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Bridget (“Biddy”) Mason (1818–1891) was born a slave on a Mississippi plantation. When her owner, Robert M. Smith, became a Mormon convert in 1847, Mason and her three daughters joined his family on a 2,000-mile trek to the Utah Territory during which Mason was responsible for herding the cattle, preparing the meals, and serving as midwife. Four years later, Smith moved his household to San Bernardino County , Calif. , where Brigham Young was starting a Mormon community. California being a free state , Mason and her daughters petitioned the court for their freedom, which was granted in 1856.
Mason moved to Los Angeles where she worked as a nurse and midwife. A decade after gaining her freedom, she had saved enough to buy a site on Spring Street for $250, thereby becoming one of the first African-American women to own land in Los Angeles . In 1884, she sold part of the property for $1,500 and built a commercial building on the remaining land. Over the years, her wise business and real estate transactions enabled her to accumulate a fortune of almost $300,000.
Mason gave generously to charities, visited inmates, and provided food and shelter for the poor of all races. When a flood devastated Los Angeles in the 1880s, Mason had food prepared for the flood victims and paid the bills herself. In 1872, she and her son-in-law, Charles Owens, founded and financed the First African Methodist Episcopal Church of Los Angeles, the city's first African-American church.
When Mason died in 1891 she was buried in an unmarked grave at Evergreen Cemetery in Boyle Heights . Nearly a century later, on March 27, 1988, in a ceremony attended by Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley and 3,000 members of the First AME Church , a tombstone was unveiled which marked her grave for the first time.
She spoke fluent Spanish and was a well-known figure downtown, especially at the old plaza, where she conducted business. She dined on occasion at the home of Pio Pico, the last governor of Alta California and a wealthy Los Angeles land owner.
Mason is an honoree in the California Social Work Hall of Distinction. She is also celebrated on Biddy Mason Day on November 16. In her honor, the Biddy Mason Park has been established on South Spring Street in Los Angeles, California.
I like reading stories like this it runs counter to the modern day whiners in Black America.
Dangerfield Newby (1815 – 1859) was the oldest of John Brown's raiders, one of five black raiders, and the first of his men to die at Harpers Ferry, Virginia.[1] Born a slave in Fauquier County, Virginia, Newby married a woman also enslaved. Newby was later freed by his Scottish father, but his wife and seven children remained in bondage.[2] A letter found on his body revealed the motive for joining John Brown and the raid on Harpers Ferry.
Newby's wife was the slave of Jesse Jennings, of Arlington or Warrenton, Virginia. She and her children were sold to Louisiana after the raid. Newby had been unable to purchase the freedom of his wife and seven children. Their master raised the price after Newby had saved the $1,500 that had previously been agreed on. Because all of Newby's other efforts had failed he hoped to free them by force. Harriet's poignant letters, found on his body, proved instrumental in advancing the abolitionist cause. Newby was six foot two.
On the 17th of October, 1859, the citizens of Harpers Ferry set to put down the raid. Harpers Ferry manufactured guns but the citizens had little ammunition, so during the assault on the raiders they fired anything they could fit into a gun barrel. One man was shooting six inch spikes from his rifle, one of which struck Newby in the throat, killing him instantly. After the raid, the people of Harpers Ferry took his body, stabbed it repeatedly, and amputated his limbs. His body was left in an alley to be eaten by hogs. In 1899 the remains of Newby-plus remains of nine other raiders-were reburied in a common grave near the body of John Brown in North Elba New York.
The following letter was found on Dangerfield Newby's body after the failed Harpers Ferry raid:
BRENTVILLE, August 16, 1859. Dear Husband.
I want you to buy me as soon as possible for if you do not get me somebody else will. The servants are very disagreeable. They do all that they can to set my mistress against me. Dear Husband you are not the trouble I see these last two years. It has been like a troubled dream to me. It is said that the Master is in want of monney. If so I know not what time he may sell me. Then all my bright hopes of the future are blasted. For there has been one bright hope to cheer me in all my troubles, that is to be with you. For if I thought I should never see you on this earth, life would have no charm for me. Do all you can for me which I have no doubt you will. I want to see you so much. The children are all well. The baby cannot walk yet. The baby can step around any thing by holding on to it, very much like Agnes. I must bring my letter to close as I have no news to write. You must write soon and say when you think you can come
James Forten was born on September 2, 1766 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He was born a free black man. Over the course of his lifetime, he would make a significant impact upon the fortunes of the American capitalist system and the livelihood of his contemporaries.
His parents were Thomas and Sarah Forten. He was also the grandson of slaves. His formative years were spent in Philadelphia and he attended Anthony Benezet’s Quaker school for colored children. By the time he turned eight years old, he began working for Robert Bridges’s sail loft. This is where his father worked as well. The following year his father was the victim of an unfortunate boating accident and died. This horrible tragedy resulted in nine-year-old James having to take on additional work to support his family.
Over time, James Forten became interested in politics and avidly campaigned for and supported the issues of temperance, women’s suffrage, and equal rights for African Americans. In the year 1800, he was the leader in organizing a petition that called for Congress to emancipate all slaves. Given the fact that this was a presidential election year, rumor had it that a few of the presidential candidates (among them Thomas Jefferson) were none to pleased with a Negro man advocating for the emancipation of slavery. His activism was further recognized when he wrote and published a pamphlet denouncing the Pennsylvania legislature for prohibiting the immigration of freed black slaves from other states.
During his early teens, he worked as a powder boy during the Revolutionary War on the Royal Lewis sailing ship. After being captured by the British army, he was released and returned home to resume his previous job. Pleased with his work and dedication, he was appointed to the foreman’s position in the loft by his boss. By1798 Bridges decided to retire, and wanted Forten to remain in charge of the loft. He was able to have his desires realized. Eventually James owned the business, and employed almost 40 workers.
In 1817 Forten joined with Richard Allen to form the Convention of Color. In the 19th century Allen was the founder of the African Methodist Episcopal Church. Interestingly, the organization argued for the migration of free black slaves to Canada, but vehemently resisted any movement for a return to the African continent. Other prominent men who joined Forten and Allen were Williams Wells Brown, Samuel Eli Cornish, and Henry Highland Garnet.
James Forten died on March 4, 1842 after living an incredible life. His early years were devoted to providing for his widowed mother, his middle years towards acquiring a vast economic fortune and rectifying the brutal injustices that had been perpetrated upon his fellow African Americans, poor people, and women.
Jane M. Bolin was the 1st African American woman graduate of Yale Law School & the first black female judge in the United States. She's pictured here in July 1939 after her appointment by NYC Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia. Judge Bolin retired in 1979 after 40 yrs on the Bench (only because she reached the mandatory age). She passed away in 2007 at age 98.
A man of great energy and resolve, Paul Cuffee was born on the tiny island of Cuttyhunk, eleven miles offshore of New Bedford, MA. He was the seventh of ten children of Kofi Slocum, a freed African slave, and Ruth Moses, a Wampanoag Indian. His father took the name Slocum out of respect for the man who had freed him, John Slocum, a Quaker whose family owned Cuttyhunk. His mother was descended from a long line of Wampanoags who had been friendly to the early white settlers. They were a hardworking, devout couple. Quakers themselves, they raised their children to be contributing citizens. They were free and ambitious, and they prospered.
When Paul Cuffee was eight, his parents bought a 116-acre farm in Westport, Massachusetts. This was an unusual move for a freed slave; it was 1766, still nearly a century before President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation. All ten siblings grew to adulthood and lived successful lives, but Paul was the star of the family. He dropped Slocum as his last name and adapted his father’s first name instead, changing Kofi, an Ashanti word meaning “born on a Friday,” to Cuffee (though often spelled with just one “e”).
Cuffee showed an early affinity for boatbuilding, navigation, and trade. As a young teenager he built small boats and traded among the Massachusetts islands, as his father had done for many years. Later, he shipped aboard a whaler owned by the prominent Rotch family, Quaker merchants and whalers of New Bedford. During the Revolutionary War his ship was captured by the British and Cuffee was imprisoned in New York. Freed after three months, he made his way home, built his own vessel, and became a blockade runner, sailing on the darkest and stormiest nights to elude British patrols. He made a good living taking food and household supplies to Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard. By the time he was in his early twenties, few people had greater knowledge of the currents, shoals, and weather variations of the Massachusetts islands.
In 1783, a few weeks before the end of the Revolution, Cuffee married a local Native American woman named Alice Pequit. They raised seven children. Encouraged by the Rotch family and other successful merchants, Cuffee set about building his own mercantile empire. Manned by African American and Native American crews, his ships could be found on both sides of the Atlantic. Eventually he opened a store in New Bedford to sell the goods he imported.
Paul Cuffee’s influence became steadily greater as he rose in the world. After a long struggle with politicians, he and his brother John won the right to vote in Massachusetts for landowning people of color. As a substantial landowner he had sharply questioned why he should be taxed without representation. Having had to teach himself to read and write, he was eager for his own children to learn these skills. He offered to help pay for the first public school in Westport, but some in the village did not want their children to sit next to Negroes. Cuffee’s generous reaction was to build a school and support a teacher on his own property, welcoming the children of his white neighbors as well as his own. Thus, what was possibly the first integrated school in America was opened by a man of color.
Of commanding presence and legendary integrity, Cuffee was admired by people of all colors. Upon his return in 1812 from a voyage to Sierra Leone, unaware that his country was at war with Great Britain, he found his ship impounded by the U.S. Revenue Service in Newport. Within six days, at record-breaking speed, Cuffee was in Washington knocking at the door of President Madison, who immediately arranged for the ship to be returned. Cuffee is said to have been the first person of color to enter the White House through the front door.
Paul Cuffee was one of the wealthiest men of color in the early 19th century America. He could have rocked on his porch in Westport watching his ships come home with precious cargoes, but as a devout Quaker he believed God would be better pleased if he kept working to help people who were less fortunate. He chose to devote his remaining energy to taking free Blacks to Africa, often at his own expense. Sierra Leone, an African colony supported by British Quakers, provided a fine opportunity for developing a farming economy. Unfortunately, Cuffee could not persuade the native chiefs that tilling the soil would lead to greater community prosperity than selling their captives as slaves.
In late 1816, tired by efforts at negotiation and by a very rough 66-day voyage home, Cuffee lost his health. On September 7, 1817, surrounded by family members, he said, “Let me pass quietly away.” So ended a life of extraordinary accomplishment. Today at PCS we tell our students that if Paul Cuffee could achieve all that he did in his day, surely they can overcome the obstacles they face today.
Dr. Midlred Jefferson, firsst African American woman to graduate from Harvard Medical School
Born in Pittsburg, Texas she was the only child of Millard and Guthrie Jefferson, a Methodist minister and a school teacher. Jefferson was raised in Carthage, Texas. At a young age "Millie" followed the town doctor around on his horse drawn buggy, this would later inspire her to become a doctor.
At the age of 16 she earned her bachelor's degree from Texas College. Since she was too young to attend medical school, she went to Tufts University where she received her master's degree. She then went on to Harvard Medical School and graduated in 1951, becoming the first black woman to do so.
After graduating from Medical Mildred went on to apply for a surgical internship at Boston City Hospital, becoming the first woman to do so. She was also the first female doctor at the former Boston University Medical Center. She would later become the first woman to become a member of the Boston Surgical Society.
It was around 1970 when Dr. Jefferson became one of the founders of Massachusetts Citizens for Life. She later helped found the National Right to Life Committee. In 1971, she became a member of the NRLC Board of Directors. She became the Vice President of National Right to Life in 1973 and then was elected as Chairman of the Board the following year. Mildred then was elected as President of NRLC in 1975 until 1978.
It was in 1980 that Dr. Jefferson helped the National Right to Life Committee start a Political Action Committee because she believed it was important to lobby and support Pro-Life candidates for office. While a Republican, she helped democrat Ellen McCormack run for the Democratic Party Nominee for President in 1976. Apart from NRLC, Mildred served on the Board of Directors of more than 30 Pro-life organizations.
Mildred Jefferson is also noted for changing Ronald Reagan's stance on Abortion from Pro-choice to Pro-life. He stated to her in a letter;
"You have made it irrefutably clear that an abortion is the taking of a human life, I am grateful to you"-Ronald Reagan, a letter to Mildred Jefferson'
Jewel S. LaFontant-Mankarious (1922-1997), A.B. Oberlin 1943, '79 hon., trustee 1981-86. She was the first African American woman to serve as assistant U.S. attorney and the first African American woman to argue a case before the U.S. Supreme Court.
Mrs. Lafontant-Mankarious worked with major corporations and held directorships with firms such as Revlon Inc., Mobil Corp., Equitable Life Assurance Society of the United States, The Jewel Companies Inc. and TransWorld Airlines. She once was a senior legal partner in Chicago-based Vedder, Price, Kaufman & Kammholz, and she was employed with the legal firm of Holleb & Coff when she died.
Republican political appointments also colored her career. Mrs. Lafontant-Mankarious was named assistant U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Illinois in 1955. She was U.S. representative to the United Nations in 1972, and in 1973, became the first woman deputy solicitor general in the Justice Department. In 1993, President George Bush appointed her U.S. ambassador-at-large and coordinator of refugee affairs.
Mrs. Lafontant-Mankarious devoted much of her time to civic causes and support of African-Americans, women and the disadvantaged. She was most recently involved with La Rabida Children's Hospital and Project HOPE. She and her husband received the Raoul Wallenberg Humanitarian Award in 1995 for their work with children.
Martin R. Delany (born May 6, 1812) was a co-founder of the North Star abolitionist newspaper along with Frederick Douglass and William Lloyd Garrison. He studied medicine under abolitionist doctors in Pittsburgh and was admitted to Harvard Medical School but students objected to having a Black classmate and he was forced to leave after three weeks. During the Civil War he was commissioned as a Major
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