Born enslaved in North Carolina, Anna Julia Cooper earned a master’s degree in mathematics from Oberlin in 1887 & a PhD from the Sorbonne. She observed, “The cause of freedom is not the cause of a race or a sect, a party or a class - it is the cause of human kind, the very birthright of humanity.”

Little Rock, Arkansas, 1959. Rally at state capitol protesting the integration of Central High School. Protesters carry US flags & signs reading "Race Mixing is Communism" & "Stop the Race Mixing March of the Anti-Christ.” Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division

In 1870 Joseph H. Rainey was elected to Congress. He worked towards the suppression Klan terrorism. “I could appeal to you, members upon this floor, as husbands & fathers, to picture to yourselves the desolation of your own happy firesides should you be suddenly snatched away from your loved ones.”

Washington “was an enslaver right to the very end. And yet, he also regularly spoke about how much he wanted to see an end to the institution of slavery.…This wasn’t a story of Washington gradually coming to see the evil of slavery, either; he held many of these positions at the same time.”

"because of his contributions to the genres of philosophy, autobiography, and Christian theology, 'a core strand of the culture that Europe claims as its own stems from Africa.'”

He also served as United States Minister Resident to Haiti from 1877 until 1885 and his writings from that time form an important aspect of my forthcoming book, With the Pen In One Hand and the Sword in the Other: Haiti and the United States in the Nineteenth Century.

Statesman & lawyer John Mercer Langston, Virginia native & son of a formerly enslaved woman & her former owner, co-founded the National Equal Rights League in 1864, drafted the Civil Rights Act of 1875, was the 1st president of Virginia State University in 1885, & was elected to US Congress in 1890.

We published a biography of her a few years ago.

Sarah Remond (b. 1826), granddaughter of a Black Revolutionary War veteran, ended segregation in a Boston theater with a lawsuit in 1853. She was an internationally prominent anti-slavery lecturer, physician, & activist for abolition & women's suffrage.

1815 portrait of Charles Jones, son of Absalom Jones, the Episcopal priest, abolitionist, & civic leader in late 18th century Philadelphia who worked to make the ideals of the American Revolution a reality. Absalom Jones purchased his wife’s freedom before his own to ensure his son's freedom.

George Downing (b. 1818) was an entrepreneur & civic leader who participated in the Underground Railroad & achieved the desegregation of Newport, RI schools. His father, Thomas Downing, born in Virginia to formerly enslaved parents in 1791, was Manhattan’s 1st eminent purveyor of oysters.

Monticello announced the identification of 6 additional individuals enslaved by Thomas Jefferson. They are now included in Monticello’s Contemplative Site, a memorial to honor & list the known names of those enslaved by Jefferson over the course of his lifetime. www.monticello.org/press/news-r...

Meta Fuller, sculptor. Her English grandfather had married her grandmother, a free Black woman, in VA. She challenged racial mores: "I was told the American Girls' Club was here for the American girl students who came to Paris to study. I felt that I, as an American girl, was entitled to come here."

Dr. Solomon Fuller - grandson of Virginians who bought their freedom & moved to Liberia - earned his MD from Boston University in 1897 & was invited by Alois Alzheimer to do research at University of Munich in 1904. He was among 1st neurologists to work on disease now called Alzheimers.

In 1799 Revolutionary War veteran John Chavis attended what is today Washington & Lee University. In 1808 he opened a highly regarded school in Raleigh, NC for Black & white students. See Helen Orthow, John Chavis: African American Patriot, Preacher, Teacher, & Mentor 1763-1838.

Dr. Matilda Evans performs surgery in the operating room of Taylor Lane Hospital which she founded in South Carolina in 1901. Dr. Evans was a public heath pioneer & benefactor who treated Black & white patients. She was an advocate & practitioner of health care as a human right.

Congressman George Henry White (b. 1852), son of a formerly enslaved mother, was an educator & lawyer as well as a U.S. Representative from North Carolina In 1900. White was the 1st member of Congress to introduce legislation making lynching a federal crime.

George Brown holding John Teter Jr., son of one of Brown's employees at the Cleveland Marine Steam Railways. Brown, an entrepreneur & carpenter, purchased substantial property & established key businesses as a founder of Punta Gorda. He paid his employees according to their skill rather than color.

"African Americans played a tremendous role in the establishment, history, & growth of Punta Gorda. Nearly half of the city’s original setters were African American. Despite Jim Crow norms, the pioneers created a society where shared prosperity & mutual respect prevailed." Blanchard House website

“Portrait of Frederick” c. 1840 now in the Mississippi Museum of Art. After the Civil War, Frederick took the surname Baker and was ordained as a minister. www.mississippifreepress.org/rare-portrai...

Barzillai Lew (b. 1743) served with distinction during the American Revolutionary War. He purchased the freedom of his future wife, Dinah Bowman, for $400 in 1767. The 1790 census lists him as head in a household of 14 free people of color. Their house became a stop on the Underground Railroad.

During Reconstruction, South Carolina congressman Robert Elliot put his own life at risk to enact measures to litigate & suppress Klan terrorism. He delivered a powerful speech in 1875 in support of the Civil Rights Act that banned discrimination in public transit, accommodations, & schools.

In the 1880s, Florida Ruffin Ridley wrote for the Boston Globe, organized a national conference for Black women, & edited the newspaper, The Women’s Era. “We the women of the Women’s Era Club enter the field to work hand in hand with women, generally for humanity and humanity’s interests.”

“Woman seated wearing a white cotton blouse and skirt with a dark fur stole around her shoulders” c. 1915 from the Missouri State Archives.

The Roett family. Young Catherine Juanita Roett on the right became a pediatrician & opened a practice in 1952, shared an office with her father Rupert, a surgeon from Barbados who founded a Houston hospital. By 1956 she was faculty at Baylor College of Medicine & staff at Texas Children’s Hospital.

"Terrell and her fellow activists saw the need for a national organization to provide a network of women-led initiatives, among them voting rights and racial justice. Terrell...was among the principals in the 1953 Supreme Court case that desegregated restaurants and stores in Washington, DC."

In the 1890s Fannie Barrier Williams founded a hospital, cofounded the National Association for Colored Women, served on the Chicago Public Library board & in the Chicago Women's Club (despite threats). A champion of voting rights, she was asked to eulogize Susan B. Anthony.

Marian Anderson (b. 1897 in Philadelphia) was a singer & international diplomat of democracy who inspired admirers worldwide. She is depicted here in a 1965 portrait by Harlem Renaissance modernist & abstract expressionist painter, Beauford Delaney (b. 1901 in Knoxville).

Josephine Silone Yates was a professor of chemistry & among the 1st women in the US to head a university science department. She was also a journalist & editor & served as the president of the National Association of Colored Women in 1901.

C. R. Patterson, formerly enslaved in Virginia, founded a vehicle production company in Ohio, “an industry leader in winter buggy design,” that operated for 3 generations (1865-1939). With his son, Frederick, at the helm, the prosperous company produced automobiles, trucks, & buses.

Frances Harper (b. 1825) author & educator, advocated equal rights, women’s suffrage, education & abolition in her writing, lectures & civic work. At the 1866 inaugural meeting of the American Equal Rights Association she urged “justice is not fulfilled so long as woman is unequal before the law.”

Charles Ray advocated for the rights of all Americans. He attended Wesleyan University in 1832, edited The Colored American in 1838, & supported the pro-abolition Liberty Party in the 1840s. “We are all alike constituents of the same government,” he argued, “and members of the same rising family.”

Political scientist Ralph Bunche won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1950. He & Barack Obama descended from John Punch, an enslaved African who had a son with a European indentured servant in 1630s VA. The family bifurcated into the “white” Punches of VA (Obama’s mom's line) & the “colored” Bunches of NC.

“If we desire a society of peace, then we cannot achieve such a society through violence.”  Bayard Rustin

Dr. Rebecca Lee Crumpler earned her degree in medicine in 1864. After the Civil War she joined the many Black professionals who moved South to work with formerly enslaved individuals. In 1883 she published A Book of Medical Discourses focusing on maternal health.

3,800 years ago in Peru flourished “one of the world's first great civilisations….the Caral people adapted to climate disaster without turning to war….a society built on trade, music, ritual and consensus….living in harmony with nature and relating to other cultures with respect.”

After buying her freedom in 1855, Elizabeth Keckley established a clothing business in Washington DC favored by the elite. During the Civil War she established an organization to assist formerly enslaved Americans. After Lincoln’s assassination she published a memoir to raise funds for his widow.

Mary Ellen Pleasant was an entrepreneur, civic leader & descendant of the enslaved. She used her fortune, acumen & connections to support anti-slavery & anti-discrimination causes throughout her life. Her suit against segregated public transport went to the California Supreme Court in 1866.

Ignatius Sancho was a British composer, author, & shopkeeper born on the Middle Passage. A politically active figure, his property allowed him to vote - but his 1780 best-selling posthumous book may have had the most profound impact on abolitionist politics in England.

Dr. Edward Bouchet (b. 1852) was among the first Americans to earn a Ph.D. in physics in U.S. history. The son of a formerly enslaved father, Dr. Bouchet earned his doctorate from Yale in 1876.

In 1780 Elizabeth Freeman challenged slavery in court & won. Her husband was killed fighting in the American Revolution. Her earnings as a midwife made her one of the few women of the era to pay taxes. Her case was among "the greatest attempts to put the ideals of inalienable rights into practice.”

Equestrian Pablo Fanque (born in England c. 1810) owned, operated, & performed in a widely popular circus. After John Lennon saw and purchased a vintage 1843 playbill for it that read, “Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!” he composed a Beatles song about it in 1967.

Dr. Solomon Fuller was the grandson of Virginians who bought their freedom & moved to Liberia in 1852. He earned his MD from Boston University in 1897 & was invited by Alois Alzheimer to do research at the University of Munich in 1904. He was among the 1st neurologists to work on Alzheimers disease.

Born in Trinidad, Dr. John Alcindor earned his MD in Scotland in 1899 & was a physician, political activist, & senior district medical officer in London. He was awarded a Red Cross medal for his work treating the wounded in WWI. His great-nephew is Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

William Hinton, son of formerly enslaved parents, earned his MD from Harvard in 1912 where he was a professor for 27 years. Clinical pathologist, laboratory director, textbook author, public health pioneer, physician & scientist, he founded the 1st school for women laboratory technicians in the US.

A. Philip Randolph (b. 1889) championed the rights of working people. He persuaded Roosevelt to order an end to discrimination in war industries & Truman to ban discrimination in federal employment & the armed services. President Johnson presented him with the presidential Medal of Freedom in 1964.

“For all intents and purposes, Nkrumah paralleled Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. in his reach and influence. That little is known about him outside of Africa and African diasporic communities is a reflection of the continued marginalization of the continent in the Western imagination.”

Renowned artist Horace Pippin turned to painting to address the injuries he sustained as a WWI soldier as well as reflect on American culture & history. His Holy Mountain series endeavored to envision “peace in the land” of a troubled world. This is Pippin’s Holy Mountain III which he made 1945.

Lemuel Haynes, an American Patriot & minister, the son of African & European parents, argued for universal rights in his 1776 antislavery tract, Liberty Further Extended: “Freedom is an innate principle… Shall a man's color be the decisive criterion whereby to judge of his natural right?"

Dr. Ruth Easterling, physician, clinical pathologist, earned her MD from Tufts in 1921, was affiliated with Harvard labs & Boston’s Beth Israel Hospital & served at Tuskegee VA Hospital before becoming director of labs at Cambridge Massachusetts City Hospital & researching tuberculosis.