Althea Gibson was one of the first black athletes to cross the color line of international tennis. In 1956, she became the first African American to win a Grand Slam title. In the early 1960s she also became the first Black player to compete on the Women’s Professional Golf Tour.
View PostYvonne 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 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 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 PostThomas Day was the first widely recognized black furniture maker in the South. He worked in Milton, North Carolina, and his workshop.
View PostLynette Woodard made history by becoming the first female member of the Harlem Globetrotters and who, at age 38, began playing as one of the oldest members in the newly formed American women’s professional basketball league, the WNBA.
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