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Prince Abdul Rahman Ibrahima ibn Sori (1762 – July 6, 1829) was a Fula prince and Amir of Guinea, West Africa, who was captured and sold to slave traders and transported to the US in 1788. His enslaver, Thomas Foster, referred to him as "Prince". After spending 40 years in slavery, he was freed and returned to Africa, but died in Liberia within months of arrival.

He was born in Timbuktu, the son of Ibrahima Sori and a Moorish wife. When he was aged five, his father moved the family to Timbo. He studied in a madrasah at Djenné and Timbuktu, speaking at least four African languages, Bambara, Fula, Mandinka and Yalunka, and Arabic.

He joined his father's army, was appointed a regimental commander, and served in a campaign that conquered the Bambara. He defeated the Hebohs; they ambushed his cavalry, and refusing to flee, he was shot, captured, and enslaved. He was married and had a son who served as a military commander in Timbo.

He was sold, reportedly for "two bottles of rum, eight hands of tobacco, two flasks of powder, and a few muskets". He was taken to Natchez, Mississippi, where he and another enslaved person were sold to Foster for about $950.

After being subjected to repeated whippings for disobedience, he escaped into the woods and hid for several weeks. He accepted his fate and returned to the Foster home.

He married Isabella (1794) and fathered nine children. She would join the Baptist Church. He had objections to those aspects of Christianity that contradicted the Islamic faith, while criticizing how Christianity was practiced in the context of slavery.

Trai Byers (July 19, 1983) is an actor. He is best known for playing Andre Lyon on Empire (2015–20). In 2020, he co-wrote and starred in the historical drama film The 24th.

He was born in Kansas City, Kansas. After a year in high school in Kansas City, he completed his education in Georgia. He graduated from Andrew College with an AA in Theater and from the University of Kansas with a BA in Communications. He attended the American Musical and Dramatic Academy and the Yale School of Drama.

He made his television debut on All My Children and had a role in 90210. He played civil rights activist James Forman in Selma.

Stuart Orlando Scott (July 19, 1965 – January 4, 2015) was a sportscaster and anchor on ESPN, most notably on SportsCenter. Well-known for his hip-hop style and catchphrases, he was a regular on the network during its NBA and NFL coverage.

He was born in Chicago. His parents were O. Ray and Jacqueline Scott. When he was 7, the family moved to Winston-Salem. He had a brother and two sisters. He grew up in North Carolina and graduated from UNC-Chapel Hill. He began his career with various local television stations before joining ESPN in 1993. Although there were already accomplished African American sportscasters, his blending of hip-hop with sportscasting was unique for television. By 2008, he was a staple of ESPN’s programming and began on ABC as the lead host of its NBA coverage.

In 2007, he had an appendectomy and learned that his appendix was cancerous. After going into remission, he was again diagnosed with cancer in 2011 and 2013. He was honored at the 2014 ESPYs with the Jimmy V Award for his fight against cancer.

The Dockum Drug Store Sit-Ins occurred in Wichita, Kansas (July 19 and August 11, 1958). Ronald W. Walters, a local college student and then president of the Wichita NAACP Youth Council, organized the sit-ins at the Dockum Drug Store with his cousin, Carol Parks-Hahn, who was treasurer of the Council. The sit-ins protested the Dockum policies that barred African Americans from being served at its lunch counter.

On July 19, 1958, Walters, Parks-Hahn, and ten other students entered the Dockum Drug Store until all the lunch counter seats were taken. He ordered a Coca-Cola from a waitress, who was about to serve it to her, but pulled it back when she realized the store’s policy banned service to African Americans. The students told the waitress they intended to stay until they could be served. The waitress closed the Blacks-only fountain, leaving the whites-only fountain open. When the store closed for the night, the students left.

The student protestors returned to the lunch counter, where they sat for an hour without getting service that day. As the second sit-in occurred at Dockum, 20 White segregationists began taunting and threatening the protestors.

The students continued to come in day after day and sit at the lunch counters. White college students from Wichita State University joined them. The Eagle and the Beacon refused to publish information about the sit-ins, and the local Black-owned newspapers, the Enlightener and the Mid-West News-Press, provided regular accounts to their readers.

Pastor Dr. Calvin Otis Butts, III (July 19, 1949 - October 38, 2022). He served as Pastor of the Abyssinian Baptist Church in New York for over 30 years and as President of the State University of New York College at Old Westbury for two decades.

He helped found and was the Chairman of the Abyssinian Development Corporation. He was instrumental in establishing the Thurgood Marshall Academy for Learning and Social Change, a public, state-of-the-art intermediate and high school in Harlem, and is the visionary behind the Thurgood Marshall Academy Lower School.

He reinvigorated one of the most diverse public college campuses in America, leading it to its largest enrollment ever, adding full-time faculty and expanding student support services. SUNY College at Old Westbury earned new accreditations and created its first-ever graduate programs, conferring graduate degrees in more than fifteen disciplines. He oversaw the College’s approximately $150 million investment in capital projects, including technological advances, residence halls, a Student Union, and a major academic building.

He served on the leadership board of New Visions for Public Schools. In September 2020, he was appointed President Emeritus of SUNY College at Old Westbury. He was Chairman Emeritus of the Board of the National Black Leadership Commission on Health and a founding member of the organization’s Board of Commissioners.

He served as President of Africare NYC and was a member of the board of the September 11th Fund. He received honorary degrees from Addis Ababa University, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia; the City University of New York/The City College of New York, and many others. For his community activism, Dr. Butts received innumerable honors and commendations, including the United Negro College Fund’s Shirley Chisholm Community Service Award; The Medal for Distinguished Service from Teachers College, Columbia University; and Man of the Year, Morehouse College Alumni Association.

Tuskegee became the focal point for the training of African American military pilots during WWII. Tuskegee Institute received a contract from the military and provided primary flight training while the Army built a separate, segregated base, Tuskegee Army Air Field, for advanced training. Support personnel were trained at Chanute Field in Illinois.

The first class, which included student officer Capt. Benjamin O. Davis, Jr., began training on July 19, 1941. Rigorous training in subjects such as meteorology, navigation, and instruments was provided in the ground school. Successful cadets transferred to the segregated Tuskegee Army Air Field to complete Army Air Corps pilot training. The Air Corps oversaw training at the Tuskegee Institute, providing aircraft, textbooks, flying clothes, parachutes, and mechanic suits, while the institute provided full facilities for the aircraft and personnel. Lt. Col. Noel F. Parrish, a base commander, worked to lessen the impact of segregation on the cadets.

Rachel Annetta Robinson (Isum; July 19, 1922) is a former professor and registered nurse, as well as the widow of professional baseball player Jackie Robinson.

She was born in New York City and attended UCLA, where she met Robinson in 1941, before he left the school when his baseball eligibility ran out. She graduated from UCLA with a BS in Nursing. She and Robinson married in 1946. They had three children.

After Jackie Robinson retired from baseball, she received an MS in Psychiatric Nursing from NYU. She worked as a researcher and clinician at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine’s Department of Social and Community Psychiatry for five years. She became an Assistant Professor at Yale School of Nursing and the Director of Nursing at the Connecticut Mental Health Center.

She served as president of the Jackie Robinson Development Corporation, a real estate development company specializing in low- to moderate-income housing, for 10 years. She founded the Jackie Robinson Foundation, a not-for-profit organization providing educational and leadership opportunities for minority students. The Foundation has supported over 1,000 minority students and maintained a 97% graduation rate among its scholars.

She coauthored Jackie Robinson: An Intimate Portrait with Lee Daniels.

Commissioner Bud Selig awarded her the Commissioner’s Historic Achievement Award. She received the UCLA Medal from Chancellor Gene Block in recognition of her lifetime achievements. In addition to receiving twelve honorary doctorates, she was awarded the Candace Award for Distinguished Service from the National Coalition of 100 Black Women, the Equitable Life Black Achiever’s Award, and the Associated Black Charities Black History Makers Award.

Marie Clara Delpit Walker Johnson (July 19, 1921 - 1974) was a civil rights activist in Oakland during the 1960s. A mother of five and a nurse, she played a crucial role in multiple grassroots groups in the East Bay area. She marched, wrote letters, gave speeches, attended court hearings, and wrote articles for the newspaper. She advocated for the rights of individuals and families treated unfairly.

She was born Marie Clara Delpit in New Orleans to Henry Delpit and Leontine Sorina. She attended Catholic school. She married Henry Steven Walker (1943). She had two little girls whom Henry helped raise following their marriage.

The family moved to California. In the years after their move, they had three children. Henry worked as a hod carrier and a bricklayer until his death. She became a nurse to support the family. In 1959, he passed away, and she married Jacob Johnson (1967-70).

Decades of racist housing and employment practices contributed to the poverty of Black Oaklanders and their concentration in small areas of the city, including neighborhoods where they lived. Some of her Black neighbors began a small newspaper called The Flatlands to unify people with low incomes, serve people experiencing poverty for their challenges, and inspire them to act. The Flatlands published several of her articles and frequently described her activism. She wrote articles for the Black Panther, the newspaper of the Black Panther Party. A frequent theme in her writing was the dehumanizing treatment of the police toward Black people.

The race riot in DC was one of more than twenty that took place during the “Red Summer” of 1919. Lasting a total of only four days, this short-lived riot was described as a “race war” taking place in the nation’s capital.

On July 19, 1919, a group of white veterans sparked a rumor regarding the arrest, questioning, and release of a Black man suspected by the Metropolitan Police Department of sexually assaulting a white woman. She was the wife of a Navy man. The rumor traveled throughout the saloons and pool halls of downtown Washington, angering several soldiers, sailors, and marines taking their weekend liberty, including many veterans of WWI.

A mob of veterans headed toward Southwest DC to a predominantly Black neighborhood with clubs, lead pipes, and pieces of lumber in hand. The veterans beat all African Americans they encountered. African Americans were seized from their cars and sidewalks and beaten without reason or mercy by white veterans.

On Sunday, July 20, the violence continued to grow, in part because the Metropolitan Police Department failed to intervene. African Americans continued to face brutal beatings.

The African American community began to fight back. They armed themselves and attacked whites who entered their neighborhoods. Both Black and white men fired bullets at each other from moving vehicles. Ten whites and five Blacks were either killed or severely wounded.

President Woodrow Wilson ordered nearly 2,000 soldiers from nearby military bases to Washington to suppress the rioting. A heavy summer rain, rather than the troops themselves, effectively ended the riot on July 23, 1919.

Juano Garcia “Juano” Hernández (July 19, 1896 - July 17, 1970) Hollywood’s first Afro-Latino actor, was a polyglot, self-educated Puerto Rican stage and film actor who was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico, to a father from San Juan and a mother from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. He grew up in both Puerto Rico and Brazil.

In 1914, he made his silent picture debut as an actor in The Life of General Villa. He appeared in a Rio de Janeiro circus as an acrobat. He co-starred in radio’s first all-Black soap opera, We Love and Learn. He was in the chorus of the show Showboat on Broadway and Strange Fruits.

He portrayed the only Latino character, “Gomez, the Cuban racketeer,” in Oscar Micheaux’s controversial film, Girl from Chicago. It was Micheaux’s first “talkie” film. He portrayed a police officer in Harlem Is Heaven.

In 1949, He played Lucas Beauchamp, a Mississippi Black farmer accused of killing a white neighbor in the film adaptation of Intruder in the Dust. His performance garnered his first and only Golden Globe nomination for “New Star of the Year.”

In 1950, he was cast in the western Stars In My Crown. He appeared in the drama Young Man With a Horn. In 1958, he was cast in Machete. He appeared in two films, the Nat King Cole biopic St. Louis Blues and The Mark of the Hawk. This was followed by the 1959 Alfred Hitchcock Presents production of the Ambrose Bierce short story "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge," in which he was a principal actor.

His last movies were in 1969 and 1970, respectively. He was in The Extraordinary Seaman, followed by They Call Me Mister Tibbs!

Juano Garcia “Juano” Hernández (July 19, 1896 - July 17, 1970) Hollywood’s first Afro-Latino actor, was a polyglot, self-educated Puerto Rican stage and film actor who was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico, to a father from San Juan and a mother from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. He grew up in both Puerto Rico and Brazil.

In 1914, he made his silent picture debut as an actor in The Life of General Villa. He appeared in a Rio de Janeiro circus as an acrobat. He co-starred in radio’s first all-Black soap opera, We Love and Learn. He was in the chorus of the show Showboat on Broadway and Strange Fruits.

He portrayed the only Latino character, “Gomez, the Cuban racketeer,” in Oscar Micheaux’s controversial film, Girl from Chicago. It was Micheaux’s first “talkie” film. He portrayed a police officer in Harlem Is Heaven.

In 1949, He played Lucas Beauchamp, a Mississippi Black farmer accused of killing a white neighbor in the film adaptation of Intruder in the Dust. His performance garnered his first and only Golden Globe nomination for “New Star of the Year.”

In 1950, he was cast in the western Stars In My Crown. He appeared in the drama Young Man With a Horn. In 1958, he was cast in Machete. He appeared in two films, the Nat King Cole biopic St. Louis Blues and The Mark of the Hawk. This was followed by the 1959 Alfred Hitchcock Presents production of the Ambrose Bierce short story "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge," in which he was a principal actor.

His last movies were in 1969 and 1970, respectively. He was in The Extraordinary Seaman, followed by They Call Me Mister Tibbs!

Sergeant Major Dr. Charles Henry Thompson (July 19, 1895 – January 16, 1980) was an educational psychologist and the first African American to earn a Ph.D. in Educational Psychology. He obtained a BA with honors from Virginia Union University and a second BA, an MA, and a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago. Born in Jackson, Mississippi. He was an only child to parents Reverend Patrick H. and Mrs. Sara E. Thompson. He attended his early years of education at Jackson College. He served in the Army during WWI.

He became an educator at Howard University. He was the dean of the liberal Arts College and became the dean of Howard’s graduate school, where he made several administrative and scholarship changes. He founded The Journal of Negro Education, an academic journal about the education of African American students. He published more than 100 scholarly articles, editorials, and research papers, many of which pertained to the teaching and advancement of African American students’ education. He was a legal consultant on various desegregation cases, notably in Sweatt v. Painter, Sipuel v. Board of Regents of the University of Oklahoma, and McLaurin v. Oklahoma State Regents. He was a legal consultant for Brown v. Board of Education. He served in the military overseas during WWI.

He chose this pathway as an educational psychologist because he wanted to be in a position to help others access information. He worked to provide other African American students with the opportunity to use the educational resources available to him to spread information about education and race. He strongly believed that education should be available to gifted African American students and to students from low-income families so that everyone would have access.

Olive Claire Jones (July 19, 1889 - October 24, 1925) was a constant supporter of Delta; she was an accomplished pianist who taught in the DC school system. She empowered future leaders as an inspirational music teacher.

William Chester Ruth (July 19, 1882 – April 3, 1971) was an inventor, business owner, and community leader in Chester County, Pennsylvania. He was the son of Samuel and Maria Louisa Pinn-Ruth. The 54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment liberated Samuel when it occupied Savannah, Georgia, while Maria Louisa was born free in Fredericksburg, Virginia. He was one of twelve children, born on the family farm.

He had an inquisitive nature, which led him to invent numerous pieces of farm equipment. He learned farming and blacksmithing from his father. He married Gertrude Miller (1906), and they had one son. The couple moved to Gap, Pennsylvania, where he opened Ruth’s Ironworks Shop, becoming the only African American in the region to own a manufacturing business. He designed and patented numerous agricultural devices (1924-50).

His first patented invention was the Combination Baler Feeder (1924). He sold over 5,000 Baler-Feeder machines across the US. He invented the farm elevator used to transport hay to silos and for mushroom harvesting.

He invented an 87-part automatic tie for a hay baler. Patent attorneys labeled its mechanism of operation a “complicated mess,” and it took two years for the patent office to recognize the invention. He sold over 5,000 of the automatic ties to Great Plains farmers in the US and Canada. The Mechanical Cinder Spreader was used to spread cinders over icy roads. He sold 150 of the Mechanical Cinder Spreaders to the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation.

Attorney Harrison Jackson Pinkett (1882 – July 19, 1960) was a journalist and civil rights activist in DC and a lawyer in Omaha. As a journalist, he was the head of the so-called “Press Bureau” and often used the bureau’s collective pen name, “P.S. Twister”. He moved to Omaha, where he worked in civil rights. He served as a first lieutenant in the 92nd Infantry Division in WWI.

He was born in Luray, Virginia to Civil War Veteran Charles Pinkett and Columbia Kemper. He had fifteen siblings, seven of whom died in early youth. His father was a wagon maker and wheelwright.

Along with his brother Archibald, he was a part of the Howard University Law School. He received an education at Columbia University. He worked as a bricklayer and, for a time, as a printer in Martinsburg, West Virginia, and as an apprentice journalist at the Pioneer Press. His first wife was Eva Madah Banks. Eva died in 1948. He remarried, and his second wife was named Venus.

He was interviewed by the Federal Writers Project funded by the Works Progress Administration. He talks about his life and about the lynching of Willy Brown.

He was admitted to the DC bar and became a writer for Black papers. He was critical of other Black leaders for their support of the election of Booker T. Washington, Jesse E. Moorland, J. H. N. Warring, and John T. Baldwin to the Board of that university because of their connections to capitalists, as well as to the previous Howard University President, John Gordon. He moved, becoming the first University-trained lawyer in Nebraska.

He was instrumental in the creation of Omaha’s Colored Commercial Club to support Black business in Omaha and, while a Republican, supported the Negro Democratic Club. He was an integral part of the Omaha Branch of the NAACP. He continued to work with veterans and was an officer of Roosevelt Post No. 30, American Legion.

Alice Dunbar Nelson (July 19, 1875 – September 18, 1935) was a poet, journalist, and political activist. Among the first generation born free in the South after the Civil War, she was one of the prominent African Americans who contributed to the artistic flourishing of the Harlem Renaissance.

She was born Alice Ruth Moore in New Orleans, the daughter of a formerly enslaved African American seamstress and a white seaman. Her parents, Patricia Wright and Joseph Moore, were middle-class and part of the city’s multiracial Creole community.

She married poet Paul Laurence Dunbar (1898-1906), physician and Alpha Phi Alpha Founder Henry A. Callis (1910-16), and Robert J. Nelson (1916-35), a poet and civil rights activist. She achieved prominence as a poet, author of short stories and dramas, newspaper columnist, and editor of two anthologies.

She graduated from Straight University in 1892 and worked as a teacher in the New Orleans public school system at Old Marigny Elementary.

Peter Hill (July 19, 1767 - December 1820) was born in Burlington Township, New Jersey. He is assumed to be the son of an enslaved person owned by a clockmaker named Joseph Hollinshead, Jr. He grew up in the Hollinshead household, and as he grew older, he was allowed to learn clock-making from his master to assist Hollinshead in his store. In 1794, Hollinshead manumitted him when he was 27. His freedom was certified the following year in an official court document.

He married Tina Lewis (1795). She was known in New Jersey for her writing skills and her efforts to provide free schooling for African Americans in the community through the Society of Friends (Quakers).

In 1795, he began making clocks and watches in a shop attached to his home. As he became more successful, he expanded his estate to include cattle, horses, and several acres of land. In 1814, he moved his clock-making business to Mount Holly partly to be near the Quaker farming community, which included a paper mill and an ironworks.

Two of his clocks survived the era. The first is a clock made for his neighbor, Rowland Jones, in 1812, now located at Westtown School in Westtown, Pennsylvania. The second is a tall case clock, now held by the National Museum of History and Technology of the Smithsonian Institution.