Dr. Justina L. Ford was a pioneering physician who practiced medicine in Colorado, despite facing the barriers of race and gender. Dr. Ford, better known as the “Lady Doctor,” was rumored to have delivered 7,000 babies in her lifetime and was the lone Black female doctor in the state for the first half of the […]
Comedian and author Dick Gregory has been active since the ’60’s and is showing no signs of slowing down. Gregory turns 84 today and the activist remains fiery and opinionated as ever. Richard Claxton Gregory was born in 1932 in St. Louis. A star track and field athlete, Gregory ran for two years as a […]
The NAACP’s Legal Defense Fund is the first civil and human rights law firm, established in 1940 by late Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall. The early seeds of the LDF can be traced to the year before when prominent Black attorney Charles Hamilton Houston helped bolster the NAACP’s legal department. Houston, a former vice-dean and dean […]
Racial cleansings have occurred in America at various instances throughout history. But in 1912, an incident in Forsyth County, Ga. is remembered as the largest case of Black expulsion ever recorded. Back in September of that year, two white women were attacked at separate intervals, allegedly by Black residents of the predominately white county. Ellen […]
Marvel’s Luke Cage on Netflix is one of the best-reviewed shows to debut this fall, proving that a leading Black man in a superhero action role can find success. Throughout the series, several nuggets referencing Black history and culture appear that gives Luke Cage a flavor all its own. Luke Cage was created by Marvel in […]
The 89th annual National Bankers Association convention are meeting in Detroit Oct. 5 and 6th. The group is a collective of banking institutions owned by people and women of color. The convention will honor Grammy Award-winning record producer, valued Association member, and banking pioneer Don Davis, who operated Michigan’s first Black-owned and operated bank. Davis, […]
On Tuesday, vice-presidential candidates Tim Kaine and Mike Pence squared off in the small Virginia town of Farmville. While the debate between the party rivals was the centerpiece, the town itself was home to an incident some consider to be one of the earliest protests that helped focus the Civil Rights Movement. On April 23, […]
The murder trial of former football legend O.J. Simpson was one for the ages. The explosive trial was one of the biggest media event of the ’90’s, concluding with Simpson being acquitted on this day in 1995. Thirteen years later to the exact day, Simpson was convicted of a second crime after a botched armed […]
Marques Brownlee was once called the best technology reviewer on the planet by a former top executive at Google. While Brownlee has never made such a claim for himself, his popular YouTube channel is one of the most-watched on the social media network. Brownlee, 22, is a native of Maplewood, N.J. He came by his […]
The nation’s first Black-owned television station, WGPR, officially debuted on this day in 1975 in Detroit, Mich.. The station was the brainchild of William V. Banks, a son of a Kentucky sharecropper who also created Detroit’s first Black-owned radio station bearing the same call letters. William Venoid Banks was a Detroit attorney and leader of […]
In times past, African-Americans have pretended to pass as a white person to avoid harassment and discrimination. The reverse has happened many times as well,(think Rachel Dolezal) as in the case of Rev. L.M. Fenwick, who was a white pastor pretending to be Black. The Fenwick case is curious and not rich in detail, although historians […]
Xavier University of Louisiana is the first and only Black Catholic institution of higher learning in the United States. It was established on this day in 1915, and several notable alumni have passed through its halls en route to a variety of high-profile careers. The school was the brainchild of Saint Katherine Drexel of Philadelphia […]
