Yvonne Brathwaite Burke was the first African-American woman elected to the state assembly. She represented the West Coast in Congress. In 1973, she became the first member of the U.S. Congress to give birth while in office, and she was the first person to be granted maternity leave by the Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives.
View PostThe Bishop Johnson History Project is dedicated to celebrating the remarkable life of Bishop Joseph Andrew Johnson, Jr, the first African American to graduate from Vanderbilt University (B.D., 1954), to receive a PhD from the University (1958), and to become a full member of the Vanderbilt University Board of Trust. The Bishop Joseph Johnson Black Cultural Center at Vanderbilt University …
View PostIn addition to being an actor, screenwriter, director, and producer Tyler Perry made history by opening the first-ever fully black-owned film studio.
View PostZinora M. Mitchell-Rankin was born in the District of Columbia and was educated at Spelman College in Atlanta Georgia, where she graduated summa cum laude and received a Bachelor of Arts degree in political science in 1976, and at George Washington University’s National Law Center in Washington, D.C. where she received her Juris Doctorate degree in May 1979. Judge Mitchell-Rankin …
View PostCharlayne Hunter-Gault was the first African American woman to enroll in the University of Georgia; she was also among the first African American women to graduate from the university, earning a degree in journalism in 1963. And in 1978, she became the first Black woman to anchor a national newscast, “The MacNeil/Lehrer Report”.
View PostMinnie Joycelyn Elders was the first African American to serve as Surgeon General. She was also the first woman and first African American to hold the position of Arkansas health director.
View PostClara Leach Adams-Ender was the 1st black woman and nurse to receive a master’s degree from the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College. She was also the 1st woman to be awarded the Expert Field Medical Badge, the 1st black Army Nurse Corps officer to graduate from the Army War College, the 1st black nurse appointed chief of nursing …
View PostRebecca Lee Crumpler challenged the prejudice that prevented African Americans from pursuing careers in medicine to became the first African American woman in the United States to earn an M.D. degree, a distinction formerly credited to Rebecca Cole. Although little has survived to tell the story of Crumpler’s life, she has secured her place in the historical record with her …
View PostToday’s black history fact: In 1974, Vivian McFadden became the first black female to serve as a chaplain in the U.S. Navy.
View PostRudolph Fisher was a physician, orator, music arranger, and writer during the Harlem Renaissance. His first short story, “City of Refuge,” which depicted the clashes between the newly arrived southern African Americans and Harlem’s black society, was published by the Atlantic Monthly in 1925. His second novel, The Conjure Man Dies, published in 1932, is still considered to be the …
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