Defender Fit & Fine: Hugh Arrington

Fort, Syvilla (1917-1975)

Syvilla Fort, born on July 3, 1917 in Seattle, was a professional dancer in the 1930s and early 1940s and prominent dance instructor in New York City for three decades between 1948 and 1975. Her dance style, which combined African, Caribbean, and American rhythms, influenced hundreds of

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Source: Black Past

Nov

8

1975

Derek Jeter

Derek Sanderson Jeter is an American baseball star who plays for the Yankees. He was born on June 26, 1974, in Pequannok, New Jersey to mixed race parents. His father is African American and worked as a drug abuse counselor whereas his mother is of German and Irish descent. His parents gave him

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Source: Black History Resources

Jun

26

1974

Otis Boykin

Otis F. Boykin was born on August 29, 1920 in Dallas, Texas. After graduating high school, he attended Fisk College in Nashville, Tennessee. He graduated in 1941 and took a job as a laboratory assistant with the Majestic Radio and TV Corporation in Chicago, Illinois. He undertook various tasks but

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Source: Black History Resources

Jordan, June (1936-2002)

June Meyer Jordan, writer, editor, poet, educator, environmental and social activist, was the only child of Granville Ivanhoe and Mildred Maude Fischer Jordan who were Jamaican immigrants. June was born in Harlem on July 9, 1936. June’s father worked as a night shift postal clerk and her mother

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Source: Black Past

Jul

9

1936

Beah, Ishmael (1980– )

Ishmael Beah is a Sierra Leonean author and human rights activist who rose to fame with his personal history, A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Solider. Beah was born on November 23, 1980, in Mattru Jong, Bonthe District, Sierra Leone, in West Africa. The Sierra Leone Civil War started in March

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Source: Black Past

Nov

23

1980

Sarah Vaughan

Sarah Vaughan was a popular twentieth century African-American Jazz singer. She was recognized for her beautiful voice and often nicknamed ‘Sassy’, ‘Sailor’ and ‘The Divine One’ for her salty speech. Moreover, she won a Grammy Award and was awarded the “highest honor in jazz” by The

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Source: Black History Resources

Mar

27

1924

Vanessa Williams

Vanessa Lynn Williams is a Grammy nominated singer, former beauty queen and television and film actress. She was born on March 18, 1963 in Bronx, New York but soon moved to a more fashionable neighborhood. Her parents, Milton and Helen Williams, both worked as music teachers and so Williams and her

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Source: Black History Resources

Mar

18

1963

Manute Bol

Manute Bol was one of the tallest players in NBA history and a political activist in Africa. He was born in Sudan in 1962 in the Dinka tribe. He lived in Sudan for most of his childhood and teenage years. He tended cattle for his family as a young boy and there is a popular story that he often used

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Source: Black History Resources

Townsend, Willard S. (1895-1957)

African American labor leader Willard S. Townsend was born on December 4, 1895, in Cincinnati, Ohio, to Willard and Cora Elizabeth Townsend. In 1938 he organized railway workers of several Chicago, Illinois stations to form the International Brotherhood of Redcaps and remained the union’s president

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Source: Black Past

Feb

3

1957

Charles Drew

Charles Drew was born on June 3, 1904 in Washington, D.C., the son of Richard and Nora Drew and eldest of five children. Charles was one of those rare individuals who seemed to excel at everything he did and on every level and would go on to become of pioneer in the field of

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Source: Black History Resources

Marvin Gaye

Marvin Pentz Gaye Jr. was a legendary singer and recording artist who came to be known as the “Prince of Soul”. Gaye was born on April 2, 1939 in Washington, D.C. He was raised by his father “Reverend Marvin Gay Sr.” who was a very strict guardian. Gaye was musically

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Source: Black History Resources

Apr

2

1939

Arthur Allen Fletcher, “The Father of Affirmative Action”

Arthur Allen Fletcher is known to many as the father of affirmative action. In the following account historian David Hamilton Golland describes the career of Fletcher, a Republican civil rights activist during the last half of the 20th

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Source: Black Past

Dixon, Julian (1934-2000)

Born in Washington, D.C. on August 8, 1934, Julian Dixon represented part of Los Angeles in the U.S. House of Representatives for twenty-two years. After serving in the U.S. Army from 1957 to 1960, Dixon attended California State University, Los Angeles. He earned a bachelor’s degree in 1962 and

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Source: Black Past

Aug

8

1934

Birthday of basketball great, Patrick Ewing.

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Source: Blackfacts.com

Aug

5

1962

Medgar Evers

Medgar Evers was a popular figure in the American history for his reputation as an African-American civil rights activist. He actively participated in overturning segregation at the University of Mississippi. He was the field secretary of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored

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Source: Black History Resources

Jun

7

1963

Le Moyne-Owen College (1862- )

Le Moyne-Owen College is a private, historically black, four year, co-educational, liberal arts institution located in Memphis, Tennessee. It is affiliated with the United Church of Christ. The institution can trace its roots back to 1862, when the American Missionary Association (AMA) sent

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Source: Black Past

David Robinson

David Robinson is a retired professional basketball player who is colloquially known as ‘The Admiral’ thanks to his prior service to the United States

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Source: Black History Resources

Aug

6

1965

(1832) Maria W. Stewart Advocates Education for African American Women

In September 1832, Maria W. Stewart delivered at Boston’s Franklin Hall one of the first public lectures ever given by an American woman. Her speech, directed to the women of the African American Female Intelligence Society, called on black women to acquire equality through education. The speech

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Source: Black Past

Hickman, George W., Jr. (1924–2012)

George Hickman was a Tuskegee airman during the World War II. Later in his life, he was a fixture at Seattle sporting events, working as an usher at University of Washington games and Seattle Seahawk football

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Source: Black Past

Jim Brown

Born on February 17, 1936, James Nathaniel Brown grew up off the southern coast of Georgia without a father who left the family when Brown was only two weeks old. After his mother left to take up a job in New York, the young child was brought up by his great-grandmother. At eight years of age, Jim

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Source: Black History Resources

Feb

17

1936

(1899) Lucy Craft Laney, “The Burden of the Educated Colored Woman”

Lucy Craft Laney was born in Macon, Georgia, in 1854, into a family of ten children. Taught to read and write by her mother, a domestic worker, she graduated from Macons Lewis High School and entered Atlanta University at the age of fifteen and graduated in 1873. Laney taught in the Georgia public

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Source: Black Past

Billiam "Bill" Felton Russell born

Birthday of William Felton Russell, better known as Bill Russel, he was player-coach of the Boston Celtics basketball team in 1968 and 1969. Russell was born in Monroe, Louisiana.

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Source: Blackfacts.com

Feb

12

1934

Hoops

The Rens, the first black professional basketball team, become the first black team on record to win a professional worlds championship, 1939

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Source: Blackfacts.com

Mar

0

1939

The Southern Negro Youth Congress: A Participant Recalls Its Past

In the article below historian Gwendolyn Midlo Hall recounts her role as a founder of the New Orleans Youth Congress and the early years of the Southern Negro Youth Congress. This account is part of her soon to be published

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Source: Black Past

Nov

15

1974

Freddy Adu

Freddy Adu of Tema, Ghana, was born in 1989 and moved to the United States with his family at the age of eight. Adu had a nag for soccer from a young age and began competing in neighborhood matches at the age of four. From then on, Adu practiced every day to make his game

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Source: Black History Resources

Elgin Baylor

Elgin Gay Baylor was a professional basketball player, who played for Los Angeles Lakers. He was born on September 16, 1934 and began playing basketball from an early age. Two of his older brothers were also basketball players, and Baylor took naturally to the game. He was already known to be

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Source: Black History Resources

Sep

16

1934

Johnnie Cochran

Johnnie Cochran was a lawyer, who handled several high profile celebrity cases. He was born on October 2, 1937 in Shreveport, Louisiana. He received his Bachelors’ degree from the University of California, Los Angeles, in 1959. Initially selling insurance policies for a living, Cochran soon began

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Source: Black History Resources

Mar

29

2005

Huey P. Newton

Huey Percy Newton was an African American leader and co-founder of the Black Panther Party. He was the youngest of seven children born to Armelia Johnson and Walter Newton on February 17, 1942 in Monroe, Louisiana and named after the former Governor of Louisiana, Huey Long. His family was not very

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Source: Black History Resources

Aug

22

1989

Reggie Bush

Name at birth: Reginald Alfred Bush II

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Source: Fact Monster - Black History

Ubangi Blackhawks

The Ubangi Blackhawks were a predominantly black semipro football team in Seattle who played for the Community League in the 1930s. Sponsored by nightclub owner Noodles Smith, who was said to be present for every game, the team was also helped by Bruce Rowell who looked after the teams financial

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Source: Black Past

Nov

5

1937

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