People, Locations, Episodes

Louis Gossett, Film/TV Actor born

*Louis Gossett was born on this date in 1936. He was a Black actor. Louis Cameron Gossett Jr. was born in Coney Island, Brooklyn, New York City, to Hellen Rebecca Wray, a nurse, and Louis Gossett Sr., a Pulman porter. He is an alumnus of Mark Twain Intermediate School 239 and Abraham Lincoln High School. […]

Don Cornelius, TV Producer born

*Don Cornelius was born on this date in 1936. He was an African American television show host and producer.

Donald Cortez Cornelius was born in Chicago in 1936. After high school, he sold insurance before becoming one of the early employees of Chicago’s WVON radio. During that time as a radio journalist inspired by the civil rights movement, Cornelius recognized that in the late 1960s there was no television venue in America for soul music.

The Negro Actors Guild Begins

*On this date in 1936, the Negro Actors Guild (NAG) is celebrated.   Formed in 1936, the Negro Actors Guild of America (NAG) wanted to eliminate stereotyping of African Americans in theatrical and cinematic performances.  They began operation in 1937 to create better opportunities for black actors during a period in America when the country was […]

Billy Dee Williams, Actor born

*Billy Dee Williams was born on this date in 1937.  He is a Black actor, voice actor, and artist.   William December Williams Jr. was born in New York City, the son of Loretta Anne, a West Indian-born elevator operator at the Lyceum Theatre. She was an aspiring performer from Montserrat, and William December Williams, Sr., a Black and Native American caretaker from Texas.  He grew up in Harlem.  He used to go […]

Robert Hooks, Actor, and Theatre Advocate born

*On this date in 1937, Robert Hooks was born.  He is a Black actor, producer, and activist.   The youngest of five children, Hooks was born in Foggy Bottom, Washington, D.C.  His mother was Mae Bertha (Ward), a seamstress, and Edward Hooks, who had moved from Rocky Mount, North Carolina, with their four other children, Bernice, Caroleigh, Charles Edward “Charlie,” and James Walter “Jimmy.” Named […]

Morgan Freeman, Actor born

Morgan Freeman was born on this date in 1937. He is an African American actor, director, and activist.

Bill Cosby, Actor, and Comedian born

Bill Cosby, an African American entertainer, author, educator, and businessperson, was born on this date in 1937.

Ron O’Neal, Actor born

*Ron O’Neal was born on this date in 1937. He was an African American actor.

From Utica, NY he got his big break when he was cast in Charles Gordone’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play No Place to Be Somebody, which began at Off-Broadway’s Public Theater and later went to Broadway in 1969. The producers of “Superfly,” urban crime film were impressed with his work. They cast him as the movie’s lead character, a cool cocaine dealer named Youngblood Priest. “Superfly” became an unexpected hit, one of the defining films of the twentieth century Blaxploitation genre.

Yaphet Kotto, Actor born

Yaphet Kott, an African American actor, was born on this date in 1937.

Yaphet Frederick Kotto was born in New York Cit. His father was an Igbo Jewish man from Cameroon and Kotto is a practicing Jew by faith. His father was royalty in Cameroon, making Yaphet the son of the Crown Prince of the Royal Bell family of the Doualla region of West Africa’s Cameroon.

Sherman Hemsley, Actor born

*Sherman Hemsley was born on February this date in 1938. He was an African American actor.

Michael DeMond Davis, Journalist born.

*Michael DeMond Davis was born on this date in 1939. He was a Black journalist and a pioneer in African American journalism, opening the doors for many African American writers. Michael Davis was born in Washington, D.C., the son of John P. Davis and Marguerite DeMond Davis, and grew up in a black middle class […]

Joseph Wilcots, Cinematographer born

*Joseph Wilcots was born on this date in 1939.  He was a Black Cinematographer.   From Des Moines, Iowa, Joseph Morrow Wilcots was the son of Henry Nathaniel Wilcots, a janitor at the Des Moines Register newspaper.  As a child, Joseph’s father resolved a worker strike at the newspaper and became their business manager.  His mother, […]

Max Robinson, TV News Anchor born

Max Robinson was born on this date in 1939. He was an African American journalist and television news correspondent.

Cleavon Little, Actor born

*Cleavon Little was born on this date in 1939. He was a Black stage, film, and television actor. Cleavon Jake Little was born in Chickasha, Oklahoma, the son of Malachi Little and DeEtta Jones Little. He was the brother of singer DeEtta Little West; he had another sister, Rosemarie Little Martin, and two brothers, Everett […]

The First Black Person Is Seen On An American Television Show

*On this date in 1939, “The Ethel Waters Show,” a variety special appeared on NBC. The new medium then in development was called television.