People, Locations, Episodes

Gregory Hines, a Complete Entertainer born

*The birth of Gregory Hines is marked on this date in 1946. He was an African American tap dancer, choreographer, dramatic and comic actor, singer, and director.

Haile Gerima, Filmmaker born

*Haile Gerima was born on this date in 1946. He is an Ethiopian American filmmaker.

Born in Gondor, Ethiopia in 1946, Gerima is the fourth child of ten children. His father was a writer and his mother a teacher. As a youth Gerima performed in his father’s theater troupe, which presented original and often historical drama, always submersed in the genuine culture of Ethiopia.   Gerima came to the U.S. in 1967 to study at the Goodman School of Drama. He slowly realized that “with cinema I could control many more things than n the theatre.”

Suzanne De Passe, Media Entrepreneur born.

*Suzanne De Passe was born on this date in 1946. She is a Black media entrepreneur. De Passe was born in New York City to a Harlem-born mother of Jamaican descent and a father of Haitian and French descent. She attended Manhattan High School and later Syracuse University. De Passe began her career in show […]

Danny Glover, Actor, and Activist born

Danny Glover was born on this date in 1946. He is an African American actor and director and an activist.

Danny Lebern Glover was born in San Francisco. He is a graduate of San Francisco State University. As a young man he was a member of the Black Panther Party.

At the University, he met and married his wife, Asake Bomani, in 1975; they have one child named Mandisa.

Ben Vereen, Dancer, and Singer born

*Ben Vereen was born on this date in 1946. He is a Black actor, dancer, and singer. Vereen was born Benjamin Augustus Middleton in Laurinburg, North Carolina. While still an infant, Vereen and his family relocated to the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood in Brooklyn, New York City. He was adopted by James Vereen, a paint factory worker, […]

Chester Higgins Jr., Photographer born

*The birth of Chester Higgins Jr. is celebrated on this date in 1946. He is a Black photographer. Higgins was born in Fairhope, Alabama, and grew up in New Brockton, Alabama. He attended Tuskegee Institute (now Tuskegee University), where he met the school’s official photographer, Prentice H. Polk. He graduated in 1970 with a bachelor’s degree in business […]

Samuel Wright, Actor, and Singer born

*Samuel Wright was born on this date in 1946. He was a Black actor and singer. Samuel Edward Wright was from Camden, South Carolina.  He was a student at Camden High School, where he was involved with sports and the arts. His first Broadway role was in the original 1971 cast of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s […]

Peggy Cooper Cafritz, Artisan and Philanthropist born

*Peggy Cooper Cafritz was born on this date in 1947. She was a Black art collector, educator, activist, philanthropist, and socialite. Born Pearl Alice Cooper, Peggy Cafritz belonged to one of Mobile, Alabama’s wealthiest black families. She later changed her name legally to her childhood nickname, “Peggy.” The Cooper family gained their wealth through Peggy’s […]

Cathy Hughes, Media Entrepreneur born

*Cathy Hughes was born on this date in 1947.  She is a Black entrepreneur, radio and television personality and business executive.   Born Catherine Elizabeth Woods to Helen Jones Woods and William Alfred Woods.  Her mother Helen Woods, was a trombonist with the International Sweethearts of Rhythm and her father was the first Black to earn an accounting degree from […]

Tamara Dobson, Model, and Actress born

*Tamara Dobson was born on this date in 1947. She was an African American actress and fashion model.

Günther Kaufmann, Actor born

*Günther Kaufmann was born on this date in 1947.   He was a Black German Gay actor.  Born in Munich, Germany, Kaufmann’s Black GI father, whom he never knew, returned to the US before he was born. Some Germans call him a “Besatzungskind,” one of the many children born between 1945 and 1949 due to relationships […]

Carl Weathers, Actor born.

*Carl Weathers was born on this date in 1948.  He was a Black football player and actor. From New Orleans, LA., Weathers started performing in plays as early as grade school. In high school, athletics took him down another path, but he would reunite with his first love later in life. Weathers played college football […]

Phylicia Rashad, Actress born

Phylicia Rashad, an African American actress. was born on this date in 1948.

Samuel L. Jackson, Actor, and Producer born

*Samuel Jackson was born on this date in 1948.  He is a Black actor and film producer.   Samuel Leroy Jackson was born in Washington, D.C., the son of Elizabeth Harriett Montgomery and Roy Henry Jackson.  He grew up as an only child in Chattanooga, Tennessee.  His father lived away from the family in Kansas City, Missouri, and later died from alcoholism. Jackson met […]

Lynn Thigpen, Actress born.

Lynne Thigpen was born on this date in 1948. She was an African American actress.

Born in Joliet, IL, she was first seen on the New York stage in the 1975 “The Night That Made America Famous.” Unfortunately, it didn’t make her famous (not overnight, anyway), but she stuck with her craft, and not long thereafter, won a Theatre World Award for her performance in “Tintypes.” Thigpen was also in films, including “Warriors” (1979), “Godspell” (1981), “Tootsie” (1981), “Lean on Me” (1985) and “Impulse” (1988). Other films were “Bob Roberts,” “Random Hearts,” “Shaft,” and “The Insider.”