Crispus Attucks was born around the year 1723 in Framingham, Massachusetts. He managed to escape from bondage; and showed a skill for buying and trading goods, spending most of his time on trading ships and whaling vessels going in and out of Boston. On March 5, 1770, Attucks was the first significant casualty of the Boston Massacre—a deadly riot that began as a street brawl. Attucks is widely regarded as the first person killed in the bloody slaughter. The thing is, the moment inevitably resulted in American Revolution, which led to our nation’s independence. “First man to die for the flag we now hold high was a Black man,” said Stevie Wonder in the song “Black Man.”
Some historians believe Jean Baptiste Point DuSable was born around 1745 in St. Marc, Saint-Dominique (Haiti). His mother was an African slave, and his father a French seaman. DuSable received some education from his father and working on ships, learning languages like French, Spanish, English, and many Indian dialects. In the early 1770’s DuSable sailed to New Orleans and eventually made his way to the Mid-West, which made DuSable the first non-Indigenous settler of what is now Chicago, Illinois. By the 1850s, historians of Chicago recognized Point DuSable as the city’s earliest non-native permanent settler and has been given the appellation as the “Founder of Chicago.”
Phillis Wheatley Peters was born in West Africa in 1753. At the age of eight, she was kidnapped, enslaved in New England, and sold to John Wheatley of Boston. Despite being enslaved, Phillis Wheatley went on to become one of the best-known poets in pre-19th century America. In 1773, Wheatley gained considerable prestige when her first and only book of verse, “Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral,” was published. As proof of her authorship, the volume included a preface in which 17 Boston men; including John Hancock, affirmed that she wrote the poems published.
Benjamin Banneker was born November 9, 1731, a free man. He is recognized for his authorship of the African American Almanac, despite having very little formal education and becoming a famous self-taught astronomer. On August 19, 1791, he sent a letter to Thomas Jefferson, who in 1776 had drafted the United States Declaration of Independence and in 1791 was serving as the United States Secretary of State.Their correspondence was significant due to Quoting language in the Declaration, the letter expressed a plea for justice for African Americans. Banneker, “Sir, how pitiable is it to reflect, in detaining by fraud and violence so numerous a part of my brethren under groaning captivity and cruel oppression, that you should at the same time be found guilty of that most criminal act, which you professedly detested in others.”
Richard Allen was born into slavery on February 14, 1760. He joined the Methodist Church at 17 and began evangelizing; however, his preaching attracted the criticism of local slave owners. Once he converted to Methodism, Allen preached at a secret gathering of slaves in Delaware until he bought his freedom in 1780. In 1794, Richard Allen founded the African Methodist Episcopal Church, converting a blacksmith shop into the open doors of Bethel AME Church on July 29, 1794. In recognition of his leadership and preaching, Allen was ordained as the first Black Methodist minister by Bishop Francis Asbury in 1799.
James Russwurm was born in Jamaica to an English father and enslaved mother. He is known as one of the first African Americans to graduate from a U.S. college, acquiring degrees from Hebron Academy and Bowdoin College. Russwurm then moved from New York, where Samuel Cornish and he was also chosen as senior editor and junior editor of the first newspaper owned and operated by African Americans, called the “Freedom’s Journal.”
James Pierson Beckwourth was famously known as “Bloody Arm” due to his skill as a fighter. He fought in the Seminole War in 1842 and the California Revolution of 1846. In 1850, he discovered a route through the Sierra Nevada’s that was safer to travel, which is now called “Beckwourth Pass.” From 1851 to 1855 the Beckwourth Emigrant Trail was the preferred route for those seeking fortune in the California gold rush. The trail proved effective in getting travelers over the Sierra Nevada mountain pass and into gold country.
Nathanial “Nat” Turner was born on October 2, 1800 (into slavery) in Southampton County, Virginia. Despite his enslavement, he was allowed to be instructed in reading, writing, and religion. Some would go as far as to say he “surely would be a prophet,” possessing a talent for describing things before they happened. In Virginia, Turner planned and prepared a violent rebellion against slavery. Late in the summer of August 1831, Turner and other slaves killed his master’s family. Then the rebellion traveled by horseback and continued the attack on slave owners elsewhere. The rebellion led by Turner led to the death of almost 60 White slave owners, this also included women and children. The vengeful murders lasted a few days, until Turner’s capture on October 30. He was later convicted and sentenced to death—November 5, 1831. In modern times, Turner has been considered to be a patriot, fighting for his rights as a man as well as his people’s right to their freedom, in which the act of Slavery itself is an abomination. It warrants men to do desperate things, such as start a rebellion and get revenge.
Frederick Douglass was born in the month of February of 1818, in Talbot County, Maryland. Born into slavery, at the age of 6 he was forced to separate from his grandparents and sold to a local plantation. At the age of 12, the wife of a slave master taught him the alphabet. The lessons were short lived, and Douglass audaciously continued to hone his reading skills in secret. He became a voracious reader, and read anything he could get his hands on—newspapers, political pamphlets, novels, or textbooks; Douglass even received credit for teaching other slaves to read, he said “Once you learn to read, you will be forever free.” After several failed escape attempts, around the age of 20, Douglass escaped to New York where he declared himself a free man. Douglass expressed the importance of self-reliance, he said that “The man who will get up will be helped up; and the man who will not get up will be allowed to stay down.” In 1861, tensions over slavery erupted into the Civil War, which Douglass surmised as the necessary event to end slavery in America. He recruited many Black soldiers to fight for the Union army; including, enlisting two of his sons, and during the war, Douglass was a consultant to President Abraham Lincoln. Today, we consider Douglass the most celebrated leader of the abolitionist movement, with his unprecedented efforts to helping those in bondage. Douglass published his first and most famous of his autobiographies, “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave” in 1845. He also authored “My Bondage and My Freedom,” as well as “Life and Times of Frederick Douglass.”
Henry Highland Garnet was born on December 23, 1815, in Kent County, Maryland. In 1839, Garnet moved his family to Troy, New York to study theology; eventually, becoming a pastor at the Liberty Street Presbyterian church in the early 1840’s. Renowned for his skills as a public speaker, Garnet joined the American Anti-Slavery Society and spoke at abolitionist conferences. One of his most remembered speeches was the “Call to Rebellion” speech delivered in 1843. Garnet believed a slave should act for themselves, and advocate for armed rebellion as the most effective way to achieve total emancipation. During the Civil War, Garnet helped with recruiting Black soldiers to form the United States Colored Troops. From 1864 to 1866, Garnet delivered sermons at the prominent Liberty (Fifteenth) Street Presbyterian Church. As well as become the first Black minister to give a sermon at the U.S. House of Representatives, in which he addressed the end of slavery, on the day the Thirteenth Amendment was passed.
William Wells Brown was born in Lexington, Kentucky of 1814. Brown’s autobiography, “The Narrative of William H. Brown, a Fugitive Slave,” was published in 1847, it was also preempted by Frederick Douglass’ “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave of 1845.” Brown also published a travelogue called, “Three Years in Europe” in 1852 followed by his most famous novel, “Clotel” in 1853. The first novel to be published in the United States by an African American was fictional story about the slave daughters and granddaughters of President Thomas Jefferson. However, the novel rumored to be a reliable illustration of Jefferson’s relationship with his slave Sally Hemmings, she who bore several of his children.
Martin Delany was a physician, author, abolitionist, and early Black nationalist. He was born in Charles Town, Jefferson County (present-day West Virginia) on May 6, 1812, to a free mother and slave father. In 1822, his mother moved the family to Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, after it was discovered the Delany children were being taught to read. In 1831, Martin Delany moved to Pittsburgh to continue his education at a school for Blacks; he later studied with several medical doctors. Delany began publication of a black newspaper in Pittsburgh in 1843. This paper suspended publication in 1847, after which Delany briefly worked as co-editor of the North Star in Rochester, New York. In 1850, Delany and two other Black men entered Harvard Medical School. Complaints from several white students, who objected to the presence of the three Black, soon ended Delany’s stay there, however. Delany turned once again to writing and published “The Condition, Elevation, Emigration, and Destiny of the Colored People of the United States, Politically Considered” in 1852. This book supported the emigration of Blacks outside the United States, and Delany himself moved to Chatham, Canada, in 1856. In 1858, Martin Delany attended John Brown’s Chatham Convention, where Brown presented his Provisional Constitution and revealed a plan to free slaves that led to the raid on Harpers Ferry in October 1859. While Brown obtained Delany’s support at Chatham, Delany and other prominent Blacks, such as Frederick Douglass, distanced themselves from Brown as his actions became more militant and unpredictable. During the Civil War, Delany recruited black troops in Massachusetts and other New England states. He also became the first Black field officer in the Union Army in 1865 when he was commissioned major. After the war, Delany lived for several years in South Carolina. Among his activities, Delany worked for the Freedmen’s Bureau for three years and was active in politics. Increasingly unhappy with Reconstruction, Delany eventually gave his support to White Democratic redeemer Wade Hampton.
Mary Ann Shadd Cary was born October 9, 1823 in Wilmington, Delaware. After the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, she and her family relocated to Canada, along with 20,000 American-born Black people between 1800 and 1865. In 1853, Shadd pursued activism and founded The Provincial Freeman, a Canadian weekly anti-slavery newspaper, in which she became the first Black female to publish a newspaper in North America, as well as one of the first female publisher in Canada. The newspaper’s motto was, “Self-Reliance is the True Road to Independence.”
Harriet Tubman was born into enslavement in Dorchester County, Maryland. Birthdate records are unknown but estimations from historical documents pieced together suppose her to be born around 1822. Despite Tubman’s escape from bondage, she made 19 trips over ten years. During that time, she led more than 300 slaves to freedom; she strategized their escapes taking the Underground Railroad—a network of Black people, offering shelter for escaped slaves. Tubman once proudly pointed out to Frederick Douglass, in all her journeys she “never lost a single passenger.” (PBS) Today we recognize Tubman as America’s most celebrated abolitionist. She is remembered as a beacon of light for people searching for freedom and personifies someone who left a legacy of love, sacrifice, and perseverance against all the odds. Tubman died around the age of 93-years-old, and experienced financial hardships as well as post-traumas shadowing born into the worst circumstances of human history.
In 1857, Dred Scott unsuccessfully sued for his freedom in the Dred Scott v. Sandford case, popularly known as the “Dred Scott decision.” Scott was a slave in Missouri from 1833 to 1843; however, he resided in Illinois (a free state) for four years, and in the Louisiana Territory where slavery was forbidden by the Missouri Compromise of 1820. After returning to Missouri, Scott filed a lawsuit in Missouri court for his freedom, claiming that his residence in free territory made him a free man. Scott lost, but filed for a new suit in federal court. Two days after President James Buchanan took office, the “Dred Scott decision” fueled the national divisiveness, which in the end led to the Civil War.
