Chuck Leonard, a pioneering disk jockey known for his rich, smooth voice, was born Charles Wesley Leonard in Chicago, Illinois, on March 30, 1937 to Alma Leonard and Charles Leon. Chuck graduated from Hyde Park High School with honors in 1955, where he ran on the 4×440-yard relay track team. He applied and was accepted into the United States Navy […]

Sultry soulful vocalist, lyricist, composer, actor, and activist Oleta Adams was born on May 4, 1953 in Seattle, Washington, and began piano lessons at seven. When she was 11, her family moved to Yakima where she sang in the Pilgrim Rest Baptist Church choir, where her father was the pastor. In addition, Adams was the piano accompanist for the church […]

Aviation pioneer Sibongile Sambo, who was born in Bushbuckridge, Mpumalanga, South Africa in 1974, holds the distinction of being the first woman to become a South African airline executive. Sambo founded SRS Aviation in 2004. She is a graduate of the College of Zululand, where she earned a bachelor’s degree in administration and later earned her master’s degree in management […]

Stella Chinyelu Okoli is a Nigerian pharmacist, philanthropist, and entrepreneur. She is the founder and current CEO of Emzor, a pharmaceutical company she started in 1977. Okoli was born on July 30, 1944, in Kano State to Felix Ebelechukwu and Margaret Modebelu. She attended All Saints Primary School in Onitsha (1954-1959), Ogidi Girls Secondary School in Ogidi from 1959-1964, and […]

In the article below historian Amy Sommers describes the February 1936 meeting of Howard Thurman in India with Mahatma Gandhi, the leader of that nation’s non-violence campaign for political independence from Great Britain. She argues that the meeting influenced Thurman’s views on the subject and his subsequent sharing of those views with the leaders of the Civil Rights Movement in […]

Yewubdar Emahoy Tsegué-Maryam Guèbrou was an Ethiopian nun and musician. Her music reflected a life that experienced a number of unexpected moves as well as a devotional commitment to Christian orthodoxy. Yewubdar was born in Addis Ababa December 12, 1923 to Kessaye Yelemtu, relative of Empress Menen, and Kintiba Guèbrou, a governor to multiple provinces in Ethiopia. She and her […]

The African-American animator and director Frank Cavalier Braxton Jr. was born on March 31, 1929, in Los Angeles, California to Frank Cavalier Braxton from Cincinnati, Ohio, and Mignon A. Callaway Braxton from Atlanta, Georgia. Frank had a gift and talent for drawing and painting as a child and was often seen with a sketch pad and pencil in hand. He […]

Prolific David Drake, also known as Dave the Potter, was an enslaved artist born on a plantation in North Carolina in 1801. He toiled the soil and labored on several plantations and, over the course of his lifetime, was sold or traded by a number of plantation owners. Many of his family members were also separated from him through this […]

The grandson of formerly enslaved people, Walter Franklin Anderson, classical pianist, organist, composer, jazz musician, community activist, and academician, was born on May 12, 1915, in segregated Zanesville, Ohio. Walter was the sixth of nine children of humble beginnings. Information regarding his parents is not available. Anderson, a child prodigy, began piano studies at age seven, and by 12, he […]

Flip Wilson was the first African American to host a hit variety series on television.   The Flip Wilson Show aired from 1970 to 1974 and in addition to high ratings, Wilson won two Emmy Awards, one was for Outstanding Variety Series and the other for Outstanding Writing Achievement.  He also won the Golden Globe Award.  The Flip Wilson Show was […]