“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.

Dr. José Manuel Valdéz was appointed Peru’s highest ranked physician in 1835. Along with other Black physicians like José Manuel Dávalos & José Pastor de Larringa, he pioneered advancements in public health & vaccination campaigns that advanced Peru’s development.

Salaria Kee (b. 1917) was an American nurse who volunteered in the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) to defeat fascism and who went on to serve in WWII as well as cared for patients in New York City hospitals.

Dr. Dorothy Irene Height (b. 1912) was one of the “most celebrated figures & tireless freedom fighters in American history.” A leader in the Civil Rights Movement, she counseled presidents & established an organization for women of diverse racial & religious backgrounds to advance the movement.

Portrait of Violet Anthony made by Jefferson Gauntt in 1832 displayed in the Virginia Museum of Fine Art. The museum label says Ms. Anthony was enslaved in Philadelphia & that she is wearing a coral necklace, a traditional piece of jewelry for women of West Indian descent.

Judge Robert Terrell was a native of Charlottesville, Virginia who graduated Harvard (cum laude) in 1884, practiced law, headed the Dunbar School, taught at Howard University, married activist Mary Church Terrell, & served as a municipal judge in Washington DC.

In 1940, Pauli Murray was jailed for not giving up their seat on a bus. As an attorney, Murray articulated the legal arguments that overturned racial segregation in the 1954 Brown decision & discrimination against women when courts recognized that the equal protection clause applies to women in 1971

In 1926 Hallie Quinn Brown published a book of biographies of Black women leaders. She wrote, “the spirit of great women have been checked by irresistible circumstances....She is organizing her strength & will soon compel a recognition of her power & her rights.”

At the site of the Wallace forced labor camp on AL’s Coosa River, which was worked and maintained by 100 enslaved people, a deal granting previously blocked Black access to the Black burial grounds and planning future use of the plantation was struck. wapo.st/41MlFRT

Charles Ray (b. 1807) championed freedom as a leader in the American Anti-Slavery Society, Underground Railroad & newspaper editor. 2 of his daughters became attorneys, his 3rd an accomplished poet. “We are all alike constituents of the same government,” he said, “members of the same rising family.”

Company I of the 36th Colored Regiment served during the Civil War’s Battle of Chaffin’s Farm and New Market Heights. Henrico County, VA, envisions a new trail project that would commemorate the battle and the 14 Black soldiers who earned Medals of Honor in it. richmondfreepress.com/news/2025/au...

Marie Thérèse Metoyer aka Coincoin was a médecine & entrepreneur who became free in Louisiana in 1778. She acquired land, farmed, & produced medicine. Her parents were African; her descendants (her granddaughter is pictured here) built an enduring community of free people.

In 1848 Boston attorney Robert Morris challenged school segregation in court a century before Brown v Board of Ed. Black Bostonians had petitioned for equal education starting in 1787. Morris fought for the rights of his African & Irish American clients & was appointed magistrate by the governor.

Elizabeth Catlett (b. 1915 in Washington DC), descendant of the enslaved, daughter of a Tuskegee math professor & a teacher, herself a lifelong student & professor & ultimately a citizen of Mexico, was among the greatest American artists of the 20th century.

Attorney Gaius Bolin is pictured here graduating Williams College in 1889. His daughter Judge Jane Bolin earned her law degree from Yale in 1931 & was sworn in as a New York City judge in 1939.

"His last great work, Born In Blackness, persuasively made the argument that Africa’s encounter with Europe provided the decisive spark that created the modern world in which we now more or less happily reside."

Euphemia Toussaint was freed by her uncle, Pierre Toussaint, a formerly enslaved man from Haiti who became a very successful entrepreneur & philanthropist in New York. She wrote him weekly letters in English & French. This one is from June 20, 1828.

Ellen & William Craft lived near one another in Georgia with different enslavers. In 1848 they escaped when Ellen disguised herself as a white man traveling with William posing as her servant. The couple worked in Boston for 2 years until the Fugitive Slave Act forced them to seek safety in England.

Jeremiah Haralson was elected Unites States Representative in 1875. Born in Georgia, he was sold three times as a child, taught himself to read & write, & became one of the most powerful orators in the nation.

Grateful to @rhomomoney.bsky.social & @profjeffries.bsky.social who invite us to inquire & care about our world, celebrate our connections, & strive for greater, stronger community.

In 1829 David Walker, son of an enslaved man & a free Black woman in NC, published an Appeal reminding readers of their natural rights, inherent equality, & political duty to reject despotism. Distributed via southern ports by white agents, Black seamen, & sewn into the clothing that Walker vended.

Abraham Galloway was a Union spy & military recruiter, active abolitionist, voting rights advocate & North Carolina State Senator. His mother was enslaved & his father was a white boatman.

Raphael Elizé was a WWI veteran from Martinique & veterinarian trained in Lyon who became France’s first elected Black mayor in 1929. In WWII Elizé worked with the French Resistance but was deported to Germany’s Buchenwald concentration camp in 1945 where he was killed.

Georgia Louise Harris Brown earned a degree in architecture in 1944 after studying with Mies van der Rohe. After working in Chicago, advancing her study of civil engineering & learning Portuguese, she moved to Brazil where she opened her own firm & designed buildings for Pfizer, Kodak, & Krupp.