Charles Davis, was an Ethiopian Jew and a railway construction engineer, and his mother was Laura Jane Cooper. His siblings included the legendary actor and civil rights activist […]

Emmanuel W. Onunwor, was the first African-born American politician to be elected mayor of an American city when he in 1997 was elected mayor of East Cleveland, Ohio. Onunwor was born on May 24, 1954, in Port Harcourt, Nigeria. He was the son of an Ikwerre regional ruler and began his early and secondary academic training in his hometown of […]

Martin G. “Marty” Barnes, the first African American mayor of Paterson, New Jersey, was born on March 15, 1948, and reared in the impoverished Riverside Projects of Paterson. He had two brothers, Tyrone and Ronald Barnes. Martin Barnes attended public schools in Paterson, including Eastside High School, where he graduated in 1966. He then continued his education at Seton Hall […]

Alyia Gaskins, born May 1, 1989, is an American public health professional, urban planner, and politician who assumed office as the first Black female mayor of Alexandria, Virginia, on January 1, 2025. A native of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, her single mother and grandmother raised Mayor Gaskins. She has siblings born to her father but was raised as an only child. In […]

Lewis Henry Douglass was an Army veteran, journalist, printer, and community activist who fought against racial inequality in America. A native of New Bedford, Massachusetts, Douglass was born on October 9, 1840, and was the eldest son of Frederick Douglass and Anna R. Murray-Douglass. He was the husband of Amelia Douglass and the brother of Rosetta Sprague, Frederick Douglass, Jr., […]

Tyrone Anthony Garner, born in February 1969, is the first Black Mayor of Kansas City, Kansas. He is also the thirty-first Mayor of the city and the fifth Mayor/ Chief Executive Officer (CEO) since city/ county consolidation in 1997. Born in Portland, Maine, Garner grew up in San Jose, California, before he and his family moved to Kansas City, Kansas […]

Joseph Wiley Gilliam Jr. was a professional football quarterback in the National Football League (NFL). Gilliam was born on December 29, 1950, to Joseph Gilliam Sr. and Ruth Gilliam in Charleston, West Virginia. The family moved to Nashville, Tennessee where he attended Pearl High School (Now MLK Magnet School) where he played on the school football team and led his […]

Hotel Theresa, the white brick, terra cotta, 300-room, thirteen story, steel-framed hotel, was for many years the tallest building in Harlem, New York. It opened down the street from the Apollo Theater in 1913 and was famously known as the “Waldorf of Harlem” and later the “social headquarters of Negro America.” It was located at what is now 2082–96 Adam […]

Lovie Lee Smith is an American football coach for the National Football League (NFL). Smith was born on May 8, 1958, to Thurman Smith and Mae Smith in Gladewater, Texas. He attended Big Sandy High School in Big Sandy, Texas where he played defensive end and linebacker for the high school football team. After high school, he attended the University […]