*The birth of Reuben Shipley is celebrated on this date in 1811. He was a Black farmer. He was born a slave in Kentucky to a white man named Robert Shipley. His owner moved to Missouri and brought him along. Reuben Shipley married in Missouri; his wife and sons were slaves 30 miles away on […]
learn more*James Mink was born on this date in 1811. He was a Black Canadian businessman. From Toronto, Ontario, he was the son of Johan Herkimer’s slave Mink and was a slave himself for some years. He was an extremely successful businessman from Toronto, owning multiple businesses in the 1840s. He owned the Mansion Inn and […]
learn more*The birth of Manuel Lopes is celebrated on this date in 1812. He was a Black barber, businessman, and sailor. Lopes was born in the Cape Verde Islands of Africa. He was enslaved, kidnapped, and brought to America. He worked as a sailor in New England, first in Maine and then in the New Bedford area of […]
learn more*Timothy Meaher’s birth is remembered on this date in 1812. He was a white-American 19th-century slaver, businessman, and landowner. From Whitfield, Maine, he was the son of James and Susannah Millay Meaher. James & Susannah were both born in Ireland. He came to Mobile, Alabama, around 1836 and owned a slave ship, the Clotilda. He was responsible […]
learn more*Benjamin F. Roberts was born on this date in 1815. He was a Black printer, writer, activist, and abolitionist. Benjamin F. Roberts was one of the 12 children of Sarah and Robert Roberts. Born in Boston, Massachusetts, he was named after Benjamin Franklin and came from an impressive lineage of activists and writers through both […]
learn more*Henry Wagoner was born on this date in 1816. He was a Black abolitionist and civil rights activist. Henry O. Wagoner was born in Hagerstown, Maryland. As a child, Wagoner was taught to read by his paternal grandmother but was rarely able to attend school, achieving less than a year’s schooling while working on a farm. Starting […]
learn more*The birth of Edmond Edward Wysinger is celebrated on this date in 1816. He was a Black Native American pioneer. He was born in South Carolina, the son of a Cherokee woman and an African slave. In the early part of 1849, at the age of 32, Wysinger and his German owner made the […]
learn more*Hector Davis was born on this date in 1816. He was a white-American slave trader. He was the son of John S. Davis and Jane W. Matthews Davis, the second of his three wives. They resided in Goochland County; in the 1840s, Davis moved to Richmond, where city directories and newspaper advertisements identified him most […]
learn more*The birth of William Lambert is celebrated on this date in 1817. He was a Black abolitionist and businessman. William Lambert was born free in Trenton, New Jersey. At least one of his parents was free at his birth. Crucial to his later success, Lambert was taken under the wing of a Quaker schoolmaster. […]
learn moreOn this date we recall the birth of George Washington in 1817. He was a Black farmer, businessman and the founder of the town of Centralia, Washington.
learn more*On this date in 1818, Bridget “Biddy” Mason was born. She was a once illiterate Black slave woman who worked as a nurse/midwife and then walked from Mississippi to California to become a successful entrepreneur and a generous contributor to social causes.
learn more*James Wormley was born on this date in 1819. He was a Black businessman. James Wormley was born a free Black citizen in 1819 in Washington. He and his siblings believed they were of Native American descent. Wormley started driving a carriage for his father, Lynch Wormley, who owned a livery near the Willard Hotel. […]
learn more*The birth of Benjamin Montgomery is celebrated on this date in 1819. He was a Black inventor. Born a slave in Loudon, Virginia, Montgomery was “purchased” by Jefferson Davis, the future president of the Confederacy and the South’s commander and Chief in the American Civil War, when he was 18. After purchasing his new slave, Davis […]
learn more*George T. Downing was born on this date in 1819. He was a Black abolitionist and businessman. George Thomas Downing was born in New York City to Thomas Downing and Rebecca (West). His father, Thomas, was born in Chincoteague, Virginia, to parents freed from slavery when their master, John Downing, a prominent planter, converted to Methodism. The couple […]
learn more*The birth of Philip Reed is celebrated on this date, c. 1820. He was a Black master craftsman. He was born into slavery in South Carolina’s historic city of Charleston. Also known as Philip Reid, he worked at the foundries of self-taught sculptor Clark Mills. He was emancipated on April 16, 1862, under the […]
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