January 23, 1976 Paul LeRoy Bustill Robeson, concert singer, scholar, stage and film actor, athlete, and multi-lingual orator, died. Robeson was born April 9, 1898 in Princeton, New Jersey. He won a full academic scholarship to Rutgers University, the third African American student accepted at Rutgers. Although he was the only black student on campus […]
Tag Archives | scholar
October 17th in African American History – Lerone Bennett, Jr.
October 17, 1928, Lerone Bennett, Jr., scholar, author and social historian, was born in Clarksdale, Mississippi. Bennett earned his Bachelor of Arts degree from Morehouse College in 1949 and served in the United States Army from 1951 to 1952. He joined Ebony Magazine in 1954 and for decades served as executive editor. Bennett is the […]
September 16th in African American History – Henry Louis “Skip” Gates
September 16, 1950 Henry Louis “Skip” Gates, educator, writer, and scholar, was born in Keyser, West Virginia. Gates earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in history summa cum laude from Yale University in 1973 and became the first African American to be awarded an Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Fellowship. He earned his Master of Arts […]
August 27th in African American History – Norman W. Lewis
August 27, 1979 Norman W. Lewis, painter, scholar, and educator, died. Lewis was born July 23, 1909 in Harlem, New York. Always interested in art, he had amassed a large art history library by the time he was a young man. His early paintings were mostly figurative, including “Meeting Place” (1930), “The Yellow Hat” (1936), […]
April 16th in African American History – Ralph Waldo Ellison
April 16, 1994 Ralph Waldo Ellison, novelist, literary critic and scholar, died. Ellison was born March 1, 1914 in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. In 1933, Ellison entered Tuskegee Institute on a music scholarship but after his third year he moved to New York City where he met Richard Wright who encouraged him to pursue a career […]
March 28th in African American History – Benjamin Elijah Mays
March 28, 1984 Benjamin Elijah Mays, minister, educator, scholar, and social activist, died. Mays was born August 1, 1894 in Ninety Six, South Carolina. He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree from Bates College in 1920 and his Master of Arts degree in 1925 and Ph. D. in the School of Religion in 1935 from […]
March 1st in African American History – Ralph Waldo Ellison
March 1, 1914 Ralph Waldo Ellison, novelist, literary critic and scholar, was born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. In 1933, Ellison entered Tuskegee Institute on a music scholarship but after his third year he moved to New York City where he met Richard Wright who encouraged him to pursue a career in writing.