People, Locations, Episodes

Annie Elizabeth Delany, Dentist born

*Annie Elizabeth Delany was born on this date in 1891.  She was a Black dentist and activist.  Annie Elizabeth “Bessie” Delany was the third of ten children born to the Rev. Henry Beard Delany and Nanny Logan Delany, an educator. H.B. Delany was born into slavery in St. Mary’s, Georgia. Nanny Logan Delany was born […]

The Comité des Citoyens is Formed

*The Comité des Citoyens is celebrated on this date in 1891. This committee was an equal rights organization comprised of Blacks, whites, and Creoles. In 1890, the State of Louisiana passed the Separate Car Act, which required separate accommodations for Black and white people on railroads, including separate railroad cars. At the suggestion of Aristide Mary, […]

Agnes Smedley, Activist, and Social Radical born

*Agnes Smedley was born on this date in 1892. She was a White American activist. The daughter of a laborer, she was born in Osgood, Missouri.

Carter Westley, Lawyer, Activist, and News Journalist born

*Carter Wesley was born on this date in 1892. He was a Black lawyer, newspaperman, and political activist. Carter Walker Wesley was born in Houston, Texas. He grew up in the city’s first and most successful Black neighborhood, Freedmen’s Town. Shortly after completing high school, Westley moved to Nashville, Tennessee, and graduated magna cum laude in […]

Robert Lee Hill, Farmer, and Union Activist born

*Robert Lee Hill was born on this date in 1892. He was an African American sharecropper, and activist and founder of the Progressive Farmers and Household Union of America.

Joseph Ritter, Prelate and Activist born

*Joseph Ritter was born on this date in 1892. He was a white-American prelate of the Roman Catholic Church and a racial justice activist. Born in New Albany, Indiana, Elmer Joseph Ritter was the fourth of Nicholas and Bertha (née Luette) Ritter’s six children. His father owned and operated the Ritter Bakery (where the family […]

Irene M. Gaines, Children, and Womens Activist born

On this date in 1892, Irene M. Gaines was born. She was an African American civil rights reformer devoted to her race, especially Black women and young people.

Walter F. White, NAACP Leader born

Walter Francis White was born on this date in 1893. He was an African American activist and administrator.

His father was a postman and his mother a schoolteacher in Atlanta. Because Atlanta had Jim Crow laws, as a child, White attended segregated Black schools, sat in the rear of buses, and experienced many other indignities of racism. When he was 13, White witnessed a race riot in Atlanta.

Charles S. Johnson, Sociologist born

This date marks the birth of Charles Spurgeon Johnson in 1893. He was an African American sociologist, and authority on race relations.

Freda Kirchwey, Journalist, Professor, and Activist born

Freda Kirchwey was born on this date in 1893. She was a White American civil rights activist and peace advocate.

She was born in Lake Placid, N.Y., where her father, George Washington Kirchwey, was a professor at the Columbia University Law School. He helped establish the New York Peace Society in 1906, supported women’s suffrage, and the development of trade unions.

Otto Huiswoud, Political Activist born

*Otto Huiswoud was born on this date in 1893. He was a black Surinamese political activist and journalist. Otto Eduard Gerardus Majella Huiswoud was born in Paramaribo, a South American coastal city in Suriname. He was the son of Rudolf Huiswoud, a formerly enslaved person who had gained his freedom as a boy and was a […]

James W. Ford, Labor Activist born.

*James W. Ford was born on this date in 1893. He was a Black labor activist and a politician. Ford was born in Pratt City, Alabama. His father, a former resident of Gainesville, Georgia, had come to Alabama in the 1890s to work in the coal mines and steel mills. He worked for 35 years […]

The Colored Women’s League of D.C. is Founded

*The Colored Women’s League (CWL) of Washington, D.C., was incorporated on this date in 1894. This woman’s club’s primary mission was the national union of women of color. A group of several prominent black women in Washington, D.C., met to discuss creating a club devoted to improving the conditions of black children, women, and the urban […]

Eleanor Roosevelt, Political Emissary, and Writer born

*Eleanor Roosevelt was born on this date in 1884. She was a White American diplomat, First lady, writer, humanitarian and Civil Rights activist.

Lovett Fort-Whiteman, Socialist born

*On this date in 1894, we mark the birth of Lovett Fort-Whiteman.   He was a Black political activist and Communist International functionary.   Lovett Huey Fort-Whiteman was born in Dallas, Texas. His father, Moses Whiteman, was a slave in South Carolina and relocated to Texas in 1887, where he worked as a janitor and a small-scale cattle rancher.  At the age of 35, Moses Whiteman married the 15-year-old […]