Category: History

Harrison Williams was born enslaved on a Southampton County, Virginia, plantation in 1847, but by December 1864, he was a free man and a soldier in the Union Army. Over…

The Katz Drug Store Sit-Ins occurred from August 19 to August 20, 1958, at the Katz Drug Store in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. The leading cause of the sit-in was the…

The Dockum Drug Store Sit-Ins occurred in Wichita, Kansas, between July 19 and August 11, 1958. Ronald W. Walters, a local college student who was at the time president of…

Educator Janie Porter Barrett was the founder of the first Black Settlement House in Virginia, the State Federation of Colored Women’s Clubs in Virginia, and the Virginia Industrial School for…

Lewis A. Jackson was a Black aviator, Tuskegee Airman Instructor, and later an HCBU president. Jackson was born on December 29, 1912, to unnamed parents in Angola, Indiana. At eight,…

The founder and long-time owner of Taylor Electric Company, Samuel “Sam” Taylor, was born in Montgomery, Alabama, on April 9, 1896, the son of Rufus and Martha Taylor. His father…

Edward Lee “Too Tall” Jones, is a former professional football player best known for playing for the Dallas Cowboys his entire career. Jones was born on February 23, 1951, to…

Choreographer, dancer, and teacher Lorraine Graves was born Lorraine Elizabeth Graves on October 5, 1957, in Norfolk, Virginia, to Tommy E. Graves Jr., founder and CEO of Graves Funeral Home,…

U.S. Army Air Force World War II veteran Joseph Dubois Elsberry was the first Black fighter pilot to shoot down three German aircraft in a single mission.Elsberry was born on…

U.S. Army Air Force World War II veteran Edward Lucien Toppins was a fighter pilot credited with shooting down four German enemy fighter aircraft during aerial combat, a distinction shared…