People, Locations, Episodes

Johnson Publishing Company is Formed

*The founding of Johnson Publishing Company, Inc. (JPC) is celebrated on this date in 1942. This company was an African American print and media publishing business. Johnson Publishing Company was founded by John Harold Johnson, who was working as an office clerk for Chicago-based Supreme Life Insurance Company of America. Using money from a $500 loan […]

Sara Gómez, Filmmaker born

*Sara Gómez was born on this date in 1942.  She was an Afro Cuban filmmaker.  Sara Gómez, aka Sarita Gómez, came from the folkloric Havana neighborhood of Guanabacoa.  Her community was of Afro Cuban popular culture and a marginal sector of Cuba with many issues, such as racism and gender inequality.  She studied music (piano), […]

Bill Duke, Actor, and Director born

*Bill Duke was born on this date in 1943. He is an African American actor and film director.

Born in Poughkeepsie, New York, Duke received his first instruction in the performing arts at Boston University where he majored in speech and drama. After also studying at New York University’s Tisch School of Arts and the AFI Conservatory, Duke began his career behind the camera, directing episodes of several noteworthy 1980s television series, including Hill Street Blues and Miami Vice.

Don Mitchell, Actor born

*Don Mitchell was born on this date in 1943. He was an African American actor.

Leslie Uggams, Actress, and Singer born

*Leslie Uggams was born on this date in 1943.  She is a Black actress and singer.   Leslie Marian Uggams was born in Harlem, NYC, the daughter of Juanita Ernestine (Smith), a Cotton Club chorus girl/dancer, and Harold Coyden Uggams, an elevator operator and maintenance man, a singer with the Hall Johnson choir.  She attended the Professional Children’s School of New York and Juilliard. Uggams […]

Patrick Ellis, Gospel Disc Jockey born

*Patrick Ellis was born on this date in 1943.  He was a Black radio show host and production director.   Patrick Connery Ellis was born at Freedman’s Hospital in Washington, D.C.  His mother, Ida Delaney Ellis, was a teacher, and his father, Roy Alexander Ellis, was a government labor relations specialist. He had one brother, Roy M. Ellis. After attending public schools, Ellis […]

Georg Stanford Brown, Actor and Director born.

*Georg Stanford Brown was born on this date in 1943. He is an Afro Cuban actor and director. Brown was seven years old and born in Cuba when his family moved from Havana to Harlem, N.Y. At 15, he formed The Parthenon singing group. Brown quit high school at 16 and left New York to move to […]

Judy Richardson, Media Producer, and Activist born

*Judy Richardson was born on this date in 1944.  She is a Black Film producer, author, educator, and activist.   Born in Tarrytown, New York, her father was autoworker William King Richardson, and her mother stated office worker Mae Louise Tucker Richardson. Richardson grew up in the “under the hill” section of Tarrytown. The town was […]

Anthony Barboza, Photographer born

*Anthony Barboza was born on this date in 1944. He is a Black photographer, historian, artist and writer. From New Bedford, Massachusetts, he has family roots in Cape Verde. From work that began in commercial art more than forty years ago, Barboza’s artistic talents and successful career helped him to cross over and pursue his passions in the […]

Roscoe Orman, Actor, and Children’s Advocate born

*Roscoe Orman was born on this date in 1944. He is a Black actor, writer, artist, and child advocate. Orman was born in The Bronx, New York. While a student at New York City’s High School of Art and Design, Orman made his theatrical debut in the 1962 topical revue “If We Grow Up.” He […]

Denise Nicholas, Actress, and Writer born

*Denise Nicolas was born on this date in 1944.  She is a Black retired actress and writer.  From Detroit, MI, Nicholas attended the University of Michigan and studied acting in New York.  Her stage career began as an apprentice with the Free Southern Theater, touring rural Louisiana and Mississippi during the American Civil Rights Movement.  […]

Tim Reid, Film/TV Actor, Director, and Producer born

*Tim Reid was born on this date in 1944. He is a Black actor, film director, and media philanthropist.  Timothy Lee Reid was born in Norfolk, Virginia, and raised in the Crestwood area of Chesapeake, Virginia, formerly Norfolk County, Virginia. He is the son of William Lee and Augustine (née Wilkins) Reid. He earned his […]

Vonetta McGee, Actress born

*Vonetta McGee was born on this date in 1945. She was an African American actress.

Lawrence Vonetta McGee (named after her father) was born in San Francisco. Her family planned for her to have a career in law, and she began studying pre-law at San Francisco State College, but she became involved in amateur theater and was bitten by the acting bug. McGee left college without graduating and joined the many American actors who moved to Rome in the 1960s to find work at the Cinecittà film studios.

Dennis Johnson, TV Executive born

*Dennis Johnson was born this date in 1945. He was an African American Television producer and director.

From Kenbridge, Va., and attended Temple University and UCLA. While studying at UCLA in the 1970s, Johnson began working at NBC as a page, for the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. He then climbed the production ladder as an associate producer before moving into the programming department.

Ron Glass, Actor born

*Ron Glass was born on this date in 1945. He was an African American actor.