Untitled

Bishop Dr. Stephen Gill Spottswood (July 18, 1897 – December 2, 1974) was a religious leader and civil rights activist known for his work as bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church and chairman of the NAACP.

His papers are archived at the Amistad Research Center at Tulane University.

He was born in Boston, the only child of Mary Elizabeth and Abraham Lincoln Spottswood. He attended Cambridge Rindge Latin School and Freeport High School in Maine. He went on to Albright College, earning a BA in History, then to Gordon Divinity School, and finally to Yale Divinity School, where he earned his doctorate.

He was named assistant pastor of the First Evangelical United Brethren Church in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and was soon after appointed to the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church. He served in leadership positions at several churches around the country: First AMEZ Church of Lowell in Lowell, Massachusetts, which he founded; Green Memorial AMEZ Church in Portland, Maine; Varick Memorial AMEZ Church in New Haven; Goler Memorial AMEZ Church in Winston-Salem; Jones Tabernacle AMEZ Church in Indianapolis; St. Luke AMEZ Church in Buffalo; and John Wesley AMEZ Church in DC.

He was elected the 58th bishop of the AMEZ. He served in various episcopal districts around the country through the 1950s and 1960s.

Dr. Ezra Dee Alexander (July 18, 1891 - September 19, 1971) was an outgoing and dedicated worker, fondly known as “Dee”, and was born in Monroe County, Bloomington, Indiana, and was one of seven children. He was one of the Founders of Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity.

He graduated from Bloomington High School in 1910. He matriculated at Indiana University in the fall of 1910 and graduated in 1917 with an AB. He held positions as a teacher and principal at Indiana public schools. He received his MD from the Medical School of Indiana University in 1919. He served an internship at Provident Hospital in Chicago in 1920. He practiced medicine in Indianapolis for nearly 50 years.

He was married to Mary Hunter (1920), a teacher in the Indianapolis Public School system. He married Leota Snorden (1961).

Kelly Miller (July 18, 1863 – December 29, 1939) was a mathematician, sociologist, essayist, newspaper columnist, author, and an important figure in the intellectual life of Black America for close to half a century. He was known as “The Bard of the Potomac”.

He attended the Fairfield Institute and was offered a scholarship to Howard University. In two years, he completed the preparatory department’s three-year curriculum in Latin and Greek, then mathematics.

He was the first African American to pursue graduate studies in mathematics in the US and to attend Johns Hopkins University.

He was a member of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity.

His deanship at Howard lasted 12 years, and during that time the college changed significantly. The old classical curriculum was modernized, and new courses in the natural and social sciences were added. He planned a Negro-American Museum and Library and persuaded Jesse E. Moorland to donate his large private library on Blacks in Africa and the US to Howard University. It became the foundation for his Negro-Americana Museum and Library Center.

Pastor Lemuel Haynes (July 18, 1753 – September 28, 1833) was a clergyman. A veteran of the American Revolution, he was the first African American man in the US to be ordained as a minister.

A regular churchgoer, he began to preach as a boy. He served in the militia during the American Revolution, including garrison duty at the recently captured Fort Ticonderoga in 1776. He became an anti-slavery activist. In addition to arguing against involuntary servitude and preaching against the slave trade, he advocated against the colonization movement, arguing that people of African descent living in the US should be entitled to the same rights as other citizens and that having them resettle in Africa would not be beneficial.

“May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.” Romans‬ ‭15:13‬ ‭NIV‬‬

Tyrin Turner (July 17, 1972) is an actor. He is known for playing the lead role of Caine Lawson in Menace II Society.

He made guest appearances on television shows such as Chicago Hope and Hangin’ with Mr. Cooper and made numerous cameo appearances in urban music videos throughout the 1990s. He played the central character in Janet Jackson’s music video for her single Rhythm Nation.

For over twenty years, he has been working behind the scenes writing comedy material for Jamie Foxx and for comedian Affion Crockett.

He was nominated at the 1993 Independent Spirit Awards for playing the lead role as Kaydee “Caine” Lawson in Menace II Society.

Felix Gary Gray (July 17, 1969) is a film director, film producer, and music video director. He began his career as a director on numerous critically acclaimed and award-winning music videos, including “It Was a Good Day”, “Natural Born Killaz”, “Keep Their Heads Ringin’”, “Waterfalls”, and “Ms. Jackson”.

He made his feature film directorial debut with the comedy Friday. He has since directed the films Set It Off, The Negotiator, The Italian Job, Be Cool, Law Abiding Citizen, and Straight Outta Compton. He directed the eighth installment of the Fast & Furious franchise, The Fate of the Furious, which is the 19th-highest-grossing film of all time.

He was born in New York City and raised primarily in South Los Angeles. He discovered a natural talent for working with video cameras in his AV class in high school.

He started working as a camera operator on programs such as Screen Scene. He had a bit of a part in the comedy Major League. He got his first chance to direct music videos, starting with a video for the hip-hop group WC and the Maad Circle. He directed The Negotiator, which earned him both Best Film and Best Director awards at the Acapulco Film Festival.

He directed The Italian Job. He garnered the Best Director award at the Black American Film Festival for his work on the film, which surpassed the $100 million mark at the domestic box office. His next film was A Man Apart.

He received the Ivan Dixon Award of Achievement from the Black Hollywood Education and Resource Center. He was named one of the “50 Best and Brightest African Americans Under 40” by Black Enterprise magazine. He was honored by the African American Film Critics Association with their Special Achievement Award. He was recognized by the Artist Empowerment Coalition with the Artist Empowerment Award that same year. He received the Pioneer Director award from the Pan-African Film and Arts Festival.

Regina Elaine Belle (July 17, 1963) is a singer-songwriter who started her career in the mid-1980s. Known for her singles “Baby Come to Me” and “Make It Like It Was”, she is most notable for two hit duets, both with Peabo Bryson: “Without You” and “A Whole New World”, which won a Grammy Award. The theme song “Far Longer than Forever” was nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Original Song.

She was born in Englewood, New Jersey. She sang her first solo in church at the age of eight. She studied opera at the Manhattan School of Music. She attended Rutgers University and became the first female vocalist with the school’s jazz ensemble. She was introduced to the Manhattans and began working as their opening act. She recorded the duet “Where Did We Go Wrong” with the group on their Back to Basics album. She recorded a second duet, “Maybe Tomorrow”, which appeared on the B-side of “Where Did We Go Wrong”.

She released her debut album All by Myself. It includes her first hits “So Many Tears” and “Show Me the Way”. She released her Platinum-selling third album, Passion. She released Reachin’ Back, followed by Believe in Me.

Her cover of “Just the Two of Us” from the tribute album To Grover, With Love made a return to the Billboard charts. She released the album This Is Regina!, which featured the R&B hit single “Ooh Boy”, and included “Don’t Wanna Go Home” and “From Now On”. She released a jazz standard album, Lazy Afternoon. The album included covers of the Isley Brothers’ “For the Love of You” and Tony Bennett’s “If I Ruled the World”. She collaborated, co-writing and singing on his album “Ladies Choice”. She released her debut gospel album, Love Forever Shines. She released her second gospel album, Higher. She has appeared in concert with many other performers.

Anthony Dwain Lee (July 17, 1961 – October 28, 2000) was an actor and playwright. He began his career in the 1980s, appearing in numerous stage productions and guest roles on television and in films.

While attending a Halloween party in October 2000, he was fatally shot by a Los Angeles Police Department officer. His death, and the circumstances surrounding it, garnered significant national and international media attention.

He was born in Redding, California, and grew up in Sacramento, where he attended Valley High School.

He began acting at the age of 20 in a community acting class that performed productions at retirement and assisted living homes. His first professional productions were at the Sacramento Theater Company. In 1986, he traveled to Ashland, Oregon, and auditioned at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, a nationally and internationally known Regional Equity theater. He was cast the following season at OSF with a ten-month contract. He starred in Master Harold and the Boys as Willie and had a lead role in Carson McCullers’ play. He met his future wife, Serena Scholl, an actress, at OSF. They moved to Sacramento and then to Seattle. The move was precipitated by Lee’s casting in Tim Bond’s The Colored Museum at The Empty Space Theater.

He continued working in stage productions at the Seattle Repertory Theatre. He appeared in The Cider House Rules as Mr. Rose, as Sweet Back in Spunk, and in a role in A Raisin in the Sun. He acted in The Kentucky Cycle at Intiman Theatre. He appeared in productions of The Colored Museum, Uncle Vanya, The Meeting as Malcolm X, and Othello as the lead character. He won the 1995 LAWeekly award for “Best Actor” in “Buffalo Soldier” at Theatre/Theater in Hollywood.

Keith Edward Elam (July 17, 1961 – April 19, 2010) known by his stage name Guru (a backronym for Gifted Unlimited Rhymes Universal), was a rapper, record producer, and actor. He was a member of the hip-hop duo Gang Starr, along with DJ Premier. He was born in Boston.

His father, Harry Justin Elam, served as both a judge and a lawyer and became the first African American judge appointed to the Boston Municipal Court. His mother, Barbara, was the co-director of libraries in the Boston Public Schools system. He graduated with a BA in Business Administration from Morehouse College and took graduate classes at the Fashion Institute of Technology in Manhattan.

Elam began his music career under the pseudonym MC Keithy E but changed his stage name to Guru. He founded Gang Starrin in 1987. The group initially released three records, produced by The 45 King, on the Wild Pitch Records label. The group consisted of him and producer DJ Premier. Gang Starr released its first LP, No More Mr. Nice Guy, on Wild Pitch Records; the group achieved a sizable following and went on to release six critically acclaimed and influential albums. Two albums, Moment of Truth (1998) and compilation Full Clip: A Decade of Gang Starr (1999), were certified gold in the US by the RIAA. Gang Starr made archetypal East Coast hip hop with Guru’s rhyming described as sharp-eyed but anti-ostentatious.

Ge appeared on the Red Hot Organization’s compilation album Stolen Moments: Red Hot + Cool. The album, meant to raise awareness and funds to support the AIDS epidemic in the African American community, was hailed as the album of the year by Time magazine.

His first solo album, not a part of the Jazzmatazz series, Baldhead Slick & da Click, was released in 2001. The album reached #22 on the Billboard R&B/Hip Hop album charts. Version 7.0: The Street Scriptures was released on his record label, 7 Grand Records. It reached #54 on the Billboard R&B Albums charts.

Thomas Colbert Carter (July 17, 1953) is a film and television director, producer, and actor, known for Swing Kids, Save the Last Dance, and Coach Carter.

He is known for his work on The White Shadow, in which he played James “Hollywood” Hayward.

He was born in Austin and grew up in Smithville. After graduating from high school, he enrolled at Texas State University. He received his BFA in Theatre. He was presented with the “Distinguished Alumnus Award” from Texas State University.

He first began his film career as an actor. His first roles included working in television shows/movies such as M*A*S*H, Lou Grant, What’s Happening!!, The Secret of Isis, Whose Life Is It Anyway? The Blue Knight, Good Times, and Hill Street Blues. He was a regular on Szysznyk.

He directed four episodes of The White Shadow, which led him to pursue directing as a career. He went on to produce and/or direct the television series pilots for St. Elsewhere, Miami Vice, Heart of the City, and Equal Justice, which he co-created and executive-produced.

He went on to produce the series Under One Roof about an American family. The drama explored the real-life complications, stress, and dilemmas of a multi-generational African American family living in Seattle.

He directed episodes of Fame, Remington Steele, The New Alfred Hitchcock Presents, and nine episodes of the police drama Hill Street Blues, among others. He produced several series, including serving as executive producer for Hack.

The Port Chicago disaster was a deadly munitions explosion that occurred on July 17, 1944, at the Port Chicago Naval Magazine in Port Chicago, California. Munitions detonated while being loaded onto a cargo vessel bound for the Pacific Theater of Operations, killing 320 sailors and civilians and injuring 390 others. Most of the dead and injured were enlisted African American sailors.

Unsafe conditions inspired hundreds of service members to refuse to load munitions, an act known as the Port Chicago Mutiny. Fifty men‍, called the “Port Chicago 50”‍, were convicted of mutiny and sentenced to 15 years of prison and hard labor, as well as a dishonorable discharge. Forty-seven of the 50 were released in January 1946; the remaining three served additional months in prison.

During and after the trial, questions were raised about the fairness and legality of the court-martial proceedings. Owing to public pressure, the Navy reconvened the courts-martial board in 1945; the board affirmed the convictions. Widespread publicity surrounding the case turned it into a cause célèbre among certain Americans; it, along with other race-related Navy protests of 1944–45, led the Navy to change its practices and to initiate the desegregation of its forces beginning in February 1946. In 1994, the Port Chicago Naval Magazine National Memorial was dedicated to the lives lost in the disaster.

Commander Mack Charles Gaston (July 17, 1940 - December 2, 2018) was born to John Gaston and Felicia (Gilliard) Gaston.

He was a graduate of Tuskegee University, received an MBA from Marymount University, and received a commission as an Ensign in the US Navy in December 1965. He had an impressive naval career spanning 31 years, including command of two destroyers and the cruiser USS Josephus Daniels, and ashore as Commander of Field Command, Defense Nuclear Agency, and the first Black Commander of Naval Training Center Great Lakes. He retired in 1995. Following his retirement from the Navy, he pursued a successful corporate career in senior executive positions at Waste Management, Inc. and Electronic Data Systems.

His infectious smile, unbridled enthusiasm, boundless energy, and firm, some would say “bone-crushing” handshake were hallmarks of a man who throughout his life was focused on people, human rights, personal dignity, increased opportunity for all, including women serving their country with honor. He served as a mentor and role model, positively influencing the lives and careers of countless individuals.

Elias Augustus Dorsey Jr. (July 17, 1940 - July 26, 2010) was one of the 12 founders of Iota Phi Theta Fraternity.

Born and raised in Baltimore, he was known as “Tink” and didn’t see the value of joining a fraternity when he enrolled at Morgan State College in 1960. But on Sept. 19, 1963, while he and Iota’s 10 other founders discussed the other fraternities at Morgan and the times surrounding them, he believed that an organization like Iota was needed.

He became known as the “Godfather of Iota” because he wasn’t always visible but was there when needed, said Founder John D. Slade.

“He was always behind the scenes, but if you called on him, he was there to help,” he said.

He was not present at every fraternity conference, but he was involved with the organization’s Board of Directors and the National Iota Foundation. He was instrumental in saving the fraternity headquarters, even using his own money to replace basement windows broken by vandals.

Diahann Carroll (Carol Diann Johnson; July 17, 1935 – October 4, 2019) was an actress, singer, model, and activist. She rose to prominence in some of the earliest major studio films to feature African American casts, including Carmen Jones and Porgy and Bess. She won a Tony Award for Best Actress, a first for an African American woman, for her role in the Broadway musical No Strings. She starred in Claudine, for which she received an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress.

She was born in the Bronx to John Johnson, a subway conductor, and Mabel (Faulk), a nurse. While she was still an infant, the family moved to Harlem, where she grew up, except for a brief period when her parents left her with an aunt in North Carolina. She attended Music and Art High School and was a classmate of actor Billy Dee Williams.

Her debut in Julia, the first series on American television to star an African American woman in a non-stereotypical role, was a milestone both in her career and the medium. She played the role of Dominique Deveraux, a mixed-race diva, in the prime-time soap opera Dynasty. She was the recipient of numerous stage and screen nominations and awards, including the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Television Series.

Her big break came when she appeared as a contestant on the DuMont Television Network program, Chance of a Lifetime. On the show, which aired on January 8, 1954, she took the $1,000 top prize for a rendition of the Jerome Kern/Oscar Hammerstein song, “Why Was I Born?” She went on to win the following four weeks. Engagements at Manhattan’s Café Society and Latin Quarter nightclubs soon followed. In 1989, she began the recurring role of Marion Gilbert in A Different World, for which she received her third Emmy nomination that same year.

Rev. Dr. William “Bill” Ronald Jones (July 17, 1933 - July 13, 2012) an activist, existential philosopher, professor, and Unitarian Universalist minister, dedicated his career to analyzing methods of oppression influenced by Africana philosophers. He was born in Louisville to Lannie Belle Brogsdale and Henry Wise Jones.

He graduated from Howard University. He joined Phi Beta Kappa while earning a BA in philosophy magna cum laude. He obtained an M.Div. from Harvard University and became an ordained minister with the Unitarian Universalist Association. He earned a Ph.D. in Religious Studies from Brown University, where he wrote “Sartre’s Philosophical Anthropology in Relation to his Ethics”.

He was an Assistant Minister at the First Unitarian Church in Providence, Rhode Island, a community minister at Florida State University, and a member of the Unitarian Universalist Association Board of Trustees. He was the coordinator of Black Studies at Yale University and founded and directed Florida State University’s African American Studies program. He taught at Brown, Lafayette, Princeton Theological Seminary, Union Theological Seminary, Iliff School of Theology, Howard, the Humanist Institute, Yale Divinity, and FSU.

His most controversial and seminal work, Is God A White Racist?, critiqued Black Liberation theology and the Christian church for their unwillingness to address divine racism and whether the notion of an unconditional loving god made sense for African Americans in a white supremacist world.

He co-edited Black Theology II and authored ideas in journals such as Harvard Theological Review, Christian Century, and Religious Education and Reflection. He worked in Puerto Rico and South Africa. The Jones Oppression Grid and Jones Analytic Model asserted that protest marked by counter-violence would be the oppressed's future response to the oppressor’s inherent violence.

Tuskegee Airman Captain Robert Ashby (July 17, 1926 - March 5, 2021) was born in Yemassee, South Carolina. He was one of three surviving members of the famed Tuskegee Airmen in Arizona.

He was born in Yemassee, South Carolina. As a child, he delivered the local African American newspaper to earn money. He graduated from James J. Ferris High School in Jersey City. He enlisted at age 17 in the Army Air Corps. After graduating from high school in Jersey City, he was called into active duty. By December 1944, he went to Tuskegee for aviation training.

He was sent to Japan, where two all-white flying units rejected him due to segregation policies. He served in all-African American units for the next five years.

He continued to serve in the 1950s while stationed in Korea and Europe. He flew various aircraft, including the B-47 bomber, and later became an instructor.

By July 1965, he retired.

He studied at the University of Maryland and UCLA and went on to pursue a career in commercial aviation. He became a flight instructor for United Airlines and wrote a training program for the 747 aircraft.