Alain LeRoy Locke – Father of the Harlem Renaissance
Alain LeRoy Locke, widely known as the “Father of the Harlem Renaissance,” was a trailblazing philosopher, educator, writer, and advocate for African American culture and art. Born on September 13,…
Lorraine Hansberry – Trailblazing Playwright, Author, and Activist
Lorraine Hansberry, born on May 19, 1930, in Chicago, Illinois, was a trailblazing playwright, author, and activist who left an indelible mark on American literature and the civil rights movement.…
100 Things You Didn’t Know Were Invented By African Americans
Can you imagine a life without blood banks, traffic lights, security systems, cloth dryers, and automatic elevator doors? These remarkable creations and a lot more wouldn’t exist today if it…
Elijah Muhammad – Religious leader, Black Separatist, Self-proclaimed Messenger of Allah
Elijah Muhammad, born Elijah Robert Poole on October 7, 1897, in Sandersville, Georgia, was a pivotal figure in the history of Islam in America. He was the leader of the…
Matthew Alexander Henson – Explorer , One of The First Men to Reach North Pole
Matthew Alexander Henson was an African American Arctic explorer. He worked with Robert Peary foralmost 23 years exploring the Arctic. Henson became famous in black history for being part of…
Toni Morrison – Noble Prize Winning Author and Educator
Chloe Anthony Wofford Morrison also known as Toni Morrison was an award-winning novelist, children’s writer, and professor. She became a notable figure in African American history due to the efforts…
Mississippi Burning – The Assassination of Medgar Evers
June 12th, 1963 — 37-year-old civil rights organizer Medgar Evers was assassinated in the driveway outside his home in Jackson, Mississippi. In the early 1960s Evers served as the first…
The Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment
On July 24, 1972, the Washington Star newspaper broke the story about the Tuskegee Institute syphilis experiment. From 1932 until 1972, the U.S. Public Health Service, in partnership with Tuskegee,…
World Famous Cotton Club Opens in Harlem
Opened in 1920, Harlem’s Cotton Club was a red-hot venue. However, despite its location, the club’s audience was whites-only, in stark contrast to its cast of all-Black performers that for…
The 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre of Black Wall Street
100 years ago, a white mob destroyed an American neighborhood called “Black Wall Street,” murdering an estimated 300 people in Tulsa, Oklahoma. That incident — known as the 1921 Tulsa…