The Arts
1711 – 1806
The first known African American to publish literature, Hammon was a lifelong slave of the Lloyd family on Long Island. He was a favorite servant who was a clerk in the family business, a farmhand, and an artisan. Hammon was allowed to attend school and was a fervent Christian, as were the Lloyds. His first published poem was written on Christmas Day, 1760. An Evening Thought. Salvation by Christ with Penitential Cries: Composed by Jupiter Hammon, a Negro belonging to Mr. Lloyd of Queen’s Village, on Long Island, the 25th of December, 1760 appeared as a broadside in 1761. Three other poems and three sermon essays followed. In 1786 Hammon gave a speech, An Address to the Negroes of New York, to the African Society, in which he said that while he personally had no wish to be free, he did wish others, especially ?the young Negroes, were free.?
The Arts
b. Philadelphia. Fuller co-founded the Afro-American Arts Theatre in Philadelphia, his hometown, in 1967. The Perfect Party (1969) was the first of Fuller’s plays to receive critical acclaim. Zooman and the Sign won an Obie Award in 1980. A Soldier’s Play, about a murder on a Louisiana military base, won the 1982 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. It was adapted into a film, A Soldier’s Story, in 1984.
Literature
After nearly dying from a stab wound, Bullins left high school in 1952 to join the navy. In 1964 he moved to San Francisco and began writing. He became a pioneer of the Black Arts Movement. In the mid-1960s, he served as minister of culture for the Black Panther Party and was cultural director of Black House, an African American theater group in Oakland, Calif. Maintaining that theater was an art form and not simply a means of political propaganda, Bullins left the group and moved to New York. He won a 1971 Obie Award for The Fabulous Miss Marie and In New England Winter, and the New York Drama Critics Circle Award for The Taking of Miss Janie in 1975. Bullins received a BA from Antioch University/San Francisco in 1989 and an MFA in playwriting from San Francisco State University in 1994. A year later he was named theater professor at Northeastern University in Boston.
Science
1867 – 1923
Although he held a doctorate from the University of Chicago, zoologist Charles Henry Turner chose to teach at high schools so he could devote more time to the observation of insects. His research had lasting impact. Turner published several articles in scientific journals, including “Habits of Mound-Building Ants,” “Experiments on the Color Vision of the Honeybee,” “Hunting Habits of an American Sand Wasp,” and “Psychological Notes on the Gallery Spider.” In his research, Turner became the first person to prove that insects can hear and can distinguish pitch. In addition, he first discovered that cockroaches can learn by trial and error.
Medicine
Born in Kentucky, Maurice Rabb earned a B.S. in 1954, and an M.D. in 1958 from the University of Louisville. In an impressive medical career, Rabb has served as director of the Illinois Eye Bank and Research Laboratory of the University of Illinois Medical School and as director of the Fluorescein Angiography Laboratory at the Michael Reese Hospital in Chicago. In addition he has worked as co-director of the Sickle Cell Center at the University of Illinois Medical Center, and did a stint as chief of ophthalmology at Mercy Hospital in Chicago. Rabb has also received awards in 1962 and 1964 for photographic work concentrating on the physiology of the inner eye.
Inventions
1791 – 1859
A tailor in New York City, Jennings is credited with being the first African American to hold a U.S. patent. The patent, which was issued in 1821, was for a dry-cleaning process.
