Science
St. Elmo Brady was born on December 22, 1884 in Louisville, Kentucky. He received a Bachelor of Science from Fisk University in 1908 and a Master of Science in Chemistry in 1914 from University of Illinois. St. Elmo Brady earned a Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of Illinois in 1916, the first African American to earn a Ph.D. in Chemistry. Dr. Brady served as a Professor of Chemistry at Howard University and as Professor of Chemistry and Head of the Chemistry Department at Fisk University.
Politics
(b. July 2, 1925, Decatur, Miss., U.S.–d. June 12, 1963, Philadelphia, Miss.), American black civil-rights activist, whose murder received national attention and made him a martyr to the cause of the Civil Rights Movement.
Evers served in the U.S. Army in Europe during World War II. Afterward he and his elder brother, Charles Evers, both graduated from Alcorn Agricultural and Mechanical College (now Alcorn State University, Lorman, Miss.) in 1950. They settled in Philadelphia, Miss., and engaged in various business pursuits–Medgar was an insurance salesman, and Charles operated a restaurant, a gas station, and other enterprises–and at the same time began organizing local affiliates of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). They worked quietly at first, slowly building a base of support; in 1954 Medgar moved to Jackson to become the NAACP’s first field secretary in Mississippi. He traveled throughout the state recruiting members and organizing voter-registration drives and economic boycotts.
During the early 1960s the increased tempo of civil-rights activities in the South created high and constant tensions, and in Mississippi conditions were often at the breaking point. On June 12, 1963, a few hours after President John F. Kennedy had made an extraordinary broadcast to the nation on the subject of civil rights, Medgar Evers was shot and killed in an ambush in front of his home. The murder made Evers, until then a hardworking and effective but relatively obscure figure outside Mississippi, a nationally known figure. He was buried with full military honours in Arlington National Cemetery and awarded the 1963 Spingarn Medal of the NAACP.
Charles Evers immediately requested and was granted appointment by the NAACP to his brother’s position in Mississippi, and afterward he became a major political figure in the state.
Byron de La Beckwith, a white segregationist, was charged with the murder. He was set free in 1964 after two trials resulted in hung juries but was convicted in a third trial held in 1994.
Education
Born in Philadelphia and raised in Boston,
Greener attended Oberlin and Phillips Academy
before entering Harvard University, where he
became the first African-American graduate in 1870.
After his graduation, he taught high school in Philadelphia and Washington, D.C., and in 1873 accepted the chair of mental and moral philosophy, sacred literature, and evidences of Christianity at the University of South Carolina. As a teacher of philosophy, Latin, Greek, and law, and in the University?s preparatory school, Greener was a student favorite. He was active on campus and in state politics as well. Greener also served as the University?s librarian, being credited with restoring order to the library, which had been in disarray since the war. When the University was closed by South Carolina?s conservative government in 1877, Greener left USC for the position of dean of the School of Law at Howard University. After that law school closed, he embarked on a law career in Washington, D.C., served as secretary of the Grant Monument Association in New York, and later served as U.S. consul to Vladivostok. He died in 1922
Music
1869-1933
Born Matilda Joyner in Portsmouth, Virginia, Sissieretta Jones enrolled in the Providence Academy of Music at age fourteen and is reported to have completed her training at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston.
Her professional debut at Providence’s Sans Souci Garden led to an international tour with the Tennessee Jubilee Singers; audiences around the world applauded “the first Negro prima donna” and her rich soprano voice. According to writer James Weldon Johnson, “she had most of the qualities essential in a great singer: the natural voice, the physical figure, the grand air, and the engaging personality.”
During a concert stint in New York City, a critic dubbed Jones the “Black Patti,” comparing her to Italian soprano Adelina Patti.
Though she disliked it, the nickname became synonymous with Sissieretta Jones. A pioneer of black operatic singing, Jones paved the way for a long list of black opera singers to follow.
Business
1810-1848
Born in the Virgin Islands, William A. Leidesdorff moved to New Orleans, Louisiana, at age twenty-nine. In 1841, he relocated to Yerba Buena, a settlement that later became San Francisco. Over the next four years, Leidesdorff sailed ships with trade goods between San Francisco and Hawaii, and he operated the first steamer to pass through the Golden Gate. After piloting a schooner from New York to California by way of the southern tip of South America, he turned to civic matters.
As a business and educational leader, Leidesdorff built San Francisco’s first hotel (City Hotel), served as city treasurer, and established the city’s first public school. Leidesdorff’s body lies beneath the stone floor of the Mission Dolores in San Francisco. Leidesdorff Street, which runs through San Francisco’s financial district in the shadow of the Transamerica Building, pays tribute to him.
Publishing
Mary Ann Shadd was the first Black women editor of a newspaper in North America. She worked for racial integration in the United States. With the passage of the fugitive slave act in 1850, she decided that the future of Blacks looked better outside of the United States. Her conviction to the struggle for the rights of Blacks must have been inspired by her father Abraham Shadd, who was an abolitionist and opponent to the American Colonization Society.
Mary Ann Shadd was committed to the education of people of color. At the age of sixteen she went to Wilmington, Delaware to organize a school for children of color. Over the course of eleven years, Shadd taught in schools for black youth in New York, Pennsylvania and Delaware. In 1851, she joined the emigrationist movement and with her brother Isaac moved to Toronto, Canada.
Once in Canada, Shadd found herself locked in battle with Henry Bibb. Bibb was a staunch supporter of segregation in contrast to Shadd Ann who sought racial integration. Bibb published a newspaper called the Voice of the Fugitive in which he frequently attacked Shadd’s desire to assimilate. With the motto “Self reliance is the fine road to independence.” Shadd founded the paper Provincial Freeman where she in turn challenged Bibb’s desire for separation. Shadd used the paper to discuss all aspects of Black life in Canada. The paper exposed all aspects of segregation and discrimination in Canada.
In 1855 Shadd was the first woman to speak at the National Negro Convention. Frederick Douglass said that she gave one of the most convincing and telling speeches in favor of Canadian emmigration. Shadd would eventually abandon her belief in emmigration but would maintain a strong desire for Black autonomy and maintain her belief in Black self help. During the Civil War she worked as an enlistment officer.
Shadd eventually obtained a Law degree and continued to write letters and articles for newspapers. She increasingly turned attention to gender equality and actively participated in supporting rights for women. Shadd testified before Congress on women’s suffrage.
During her life she lectured extensively to many groups on subjects including race pride, the Klu Klux Klan, the Republican Party and women’s rights. Frederick Douglass spoke highly of Mary Ann Shadd.
