People, Locations, Episodes

Miriam Rose, Aboriginal Educator born

*This date in 1950 is celebrated as the birth date of Miriam Rose. She is a Black Aboriginal Artist and Educator.  Miriam Rose Ungunmerr-Baumann was born in the bush near Daly River in 1950.  She is a member of the Ngangiwumirr language group and speaks four other local languages. When she was about five years […]

The Ebony Showcase Theater and Cultural Arts Center Opens

 *On this date in 1950, we celebrate the Ebony Showcase Theatre and Cultural Arts Center (ESTCAC), Inc., Originally opened in 1923 as the Rimpau Theatre, Washington & Rimpau streets in Los Angeles. The location was on the south side of the street, five blocks east of La Brea Ave. Its seating capacity was 750; in […]

Jawole Willa Jo Zollar, Dancer, Teacher, and Choreographer born

*Jawole Willa Jo Zollar was born on this date in 1950. She is a Black dancer, teacher, and choreographer of modern dance. One of six children, she was born Willa Jo Zollar in Kansas City, Missouri, to parents Alfred Zollar Jr. and Dorothy Delores Zollar. From age seven to seventeen, Zollar received her dance education […]

Syl Jones, Media Consultant, and Playwright born

Syl Jones was born on this date in 1951. He is an African American author, playwright, and media consultant.

He was born Cincinnati, Ohio, the son of Sylvester and Juanita Jones. His family migrated north from Arkansas through Chicago in the early 1930s. After high school, Jones attended and graduated from Augsburg College in Minneapolis in 1973 with a double major in English and Theatre Arts.

Delroy Lindo, Actor born

*Delroy Lindo was born on this date in 1952. He is a Black British-American actor. Delroy George Lindo was born in Lewisham, southeast London, the son of Jamaican parents who had immigrated to the United Kingdom. Lindo grew up in nearby Eltham and became interested in acting like a child when he appeared in a […]

Carrie Mae Weems, Photographer, and Teacher born

*Carrie Mae Weems was born on this date in 1953. She is a Black artist working in text, fabric, audio, digital images, and installation video, and she is best known for her photography. Weems was born in Portland, Oregon, the second of seven children to Carrie Polk and Myrlie Weems. She began participating in dance […]

Lynn Whitfield, Actress born

*Lynn Whitfield was born on this date in 1953. She is a Black actress. From Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Whitfield made her film debut in Dr. Detroit in 1983. Three years later, she played the title character in the fact-based TV movie Johnnie Mae Gibson: FBI, the story of the first Black female FBI agent. After […]

Darwoud Bey, Photographer born

*The birth of Dawoud Bey is marked on this date in 1953.  He is a Black photographer and educator.  Born David Edward Smikle in New York City’s Jamaica, Queens neighborhood, Smikle attended PS 131 grade school and graduated from Benjamin N. Cardozo High School.  He changed his name to Dawoud Bey in the early 1970s, […]

Marion McClinton, Playwright born

*Marion McClinton was born on this date in 1954.  He was a Black theatre director, playwright, and actor.   Marion Isaac McClinton was born and raised in St. Paul. He attended Catholic school before briefly attending the College of St Thomas in 1973 and then the University of Minnesota.  Swept up in the partying scene, McClinton credits theater […]

Gilda Snowden, Artist born

*Gilda Snowden was born on this date in 1954. She was a Black artist, educator, and mentor. Snowden was born in Detroit, Michigan, and grew up in northwest Detroit. Her father was a dentist. Her parents and grandparents migrated from Alabama and Texas to Detroit early in the 20th century, part of the great migration of blacks […]

Denzel Washington, Actor, Director, and Producer born

Denzel Washington was born on this date in 1954. He is an African American film, television, and stage actor and occasional director.

Denzel Hayes Washington, Jr., was born in Mount Vernon, New York. He has an older sister, Lorice, and a younger brother. His father, Virginia-born Reverend Denzel Washington, was an ordained Pentecostal minister, who worked for the Water Department and at a local department store. His mother, Lennis, a beauty parlor owner, was born in Georgia and raised in Harlem.

Patricia Smith, Writer, and Spoken Word Artist born

*Patricia Smith was born on this date in 1955. She is a Black poet, spoken-word performer, playwright, author, writing teacher, and former journalist. Patricia Smith was born in Chicago, Illinois. She attended Southern Illinois University and Northwestern University. She has published poems in literary magazines and journals, including TriQuarterly, Poetry, The Paris Review, and Tin House, as well as […]

James ‘Chip’ Thomas, Doctor and Artist born

*The birth of James “Chip” Thomas is celebrated on this date in 1957. He is a Black doctor and mural artist. Dr. Thomas graduated from the Meharry Medical College School of Medicine, Meharry Medical College School of Medicine in 1983. He works in TONALEA, AZ, and two other locations and specializes in Family Medicine. Dr. Thomas […]

Willard Wigan, Micro Artist born

*This date in 1957 is celebrated as the birth date of Willard Wigan, a Black British micro-artist and sculptor.  From Wolverhampton, England, as a child, he had dyslexia and Asperger syndrome, neither of which were diagnosed until adulthood. Wigan was ridiculed in a class by his primary school teachers for not learning to read. Wigan […]

The American Society of African Culture, a story

*On this date in 1957, we celebrate the American Society of African Culture (AMSAC), an organization of African American writers, artists, and scholars. The society was founded because of the Congress of Negro Writers and Artists in 1956 based on the idea of the French fr: Société Africaine de culture. In the summer of 1957, five African American […]