Search Results

Sign in Modify your search

Narrow Your Choices

Format

Type

Articles containing

Sex

Life event

Date

Subject

Occupation

Era

Availability

 1-6 of 6 Results  for:

  • Arts and Leisure x
  • 1941–1954: WWII and Postwar Desegregation x
  • Government (Non-Federal) x
  • State Legislator x
Clear all

Article

Dymally, Mervyn  

Susan Love Brown

Article

Publication History:

Published in print:
09 February 2009
Published online:
01 December 2009

journalist, educator, politician, and statesman. Mervyn Malcolm Dymally, born in Cedros, Trinidad, achieved many “firsts” in American politics. His mother, Andreid Richardson, of Trinidadian descent, and his father, Hamid Dymally, of South Asian descent, educated him through high school, at Naparima College in San Fernando, Trinidad, after which he worked as a reporter for the Oilfields Workers Trade Union newspaper, The Vanguard, in Trinidad. This spurred his interest in a journalistic career, which took him to Lincoln University in Missouri at the age of nineteen. Eventually, he moved to Los Angeles State College of Applied Arts and Sciences, where he majored in education, receiving his bachelor's degree in 1954. From then on he combined education, politics, and involvement in international issues as the interests that guided his career.

While working as a science special education teacher in the Los Angeles Unified School District ...

Article

Irvis, K. Leroy  

Michelle K. Massie

Article

Publication History:

Published in print:
15 March 2013
Published online:
31 May 2013

teacher and legislator, was born Kirkland Leroy Irvis in Saugerties, New York, the older of Francis H. and Harriet Ten Broeck Cantine Irvis's two children. Francis was self-employed, and Harriet was a homemaker. Shortly after his birth, the family moved to Albany, New York. While Irvis's father instilled in his children the value of education, his mother taught them the importance of art and human emotion. Her lessons would inspire Irvis to become a renowned wood sculptor and published poet. He graduated from Albany High School with honors in 1934 and went on to attend New York State College for Teachers (later SUNY), where he graduated summa cum laude in 1938 with an AB in History.

The harsh realities of racism that his parents tried to shield from him as a child would meet him head on as an adult Denied teaching positions upon graduation Irvis went back to ...

Article

Johnson, Edward Austin  

Elizabeth Zoe Vicary

Article

Publication History:

Published in print:
21 January 1999
Published online:
01 December 2006

Johnson, Edward Austin (23 November 1860–24 July 1944), educator, lawyer, and politician was born near Raleigh North Carolina the son of Columbus Johnson and Eliza A Smith slaves He was taught to read and write by Nancy Walton a free African American and later attended the Washington School an establishment founded by philanthropic northerners in Raleigh There he was introduced to the Congregational church and became a lifelong member Johnson completed his education at Atlanta University in Georgia graduating in 1883 To pay his way through college he worked as a barber and taught in the summers After graduation he worked as a teacher and principal first in Atlanta at the Mitchell Street Public School 1883 1885 and then in Raleigh at the Washington School 1885 1891 While teaching in Raleigh he studied at Shaw University obtaining a law degree in 1891 He joined the faculty shortly ...

Article

Roberts, Frederick Madison  

Kenneth Wiggins Porter

Article

Publication History:

Published in print:
07 April 2005
Published online:
01 December 2006

Although Frederick Madison Roberts is principally known for his long service as the first black state legislator in California, less well known is the fact that he was the great-grandson of Sally Hemings, President Thomas Jefferson's alleged mistress. One of her sons, Madison Hemings, born on January 19, 1805, moved to Ohio. Madison's youngest daughter, Ellen Wayles Hemings, was the mother of Frederick Madison Roberts.

Roberts was born in Chilicothe, Ohio, in 1879 and was taken at the age of six to Los Angeles, California, where his father was a pioneer undertaker. He graduated from Los Angeles High School, attended the University of Southern California, then worked his way through Colorado College in Colorado Springs and a school of mortuary science. In 1910 he was deputy assessor of El Paso County, Colorado. He edited the weekly Colorado Springs Light from 1908 to ...

Article

Stokes, Carl B.  

C. Ellen Connally

Article

Publication History:

Published in print:
09 February 2009
Published online:
01 December 2009

lawyer, mayor, broadcaster, judge, and ambassador. Carl Burton Stokes is best remembered as the first African American mayor of a major American city. He was born in Cleveland, Ohio, and was two years old when his father, Charles, died. Stokes and his older brother Louis were raised by their mother Louise Stone Stokes, who struggled to support her children by working as a domestic. During the depth of the Depression—when Stokes was growing up—the family suffered many hardships and lived in substandard tenement housing until they were able to move into the first federally funded housing projects for the poor in the city of Cleveland in 1938.

In 1944 at age eighteen Stokes dropped out of high school and worked for a short time before joining the U S Army A journey south to Fort McClellan Alabama for basic training and ...

Article

White, Jesse Clark, Jr.  

David A. Joens

Article

Publication History:

Published in print:
15 March 2013
Published online:
31 May 2013

, educator, athlete, and politician, was born in Alton, Illinois, the fourth of seven children raised by Jesse White, the owner of a janitorial service, and Julia Mae White, a-homemaker. In 1943 White's family moved to Chicago, where he attended Schiller Elementary School and Waller High School (later Lincoln Park Academy). A star athlete in high school, White earned all-city honors in both basketball and baseball. He attended Alabama State College (now Alabama State University) on a scholarship and earned all-conference honors in both sports. After graduating from Alabama State with a degree in Physical Education, White signed a contract to play baseball for the Chicago Cubs organization. Shortly after the contract was signed, the U.S. Army drafted him. White spent two years in-the army (1957–1959), serving as a paratrooper in the 101st Airborne Division.

In 1959 he received an honorable discharge from the army ...