Curated category
Activists for African-American civil rights
- Albert EinsteinWhen Albert Einstein was five and sick in bed, his father brought him a compass. The trembling needle, always pointing the same way, convinced the boy that…
- John F. KennedyJohn Fitzgerald Kennedy was shot and killed in Dallas on the 22nd of November 1963, while riding in a presidential motorcade.
- Elvis PresleyElvis Aaron Presley walked onto the stage of the International Hotel in Las Vegas on the 31st of July 1969, without a single word of introduction.
- Frank SinatraFrancis Albert Sinatra weighed 13.5 pounds when he was born on the 12th of December 1915, in a tenement at 415 Monroe Street in Hoboken, New Jersey.
- Abraham LincolnAbraham Lincoln was born in a one-room log cabin in Kentucky on the 12th of February 1809, and he died with a bullet in the back of his head at twenty-two…
- Aretha FranklinAretha Franklin heard Otis Redding's reaction to her own version of his song "Respect": "That little girl done took my song away from me." She had added a…
- Marvin GayeOn the 1st of April 1984, in a house in the Western Heights area of West Adams in Los Angeles, Marvin Gaye was shot twice by his own father.
- Samuel L. JacksonSamuel Leroy Jackson was born on the 21st of December, 1948, in Washington, D.C., the only child of Elizabeth Harriett and Roy Henry Jackson.
- Ulysses S. GrantUlysses S. Grant was born Hiram Ulysses Grant on the 27th of April 1822, in Ohio, and by the time he died on the 23rd of July 1885, he had commanded the…
- Benjamin HarrisonBenjamin Harrison holds a peculiar distinction in American history: he is the only person to have served as president between two terms of the same opponent.
- James A. GarfieldJames Abram Garfield was born on the 19th of November 1831 inside a log cabin in Orange Township, Ohio. His father Abraham had traveled from Worcester, New…
- Sam CookeSam Cooke walked into a recording session in the mid-1950s and began singing George Gershwin. Art Rupe, the head of Specialty Records, was furious.
- James BrownJames Brown was supposed to be named Joseph James Brown. A clerk reversed his first and middle names on his birth certificate, and the mistake stuck.
- Lyndon B. JohnsonLyndon Baines Johnson was sworn in as the 36th president of the United States aboard Air Force One, just hours after the assassination of John F.
- Muhammad AliMuhammad Ali walked into the ring on the 25th of February 1964, a 22-year-old from Louisville, Kentucky, facing Sonny Liston, the menacing heavyweight…
- Harry S. TrumanHarry S. Truman became the 33rd president of the United States not by winning an election, but by walking into a room where Eleanor Roosevelt told him her…
- Malcolm XMalcolm X was pronounced dead at 3:30 pm on the 21st of February 1965, shortly after gunmen opened fire on him at the Audubon Ballroom in Manhattan.
- Radical RepublicansThe Radical Republicans emerged from the ashes of the Whig Party in 1854, six years before the Civil War began. They called themselves "Radicals" because…
- Frederick DouglassFrederick Douglass had no birth certificate, no record of his own age, and no settled name. He was born Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey into slavery on…
- Thurgood MarshallThurgood Marshall walked into the Supreme Court as an advocate 32 times and walked out a winner 29 of those times. That record alone would make him one of…
- W. E. B. Du BoisW. E. B. Du Bois died on the 27th of August 1963 in Accra, Ghana, at the age of 95. The very next day, hundreds of thousands of Americans gathered in…
- James LongstreetJames Longstreet was born on the 8th of January 1821 in Edgefield District, South Carolina, and by the end of the Civil War he had become the man Robert E.
- Simon CameronOn the 8th of March 1799, a boy named Simon Cameron was born in Maytown, Pennsylvania. His father Charles had emigrated from Scotland in 1766 and fought with…
- Ice-TIce-T was born Tracy Lauren Marrow on the 16th of February 1958 in Newark, New Jersey, the son of Solomon and Alice Marrow.
- Benjamin ButlerBenjamin Franklin Butler was born on the 5th of November 1818 in Deerfield, New Hampshire. He grew up as the sixth and youngest child of John Butler and…
- Angela DavisAngela Davis grew up on a street her Birmingham neighbors called "Dynamite Hill" - a name earned through the bombings of homes belonging to middle-class…
- Cornel WestCornel Ronald West was born on the 2nd of June 1953 in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in the same city where his grandfather Clifton L. West, Sr.
- P. G. T. BeauregardP. G. T. Beauregard ordered the first shots of the American Civil War fired from Fort Johnson in the early hours of the 12th of April 1861.