People, Locations, Episodes

Mississippi Valley State University is Founded

On this date in 1950, Mississippi Valley State University was founded in Bena in the heart of the Delta. It is one of over 100 historically black colleges and universities in America.

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 […]

Alexs Pate, Author, and Educator born

*Alexs Pate was born on this date in 1950. He is a Black Author and educator. He was born in Philadelphia, PA. From 1999 to 201, he was on the University of Southern Maine faculty and an assistant professor at the University of Minnesota. Pate has published five novels to date. His best-known work is […]

Freeman Hrabowski, Biochemist born

*Freeman Hrabowski was born on this date in 1950. He is an African American administrator and educator in biochemistry.

Henry Louis Gates Jr., Educator born

*Henry Louis Gates Jr. was born on this date in 1950. He is an African American educator, author, literary critic, and historian.

From Keyser, W.Va., he grew up in neighboring Piedmont. At the age of 14, Gates was injured while playing touch football, fracturing the ball and socket joint of his hip, resulting in a slipped epiphysis. The injury was misdiagnosed and when the physical damage finally healed, Gates’ right leg was two inches shorter than his left. Because of the injury, Gates uses a cane to help him walk.

Verene Shepherd, Academic and Professor born

*The birth of Verene Shepherd is celebrated on this date in 1951. She is an Afro Jamaican academic and professor. Verene Albertha Shepherd was born in Hopewell, Saint Mary Parish, Jamaica, one of the ten children of Ruthlyn and Alfred Lazarus. She attended Huffstead Basic School, Rosebank Primary School, and St. Mary High School and then […]

Geoffrey Canada, Educator born

*Geoffrey Canada was born on this date in 1952.  He is a Black social activist and educator.   Born in New York City, Canada was raised in the South Bronx. He is the third of four sons of McAlister and Mary Canada. His parents’ marriage ended in 1956, after which his father played little part […]

Gerald Early, Essayist born

*Gerald Early was born on this date in 1952. He is a Black essayist and American culture critic. Gerald Lyn Early was born in Philadelphia, the son of Henry Early and Florence Fernandez Oglesby. His father, a baker, died when Early was nine months old, leaving his mother, a preschool teacher, to raise him and […]

The Kendall School for the Deaf Opens

*This date in 1952 celebrates the integration of Schools for Black deaf children. Segregation was also prevalent within the American deaf community.

That year Miller vs. Board of Education was filed in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia forcing the integration of Kendall Elementary School for the deaf on located on Gallaudet University campus.

Spingarn High School, Washington D.C. Opens

*Spingarn High School is celebrated on this date in 1952. This was a segregated public high school for Black students in the District of Columbia. The school is named after Joel Elias Spingarn, a white-American Jewish educator and activist. Spingarn High School opened as a new modern high school, the last segregated high school built in Washington, […]

Cornel West, Scholar, and Educator born

Cornel West, an African American scholar and activist, was born on this date in 1953.

Born in Tulsa, OK, he is one of America’s most prominent Black intellectuals. West earned a BA from Harvard University and his MA and PhD degrees from Princeton University. His first book, Prophesy Deliverance! An Afro-American Revolutionary Christianity (1982), sought to fuse Christianity and Marxism. He taught religion and directed the Afro-American Studies Department at Princeton prior to joining the Harvard faculty in 1994. There, West is the Alphonse Fletcher Jr., University Professor.

Harryette Mullen, Writer born

*Harryette Mullen was born on this date in 1953. She is an African American writer and professor.

Randall Kennedy, Scholar, Lawyer, and Author born

*Randall Kennedy was born this date in 1954, in Columbia, South Carolina, He is an African American Law professor and author.

Theodore Shaw, Lawyer, and Educator born

*Theodore Shaw was born on this date in 1954.  He is a Black lawyer, activist, and educator.  Theodore Michael Shaw is the son of Theodore and Jean Audrey Churchill Shaw. He was born on Governors Island and raised in Harlem and the Bronx, NY. He received his B.A. from Wesleyan University in 1976 and his […]

Regina Harris Baiocchi, Music Educator and Composer born

*Regina Harris Baiocchi was born on July 16, 1956. She is a Black music educator, composer, and writer of short stories and poetry. Regina A. Harris was the third of eight children born in Chicago to Elgie Harris Jr. and Lanzie Mozelle (Belmont) Harris. She was exposed to the arts early, took guitar lessons at […]