AFRS 120- Brief Biographical Facts

Nathan Hare

• He is considered the father of Black studies and penned the term ethnic studies as opposed to the commonly used minority studies.

• He established it at San Francisco State University

Bertha Maxwell-Roddey

• The educational pioneer was among the first Black principals to lead a white elementary school in Charlotte

• Founder of National Council for Black Studies.

• The founding director of the Black Studies/Afro-American and African Studies Program at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.

National Council for Black Studies

• Leading organization in black studies

• An organization dedicated to the advancement of the field of Africana/African American/Black Studies.

African Heritage Studies Association

• Important in popularizing understanding in African history

• Founded in 1969 as an association of scholars of African descent, dedicated to the exploration, preservation, and academic presentation of the heritage of African people on the ancestral soil of Africa and in the diaspora.

Marcus Garvey

• The founder and first President-General of the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League,

• Black Separatist

• Envisioned Africa as a one-party rule state

Kwame Nkrumah

• First Prime Minister and President of Ghana, having led the Gold Coast to independence from Britain in 1957.

• A founding member of the Organization of African Unity 

Queen mother Audrey Moore

• A founder of Republic of New Afrika, a black nationalist organization and black separatist movement in the United States popularized by black militant groups Republic of New Afrika

WEB Du Bois

• A founder of the NAACP

• Sociologist

• Creator of the idea of double consciousness

George Padmore

• Leading Pan-Africanist and writer

• Member of the Communist party

• Lived in the Soviet union

CLR James

• Author of World Revolution; Pan-Africanist

• Was a Trinidadian historian, journalist, Trotskyist activist and Marxist writer.

Runoko Rashidi

• A member of the editorial board of Africology: The Journal of Pan African Studies

• Author of Introduction to the Study of African Classical Civilizations] (1993) and the editor of Unchained African Voices, a collection of poetry and prose by death row inmates at California's San Quentin State Prison.

Piankhy

• Ancient Kushite king and founder of the Twenty-fifth Dynasty of Egypt

• He ruled from the city of Napata, located deep in Nubia, modern-day Sudan.

Antarah ibn shaddad al absi

• Arab knight and poet

• He earned his freedom after another tribe invaded the lands of the Banu

• After defeating the invaders, he sought to gain permission to marry his cousin. 

Hannibal Barca

• commanded the forces of Carthage in their battle against the Roman Republic during the Second Punic War.

• Crossed over the Alps with 40,000 men and some elephants

Queen Ann Nzinga

• She fought against the Portuguese and the Atlantic slave trade until signing a peace treaty

Queen Tiye

• Wife of Amenhotep III III

• Tiye became her husband's trusted adviser and confidant. Known for her intelligence and strong personality, she was able to gain the respect of foreign dignitaries. Foreign leaders were willing to deal directly with her. 

• First Egyptian queen to have her name recorded on official 

Queen Makeda

• Known for her wealth, wisdom, and bearing the child of King Solomon

• First mentioned in the Hebrew Bible

Abram Hannibal

• Secured the boundary line between Russia and Sweden

•   He was originally a servant

• Godson of Peter the Great

• General-in-Chief of the Russian army

Mansa Musa

• Richest man ever

• Emperor of Mali

Mos-oa-Tunya

• The smoke that lingers

• National park

• Line between Zambia and zimbabwe

Heru-em-Aket

Divinized persona of the great sphinx

Zong massacre

• The British slave ship, Zong,  threw over 130 enslaved Africans overboard due to “navigational errors” and “water running low”

Estevanico

The first person of African descent to explore North America.
Formerly enslaved by Native Americans

Peter Salem

• He was emancipated so he could serve in the militia

• Fought in the revolutionary war

Crispus Attucks

• The first person killed in the Boston Massacre

• Of African and Native American Descent

Oliver Cromwell

• Born a free black man and fought in the Revolutionary War

•  George Washington personally signed Cromwell's discharge papers and also awarding him with Badge of Merit

Kunta Kinte

• Movie representation of the struggle of enslaved Africans in America

• Central character in Roots

Lucy Terry Prince

• Author of first poem written by an African American women

• Argued a case before the supreme court

Thomas Fuller (Human Calculator)

• He was used as a demonstration that black people were not inferior to whites

• Genius of Mathematics

Olaudah Equiano

• Sold to a royal navy officer and eventually brought his freedom

• First american to hold a position in the british government

•  Part of the abolitionist group the Sons of Africa

• His 1789 autobiography, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, sold so well that nine editions were published during his life and helped secure passage of the British Slave Trade Act 1807, which abolished the slave trade

Phyliss Wheatley

 First African-American author of a published book of poetry.

Ira Frederick Aldridge

• One of the first African American tragedians

• Known for his portrayal of shakespearean plays

• British actor

Harriet Jacobs

• Wrote an autobiography, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl

• When her enslaver threatened to sell her children if she did not submit to his desire, she hid in a tiny crawl space under the roof of her grandmother's house, so low she could not stand up in it.

Jean Baptise Pointe De Salade

• The first permanent non-Native settler of what would later become Chicago, Illinois, and is considered the city’s founder

Dutty Boukman

• A leader of the Haitian Revolution and of the maroons

• A vodou Houngan

Elizabeth Keukley

• Writer of “Behind the Scenes or Thirty Years a Slave, and Four Years in the White House”

• Dressmaker

• Confidant of Mary Todd Lincoln

Prince Hall

Founded Prince Hall Freemasonry,  the oldest recognized and continuously active organization founded by African Americans

Sarah Jane Woodson Early

The first black woman college instructor, and also the first black American to teach at a historically black college or university

The Saltwater Railroad

Florida’s own Underground Railroad

Paul Cuffe

Transported 38 African Americans (including 20 children) ranging in age from 6 months to 60 years from the United States to Sierra Leone on his brig, the Traveller, at a cost of $5,000

Sally Hemmings

Sally agreed with Jefferson that she would return to Virginia and resume her life in slavery, as long as all their children would be freed when they came of age.

James Forten

A founding member of the Free African Society

Fought in the American Revolution

Became a wealthy sailmaker

Denmark Vesey

He brought his own freedom after winning the lottery

Planned an insurrection which failed

Elizabeth Key Grinstead

She sued for the freedom of her and her son on the grounds that she was an indentured servant as opposed to a slave

George Franklin Grant

Harvard University's first African-American faculty member

Improved on Percy Ellis' "Perfectum" tee.

Boston Dentist

John Punch

An indentured servant who was sentenced to slavery when he tried to escape

Elizabeth Freeman

One of the first enslaved African Americans to file and win a freedom suit in Massachusetts.

Agrippa Hull

Served as an orderly to Tadeusz Kościuszko, a Polish military officer, engineer and nobleman, for five years during the American Revolutionary War.

David Walker

Called for violent resistance

Published an Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the World

William Still

A conductor of the Underground Railroad and was responsible for aiding and assisting at least 649 slaves to freedom towards North.

Carolyn Still Anderson

One of the first Black women to become a physician in the United States.

Educator and activist in Philadelphia

Peter Still

An American former slave, who secured his own freedom in 1850 and subsequently collected enough money to purchase the freedom of his wife and three children in 1854

Maria Stewart

The first known American woman to speak to a mixed audience of men and women, white and black, she was also the first African American woman to make public lectures, as well as to lecture about women's rights and make a public speech opposing slavery.

Sojourner Truth

A formerly enslaved woman, Sojourner Truth became an outspoken advocate for abolition, temperance, and civil and women’s rights in the nineteenth century.

Truth ran away with her infant Sophia to a nearby abolitionist family, the Van Wageners. The family bought her freedom for twenty dollars and helped Truth successfully sue for the return of her five-year-old-son Peter, who was illegally sold into slavery in Alabama.

Henry (Box) Brown

Henry Box Brown was an enslaved man from Virginia who escaped to freedom at the age of 33 by arranging to have himself mailed in a wooden crate in 1849 to abolitionists in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Letitia George

Wife of WIlliam Still

The Stills’ home became a well-known waystation of the Underground RailRoad, and she likely contributed to the care of those fleeing the south.

Of all the African Americans that came through Philadelphia on the Underground RailRoad, ninety-five percent were welcomed into the Still household.

Letitia was also an active member of the Women’s Christian Association

Harriet Tubman

Tubman made some 13 missions to rescue approximately 70 enslaved people, including her family and friends, using the network of antislavery activists and safe houses known collectively as the Underground Railroad.

Benjamin Banneker

His service as a surveyor on the six-man team that helped design the blueprints for Washington, DC.

Built the first American clock

Margaret Garner

Margaret Garner, called "Peggy", was an enslaved African American woman who killed her own daughter and intended to kill her other three children and herself rather than be forced back into slavery.

James Beckwourth

Known as "Bloody Arm" because of his skill as a fighter

He was eventually emancipated by his enslaver, who was also his father, and apprenticed to a blacksmith so that he could learn a trade.

Discovered Beckwourth path

Ellen Craft

Disguised herself as a white man to escape slavery

Henry Highland Garnett

Advocate of militant abolitionism

Martin Delany

Delany is credited with the Pan-African slogan of "Africa for Africans."

Black nationalist

Elizabeth Jennings Graham

Successfully challenged racist streetcar policies in New York City and went to court and won.

Thomas L. Jennings

He was the first African-American patent-holder in history; he was granted the patent in 1821 for his novel dry cleaning method.

Devil’s Punchbowl massacre

To house the large numbers of formerly-enslaved African Americans, the Union Army created a refugee camp for them at a location known as the Devil's Punchbowl, a natural pit surrounded by bluffs. Many of the formerly enslaved there died of starvation, smallpox, and other diseases.

Seneca Village, New York

Seneca Village was a settlement with a majority African-American population that was seized through eminent domain and torn down to build Central Park

National Freedom Day

United States observance on February 1 honoring the signing by President Abraham Lincoln of a joint House and Senate resolution that later was ratified as the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Tut Language

An argot language created by enslaved Africans