Category: History

First Missionary Baptist Church of Decatur was established in 1866 in northwest Alabama by 21 former slaves in the home of Ms. Jane Young under the leadership of the Rev.…

Founded as the Nashville Normal and Theological Institute and by the American Baptist Home Mission Society, a Christian missionary society from New York City, Roger Williams University (RWU) was named…

Edna May Griffin, often referred to as ‘the Rosa Parks of Iowa,’ was a prominent American civil rights pioneer in her state. This nickname underscores her pivotal role in civil…

Nathan Hare, the founder of The Black Scholar: A Journal of Black Studies and Research and called by many scholars “the father of Black and Ethnic Studies,” was born on…

The Arkansas Freedom Summer, also known as the Arkansas Summer Project, was a pivotal event in the Civil Rights Movement in Arkansas during the summer of 1965. It occurred one…

Louisiana Freedom Summer, also known as CORE’s Louisiana Project, was a Civil Rights campaign in Louisiana during the summer of 1964. It co-occurred simultaneously with the more famous Mississippi Freedom…

Daunte Demetrious Wright, a 20-year-old African American man, tragically lost his life during a traffic stop in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota. Wright was born on October 27, 2000, in Minneapolis, Minnesota,…

The Katz Drugstore Protests in Des Moines, Iowa, began on July 7, 1948, when Edna May Griffin, John Bibbs, Leonard Hudson, and Griffin’s one-year-old daughter, Phyllis Griffin, entered the Katz…

Pioneering T.V. Broadcaster Dianne White Clatto, born Dianne Elizabeth Johnson on December 28, 1938, in St. Louis, Missouri, was the only child of Milton Johnson and Nettie Johnson. Growing up…

Charles Luther Sifford, the first Black player to participate in the PGA Tour and the first named to the World Golf Hall of Fame, was born on June 2, 1922,…