Looking Black

http://www.blackamericaweb.com/?q=articles/news/the_black_diaspora_news/23889 Ophelia Settle Egypt was a social worker and sociologist known for helping former slaves and free blacks discover their freedoms and tell their stories. Setting the stage for the Works Progress Administration that would develop a decade after she made her mark, Egypt would help her Fisk University colleague, Charles Johnson, interview 100 ex-slaves […]

http://www.blackamericaweb.com/?q=articles/news/the_state_of_black_america_news/23893 The Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial is more than halfway complete, and the president of the foundation responsible for the project is confident it will be completed by Aug. 28, 2011 – the 48th anniversary of the slain civil rights leader’s “I Have a Dream” speech.  

http://www.blackamericaweb.com/?q=articles/news/the_black_diaspora_news/23853 William Lewis of Berkley, Virginia made several strides in black history, which include becoming the first black to play collegiate level football, the first black All-American athlete, and the first black assistant U.S. attorney general.  

In 1860, a white family of wealthy landowners by the last name of Halstead gifted one acre of land to the blacks of Rye, New York to be used as a burial ground for black Civil-War Veterans. http://www.blackamericaweb.com/?q=articles/news/the_black_diaspora_news/23819

Charles Alston (a.k.a. “Spinky”) of Charlotte, North Carolina was an artist who taught the best of the Harlem Renaissance. Among Alston’s students was the great painter Jacob Lawrence.  To earn a living while studying his craft, Alston was an illustrator, designing album covers for Duke Ellington and Langston Hughes. http://www.blackamericaweb.com/?q=articles/news/the_black_diaspora_news/23791

Model and designer Madame Emma Ophelia Devore, the first mixed-race supermodel in America, helped to establish The Grace Del Marco Agency, the first modeling agency for women of color in the United States. http://www.blackamericaweb.com/?q=articles/news/the_black_diaspora_news/23595

At 33rd Street and Wabash Avenue in Chicago, the first black amusement park called Joyland brought joy to children and adults alike for years. Joyland Park was established in 1923 by W.C.S. & S Amusement Company. Joyland was designed to entertain the growing number of African-Americans in the Bronzeville neighborhood of south side Chicago. http://www.blackamericaweb.com/?q=articles/news/the_black_diaspora_news/23558

Marian Anderson, a contralto opera singer, was the first black person to perform at the renowned Metropolitan Opera of New York in January of 1955. Her work as an accomplished singer served as a catalyst of civil rights for many musicians. She was born to a family led by a father who sold liquor for […]

Norman Seabrooks is the first African-American football player for the famous military training base, The Citadel. The road was anything but easy for Seabrooks, who joined the institution’s team in 1969. http://www.blackamericaweb.com/?q=articles/news/the_black_diaspora_news/23445  

Lobo the Cowboy was the first African-American comic superhero originated by Dell Comics in 1965. Created by writer D.J. Arneson and illustrated by Tony Tallarico, Lobo was a gun-toting, wealthy African-American cowboy in the old West. In the short-lived series of only two issues featuring Lobo, the character was known to leave his signature item. […]

At around seven years old, Jacobus Capitein of Ghana was kidnapped from his parents in sub-saharan Africa and sent to the Dutch, where he was purchased by Arnold Steenhard. Steenhard gave Capitein as a gift to Jacob Van Goch, who took him to Holland in 1728 (Goch was actually the one to give him the […]

Doris Miller was a cook, third class, in the U.S. Navy who showed amazing heroism during the attack on Pearl Harbor. His actions caused him to be the first African-American to be awarded the Navy Cross. Nicknamed the “Raging Duck,” Miller, a Waco, Texas native, was often suspended from school as a child for picking […]