Black History, Science
Philip Emeagwali
Dr Philip Chukwurah Emeagwal, mathematician and computer scientist, was born on August 23, 1954 in Akure, a remote village in Nigera son of James and Agatha Emeagwali; He was the oldest of nine children and his father, who worked as a nurse’s aide, earned only a modest income.
As a result, at age 14, Philip was forced to drop out of school in Onitsha because his father could not continue paying the fees to keep him in school. He had shown such great promise in mathematics that his classmates nicknamed him “Calculus.â€�, his father encouraged him to continue learning at home. (more…)
Black History, Education
Atlanta University, founded in 1865 by the American Missionary Association, with later assistance from the Freedmen’s Bureau, was, before consolidation, the nation’s oldest graduate institution serving a predominantly African-American student body. By the late 1870s, Atlanta College had begun granting bachelor’s degrees and supplying black teachers and librarians to the public schools of the South.
In 1929-30, it began offering graduate education exclusively in various liberal arts areas, and in the social and natural sciences. It gradually added professional programs in social work, library science, and business administration. At this same time, Atlanta University affiliated with Morehouse College and Spelman College in a university plan known as the Atlanta University Center.
The campus was moved to its present site, and the modern organization of the Atlanta University Center emerged, with Clark College, Morris Brown College, and the Interdenominational Theological Center joining the affiliation later. The story of the Atlanta University over the next twenty years from 1930 includes many significant developments. Graduate Schools of Library Science, Education, and Business Administration were established in 1941, 1944, and 1946, respectively.
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Black History, Medicine
Wilcie Elfe is the earliest known pharmacist. He graduated from the Avery Normal Institute in Charleston. Elfe worked at People’s Pharmacy, and his prescription logbook dates back to 1853.
Abolition, Black History
Sojourner Truth
Sojourner Truth fought for the desegregation of public transportation in Washington, DC during the Civil War. She refused to face the indignities of Jim Crow segregation on street cars and had the Jim Crow car removed from the Washington D. C. system. Sojourner Truth brought a local street to a standstill when a driver refused her passage.
With the support of the crowd she forced the driver to carry her. During her legendary life, she challenged injustice wherever she saw it. She was an ab litionist, women’s rights activist and preacher. Born into slavery (as Isabella Baumfree) in upstate New York, Sojourner Truth obtained her freedom and moved to New York City. There she began to work with organizations designed to assist women. She later became a traveling preacher and quickly developed a reputation as a powerful speaker. (more…)
Black History, History
Carter G. Woodson Launched Negro History Week in 1926.
Black History Month, also known as African-American History Month, is an annual observance in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom for remembrance of important people and events in the history of the African diaspora. It is celebrated annually in the United States and Canada in February and the United Kingdom in October.Black History Month had its beginnings in 1926 in the United States, when historian Carter G. Woodson and the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History announced the second week of February to be “Negro History Week”. (more…)
Black History, The Arts
Zora Neale Hurston
Though during her life Zora Neale Hurston claimed her birth date as January 7, 1901 and her birth place as Eatonville, Florida, she was actually born on that date in the year 1891 in Notasulga, Alabama. Within the first year or two of her life her family moved to all-black Eatonville, however, and this community shaped her life and her writing to a significant degree.
ohn Hurston, the author’s father, was a carpenter and a preacher and was several times elected mayor of their town. Her mother, Lucy, died in 1904. The young Zora didn’t take very well to her new stepmother and left home to work for a traveling theatre company, then in 1917 attended Morgan Academy in Baltimore to finish high school. (more…)
