Dr. Sonnie Wellington Hereford III was born on January 7, 1931 in Huntsville, Alabama. Despite growing up in a house without running water or electricity and having to walk 7 miles to a school located next to the city dump with no library or cafeteria, Hereford overcame these and may other obstacles to become a […]
Lewis Baxter Moore was born in Huntsville, Alabama in 1866. In 1896 Mr. Moore made history when he became the first African-American to earn his Doctor of Philosophy degree from the University of Pennsylvania. At the time Moore wrote his dissertation “The Stage in Sophocles’ Plays” and completed his doctorate in the classics department at […]
Outspoken civil rights activist the Reverend Joseph Lowery was born on October 6, 1921, in Huntsville, Alabama. Considered the dean of the Civil Rights Movement, Lowery began his education in Huntsville, spending his middle school years in Chicago before returning to Huntsville to complete high school. From there, Lowery attended Knoxville College, Payne College and […]
After the Civil War, the future of African-Americans in the United States Army was in doubt. In July 1866, Congress passed legislation establishing two cavalry and four infantry regiments to be made up of African-American soldiers. The mounted regiments (9th and 10th Cavalries) conducted campaigns against Native-American tribes on the Western Frontier,where they were nicknamed […]
Dentist and political activist Dr. John Logan Cashin, Jr. was born on April 16, 1928 in Huntsville, Alabama to Grace Brandon Cashin, a school principal, and Dr. John Logan Cashin, Sr., a dentist. He and his older brother, Hershell, who were always in the same year at school, were co-valedictorians of their Alabama A&M High […]
Johnnie Loujean Dent was the oldest child and only girl born to the late Mattie Lee and John Dent. She was born March 25, 1907, in Birmingham, Alabama. She had two brothers, James Woodrow Buddy and Thomas Lee Shorty , both of whom preceded her in death. After graduating from high school at the age […]
David McGlathery was a trailblazer for the rights of African-Americans in Alabama. After graduating magna cum laude with a math degree from Alabama A&M University in 1961, he landed a job at Marshall Space Flight Center, working among the German rocket team that put man on the moon. In an 2003 interview for the Marshall […]
Peter Humphries Clark was born on March 29, 1829 in Cincinnati, Ohio. He was an abolitionist writer, and eloquent speaker, and in 1849 he was the first black teacher hired by the Cincinnati public school system. Because he was active in politics he inspired black voters in Ohio. Peter’s father, Michael Clark, was a successful […]
March 2, 1955: 15 year old Claudette Colvin refused to give up her seat on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama and was literally kicked off the bus by the arresting officer. This was 9 months before Rosa Parks was arrested. Montgomery’s black leaders did not publicize Colvin’s pioneering effort for long because she was a teenager […]
William Hooper Councill: The Greatest Negro the Race Ever Produced. In only twenty-two years from slavery’s chains, William Hooper Councill would rise to become an editor of his own newspaper, an author, a religious leader, a famed orator, a politician, a lawyer, and a civil rights pioneer, standing his ground on the battlefield of prejudicial […]