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The Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church is the oldest operating African American church in DC. The AME Church designates Metropolitan AME as the National Cathedral of African Methodism.

Metropolitan AME began on July 6, 1872, as the result of a merger of two smaller churches, Israel Bethel AME, founded in 1821, and Union Bethel AME, created in 1838. Both were formed because of disaffection from two mostly white Methodist congregations in DC, Fourth Street and Ebenezer Church. Each church required African Americans to sit in the gallery. Members of these churches established Israel Bethel and Union Bethel.

The new churches actively championed the cause of anti-slavery in the Nineteenth Century. They sheltered runaway enslaved people as stations on the Underground Railroad and led the way in protest as well as racial uplift work. The Bethel Literary Society, led by the Reverend Daniel A. Payne, worked to increase literacy and introduce literary luminaries. Construction of the present church edifice was begun in 1881 and was completed in 1886.

The first African American Senator, Blanche Kelso Bruce, was a member of the church. On January 9, 1894, he introduced fellow congregant Frederick Douglass at Metropolitan, who delivered his final speech before his death, entitled “The Lessons of the Hour,” in which he admonished the US to end racial prejudice and thus reap the benefit of the nation that would “flourish forever.”

Pastor Natasha Tameika “Tasha” Cobbs Leonard (July 7, 1981) is a gospel musician and songwriter. She released the extended play Grace in 2013 with EMI Gospel. The EP reached #61 on the Billboard charts. At the 56th Annual Grammy Awards, she won the Grammy for Best Gospel/Contemporary Christian Music Performance. She has won 3 Stellar Awards and 3 Dove Awards.

She started her solo music career in 2010 with the independently self-released album Smile. The album caught the attention of EMI Gospel, which released her EP, Grace, on February 5, 2013. This was listed on two Billboard charts: #61 on the Billboard 200 and #2 on the Top Gospel Albums chart. The EP reached number 1 on the Top Gospel Albums chart. The singles “Break Every Chain” and “For Your Glory” reached number 1 on the Hot Gospel Songs charts. At the 56th Annual Grammy Awards in 2014, she took home Best Gospel/Contemporary Christian Music Performance, winning her first Grammy. She was awarded the Gospel Artist of the Year at the 2015 GMA Dove Awards.

She married Kenneth Leonard, a music producer and her longtime love. They adopted a son.

She toured America with Pastor William H. Murphy III of the dReam Center Church for three years. She has been leading worship at the dReam Center and managing the Worship and Arts department. In 2018, she appeared as herself in the film Sinners Wanted.

Nia-Malika Henderson (July 7, 1974) is a senior political reporter for CNN. She reported broadly on the 2016 campaign for CNN’s digital and television platforms, with a special focus on identity politics, exploring the dynamics of demographics, race, and religion, and covering the groups who help shape national elections.

She graduated from Lower Richland High School in Hopkins, South Carolina. She went on to graduate cum laude from Duke University with a BA in Literature and Cultural Anthropology. She earned MAs from Yale University in American Studies and from Columbia University in Journalism.

She began her career writing for The Baltimore Sun and for Newsday’s national staff, where she was its lead reporter covering Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign, the Democratic primary race, and the Democratic National Convention. She covered the first two years of the Obama administration for Politico.

She served as a reporter at The Washington Post (2010-15). As a national political reporter for the Post, she covered the White House, the 2012 presidential campaign, and the 2010 midterm elections and anchored the Post’s Election 2012 blog.

In 2015, she joined CNN as a senior political reporter and anchor.

Lisa Deshaun Leslie (July 7, 1972) is a former basketball player. She is the head coach for Triplets in the BIG3 professional basketball league, as well as a studio analyst for Orlando Magic broadcasts on Fox Sports Florida. She played in the WNBA. She is a three-time WNBA MVP and a four-time Olympic gold medal winner. The #7 pick in the inaugural 1997 WNBA draft, she followed her USC career with eight WNBA All-Star selections and two WNBA championships over 11 seasons with the Los Angeles Sparks before retiring in 2009. She was the first player to dunk in a WNBA game. In 2011, she was voted in by fans as one of the Top 15 players in WNBA history. In 2015, she was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. She was inducted into the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame in 2015.

She married Michael Lockwood (2005), who played basketball for the US Air Force Academy and is a pilot for UPS.

Cree Summer Francks (July 7, 1969) is an actress, voice actress, and singer.

She is known for playing Winifred “Freddie” Brooks in A Different World. In animation, she was the original voice of Penny in Inspector Gadget. Her other voice roles include Princess Kneesaa in Ewoks, Elmyra Duff in Tiny Toon Adventures and Pinky, Elmyra & the Brain, Susie Carmichael in Rugrats and All Grown Up!, Numbuh 5 and Cree Lincoln in Codename: Kids Next Door, and Cleo the Poodle in Clifford the Big Red Dog. She is the voice of Princess Kida in the franchise Atlantis: The Lost Empire, Valerie Gray in Danny Phantom, Penelope in Barbie as Rapunzel, Blackarachnia in Transformers Animated, Rayna Cartflight in The Buzz on Maggie, Beast Girl in Teen Titans Go!, Priscilla Skunk in Sheriff Callie’s Wild West, Maxine “Max” Gibson in Batman Beyond, Foxxy Love in Drawn Together, Magma in X-Men Legends, Yvonne and Gordon in Mrs. Munger’s Class, Nebula in Guardians of the Galaxy, and Witch Haggar in Voltron: Legendary Defender. She voiced the character Mo in The Horrible Histories, as well as Kermit’s Mom, Star, and Pilgrim in Kermit’s Swamp Years, as well as a role in Queen Sugar.

Allen Payne (July 7, 1968) born Allen Roberts, is a film and television actor known for his role as Jason Alexander in Jason’s Lyric, as well as his portrayal of C.J. Payne in Tyler Perry’s House of Payne. He is known for his portrayal of Lance Rodman on The Cosby Show during its final two seasons. He played Gerald “Gee Money” Wells in New Jack City and Detective Justice in Vampire in Brooklyn.

His first television role was in a 1990 episode of The Cosby Show. He appeared in episodes of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and Malcolm & Eddie.

Karen Malina White (July 7, 1965) is a film and television actress. She is known for her roles as Kaneesha Carter in Lean on Me, Charmaine Brown on The Cosby Show and A Different World; Nicolette Vandross in Malcolm & Eddie, and the voice of Dijonay Jones in The Proud Family.

After graduating high school, she continued her studies at Howard University, where she graduated cum laude with a BFA. During her senior year, she won the title of “Miss Howard University” and landed her first role as an actress.

Reginald “Reggie Rock” Bythewood (July 7, 1965) is a filmmaker and actor. He is known for directing the film Dancing in September (2000) and creating the television series Shots Fired and Swagger.

He grew up in the Bronx. He was a rapper in a neighborhood hip-hop crew. During junior high school assemblies, he and other schoolmates were allowed to get on stage and breakdance.

After junior high, his main focus became acting. He went to the High School of Performing Arts as a drama major. The school did not allow students to work as professional actors.

During his senior year, he was cast in the soap opera Another World; he left Performing Arts and attended Quintanos School for the Young Professionals.

He acted in The Brother from Another Planet. He graduated from Marymount Manhattan College with a BFA in theater. He co-founded a New York City-based theater company called The Tribe, which performed plays he wrote and directed.

He moved to Los Angeles to pursue a career in screenwriting. He became one of the first members of Walt Disney’s prestigious Writers Fellowship Program. He was hired as a writer on A Different World. He went on to write and produce New York Undercover. He wrote the screenplay for Get on the Bus. He was one of the film’s investors.

He was hired to rewrite Notorious. He made his feature film directorial debut with Dancing in September. He has directed Biker Boyz, “Daddy’s Girl”, “One Night in Vegas”, and Gun Hill, for which he won the 2014 NAACP Image Award. He co-created Shots Fired with Gina Prince-Bythewood.

He was chairman of the B-Dads organization. He fed homeless families in Los Angeles, raised thousands of dollars for the Sickle Cell Disease Foundation, and conducted workshops on fatherhood. He has spoken on various panels on police reform, including at the annual convention of the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement.

Eric Jerome Dickey (July 7, 1961 – January 3, 2021) was an author. He wrote several crime novels involving grifters, ex-cons, and assassins, the latter set in more diverse settings, ranging from Los Angeles to the UK to the West Indies, each featuring an international cast of characters. He was a New York Times bestselling novelist.

He was born in Memphis. He received a BS from Memphis State University, and he was a member of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity.

He moved to Los Angeles to pursue a career in Engineering. He was employed in the aerospace industry at Rockwell International’s ASSD division as a software developer before deciding to pursue acting and stand-up comedy. He began on the local and national comedy circuit.

He authored fifteen novels, and his work appeared in a variety of publications, including Essence magazine, USA Today, and the Los Angeles Times. His novels were on the bestseller lists of the “Blackboard”, The Wall Street Journal, and The New York Times. He has appeared as a guest on many television shows, including Our Voices and Sunday Morning Live.

He is the author of the graphic novel Storm, which re-imagines the first meeting between the popular X-Men character Ororo Munroe and T’Challa, king of the fictional land of Wakanda and known as the Black Panther.

He performed stand-up comedy, mostly in Southern California. He opened for Bobby “Blue” Bland at the Rialto in Tacoma.

Two of his novels, Friends and Lovers and Cheaters, were turned into touring plays.

Ralph Lee Sampson Jr. (July 7, 1960) is a former basketball player. He is a member of the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. A three-time College Player of the Year and the first selection in the 1983 NBA draft, he brought heavy expectations with him to the NBA.

In the NBA Rookie of the Year, he averaged 20.7 points and 10.9 rebounds for his first three seasons with the Houston Rockets before injuries began to take their toll. Three knee surgeries later, he retired as a four-time All-Star, NBA Rookie of the Year, and an NBA All-Star Game MVP.

He was born in Harrisonburg, Virginia to Sarah and Ralph Sampson, Sr. He averaged nearly 30 points, 19 rebounds, and 7 blocked shots as a senior (after averaging 14 points and 11 rebounds as a sophomore, and 19 points and 17 rebounds as a junior), leading the team to state AA basketball championships in 1978 and 1979. In his senior year, he lost the high school Player of the Year award to another talented center.

He was the most heavily recruited college basketball prospect of his generation and appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated six times in a span of fewer than four years.

Playing center for the University of Virginia, he led the Cavaliers to an NIT title in 1980, an NCAA Final Four appearance in 1981, and an NCAA Elite Eight appearance in 1983. He earned three Naismith Awards as the National Player of the Year, only the second athlete to do so, and a pair of Wooden Awards. He considered leaving Virginia after his junior year and declaring for the 1982 NBA draft. The San Diego Clippers and Los Angeles Lakers would flip a coin to determine who would draft first overall, but the deadline for him to make himself available came before the scheduled coin flip. Rather than risk playing for the Clippers, he stayed in school.

He spent the 1992–93 season as an assistant to the head coach at James Madison University before coaching a minor-league professional team in Richmond, Virginia, called the Richmond Rhythm.

Michael Earl Henderson (July 7, 1951 – July 19, 2022) was a bass guitarist and vocalist. He was known for his work with Miles Davis in the early 1970s on early fusion albums such as Jack Johnson, Live-Evil, and Agharta, along with a series of his R&B/soul hits and others featuring him on vocals, particularly the Norman Connors-produced hit “You Are My Starship” in 1976 and other songs in the mid- to late-1970s.

He was born in Yazoo City, Mississippi. In the early 1960s, he moved to Detroit, where he played as a session musician.

He was one of the first notable bass guitarists of the fusion era and one of the most influential jazz and soul musicians of the past 40 years. He played and recorded with Marvin Gaye, Aretha Franklin, Stevie Wonder, and the Dramatics, among many others.

Davis saw him performing at the Copacabana in early 1970 and reportedly said to Wonder simply, “I’m taking your fucking bassist.” After almost seven years with Davis, he focused on songwriting and singing in a solo career that produced many hit songs and albums for Buddah Records until his retirement in 1986. He was an influential funk player whose riffs and songs have been widely covered. He is known for his ballad vocalizing on several Norman Connors hit recordings, including “You Are My Starship” and “Valentine Love”, performed with Jean Carn.

The Katz Drugstore Protests in Des Moines, Iowa, began on July 7, 1948, when Edna May Griffin, John Bibbs, Leonard Hudson, and Griffin’s one-year-old daughter, Phyllis Griffin, entered the Katz Drug Store to eat at the lunch counter. The group was refused service because they were Black, leading Griffin to launch a protest against Katz’s racial discrimination practice. Her protest resulted in a lawsuit filed by the State of Iowa, The State of Iowa v. Katz. The lawsuit came before an all-White jury that found the owner of Katz Drug Store, Maurice Katz, and the store manager, C.L. Gore, guilty of racial discrimination. The court fined them $50, while Griffin was awarded $1 in damages.

The first sit-in demonstration led her to organize a powerful collective effort that included dozens of Black and white protestors, many of whom were members of the Progressive Party, which that year was mounting an independent presidential campaign led by Henry Wallace, the Iowa-born Vice President in the Franklin Roosevelt Administration. While Progressive Party members were adamant opponents of racial segregation and supported the protests, it was Griffin who spearheaded the months-long campaign that included boycotts, sit-ins, and pickets against Katz and other lunch counters around Des Moines.

Local attorneys and Des Moines NAACP members Charles Howard and Henry McKnight represented the three. The Polk County Attorneys separately prosecuted the owner of Katz, Maurice Katz, bringing criminal charges under the 1884 Iowa Civil Rights Act, which prohibited discrimination in public accommodations.

Okot Jekeri p’Bitek (June 7, 1931 – July 20, 1982) was a poet who achieved wide international recognition for Song of Lawino. Song of Lawino was written in the Acholi dialect of Southern Luo, translated by the author into English, and published in 1966. It was a breakthrough work, creating an audience among anglophone Africans for direct, topical poetry in English. It was followed by the Song of Ocol (1970), the husband’s reply.

The “East African Song School” or “Okot School poetry” is now an academic identification of the work following his direction, popularly called “comic singing”: a forceful type of dramatic verse monologue rooted in traditional song and phraseology.

He was born in Gulu, in the North Uganda grasslands. His father, Jebedayo Opi, was a schoolteacher, while his mother, Lacwaa Cerina, was a traditional singer, storyteller, and dancer. His ethnic background was Acholi, and he wrote first in the Acholi dialect, known as Lwo. Acholi is a dialect of Southern Luo, one of the Western Nilotic languages.

He was educated at Gulu High School, then at King’s College, Budo, where he composed an opera based on traditional songs. He went on to study at universities in the UK.

He traveled abroad as a player with the Ugandan national football team. He gave up on football as a possible career, stayed in Britain, and studied education at the University of Bristol and then law at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth. He took a BA in social anthropology at the University of Oxford, with a dissertation on Acholi and Lango traditional cultures.

It is reported that Oxford deliberately failed his Ph.D. The dissertation was published nearly unchanged as The Religion of the Central Luo by a Kenyan publisher.

Ezzard Mack Charles (July 7, 1921 - May 28, 1975) known as “The Cincinnati Cobra,” was a quiet, modest individual who went on to become a world heavyweight champion. Born in Lawrenceville, Georgia, He moved to Cincinnati at the age of nine to live with his grandmother. He began boxing as an amateur in his teens and won the AAU National middleweight title (1939). He turned professional in 1940. His early bouts were against the top middleweights and light heavyweights in the world. A clever boxer, he defeated many of boxing’s greatest fighters throughout his professional career, including Charley Burley, Joey Maxim, Archie Moore (three times), “Jersey” Joe Walcott, Gus Lesnevich, and Joe Louis.

His professional career was interrupted (1944-45) when he served a stint in the army during WWII. He returned to boxing (1946) and defeated Archie Moore, Lloyd Marshall, and Jimmy Bivins to earn a #2 ranking in the light heavyweight class. He fought a total of five light heavyweight champions, defeating four of them, but never received an opportunity to fight for the division’s title. Many consider him one of the greatest light heavyweight fighters of all time based on his record in that weight class.

He fought for the vacant National Boxing Association heavyweight title (1949) against “Jersey” Joe Walcott and earned a 15-round decision victory. Joe Louis came out of retirement and defeated him (1950), gaining recognition as the undisputed world heavyweight champion. He successfully defended the title three times before losing it to Walcott (1951).

He challenged Rocky Marciano, losing twice. Marciano referred to their first meeting as one of the toughest fights he ever had. It was the only time a fighter ever lasted a full 15 rounds against the “Brockton Blockbuster.”

Secretary Second Lieutenant William Thaddeus Coleman Jr. (July 7, 1920 – March 31, 2017) was an attorney and judge. He was the fourth US Secretary of Transportation and the second African American to serve in the US Cabinet. As an attorney, he played a major role in significant civil rights cases.

He was born to Laura Beatrice Coleman and William Thaddeus Coleman Sr. in Germantown, Philadelphia. His mother came from a family of six generations of Episcopal ministers, including an Underground Railroad operator. W.E.B. DuBois and Langston Hughes would visit the family’s home for dinner.

He graduated summa cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania with a BA in History. He was elected to the Phi Beta Kappa Society. He was elected to the Pi Gamma Mu international honor society. He was a member of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity.

He was accepted to Harvard Law School but left in 1943 to enlist in the Army Air Forces, only to be denied admission to the Tuskegee Airmen. He spent the war defending the accused in a court-martial. He returned to Harvard Law, where he became the third African American staff member admitted to the Harvard Law Review and graduated first in his class, magna cum laude. He was a Langdell fellow and was therefore permitted to stay at Harvard Law School to study for an extra year. In 1947, he was admitted to the bar and worked as a law clerk for Judge Herbert F. Goodrich of the US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. He became SCOTUS Justice Felix Frankfurter’s law clerk, and he was the first African American to clerk for the SCOTUS.

Dr. Margaret Abigail Walker (Margaret Abigail Walker Alexander by marriage; July 7, 1915 – November 30, 1998) was a poet and writer. She was part of the African American literary movement in Chicago, known as the Chicago Black Renaissance. Her notable works include For My People, which won the Yale Series of Younger Poets Competition, and the novel Jubilee, set in the South during the American Civil War.

She received her BA from Northwestern University. She began work with the Federal Writers’ Project under the Works Progress Administration of President Franklin D. Roosevelt during the Great Depression. She was a member of the South Side Writers Group, which included authors such as Richard Wright, Arna Bontemps, Fenton Johnson, Theodore Ward, and Frank Marshall Davis.

She received her MA in Creative Writing from the University of Iowa. She returned to that school to earn her Ph.D.

Joe Willie “Pinetop” Perkins (July 7, 1913 - March 21, 2011) a Delta Blues and boogie-woogie piano player, was born near Belzoni, Mississippi. He played with some of the best-known blues and rock-and-roll artists in history and influenced many more, including Elton John, Billy Joel, and Greg Allman.

He began playing guitar and piano at age ten but dropped guitar after sustaining an injury to his left arm. He moved to Helena, Arkansas, to work with bluesman Robert Nighthawk, appearing on the recordings Nighthawk made for Chess Records. He recorded with Earl Hooker for Sun Records. He recorded “Pinetop’s Boogie-Woogie” for Sun Records. Known as “Pinetop” since the 1940s, he was given the nickname by a record label.

He replaced Otis Spann in Muddy Waters’ band, a role that he maintained for twelve years. He joined other members of the Waters band, striking out on their own as The Legendary Blues Band. This group toured and recorded from the late 1970s through the early 1990s, releasing two records that received several Grammy nominations.

In 1988, he released his first solo effort, “After Hours,” on Blind Pig Records. He released the first of 15 solo records over the course of 15 years. “Born in the Delta,” a multimedia-enhanced CD release, and “Legends,” with Hubert Sumlin. Both recordings received Grammy nominations in 1997 and 2000. He received a Grammy nomination for “Ladies Man” on MC Records and the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.

He received the Blues Music Award for best piano every year (1993-2004) when he voluntarily retired from nomination. The award was thereafter renamed the “Pinetop” Perkins Piano Player of the Year award.

In 2008, “Pinetop and Friends” was released featuring such legendary artists as Eric Clapton, B.B. King, and Jimmie Vaughn. He released “Joined at the Hip,” a collaborative project with Willie “Big Eyes” Smith, which received a Grammy for Best Traditional Blues CD.