While it is sometimes stated that Du Bois renounced his U.S. citizenship at that time, and he stated his intention to do so, Du Bois never actually did. His health declined during the two years he was in Ghana, and he died on August 27, 1963, in the capital of Accra at the age of 95. The following day, at the March on Washington, speaker Roy Wilkins asked the hundreds of thousands of marchers to honor Du Bois with a moment of silence. The Civil Rights Act of 1964, embodying many of the reforms Du Bois had campaigned for during his entire life, was enacted almost a year after his death.


Du Bois was given a state funeral on August 29–30, 1963, at Nkrumah's request, and was buried near the western wall of Christiansborg Castle (now Osu Castle), then the seat of government in Accra. In 1985, another state ceremony honored Du Bois. With the ashes of his wife Shirley Graham Du Bois, who had died in 1977, his body was re-interred at their former home in Accra, which was dedicated the W. E. B. Du Bois Memorial Centre for Pan African Culture in his memory. Du Bois's first wife Nina, their son Burghardt, and their daughter Yolande, who died in 1961, were buried in the cemetery of Great Barrington, Massachusetts, his hometown.


Du Bois married Nina Gomer (b. about 1870, m. 1896, d. 1950), with whom he had two children. Their son Burghardt died as an infant before their second child, daughter Yolande, was born. Yolande attended Fisk University and became a high school teacher in Baltimore, Maryland. Her father encouraged her marriage to Countee Cullen, a nationally known poet of the Harlem Renaissance. They divorced within two years. She married again and had a daughter, Du Bois's only grandchild. That marriage also ended in divorce.


As a widower, Du Bois married Shirley Graham (m. 1951, d. 1977), an author, playwright, composer, and activist. She brought her son David Graham to the marriage. David grew close to Du Bois and took his stepfather's name; he also worked for African-American causes. The historian David Levering Lewis wrote that Du Bois engaged in several extramarital relationships.


Although Du Bois attended a New England Congregational church as a child, he abandoned organized religion while at Fisk College. As an adult, Du Bois described himself as agnostic or a freethinker, but at least one biographer concluded that Du Bois was virtually an atheist. However, another analyst of Du Bois's writings concluded that he had a religious voice, albeit radically different from other African-American religious voices of his era. Du Bois was credited with inaugurating a 20th-century spirituality to which Ralph Ellison, Zora Neale Hurston, and James Baldwin also belong.


When asked to lead public prayers, Du Bois would refuse. In his autobiography, Du Bois wrote:


Du Bois accused American churches of being the most discriminatory of all institutions. He also provocatively linked African-American Christianity to indigenous African religions. He did occasionally acknowledge the beneficial role that religion played in African-American life – as the "basic rock" which served as an anchor for African-American communities – but in general disparaged African-American churches and clergy because he felt they did not support the goals of racial equality and hindered activists' efforts.


Although Du Bois was not personally religious, he infused his writings with religious symbology. Many contemporaries viewed him as a prophet. His 1904 prose poem, "Credo", was written in the style of a religious creed and widely read by the African-American community. Moreover, Du Bois, both in his own fiction and in stories published in "The Crisis", often drew analogies between the lynchings of African Americans and the crucifixion of Christ. Between 1920 and 1940, Du Bois shifted from overt black messiah symbolism to more subtle messianic language.


In 1889, Du Bois became eligible to vote at the age of 21. During his life he followed the philosophy of voting for third parties if the Democratic and Republican parties were unsatisfactory; or voting for the lesser of two evils if a third option was not available.


From 1932 to 1944, Du Bois supported Franklin D. Roosevelt, the Democratic nominee, as Roosevelt's attitude towards workers was more realistic. During the 1948 presidential election he supported Henry A. Wallace, the Progressive nominee, and supported the Progressives’ nominee, Vincent Hallinan, again in 1952.


During the 1956 presidential election Du Bois stated that he would not vote. He criticized the foreign, taxation, and crime policies of the Eisenhower administration and Adlai Stevenson II for promising to maintain those policies. However, he could not vote third party due to the lack of ballot access for the Socialist Party.


The W. E. B. Du Bois Library at the University of Massachusetts Amherst contains Du Bois's archive, 294 boxes, 89 microfilm reels. 99,625 items have been digitized.


William Leo Hansberry (February 25, 1894 – November 3, 1965) was an American scholar and lecturer. He was the older brother of real estate broker Carl Augustus Hansberry, uncle of award-winning playwright Lorraine Hansberry and great-granduncle of actress Taye Hansberry.


Hansberry was born on February 25, 1894, in Gloster, Amite County, Mississippi. He was the son of Elden Hayes and Pauline (Bailey) Hansberry. His father taught history at Alcorn A&M in Lorman, Mississippi, but died when the younger Hansberry was only three years old. He and his younger brother, Carl Augustus Hansberry, were raised by their stepfather, Elijah Washington.


In 1915, he attended Atlanta University, where he was exposed to a new volume of essays on race (published by the university's Sociology Department), which served as a major influence on him. Another big influence was the book, "The Negro" by W. E. B. Du Bois. After he purchased a copy of the book, he rushed to the school's library to refer to the references cited in the volume. To his dismay, Hansberry discovered Atlanta University's reference library to be sorely lacking. As a result, he left Atlanta University two weeks into his sophomore year to transfer to the best-equipped university he could find that would admit blacks. As a result, he began studies at Harvard University in February 1917; he completed his undergraduate studies there in 1921.


Upon his graduation from Harvard, Hansberry taught for a year at Straight College (now Dillard University) in New Orleans. In September 1922, Hansberry joined the faculty of Howard University where he started the African Civilization Section of the History Department.


Hansberry received his Masters from Harvard in 1932. Additional post-graduate work was done at the University of Chicago, Oxford University and Cairo University. His knowledge of African studies was so vast that he was unable to obtain a Ph.D. because there was no school with faculty members qualified to supervise his dissertation.


As a professor at Howard, Hansberry taught courses on African civilizations and cultures. By the mid-1930s, he was internationally recognized by his peers as an outstanding scholar in his field. Among his students were two future African leaders. One was the future Ghanaian revolutionary, Kwame Nkrumah. Nkrumah would later become the first prime minister and president of Ghana. The other was Nnamdi Azikiwe, who studied anthropology under him from 1928 to 1929 and wrote a eulogy for him. Azikiwe would become the first president of Nigeria. In 1961, then-Nigerian Governor-General Azikiwe thought Hansberry's work so important that he offered to underwrite the publication of his major work, "The Rise and Decline of the Ethiopian Empire".


Although Hansberry's courses were very popular with students, two distinguished faculty members accused Hansberry of teaching subject matter without adequate research to support it. With the program and his job on the line, Hansberry presented the Board of Trustees with detailed documentation of his research. While he managed to save the African studies program, Hansberry's research funding was cut off and he would not receive tenure until 1938.


Despite the extensive research he conducted over his lifetime, Hansberry was very reluctant to have his work published. James Williams, one of his former students and later a Senior Professor of African History at Howard, recalled in 1972 that when his students urged publication of his work, Hansberry would smile, but always firmly reply, "I am not ready yet." Hansberry retired from Howard in June 1959.


He married Myrtle Kelso (September 24, 1908—May 1980) of Meridian, Lauderdale County, Mississippi, on June 22, 1937, in Chicago. She is the daughter of Wiley and Mamie Kelso. Two children were born to this union:


While visiting relatives in Chicago, Hansberry died at Billings Hospital of a cerebral hemorrhage on November 3, 1965.


In 1972, he finally received recognition from the university that had snubbed him when Howard named a lecture hall in his honor.


William Leo Hansberry was a member of Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity.


Elaine Brown (born March 2, 1943) is an American prison activist, writer, singer, and former Black Panther Party chairwoman who is based in Oakland, California. Brown briefly ran for the Green Party presidential nomination in 2008. She withdrew from the party.


While in Los Angeles, Brown enrolled in the University of California Los Angeles. She later went on to briefly attend Mills College and Southwestern University School of Law.


In 1968, Brown joined the Black Panther Party as a rank-and-file member, studying revolutionary literature, selling Black Panther Party newspapers, and cleaning guns, among other tasks. She soon helped the Party set up its first Free Breakfast for Children program in Los Angeles, as well as the Party's initial Free Busing to Prisons Program and Free Legal Aid Program.


In 1968, Brown was commissioned by David Hilliard, the Party chief of staff, to record her songs, a request resulting in the album "Seize the Time". She eventually assumed the role of editor of "the" "Black Panther" publication in the Southern California Branch of the Party. In 1971, Brown became a member of the Party's Central Committee as Minister of Information, replacing the expelled Eldridge Cleaver. In 1973, Brown was commissioned to record more songs by Black Panther Party founder and Minister of Defense Huey P. Newton. These songs resulted in the album "Until We're Free".


As part of a directive by Newton, Brown unsuccessfully ran for the Oakland city council in 1973, getting 30 percent of the vote. She ran again in 1975, losing again with 44 percent of the vote. When Newton fled to Cuba in 1974 to avoid criminal charges, he appointed Brown to lead the Black Panther Party. Brown was the only woman to do so. She chaired the Black Panther Party from 1974 until 1977. In her 1992 memoir, "A Taste of Power", she wrote about the experience:


"A woman in the Black Power movement was considered, at best, irrelevant. A woman asserting herself was a pariah. If a black woman assumed a role of leadership, she was said to be eroding black manhood, to be hindering the progress of the black race. She was an enemy of the black people... I knew I would have to muster something mighty to manage the Black Panther Party". She dealt with regular sexism because the men were angered by the thought of taking orders from a woman.


During Brown's leadership of the Black Panther Party, she focused on electoral politics and community service. In 1977, she managed Lionel Wilson’s victorious campaign to become Oakland’s first black mayor. Also, Brown founded the Panther's Liberation School, which was recognized by the state of California as a model school.


Brown stepped down from chairing the Black Panther Party less than a year after Newton’s return from Cuba in 1977 when Newton refused to condemn the beating of Regina Davis, an administrator of the Panther Liberation School. Other male members of the party beat her and broke her jaw because she reprimanded a coworker when he did not do an assignment. Newton opted for solidarity with the men. This incident was the point at which Brown could no longer tolerate the sexism and patriarchy of the Black Panther Party. For many, Brown's leaving was seen as a turning point for the Party. She left Oakland with her daughter, Ericka, and moved to Los Angeles.


Brown recorded two albums, "Seize the Time" (Vault, 1969) and "Until We're Free" (Motown Records, 1973). "Seize the Time" includes "The Meeting," the anthem of the Black Panther Party.


After leaving the Black Panther Party in order to raise her daughter Ericka, Brown worked on her memoir, "A Taste of Power". She eventually returned to the struggle for black liberation, especially espousing the need for radical prison reform. From 1980 to 1983, she attended Southwestern University School of Law in Los Angeles.


In 2003, Brown co-founded the National Alliance for Radical Prison Reform, which helps thousands of prisoners find housing after they are released on parole, facilitates transportation for family visits to prisons, helps prisoners find employment, and raises money for prisoner phone calls and gifts.


Brown has continued her prison reform advocacy by lecturing frequently at colleges and universities in the US. Since 1995, she has lectured at more than forty colleges and universities, as well as numerous conferences.


In 2010, inmates in more than seven Georgia prisons used contraband cellphones to organize a nonviolent strike for better prison conditions, Brown became their "closest adviser outside prison walls." She "helped distill the inmate complaints into a list of demands. She held a conference call... to develop a strategy with various groups, including the Georgia chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the Nation of Islam."


Brown has one daughter, Ericka Abram, fathered by Black Panther member Raymond Hewitt, but he was mostly absent from his daughter's life. At Hewitt's funeral, Elaine Brown was in attendance.


Cecelia Antoinette Bruton (November 24, 1949 – May 28, 2020), known professionally as Cecelia Antoinette or CeCe Antoinette, was an American actress, comedian, and writer.


Cecelia Antoinette Bruton was born a twin in Dallas, in 1949, the daughter of Cicero Hamilton Bruton Sr. and Naomi Hartman Bruton. Her mother was an actress, and her father worked for the railroad. She was educated in Hamilton Park schools, graduating from high school in 1968. She earned a bachelor's degree at the University of Oklahoma. She was a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha.


Bruton began acting in Dallas and took acting classes in New York City. She appeared on Broadway in "Mule Bone", and in touring or regional companies of "The Wake of Jeremy Foster", "The Member of the Wedding", "The Ride Down Mt. Morgan", "St. Lucy's Eyes," and "Bronzeville". On television, she had small roles in , "Scrubs, Weeds, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Godfather of Harlem, The Punisher," "A Black Lady Sketch Show, Blue Bloods, 2 Broke Girls," "Mad Men", "Desperate Housewives", "Girlfriends", "Crossing Jordan", and "The Chris Rock Show". Her film credits included appearances in "After School" (2008), "Proud American" (2008), "Yes Man" (2008), "Dance Fu" (2011), "Different Flowers" (2017), and "Deadtectives" (2018).


Bruton published a book of poetry, "Just as I am", and a memoir, "Brown Gal's Rising", and an autobiographical one-woman show, "Watermelon: Git It While It's Hot!". She participated in the Lincoln Center Theater Directors Lab in 1998, and performed at festivals about women in jazz in Hartford in 1999 and 2001. She was a member of the Women's Project Directors Forum. She taught theatre at various levels, including at the Pennsylvania State University and the New York City public schools.


Cecelia Antoinette Bruton was a practicing Nichiren Shoshu Buddhist.


She died in 2020, aged 70 years. She was honored posthumously at the Reel Sisters awards ceremony in November 2020.


Dhoruba al-Mujahid bin Wahad (born Richard Earl Moore; 1944) is an American writer and activist, who is a former political prisoner, Black Panther Party leader, and co-founder of the Black Liberation Army. "Dhoruba", in Swahili, means "the storm".


On May 19, 1971, Thomas Curry and Nicholas Binetti, two New York City Police Department officers who were guarding the home of Frank S. Hogan, the Manhattan district attorney, were fired upon in a drive-by shooting, with a machine gun. The officers survived, but were seriously injured, sustaining shots to the head, neck, chest, and abdomen.


The shootings took place during a period of intense violence between black activist organizations and the New York City police department. Two days later, NYPD officers Waverly Jones and Joseph Piagentini were shot and killed outside a housing project in Harlem.


Wahad was arrested and initially charged with robbing a South Bronx social club, and then was later charged with the attempted murders of Curry and Binetti.


Wahad's first trial ended in a hung jury; his second in a mistrial. Two years later, in 1973, his third trial resulted in a guilty verdict; he was sentenced to twenty-five years to life.


Wahad spent a total of nineteen years in prison. While incarcerated, he learned about Congressional hearings that disclosed the existence of a covert F.B.I. operation known as COINTELPRO. In December 1975 he filed a lawsuit against the F.B.I. and the police department of the City of New York.


As a direct result of his lawsuit, over the next fifteen years the F.B.I. released more than 300,000 pages of documents regarding COINTELPRO. The COINTELPRO documents were the basis on which Wahad appealed his conviction, and on March 15, 1990, Judge Peter J. McQuillan of the New York Supreme Court in Manhattan reversed it, ruling that the prosecution had failed to disclose evidence that could have helped Mr. Wahad's defense.


While Manhattan District Attorney Robert M. Morgenthau stated that he planned to appeal the ruling, and would obtain a retrial if his appeal failed, Wahad was freed and released without bail.


Morgenthau's attempt to appeal was rejected by the Appellate Division of the New York Supreme Court, and on January 20, 1995, the Manhattan district attorney's office stated there would be no retrial, indicating that the current condition of the evidence would make this impossible.


In 1995, the F.B.I. settled with Wahad; the U.S. government paid him $400,000.


On December 4, 2000, Dhoruba's suit against the New York Police Department, seeking $15 million in damages was scheduled to begin. On December 8, 2000, the city of New York laid to rest a 25-year legal battle, and agreed to pay Wahad an additional $490,000 in damages.


Wahad lived in Accra, Ghana, where he organized on Pan-Africanism and the prison system. Using the funds from his settlements for personal damages from the FBI and City of New York, he established the Campaign to Free Black and New African Political Prisoners (formerly the Campaign to Free Black Political Prisoners and Prisoners-of-War) and founded the Institute for the Development of Pan-African policy in Ghana.


He currently lives in New York City and continues his work.


On August 19, 2015, Bin Wahad and an associate were assaulted by a faction of the New Black Panther Party. Bin Wahad had been attending a conference in Atlanta, Georgia held by the Nzinga faction of the "New" Panthers, where Bin Wahad confronted the group about their adoption of the Black Panther name and their rhetoric. The two were ordered to leave but when they refused, Bin Wahad was assaulted. Wahad was left with a concussion, a broken jaw and lacerations from the attack. The event led founding member of the original Black Panthers, Elbert "Big Man" Howard, to denounce the group as "reactionaries" and "thugs".


Barbara Cottman Becnel (born May 30, 1950) is an American author, journalist, and film producer. She was a close friend and advocate for Crips co-founder Stanley Williams (aka "Stan Tookie Williams"; a convicted murderer and former gang leader who would later become an anti-gang activist and writer), and editor of Williams's series of children's books, which spoke out against gang violence. Williams was executed in 2005. Becnel co-produced the Golden Globe-nominated film "", which starred award-winning actress Lynn Whitfield playing the role of Becnel.


Becnel was in attendance at Williams' execution as one of his chosen witnesses. After he was pronounced dead, she, along with two of his friends, television executive Shirley Neal and movie producer Rudy Langlais, stood up and yelled that California had executed an innocent man. After the execution, she said "We are going to prove his innocence, and when we do, we are going to show that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is, in fact, himself a cold blooded murderer."


Williams directed Becnel to make the arrangements for his funeral, which was held at Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church on December 20, 2005. More than 3,000 people attended Williams' memorial service. On Sunday, June 25, 2006, Becnel and Neal released Williams' ashes into a lake in Thokoza Park, located in the black township of Soweto, Johannesburg, South Africa. In February 2009, Becnel and Neal released "Tribute: Stanley Tookie Williams, 1953-2005", a documentary they directed and produced about Williams.


Announcing her intention to defeat Schwarzenegger in the upcoming gubernatorial election, Becnel ran for the Democratic Party's nomination for Governor of California in 2006, the first black female to do so. She finished with 66,544 votes overall, which amounted to 2.7% of all ballots cast, coming in third out of eight Democrats behind Phil Angelides and Steve Westly. Her campaign attracted media attention, and she raised enough money in the last week of the campaign to run television and radio commercials.


She publicly denounced Democratic Gubernatorial candidates Phil Angelides and Steve Westly for supporting the death penalty. She is also outspoken on other social issues, such as the environment and immigration. Barbara's outspoken criticism of Angelides and Westly resulted in her not being invited to a number of key Democratic Party events during the general election season. This, coupled with differences over issues such as the death penalty, led Barbara to leave the Democratic Party. In the first weeks of 2007 Barbara left the Democratic Party and joined the Green Party of California, the state affiliate of the Green Party (GPUS). When asked why she joined the Green Party, Becnel responded, "The Green Party is right on the issues--no ifs, ands, or buts."


Shirley Graham Du Bois (born Lola Shirley Graham Jr.; November 11, 1896 – March 27, 1977) was an American author, playwright, composer, and activist for African-American causes, among others. She won the Messner and the Anisfield-Wolf prizes for her works.


She was born Lola Shirley Graham Jr. in Indianapolis, Indiana, in 1896, as the only daughter among five children. Her father was an African Methodist Episcopal minister and the family moved often due to her fathers work in parsonages throughout the country. In June 1915, Shirley graduated from Lewis and Clark High School in Spokane, Washington.


She married her first husband, Shadrach T. McCants, in 1921. Their son Robert was born in 1923, followed by David Graham DuBois in 1925. In 1926, Graham moved to Paris, France, to study music composition at the Sorbonne. She thought that this education might allow her to achieve better employment and be able to better support her children. Meeting Africans and Afro-Caribbean people in Paris introduced her to new music and cultures. Shirley and Shadrach divorced in 1927.


Graham served as music librarian while attending Howard University as a nonmatriculated student under the tutelage of Professor Roy W. Tibbs. He recommended her for a teaching position at Morgan College which led to her position as head of the music department from 1929 to 1931.


In 1931, Graham entered Oberlin College as an advanced student and, after earning her B.A. in 1934, went on to do graduate work in music, completing a master's degree in 1935. In 1936, Hallie Flanagan appointed Graham director of the Chicago Negro Unit of the Federal Theater Project, part of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's Works Progress Administration. She wrote musical scores, directed, and did additional associated work.


Shirley Graham Du Bois composed the opera "Tom-Tom: An Epic of Music and the Negro" which premiered in Cleveland, Ohio in 1932, commissioned by the Stadium Opera Company. Tom Tom featured an all Black cast and orchestra, structured in three acts; act one taking place in an Indigenous African tribe, act two portraying an American Slave plantation, and the final act taking place in 1920s Harlem. The music features elements of blues and spirituals, as well as jazz with elements of opera. The score of this opera was considered lost and has not been performed since its premiere until it was rediscovered in 2001 at Harvard University.


In the late 1940s, Graham became a member of Sojourners for Truth and Justicean African-American organization working for global women's liberation. Around the same time, she joined the American Communist Party.


Shirley Graham Du Bois attended the Second Summit of the Organization of African Unity (OAU) in Cairo in 1964 and consulted with Malcom X on the efforts of the Organization of Afro-American Unity (OAAU) to get support for the issues inside the U.S. among heads-of-state, the UN and national liberation movements. Graham announced the starting of a course on television screenwriting in Accra to create a group of writers for Ghana National Television.


During her first visit to China in 1959, Shirley Graham Du Bois, alongside her husband W.E.B Du Bois, was commemorated in China for their activism and commitment to Black Liberation, as well as for liberation of all people of color across the globe. The Communist Party of China in 1959 commemorated W.E.B Du Bois by publishing his book The Soul of Black Folk in Chinese languages. Shirley Graham Du Bois devoted her time in China to the women’s struggle and sought to bridge ties between the proletarian struggle in China with the struggle of Black Americans. The People’s Daily recognized her as a member of the World Peace Council and of the national committee for the Association of American-Soviet Friendship.


Following the right-wing military coup led by Joseph Aruther Ankrah, ousting Kwame Nkrumah, Shirley Graham Du Bois moved to Egypt and later moved to China again during the midst of the “Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution”. During this time, Shirley Graham Du Bois sided with the Chinese Communists in the Sino-Soviet split. She had praised China’s music programs in Shanghai and she joined the Bureau of Afro-Asian writers. Shirley Graham Du Bois spent a good amount of time in Chinese Communes and with the Red Guards.


She was able to attain a visa to the U.S to give talks at Yale and UCLA in 1970, where she was able to speak on Imperialism, Capitalism and colonialism and her experiences in countries undergoing Socialist construction, such as China and Vietnam. She also gave W.E.B Du Bois’ writings to the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.


She produced a movie in China called “Women of the New China” in 1974. Shirley Graham Du Bois passed away in Beijing, China in 1977, where she is buried in the Babaoshan Cemetery for Revolutionary Heroes. Her funeral was attended by many important political figures in China, including Cheng Yonggui, Deng Yingchao, and Hua Goufeng, where they honored her as a hero for her internationalism and selflessness. The Communist Party Chairman memorial wreaths in honor of Graham Du Bois, as did the embassies of Tanzania, Ghana, and Zambia.


In 1967, she was forced to leave after a military-led coup d'état, and moved to Cairo, Egypt, where she continued writing. Her surviving son David Graham Du Bois accompanied her and worked as a journalist.


Shirley Graham Du Bois died of breast cancer on March 27, 1977, aged 80, in Beijing, China. She died as a Tanzanian. She had moved from Ghana to Tanzania after Ghanaian president, Kwame Nkrumah, was overthrown on 24 February 1966, and became close to Tanzanian president, Julius Nyerere, and acquired Tanzanian citizenship.


Her alma mater Oberlin Conservatory of Music recently honored DuBois offering cluster courses and a conference devoted to reviving her remarkable legacy as a composer, activist and media figure. The conference was called "Intersections: Recovering the Genius of Shirley Graham Du Bois 2020 Symposium" on Thursday and Friday, February 27 & 28, 2020 that included a plenary lecture by Columbia professor and author Farah Jasmine Griffin. The event was co-sponsored by The Gertrude B. Lemle Teaching Center, StudiOC, a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Dean of The College, Dean of the Conservatory, History Department, Oberlin College Libraries, Africana Studies Department, and the Theater Department.


After meeting Africans in Paris while studying at the Sorbonne in 1926, Graham composed the musical score and libretto of "Tom Tom: An Epic of Music and the Negro" (1932), an opera. She used music, dance and the book to express the story of Africans' journey to the North American colonies, through slavery and to freedom. It premiered in Cleveland, Ohio. The opera attracted 10,000 people to its premiere at the Cleveland Stadium and 15,000 to the second performance.


According to the "Oxford Companion to African-American Literature," her theatre works included "Deep Rivers" (1939), a musical; "It's Morning" (1940), a one-act tragedy about a slave mother who contemplates infanticide; "I Gotta Home" (1940), a one-act drama; "Track Thirteen" (1940), a comedy for radio and her only published play; "Elijah's Raven" (1941), a three-act comedy; and "Dust to Earth" (1941), a three-act tragedy.


Graham used theater to tell the black woman's story and perspective, countering white versions of history. Despite her unsuccessful attempts to land a Broadway production as many African American women before and after her, her plays were still produced by Karamu Theatre in Cleveland and other major Black companies. Her work was also seen in many colleges and both "Track Thirteen (1940)" and "Tom-Tom" were aired on the radio.


Due to the difficulty in getting musicals or plays produced and published, Graham turned to literature. She wrote in a variety of genres, specializing from the 1950s in biographies of leading African-American and world figures for young readers. She wanted to increase the number of books that dealt with notable African Americans in elementary school libraries. Owing to her personal knowledge of her subjects, her books on Paul Robeson and Kwame Nkrumah are considered especially interesting. Other subjects included Frederick Douglass, Phillis Wheatley, and Booker T. Washington; as well as Gamal Abdul Nasser, and Julius Nyerere. One of her last novels, "Zulu Heart" (1974), included sympathetic portrayals of whites in South Africa despite racial conflicts.


Selections from her correspondence with her husband (both before and after their relationship began) appear in the three volume 1976 collection edited by Herbert Aptheker (ed.), "Correspondence of W.E.B. Du Bois". Shirley Graham Du Bois is the subject of "Race Woman: The Lives of Shirley Graham Du Bois".


Darius Gray is an African-American Latter-day Saint speaker and writer.


Gray was born in Colorado Springs, Colorado. He joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) in 1964. He attended Brigham Young University for one year and then transferred to the University of Utah. Gray worked for a time as a journalist.


Gray has traveled throughout the United States to make presentations. In 2007, he appeared in the PBS documentary "The Mormons". In February 2008, he made an invitation-only presentation at the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History in Detroit that was partly sponsored by New Detroit. He is also featured in the BYU Television series "Questions and Ancestors". Gray has also served as a developer of the website blacklds.org and on the advisory board of Reach the Children, a humanitarian organization designed to help people in Africa.


Gray was among those involved in Developing the "Race and the Priesthood" essay published on the website of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in December 2013. In 2014 Gray was given a special citation by the Mormon History Association for contributions to Mormon history.


Mumia Abu-Jamal (born Wesley Cook; April 24, 1954) is a political activist and journalist who was convicted of murder and sentenced to death in 1982 for the 1981 murder of Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner. He became widely known while on death row for his writings and commentary on the criminal justice system in the United States. After numerous appeals, his death penalty sentence was overturned by a Federal court. In 2011, the prosecution agreed to a sentence of life imprisonment without parole. He entered the general prison population early the following year.


Beginning at the age of 14 in 1968, Abu-Jamal became involved with the Black Panther Party and was a member until October 1970. After he left the party, he completed his high school education, and later became a radio reporter. He eventually served as president of the Philadelphia Association of Black Journalists. He supported the MOVE Organization in Philadelphia and covered the 1978 confrontation in which one police officer was killed. The MOVE Nine were the members who were arrested and convicted of murder in that case.


Since 1982, the murder trial of Abu-Jamal has been seriously criticized for constitutional failings; some have claimed that he is innocent, and many opposed his death sentence. The Faulkner family, politicians, and other groups involved with law enforcement, state and city governments argue that Abu-Jamal's trial was fair, his guilt beyond question, and his death sentence justified.


When his death sentence was overturned by a Federal court in 2001, he was described as "perhaps the world's best-known death-row inmate" by "The New York Times." During his imprisonment, Abu-Jamal has published books and commentaries on social and political issues; his first book was "Live from Death Row" (1995).


He was born Wesley Cook in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where he grew up. He has a younger brother named William. They attended local public schools.


In 1968, a high school teacher, a Kenyan instructing a class on African cultures, encouraged the students to take African or Arabic names for classroom use; he gave Cook the name "Mumia". According to Abu-Jamal, "Mumia" means "Prince" and was the name of a Kenyan anti-colonial African nationalist who fought against the British before Kenyan independence.


Abu-Jamal has described being "kicked ... into the Black Panther Party" as a teenager of 14, after suffering a beating from "white racists" and a policeman for trying to disrupt a 1968 rally for Independent candidate George Wallace, former governor of Alabama, who was running on a racist platform. From then he helped form the Philadelphia branch of the Black Panther Party with Defense Captain Reggie Schell, and other Panthers. He was appointed as the chapter's "Lieutenant of Information," responsible for writing information and news communications. In an interview in the early years, Abu-Jamal quoted Mao Zedong, saying that "political power grows out of the barrel of a gun". That same year, he dropped out of Benjamin Franklin High School and began living at the branch's headquarters.


He spent late 1969 in New York City and early 1970 in Oakland, living and working with BPP colleagues in those cities; the party had been founded in Oakland. He was a party member from May 1969 until October 1970. During this period, he was subject to illegal surveillance as part of the Federal Bureau of Investigation's COINTELPRO program, with which the Philadelphia police cooperated. The FBI was working to infiltrate black radical groups and to disrupt them by creating internal dissension.


After leaving the Panthers, Abu-Jamal returned as a student to his former high school. He was suspended for distributing literature calling for "black revolutionary student power". He led unsuccessful protests to change the school name to Malcolm X High, to honor the major African-American leader who had been killed in New York by political opponents.


After attaining his GED, Abu-Jamal studied briefly at Goddard College in rural Vermont. He returned to Philadelphia.


Cook adopted the surname Abu-Jamal ("father of Jamal" in Arabic) after the birth of his first child, son Jamal, on July 18, 1971. He married Jamal's mother Biba in 1973, but they did not stay together long. Their daughter, Lateefa, was born shortly after the wedding. The couple divorced.


In 1977 Abu-Jamal married again, to his second wife, Marilyn (known as "Peachie"). Their son, Mazi, was born in early 1978. By 1981, Abu-Jamal had divorced Peachie and had married his third (and current) wife, Wadiya.


By 1975 Abu-Jamal was working in radio newscasting, first at Temple University's WRTI and then at commercial enterprises. In 1975, he was employed at radio station WHAT, and he became host of a weekly feature program at WCAU-FM in 1978. He also worked for brief periods at radio station WPEN. He became active in the local chapter of the Marijuana Users Association of America.


From 1979 to 1981 he worked at National Public Radio (NPR) affiliate WHYY. The management asked him to resign, saying that he did not maintain a sufficiently objective approach in his presentation of news. As a radio journalist, Abu-Jamal was renowned for identifying with and covering the MOVE anarcho-primitivist commune in West Philadelphia's Powelton Village neighborhood. He reported on the 1979–80 trial of certain members (the "MOVE Nine"), who were convicted of the murder of police officer James Ramp. Abu-Jamal had several high-profile interviews, including with Julius Erving, Bob Marley and Alex Haley. He was elected president of the Philadelphia Association of Black Journalists.


Before joining MOVE, Abu-Jamal reported on the organization. When he joined MOVE, he said it was because of his love of the people in the organization. Thinking back on it later, he said he "was probably enraged as well".


In December 1981, Abu-Jamal was working as a taxicab driver in Philadelphia two nights a week to supplement his income. He had been working part-time as a reporter for WDAS, then an African-American-oriented and minority-owned radio station.


Traffic stop and death of officer Faulkner.


At 3:55 am on December 9, 1981, in Philadelphia, close to the intersection at 13th and Locust streets, Philadelphia Police Department officer Daniel Faulkner conducted a traffic stop on a vehicle belonging to and driven by William Cook, Abu-Jamal's younger brother. Faulkner and Cook became engaged in a physical confrontation. Driving his cab in the vicinity, Abu-Jamal observed the altercation, parked, and ran across the street toward Cook's car. Faulkner was shot in the back and face. He shot Abu-Jamal in the stomach. Faulkner died at the scene from the gunshot to his head.


Police arrived and arrested Abu-Jamal, who was found to be wearing a shoulder holster. His revolver, which had five spent cartridges, was beside him. He was taken directly from the scene of the shooting to Thomas Jefferson University Hospital, where he received treatment for his wound. He was next taken to Police


Headquarters, where he was charged and held for trial in the first-degree murder of Officer Faulkner.


The prosecution presented four witnesses to the court about the shootings. Robert Chobert, a cab driver who testified he was parked behind Faulkner, identified Abu-Jamal as the shooter. Cynthia White testified that Abu-Jamal emerged from a nearby parking lot and shot Faulkner. Michael Scanlan, a motorist, testified that from two car lengths away he saw a man matching Abu-Jamal's description run across the street from a parking lot and shoot Faulkner. Albert Magilton testified to seeing Faulkner pull over Cook's car. As Abu-Jamal started to cross the street toward them, Magilton turned away and did not see what happened next.


The prosecution presented two witnesses from the hospital where Abu-Jamal was treated. Hospital security guard Priscilla Durham and police officer Garry Bell testified that Abu-Jamal said in the hospital, "I shot the motherfucker, and I hope the motherfucker dies."


A .38 caliber Charter Arms revolver, belonging to Abu-Jamal, with five spent cartridges, was retrieved beside him at the scene. He was wearing a shoulder holster. Anthony Paul, the Supervisor of the Philadelphia Police Department's firearms identification unit, testified at trial that the cartridge cases and rifling characteristics of the weapon were consistent with bullet fragments taken from Faulkner's body. Tests to confirm that Abu-Jamal had handled and fired the weapon were not performed. Contact with arresting police and other surfaces at the scene could have compromised the forensic value of such tests.


After three hours of deliberations, the jury presented a unanimous guilty verdict.


In the sentencing phase of the trial, Abu-Jamal read to the jury from a prepared statement. He was cross-examined about issues relevant to the assessment of his character by Joseph McGill, the prosecuting attorney.


In his statement, Abu-Jamal criticized his attorney as a "legal trained lawyer", who was imposed on him against his will and who "knew he was inadequate to the task and chose to follow the directions of this black-robed conspirator [referring to the judge], Albert Sabo, even if it meant ignoring my directions." He claimed that his rights had been "deceitfully stolen" from him by [Judge] Sabo, particularly focusing on the denial of his request to receive defense assistance from John Africa, who was not an attorney, and being prevented from proceeding "pro se". He quoted remarks of John Africa, and said:


Abu-Jamal was sentenced to death by the unanimous decision of the jury. Amnesty International has objected to the introduction by the prosecution at the time of his sentencing of statements from when he was an activist as a youth. It also protested the politicization of the trial, noting that there was documented recent history in Philadelphia of police abuse and corruption, including fabricated evidence and use of excessive force. Amnesty International concluded "that the proceedings used to convict and sentence Mumia Abu-Jamal to death were in violation of minimum international standards that govern fair trial procedures and the use of the death penalty".


The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania on March 6, 1989, heard and rejected a direct appeal of his conviction. It subsequently denied rehearing. The Supreme Court of the United States denied his petition for writ of "certiorari" on October 1, 1990, and denied his petition for rehearing twice up to June 10, 1991.


On June 1, 1995, Abu-Jamal's death warrant was signed by Pennsylvania Governor Tom Ridge. Its execution was suspended while Abu-Jamal pursued state post-conviction review. At the post-conviction review hearings, new witnesses were called. William "Dales" Singletary testified that he saw the shooting, and that the gunman was the passenger in Cook's car. Singletary's account contained discrepancies which rendered it "not credible" in the opinion of the court.


The six judges of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania ruled unanimously that all issues raised by Abu-Jamal, including the claim of ineffective assistance of counsel, were without merit. The Supreme Court of the United States denied a petition for "certiorari" against that decision on October 4, 1999, enabling Ridge to sign a second death warrant on October 13, 1999. Its execution was stayed as Abu-Jamal began to seek federal "habeas corpus" review.


In 1999, Arnold Beverly claimed that he and an unnamed assailant, not Mumia Abu-Jamal, shot Daniel Faulkner as part of a contract killing because Faulkner was interfering with graft and payoff to corrupt police. As Abu-Jamal's defense team prepared another appeal in 2001, they were divided over use of the Beverly affidavit. Some thought it usable and others rejected Beverly's story as "not credible".


Private investigator George Newman claimed in 2001 that Chobert had recanted his testimony. Commentators noted that police and news photographs of the crime scene did not show Chobert's taxi, and that Cynthia White, the only witness at the original trial to testify to seeing the taxi, had previously provided crime scene descriptions that omitted it. Cynthia White was declared to be dead by the state of New Jersey in 1992, but Pamela Jenkins claimed that she saw White alive as late as 1997. The Free Mumia Coalition has claimed that White was a police informant and that she falsified her testimony against Abu-Jamal.


Kenneth Pate, who was imprisoned with Abu-Jamal on other charges, has since claimed that his step-sister Priscilla Durham, a hospital security guard, admitted later she had not heard the "hospital confession" to which she had testified at trial. The hospital doctors said that Abu-Jamal was "on the verge of fainting" when brought in, and they did not hear any such confession.


In 2008, the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania rejected a further request from Abu-Jamal for a hearing into claims that the trial witnesses perjured themselves, on the grounds that he had waited too long before filing the appeal.


On March 26, 2012 the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania rejected his appeal for retrial. His defense had asserted, based on a 2009 report by the National Academy of Sciences, that forensic evidence presented by the prosecution and accepted into evidence in the original trial was unreliable. This was reported as Abu-Jamal's last legal appeal.


The Free Mumia Coalition published statements by William Cook and his brother Abu-Jamal in the spring of 2001. Cook, who had been stopped by the police officer, had not made any statement before April 29, 2001, and did not testify at his brother's trial. In 2001 he said that he had not seen who had shot Faulkner. Abu-Jamal did not make any public statements about Faulkner's murder until May 4, 2001. In his version of events, he claimed that he was sitting in his cab across the street when he heard shouting, saw a police vehicle, and heard the sound of gunshots. Upon seeing his brother appearing disoriented across the street, Abu-Jamal ran to him from the parking lot and was shot by a police officer.


In 2001 Judge William H. Yohn, Jr. of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania upheld the conviction, saying that Abu-Jamal did not have the right to a new trial. But he vacated the sentence of death on December 18, 2001, citing irregularities in the penalty phase of the trial and the original process of sentencing. Particularly, he said that


He ordered the State of Pennsylvania to commence new sentencing proceedings within 180 days, and ruled unconstitutional the requirement that a jury be unanimous in its finding of circumstances mitigating against a sentence of death.


Eliot Grossman and Marlene Kamish, attorneys for Abu-Jamal, criticized the ruling on the grounds that it denied the possibility of a "trial de novo", at which they could introduce evidence that their client had been framed. Prosecutors also criticized the ruling. Officer Faulkner's widow Maureen said the judgment would allow Abu-Jamal, whom she described as a "remorseless, hate-filled killer", to "be permitted to enjoy the pleasures that come from simply being alive". Both parties appealed.


On December 6, 2005, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals admitted four issues for appeal of the ruling of the District Court:


The Third Circuit Court heard oral arguments in the appeals on May 17, 2007, at the United States Courthouse in Philadelphia. The appeal panel consisted of Chief Judge Anthony Joseph Scirica, Judge Thomas Ambro, and Judge Robert Cowen. The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania sought to reinstate the sentence of death, on the basis that Yohn's ruling was flawed, as he should have deferred to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court which had already ruled on the issue of sentencing. The prosecution said that the "Batson" claim was invalid because Abu-Jamal made no complaints during the original jury selection.


The resulting jury was racially mixed, with 2 blacks and 10 whites at the time of the unanimous conviction, but defense counsel told the Third Circuit Court that Abu-Jamal did not get a fair trial because the jury was racially biased, misinformed, and the judge was a racist. He noted that the prosecution used eleven out of fourteen peremptory challenges to eliminate prospective black jurors. Terri Maurer-Carter, a former Philadelphia court stenographer, stated in a 2001 affidavit that she overheard Judge Sabo say "Yeah, and I'm going to help them fry the nigger" in the course of a conversation with three people present regarding Abu-Jamal's case. Sabo denied having made any such comment.


On March 27, 2008, the three-judge panel issued a majority 2–1 opinion upholding Yohn's 2001 opinion but rejecting the bias and "Batson" claims, with Judge Ambro dissenting on the "Batson" issue. On July 22, 2008, Abu-Jamal's formal petition seeking reconsideration of the decision by the full Third Circuit panel of 12 judges was denied. On April 6, 2009, the United States Supreme Court refused to hear Abu-Jamal's appeal, allowing his conviction to stand.


On January 19, 2010, the Supreme Court ordered the appeals court to reconsider its decision to rescind the death penalty. The same three-judge panel convened in Philadelphia on November 9, 2010, to hear oral argument. On April 26, 2011, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals reaffirmed its prior decision to vacate the death sentence on the grounds that the jury instructions and verdict form were ambiguous and confusing. The Supreme Court declined to hear the case in October.


On December 7, 2011, District Attorney of Philadelphia R. Seth Williams announced that prosecutors, with the support of the victim's family, would no longer seek the death penalty for Abu-Jamal and would accept a sentence of life imprisonment without parole. This sentence was reaffirmed by the Superior Court of Pennsylvania on July 9, 2013.


After the press conference on the sentence, widow Maureen Faulkner said that she did not want to relive the trauma of another trial. She understood that it would be extremely difficult to present the case against Abu-Jamal again, after the passage of 30 years and the deaths of several key witnesses. She also reiterated her belief that Abu-Jamal will be punished further after death.


In 1991 Abu-Jamal published an essay in the "Yale Law Journal", on the death penalty and his death row experience. In May 1994, Abu-Jamal was engaged by National Public Radio's "All Things Considered" program to deliver a series of monthly three-minute commentaries on crime and punishment. The broadcast plans and commercial arrangement were canceled following condemnations from, among others, the Fraternal Order of Police and U.S. Senator Bob Dole (Kansas Republican Party). Abu-Jamal sued NPR for not airing his work, but a federal judge dismissed the suit. His commentaries later were published in May 1995 as part of his first book, "Live from Death Row." At April 2021 he had tested positive for COVID-19 and was scheduled for heart surgery to relieve blocked coronary arteries


In 1996, he completed a B.A. degree via correspondence classes at Goddard College, which he had attended for a time as a young man. He has been invited as commencement speaker by a number of colleges, and has participated via recordings. In 1999, Abu-Jamal was invited to record a keynote address for the graduating class at Evergreen State College in Washington State. The event was protested by some. In 2000, he recorded a commencement address for Antioch College. The now defunct New College of California School of Law presented him with an honorary degree "for his struggle to resist the death penalty."


On October 5, 2014, he gave the commencement speech at Goddard College, via playback of a recording. As before, the choice of Abu-Jamal was controversial. Ten days later the Pennsylvania legislature had passed an addition to the Crime Victims Act called "Revictimization Relief." The new provision is intended to prevent actions that cause "a temporary or permanent state of mental anguish" to those who have previously been victimized by crime. It was signed by Republican governor Tom Corbett five days later. Commentators suggest that the bill was directed to control Abu-Jamal's journalism, book publication, and public speaking, and that it would be challenged on the grounds of free speech.


With occasional interruptions due to prison disciplinary actions, Abu-Jamal has for many years been a regular commentator on an online broadcast, sponsored by Prison Radio. He also is published as a regular columnist for "Junge Welt," a Marxist newspaper in Germany. For almost a decade, Abu-Jamal taught introductory courses in Georgist economics by correspondence to other prisoners around the world.


In addition, he has written and published several books: "Live From Death Row" (1995), a diary of life on Pennsylvania's death row; "All Things Censored" (2000), a collection of essays examining issues of crime and punishment; "Death Blossoms: Reflections from a Prisoner of Conscience" (2003), in which he explores religious themes; and "We Want Freedom: A Life in the Black Panther Party" (2004), a history of the Black Panthers that draws on his own experience and research, and discusses the federal government's program known as COINTELPRO, to disrupt black activist organizations.


In 1995, Abu-Jamal was punished with solitary confinement for engaging in entrepreneurship contrary to prison regulations. Subsequent to the airing of the 1996 HBO documentary "," which included footage from visitation interviews conducted with him, the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections banned outsiders from using any recording equipment in state prisons.


In litigation before the U.S. Court of Appeals, in 1998 Abu-Jamal successfully established his right while in prison to write for financial gain. The same litigation also established that the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections had illegally opened his mail in an attempt to establish whether he was earning money by his writing.


When, for a brief time in August 1999, Abu-Jamal began delivering his radio commentaries live on the Pacifica Network's "Democracy Now!" weekday radio newsmagazine, prison staff severed the connecting wires of his telephone from their mounting in mid-performance. He was later allowed to resume his broadcasts, and hundreds of his broadcasts have been aired on Pacifica Radio.


Following the overturning of his death sentence, Abu-Jamal was sentenced to life in prison in December 2011. At the end of January 2012, he was shifted from the isolation of death row into the general prison population at State Correctional Institution – Mahanoy.


On March 30, 2015, he suffered diabetic shock and has been diagnosed with active Hepatitis C. In August 2015 his attorneys filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania, alleging that he has not received appropriate medical care for his serious health conditions.


Labor unions, politicians, advocates, educators, the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, and human rights advocacy organizations such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have expressed concern about the impartiality of the trial of Abu-Jamal. Amnesty International neither takes a position on the guilt or innocence of Abu-Jamal nor classifies him as a political prisoner.


The family of Daniel Faulkner, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the City of Philadelphia, politicians, and the Fraternal Order of Police have continued to support the original trial and sentencing of the journalist. In August 1999, the Fraternal Order of Police called for an economic boycott against all individuals and organizations that support Abu-Jamal. Many such groups operate within the Prison-Industrial Complex, a system which Abu-Jamal has frequently criticized.


Partly based on his own writing, Abu-Jamal and his cause have become widely known internationally, and other groups have classified him as a political prisoner. About 25 cities, including Montreal, Palermo, and Paris, have made him an honorary citizen.


In 2001, he received the sixth biennial Erich Mühsam Prize, named after an anarcho-communist essayist, which recognizes activism in line with that of its namesake. In October 2002, he was made an honorary member of the German political organization Society of People Persecuted by the Nazi Regime – Federation of Anti-Fascists (VVN-BdA).


In 2007, the widow of Officer Faulkner co-authored a book with Philadelphia radio journalist Michael Smerconish titled "Murdered by Mumia: A Life Sentence of Pain, Loss, and Injustice." The book was part memoir of Faulkner's widow, and part discussion in which they chronicled Abu-Jamal's trial and discussed evidence for his conviction. They also discussed support for the death penalty.


In early 2014, President Barack Obama nominated Debo Adegbile, a former lawyer for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, to head the civil rights division of the Justice Department. He had worked on Abu-Jamal's case, and his nomination was rejected by the U.S. Senate on a bipartisan basis because of that.


On April 10, 2015, Marylin Zuniga, a teacher at Forest Street Elementary School in Orange, New Jersey, was suspended without pay after asking her students to write cards to Abu-Jamal, who was ill in prison due to complications from diabetes, without approval from the school or parents. Some parents and police leaders denounced her actions. On the other hand, community members, parents, teachers, and professors expressed their support and condemned Zuniga's suspension. Scholars and educators nationwide, including Noam Chomsky, Chris Hedges and Cornel West among others, signed a letter calling for her immediate reinstatement. On May 13, 2015, the Orange Preparatory Academy board voted to dismiss Marylin Zuniga after hearing from her and several of her supporters.


Dorothy Lavinia Brown (January 7, 1914 – June 13, 2004), also known as "Dr. D.", was an African-American surgeon, legislator, and teacher. She was the first female surgeon of African-American ancestry from the Southeastern United States. She was also the first African American female to serve in the Tennessee General Assembly as she was elected to the Tennessee House of Representatives. While serving in the House of Representatives, Brown fought for women's rights and for the rights of people of color.


Brown was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and was surrendered to the Troy Orphan Asylum, an orphanage in Troy, New York at five months old by her mother, Edna Brown. Dorothy lived at the orphanage until the age of 12. There were multiple factors that inspired Brown to pursue a career in surgery: the care she received during her tonsillectomy, and a performance that she watched that made her want to do something to make other African Americans proud.


Although her mother tried to persuade Dorothy to live with her again, Brown ran away five times, returning to the Troy orphanage each time. At the age of fifteen, Brown ran away to enroll at Troy High School. The principal at Troy High School found out that Brown was homeless, and he arranged for her to be taken in by Lola and Samuel Wesley Redmon. She worked as a mother's helper in the house of Mrs. W. F. Jarrett, in Albany, New York, which was just across the Hudson River. When she was fifteen, she worked at a self-service laundry.


After finishing high school, Brown attended Bennett College, a historically black college in Greensboro, North Carolina. She received a scholarship from the Women’s Division of Christian Service of the Methodist Church. Brown earned money during this period as a domestic helper. She was aided by a Methodist woman, of the Division of Christian Service, to be admitted into the American College of Surgeons, where she earned a BA degree in 1941.


She began working as an inspector at the Rochester Army Ordnance Department in Rochester, New York. In 1944, Brown was admitted to study medicine at Meharry Medical College, a historically black college in Nashville. She completed her internship at the Harlem Hospital in New York City. After graduating in 1948 in the top third of her class, Brown became a resident at Hubbard Hospital of Meharry in 1949, despite local opposition to training female surgeons. She had gained approval from the chief surgeon, Matthew Walker, Sr., M.D. Brown completed her residency in 1954.


After her work in WWII, she entered medical school at Meharry Medical College in Nashville Tennessee. Dr. Brown then did a one-year internship at Harlem Hospital and next she completed a five-year residency in general surgery at Meharry and Hubbard Hospital. In 1959, She became the first black female surgeon to become a fellow of the American College of Surgeons.


In 1968, Brown tried to obtain a seat in the Tennessee Senate, but lost in part due to her support for abortion laws. In 1968, following her departure from politics, Brown returned to becoming a full-time physician at the Riverside Hospital. Brown also acted as an attending surgeon at the George W. Hubbard and General Hospitals, as director of education for the clinical rotation program of the Riverside and Meharry Hospitals. She was also a surgery professor at the Meharry Medical College and consulted for the National Institutes of Health in the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute.


After losing in her run for a seat in the Tennessee Senate, Brown served on the Joint Committee on Opportunities for Women in Medicine, sponsored by the American Medical Association. Along with support women in medicine, Brown also had a major influence in the fight for the rights of people of color, and was a life long member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).


In 1956, Brown agreed to adopt a female child from an unmarried patient at the Riverside Hospital. The patient came to Brown while still pregnant and asked her to adopt her child. Brown agreed because she wanted a child and knew that a chance like this would most likely never come again. Brown became the first known single female in Tennessee to legally adopt a child, whom she named Lola Denise Brown in honor of her foster mother. She later adopted a son named Kevin. Brown was a member of the United Methodist Church.


Brown wrote an autobiography, essays, and inspirational guides.


In 1959, she became the third woman to become a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons, the first African-American woman to be elected. In 1971, the Dorothy L. Brown Women's Residence at Meharry Medical College, Nashville, was named after her. She also received honorary doctorate degrees from the Russell Sage College in Troy, New York, and also from Bennett College in Greensboro, North Carolina. In particular, she received her honorary degrees in the Humanities from Bennett College and Cumberland University.


Brown was a member of the board of trustees at Bennett College and of the Delta Sigma Theta sorority. She participated as a speaker on panels that discussed scientific, religious, medical, and political issues. Brown was also awarded the Horatio Alger Award in 1994 and the Carnegie Foundation's humanitarian award in 1993.


Because Dorothy Lavinia Brown had accomplished so much in her career as a surgeon, she was a very sought-after public speaker, both nationally and internationally.


She died in Nashville, Tennessee, in 2004 of congestive heart failure.


LaSharah Bunting is an editor and journalist who worked at "The New York Times" for 14 years and was the senior editor of digital transformation and recruitment when she left as part of a restructuring plan in July 2017. It's been noted Bunting was one of the highest ranking African Americans in the newsroom at her departure"," and was one of seven high-profile women of color who left the "Times" in 2017, leaving few people of color at the management level. Bunting joined the Knight Foundation in August 2017.


Anna Julia Haywood Cooper (August 10, 1858February 27, 1964) was an American author, educator, sociologist, speaker, Black liberation activist, and one of the most prominent African-American scholars in United States history.


Born into slavery in 1858, Cooper went on to receive a world-class education and claim power and prestige in academic and social circles. In 1924, she received her PhD in history from the Sorbonne, University of Paris. Cooper became the fourth African-American woman to earn a doctoral degree. She was also a prominent member of Washington, D.C.'s African-American community and a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority.


Cooper made contributions to social science fields, particularly in sociology. Her first book, "A Voice from the South: By a Black Woman of the South", is widely acknowledged as one of the first articulations of Black feminism, giving Cooper the often-used title of "the Mother of Black Feminism".


Anna "Annie" Julia Haywood was born enslaved in Raleigh, North Carolina, in 1858. She and her mother, Hannah Stanley Haywood, were held in bondage by George Washington Haywood (1802–1890), one of the sons of North Carolina's longest serving state treasurer John Haywood, who helped found the University of North Carolina, but whose estate later was forced to repay missing funds. Either George, in whose household her mother worked in bondage, or his brother, Dr. Fabius Haywood, in whose household her older brother Andrew was enslaved, were probably Anna's father; Anna's mother refused to clarify paternity. George became state attorney for Wake County, North Carolina and with a brother owned a plantation in Greene County, Alabama.


Cooper worked as a domestic servant in the Haywood home and had two older brothers, Andrew J. Haywood and Rufus Haywood. Andrew, enslaved by Fabius J. Haywood, later served in the Spanish–American War. Rufus was also born enslaved and became the leader of the musical group "Stanley's Band".


Cooper's academic excellence enabled her to work as a tutor for younger children, which also helped her pay for her educational expenses. After completing her studies, she remained at the institution as an instructor. In the 1883–1884 school year, she taught classics, modern history, higher English, and vocal and instrumental music; she is not listed as faculty in the 1884–1885 year, but in the 1885–1886 year she is listed as "Instructor in Classic, Rhetoric, Etc." Her husband's early death may have contributed to her ability to continue teaching; if she had stayed married, she might have been encouraged or required to withdraw from the university to become a housewife.


In 1900 she made her first trip to Europe, to participate in the First Pan-African Conference in London. After visiting the cathedral towns of Scotland and England, she went to Paris for the World Exposition. "After a week at the Exposition she went to Oberammergau to see the Passion Play, thence to Munich and other German towns, and then to Italy through Rome, Naples, Venice, Pompeii, Mt. Vesuvius, and Florence."


She later moved to Washington, DC. In 1892, Anna Cooper, Helen Appo Cook, Ida B. Wells, Charlotte Forten Grimké, Mary Jane Peterson, Mary Church Terrell, and Evelyn Shaw formed the Colored Women's League in Washington, D.C. The goals of the service-oriented club were to promote unity, social progress and the best interests of the African-American community. Helen Cook was elected president.


Cooper would develop a close friendship with Charlotte Forten Grimké – Cooper began teaching Latin at M Street High School, becoming principal in 1901. She later became entangled in a controversy involving the differing attitudes about black education, as she advocated for a model of classical education espoused by W.E.B. Du Bois, "designed to prepare eligible students for higher education and leadership", rather than the vocational program that was promoted by Booker T. Washington. As a result of this, she left the school. Later, she was recalled to M Street, and she fit her work on her doctoral thesis into "nooks and crannies of free time".


"A Voice from the South" received significant praise from leaders in the Black community.


Cooper was an author, educator, and public speaker. In 1893, she delivered a paper titled "The Intellectual Progress of the Colored Women of the United States since the Emancipation Proclamation" at the World's Congress of Representative Women in Chicago. She was one of five African-American women invited to speak at this event, along with: Fannie Barrier Williams, Sarah Jane Woodson Early, Hallie Quinn Brown, and Fanny Jackson Coppin.


Cooper was also present at the first Pan-African Conference in London, England, in 1900 and delivered a paper titled "The Negro Problem in America."


Cooper's later years were much involved with Frelinghuysen University, of which she was the president. This was an institution providing continuing education to working African Americans at hours that did not interfere with their employment. After the University found servicing its mortgage prohibitive, she moved it to her own house.


On February 27, 1964, Cooper died in Washington, D.C., at the age of 105. Her memorial was held in a chapel on the campus of Saint Augustine's College, in Raleigh, North Carolina, where her academic career began. She was buried alongside her husband at the City Cemetery in Raleigh.


Although the alumni magazine of Cooper's undergraduate alma mater, Oberlin College, praised her in 1924, stating, "The class of '84 is honored in the achievement of this scholarly and colored alumna," when she tried to present her edition of "Le Pèlerinage de Charlemagne" to the college the next year, it was rejected.


Cooper's other writings include her autobiographical booklet "The Third Step", about earning her doctorate from the Sorbonne, and a memoir about the Grimké Family, titled "The Early Years in Washington: Reminiscences of Life with the Grimkés," which appeared in "Personal Recollections of the Grimké family and the Life and Writings of Charlotte Forten Grimké" (privately published in 1951).


Pages 24 and 25 of the 2016 United States passport contain the following quotation:


"The cause of freedom is not the cause of a race or a sect, a party or a class – it is the cause of humankind, the very birthright of humanity." – Anna Julia Cooper


In 2009, the United States Postal Service released a commemorative stamp in Cooper's honor.


Also in 2009, a tuition-free private middle school was opened and named in her honor - the Anna Julia Cooper Episcopal School on historic Church Hill in Richmond, Virginia.


Cooper is honored with a Lesser Feast (with Elizabeth Evelyn Wright) on the liturgical calendar of the Episcopal Church (USA) on February 28.


The Anna Julia Cooper Center on Gender, Race, and Politics in the South at Wake Forest University was established in Anna Cooper's honor. Melissa Harris-Perry is the founding director.


There is an Anna Julia Cooper Professor of Women’s Studies at Spelman College.


Marita Golden (born April 28, 1950) is an American novelist, nonfiction writer, professor, and co-founder of the Hurston/Wright Foundation, a national organization that serves as a resource center for African-American writers.


Marita Golden was born in Washington, D.C., in 1950 and attended the city’s public schools. She received a B.A. degree in American Studies and English from American University and a M.SC. in Journalism from Columbia University. After graduating from Columbia, she worked in publishing and began a career as a freelance writer, writing feature articles for many magazines and newspapers including "Essence Magazine", "The New York Times", and "The Washington Post".


Golden's first book, "Migrations of the Heart" (1983), was a memoir based on her experiences coming of age during the 1960s and her political activism as well as her marriage to a Nigerian and her life in Nigeria, where she lived for four years.


She has taught at many colleges and universities, including the University of Lagos in Lagos, Nigeria, Roxbury Community College, Emerson College, American University, George Mason University, and Virginia Commonwealth University. She holds the position of Writer in Residence at the University of the District of Columbia, in Washington, D.C. She has held previous Writer-in-Residence positions at Brandeis University, University of the District of Columbia, Hampton University, Simmons College, Columbia College, William and Mary, Old Dominion University and Howard University.


As a literary activist, she co-founded the Washington, D.C.-based African-American Writers Guild, as well as the Hurston/Wright Foundation, named in honor of Zora Neale Hurston and Richard Wright, which serves the national and international community of Black writers and administers the Hurston-Wright Legacy Award.


Gabrielle Christina Victoria Douglas (born December 31, 1995) is an American artistic gymnast. She is the 2012 Olympic all around champion and the 2015 World all-around silver medalist. She was a member of the gold-winning teams at both the 2012 and the 2016 Summer Olympics, dubbed the "Fierce Five" and the "Final Five" by the media, respectively. She was also a member of the gold-winning American teams at the 2011 and the 2015 World Championships.


Douglas is the first African American to become the Olympic individual all-around champion, and the first U.S. gymnast to win gold in both the individual all-around and team competitions at the same Olympics. She was also the 2016 AT&T American Cup all-around champion.


As a public figure, Douglas' gymnastics successes have led to her life story adaptation in the 2014 Lifetime biopic film, "The Gabby Douglas Story", as well as the acquisition of her own reality television series, "Douglas Family Gold". Douglas has also written a book about her life and what it takes to be an Olympic gold medalist by determination and perseverance.


Gabrielle Douglas was born in Newport News, Virginia and grew up in Virginia Beach, Virginia, to parents Timothy Douglas and Natalie Hawkins-Douglas. She has three older siblings: two sisters, Arielle and Joyelle, and one brother, Johnathan. She began training in gymnastics at age six when her older sister convinced their mother to enroll her in gymnastics classes. In October 2002, Douglas began her training at Gymstrada.


At the age of eight, Douglas won the Level 4 all-around gymnastics title at the 2004 Virginia State Championships.


At 14, she moved to Des Moines, Iowa, to train full-time with coach Liang Chow. Because her family had to stay in Virginia while her siblings finished school, she lived with Travis and Missy Parton and their four daughters, one of whom also trained at Chow's gym. However, Douglas struggled to fit in because of the separation from her family and hometown.


Douglas is Christian; she said, "I believe in God. He is the secret of my success. He gives people talent", and "... I love sharing about my faith. God has given me this amazing God-given talent, so I'm going to go out and glorify His name." Douglas has also stated in her biography that when she was younger her "family practiced some of the Jewish traditions", including attending a Conservative Jewish synagogue, keeping kosher, and celebrating Hanukah.


Douglas made her international debut in 2008 at the US Classic in Houston, Texas, where she placed 10th place in the all-around rankings. She went on to compete at the 2008 Visa Championships in Boston, Massachusetts. Placing 16th in that competition, Douglas was not eligible for the 2008 Junior Women's National Team.


In 2009, Douglas suffered a fracture in the growth plate of her wrist. Due to this injury, she was not able to compete and missed the 2009 Covergirl US Classic. While she competed at the 2009 Visa Championships in Dallas, Texas, Douglas was unable to perform her full routines and competed only on balance beam and floor exercise.


Douglas competed at the 2010 Nastia Liukin Supergirl Cup, a televised Level 10 meet held in Worcester, Massachusetts, where she placed fourth all-around.


Her first elite meet was the 2010 CoverGirl Classic in Chicago, Illinois, where Douglas placed third on balance beam, 6th on vault, and 9th all-around in the junior division.


At the 2010 U.S. Junior National Championships, Douglas won the silver medal on balance beam, placed fourth all-around and on vault, and tied for eighth on floor exercise.


At the 2010 Pan American Championships in Guadalajara, Mexico, Douglas won the uneven bars title, and she won a share of the U.S. team gold medal. She also placed fifth all-around.


At the City of Jesolo Trophy in Italy, Douglas was part of the US team that won gold. She also placed second on floor, tied for third on beam, and placed fourth in the all-around and on vault.


Douglas earned the silver medal in uneven bars at the CoverGirl Classic in Chicago.


At the 2011 U.S. National Championships in St. Paul, Minnesota, Douglas tied for third on bars and placed seventh all-around.


At the 2011 World Championships in Tokyo, Japan, Douglas shared in the team gold medal won by the U.S. Douglas also placed fifth in uneven bars.


At the AT&T American Cup at Madison Square Garden in March, Douglas received the highest total all-around score in the women's competition, ahead of her teammate and current world champion Jordyn Wieber. However, her scores did not count towards winning the competition because she was an alternate.


Later in March, she was part of the gold-winning U.S. team at the Pacific Rim Championships, where she also won gold in uneven bars.


At the 2012 U.S. National Championships in June, Douglas won the gold medal in uneven bars, silver in the all-around, and bronze in floor. Márta Károlyi, the National Team Coordinator for USA Gymnastics, nicknamed Douglas the "Flying Squirrel" for her aerial performance on the uneven bars.


At the 2012 Olympic Trials held in San Jose, California on July 1, Douglas placed first in the all-around rankings, securing the only guaranteed spot on the women's Olympic gymnastic team.


Douglas finished eighth in uneven bars, and seventh in balance beam. She is the first all-around champion to fail to medal in an individual event since women's gymnastics was added to the Olympics in 1952.


In August 2013, Douglas left Missy Parton's home, and moved to Los Angeles to be with her family. Although she was no longer training with Chow, she said that she was still preparing to compete in the 2016 Olympics.


In mid-April 2014, Douglas returned to Iowa to train once more with Coach Chow, in an attempt to qualify for the 2016 Olympics in Rio. Chow and his wife were delighted to have Douglas return to the Iowa gym, which they had not expected she would after her departure to Los Angeles in summer 2013. At that time they were also training promising junior Norah Flatley, who many considered similar to both Douglas and Shawn Johnson in performance style.


After participating in several national team camps in 2014, on November 25, 2014, Douglas was added back to the U.S. national team, along with Olympic teammate Aly Raisman and former Chow's Gymnastics teammate Rachel Gowey.


In March 2015, Douglas returned to international competition at the 2015 City of Jesolo Trophy in Jesolo, Italy. Douglas helped the USA win gold in the team competition and also placed 4th all-around behind defending World Champion Simone Biles, newcomer Bailie Key, and Olympic teammate Aly Raisman.


In July, Douglas competed at the U.S. Classic and finished second in the all-around behind 2-time World All-Around Champion Simone Biles and ahead of Maggie Nichols with a score of 60.500. She had a consistent night hitting clean routines. She placed second on uneven bars behind Madison Kocian and ahead of Bailie Key with a score of 15.400, third on balance beam behind Biles and Olympic teammate Aly Raisman with a score of 14.900, and second on floor exercise behind Biles and ahead of Key and Nichols with a score of 15.000.


On August 13 & 15, Douglas competed at the P&G Championships Indianapolis, Indiana, where she placed 5th overall with a score of 117.950, placing behind Simone Biles, Maggie Nichols, Aly Raisman, and Bailie Key.


Douglas started Night 1 on vault and despite a hop backwards on her double-twisting Yurchenko vault, she scored a 15.150. On bars, she had a high-flying piked Tkachev connected to her Pak Salto and had an excellent landing on her double layout dismount. She scored a 15.300 on bars. On beam, she had a shaky routine with balance checks but did score a 14.450. On floor, she had bad wobbles on her double Y-turn and her double turn with leg at horizontal (then didn't connect to her single turn with leg at horizontal). She had low landings and almost fell on her tucked full-in and scored a 13.850 to end Night 1 in 3rd with a total all-around score of 58.700.


Douglas was named to the Senior National Team for the first time since 2012 and received an invite to the 2015 Worlds Selection Camp in September. On October 8, 2015, it was announced that Douglas had been selected as a member of the 2015 US Women's World Championship team.


At the 2015 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships in Glasgow, Scotland, Douglas shared in the team gold medal won by the U.S. She also qualified for the individual all-around in 3rd place, and to the uneven bars final in 6th place. Douglas won the silver in the all-around, becoming the first reigning Olympic all-around champion since 2001 to return to the sport and win a world championships medal.


On November 13, 2015, "The Columbus Dispatch" revealed that Douglas would participate in the 2016 AT&T American Cup, in Newark, New Jersey. It was confirmed on December 17, 2015.


In March 2016, following her win at the 2016 AT&T American Cup, Douglas participated at the 2016 City of Jesolo Trophy, where she won the all-around title.


Douglas competed at the 2016 Secret US Classic in Hartford, Connecticut, on June 4. She did not compete in the all-around competition, which was won by Fierce Five teammate Aly Raisman. Douglas competed on UB and BB, scoring a 15.650 on UB to finish in 3rd behind Ashton Locklear and Madison Kocian on that event. On the balance beam, she scored a 14.550. This meant her all-around total was 30.200.


On June 24 and 26, Douglas competed at the P&G Championships in St. Louis, Missouri. On Night 1, she scored a 14.800 on vault, a 15.100 on uneven bars, a 14.200 on balance beam, and a 14.800 on floor exercise. On Night 2, she scored a 14.900 on vault, a 14.500 on uneven bars, a 15.050 on balance beam, and a 14.450 on floor exercise. Her grand total was 117.800 for both nights, putting her in fourth all-around.


On July 10, Douglas was named to the team for the 2016 Olympics, alongside Simone Biles, Laurie Hernandez, Madison Kocian, and Aly Raisman. She and Raisman became part of a select group of American gymnasts including Miller and Dawes to compete in two Olympics.


On July 11, Mattel, Inc. released a "Gymnast Barbie" doll modeled after Douglas.


On August 7, Douglas competed in the Women's Qualification at the 2016 Summer Olympics at the HSBC Arena (Arena Olimpica de Rio) in Rio de Janeiro. She scored a 15.166 on the vault, a 15.766 on the uneven bars, a 14.833 on the balance beam, and a 14.366 on the floor exercise. Along with the team final, she individually qualified into the uneven bars final. Douglas narrowly missed advancing to the all-around final to defend her title despite tallying the third-highest score in the preliminaries, since she was outscored by teammates Biles and Raisman and rules only allow two competitors from one NOC, similar to Wieber four years ago in London. Douglas also changed coaches during the competition, but kept her assistant coach.


Douglas helped the United States win a second consecutive gold medal in the team event, which was also her third Olympic gold medal. When the team final scores were announced, Douglas and her teammates called themselves the "Final Five" in honor of coach Marta Karolyi's retirement and the team size being reduced to four beginning in 2020.


Douglas finished seventh in the uneven bars event final.


In December 2012, the Associated Press named Douglas the Female Athlete of the Year. She became the fourth gymnast to receive the honor.


Douglas was a nominee for the Laureus World Sports Award for Breakthrough of the Year. In June 2013, Douglas received two BET Awards for her accomplishments.


In July 2012, Douglas and her teammates were featured on the cover of "Sports Illustrated" "Olympic Preview" issue, the first time an entire Olympic gymnastics team had been featured on the cover of the magazine. On July 20, Douglas was on one of five "Time" magazine Olympic covers.


On August 3, the Kellogg Company announced that it would put a picture of Douglas standing on the podium with her gold medal on special-edition boxes of corn flakes, breaking the tradition of Olympic athletes appearing on Wheaties boxes.


On August 23, Douglas threw the ceremonial pitch at Citi Field when the Colorado Rockies played the New York Mets.


On August 26, Douglas spoke about racist bullying at Excalibur Gymnastics in an interview with Oprah Winfrey and how it nearly made her quit the sport. She described an incident in which she had heard other girls at the gym say, "Why doesn't Gabby do it? She's our slave," when chalk was needed to be scraped off the bars. The CEO of Excalibur Gymnastics, Gustavo Maure, denied these claims.


In September 2012, Nintendo announced that Douglas would be part of a new ad campaign for "New Super Mario Bros. 2". On September 4, Douglas led the Pledge of Allegiance at the 2012 Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, North Carolina.


In December 2012, Douglas released her autobiography, "Grace, Gold, and Glory: My Leap of Faith". The book debuted at number four on "The New York Times" Young Adult Bestseller List. That same month, she performed a miniature floor routine at the 2012 MTV Video Music Awards as part of the live performance by Alicia Keys and Nicki Minaj of the "Girl on Fire" Inferno Remix – following Douglas' success in London, Minaj had opted to end her verse with a reference to her: "I ain't tryna be that / Haters wanna see that / But I got 'em aggy / 'Cause I win the gold like Gabby."


Douglas had a small acting role on the Disney XD series "Kickin It" in the episode "Gabby's Gold", which aired on August 12, 2013.


"The Gabby Douglas Story" aired on Lifetime on February 1, 2014, starring Imani Hakim. Douglas performed all the gymnastic stunts herself. In 2015, it was announced that a reality television show for the Oxygen channel had been commissioned to follow Douglas and her family's life, issued under the working title "Douglas Family Gold". The show premiered on May 25, 2016. On August 23, 2016, it was announced that Douglas would be one of the judges at the 2017 Miss America pageant.


In 2017, she went public about having been sexually abused as a teenager by Larry Nassar, a former doctor for USA Gymnastics.


Douglas appeared as the boss in an episode of "Undercover Boss" that first aired on May 11, 2018.


Gymnastic equipment used by Douglas at the 2012 Summer Olympics is at the National Museum of African American History and Culture.


In 2020, Douglas competed on "The Masked Singer" spin-off "The Masked Dancer" as "Cotton Candy" and was declared the winner of the season.


Douglas is most well known for her high-flying release skills on the uneven bars (hence her nickname "The Flying Squirrel"), her resilient demeanor, and her upbeat floor exercise routines. The following routines are those that were performed by Douglas at either an Olympic or a World Championships competition.


Carl Anthony (born February 8, 1939) is an American architect, regional planner, social justice activist, and author. He is the founder and co-director of Breakthrough Communities, a project dedicated to building multiracial leadership for sustainable communities in California and the rest of the nation. He is the former President of the Earth Island Institute, and is the co-founder and former executive director of its urban habitat program, one of the first environmental justice organizations to address race and class issues.


Carl Anthony was born in a predominantly African American neighborhood in Philadelphia, PA known as Black Bottom. His parents, Lewis Anthony (born William Edwards) and Mildred Anthony (née Cokine), sent Carl and his older brother Lewie to B.B. Comegys, an integrated elementary school in which only about a dozen of the 300 students were African American, rather than the segregated school called Woodrow Wilson, which was only a block away from their home. They later went on to attend Dobbins Vocational School, where Anthony was enrolled in the carpentry and cabinet-making shop. His teachers were impressed by his drawings and suggested that he transfer to the architectural drafting homeroom, where he fostered his interest in architecture.


Anthony graduated from Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation in 1969. Upon his graduation, he was awarded the William Kinne Fellowship, a grant to enrich students’ education through travel. Anthony visited traditional towns and villages in West Africa, studying the ways in which people utilized their few resources to shape their environments.


Early Career: Architect’s Renewal Committee and UC Berkeley.


Anthony began his professional career in the late 1960s at the Architect's Renewal Committee in Harlem, one of the first community design centers in the United States. Upon his return to the United States from West Africa in 1971, he relocated to California and taught at the University of California, Berkeley as an Assistant Professor of Architecture in the College of Environmental Design, later becoming a faculty member of the university's College of Natural Resources. In 1980 he left UC-Berkeley to work as an architect and urban planner.


In 2000, Anthony joined the Ford Foundation. There, he served as Acting Director of the Community and Resource Development Unit. He was also Director of the Sustainable Metropolitan Communities Initiative for seven years, and funded the Conversation of Regional Equity, a dialogue between policy analysts and advocates concerning racial justice and sustainability.


In 2008, Anthony co-founded Breakthrough Communities, a project of Earth House Center, an advocacy nonprofit for regional equity and environmental and climate justice and is serving as the co-director. Anthony founded Six Wins, an initiative in the Bay Area addressing the mitigation of carbon dioxide emissions.


"The Earth, the City, and the Hidden Narrative of Race" (2017).


Anthony's memoir, "The Earth, the City, and the Hidden Narrative of Race", addresses regional equity and climate change.


David Aldridge (born February 10, 1965) is an American sports journalist who works as a writer for "The Athletic". He was previously a reporter for Turner Sports, contributing to their NBA and MLB coverage. Other outlets that Aldridge has written and contributed for include ESPN, NBA TV, NBA.com, "The Washington Post", "The Philadelphia Inquirer", and TBD. In 2016, he was awarded the Curt Gowdy Media Award by the Basketball Hall of Fame.


Aldridge is a graduate of DeMatha Catholic High School and American University and worked as a writer for "The Washington Post", where he spent nine years. During that time Aldridge was a beat writer covering Georgetown University basketball, the Washington Bullets, and the Washington Redskins. He also covered the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona, national college basketball and football, the Super Bowl, the Stanley Cup playoffs, the World Series, the Indianapolis 500, and the U.S. Open tennis championships. To this day he is still an avid fan of American University men's basketball.


Before joining TNT in 2004, Aldridge reported for ESPN for eight years, primarily covering the NBA while occasionally doing NFL pieces. He wrote for ESPN.com and contributed to ESPN Radio. Aldridge frequently appeared on SportsCenter as well as "NBA 2 Night" (now "NBA Fastbreak") and "NBA Today." Aldridge conducted interviews for the "SportsCenter" "Sunday Conversations" with LeBron James, Allen Iverson, Shaquille O'Neal, Karl Malone and many others. He worked as an NBA sideline reporter both for ABC and ESPN in 2003 and 2004.


Aldridge worked at "The Philadelphia Inquirer" from 2004 to 2008, covering the National Football League and National Basketball Association as a reporter and columnist. He was part of the "Inquirer" team that received a second-place award for the series "The Future of Pro Sports" in 2005 from the Society of Professional Journalists, Greater Philadelphia Chapter. He was initially scheduled to be one of dozens laid off at the paper in January 2007, but was retained.


He worked as the "Insider" for TNT's "Inside the NBA" and did sideline reporting work during the regular season, All-Star Weekend and the NBA playoffs. He was also co-host of the weekly show "The Beat" on NBA TV, and was a commentator for other "NBA on TNT" features. He also worked as a sideline reporter for television broadcasts of college football games and the Major League Baseball divisional series.


From February 2007 through June 2008, Aldridge appeared on "The Tony Kornheiser Show" on Washington Post Radio and later WWWT in Washington, D.C. as co-host. He returned as sometime co-host of the latest incarnation on WTEM in September 2009. As of 2016, he is a regular co-host on the show.


In late 2018, Aldridge left Turner Sports to join the staff of "The Athletic" as a writer.


Kyle John Baker (born 1965) is an American cartoonist, comic book writer-artist, and animator known for his graphic novels and for a 2000s revival of the series "Plastic Man".


Baker has won numerous Eisner Awards and Harvey Awards for his work in the comics field.


Kyle Baker was born in the Queens, New York City, the son of art director John M. Baker and high-school audiovisual-department manager Eleanor L. Baker. He has a brother and a sister. Their parents had both attended Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York, and their father, who, Baker said, "worked in advertising [and] made junk mail", would "draw pictures for us and entertain us." Aside from this exposure to art, Baker has said, his early artistic influences included comic book artist Jack Kirby, caricaturist Jack Davis, and painter and magazine illustrator Norman Rockwell. He noted:


Other influences included the Charlton Comics artwork of Jim Aparo and Steve Ditko.


Baker's first credited work at Marvel is penciling the half-page entry "Kid Commandos" in "The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe" #13 (February1984). After a handful of inking assignments on issues of "Transformers", "The Avengers Annual" #14 (1985) and elsewhere, Baker made his professional story-illustration debut as penciler and inker of the publisher Lodestone Comics' "Codename: Danger" #2 (October 1985), with a 23-page story written by Brian Marshall, Mike Harris, and Robert Loren Fleming. Cover penciling and more interior inking for Marvel and occasionally DC followed. His first story penciling for one of the two major comics companies was the three-issue "Howard the Duck: The Movie" (December 1986 - February 1987), adapting the 1986 film "Howard the Duck", and which he self-inked.


During this time, Baker also attempted to sell humor spot illustrations, but was rejected by the major newspaper syndicates. Jim Salicrup, a Marvel editor, did commission him "to write a few one-panel gags about [the superhero team] the X-Men", titled "It's Genetic" and appearing in the Marvel-produced fan magazine "Marvel Age".


At the recommendation of freelance artist Ron Fontes, an editor at the Dolphin imprint of the publishing house Doubleday expressed interest in Baker's sample strips of the character Cowboy Wally, "and asked if I had any more. I lied and said I did." This led to the 128-page graphic novel "Cowboy Wally". "The character of Noel was pretty much based on me," Baker said in 1999. "I lie all the time. The first part of the books is the collected strips, and the other three chapters were written for the book. "It didn't sell many copies," Baker said, "but at least it convinced DC [Comics] I should be allowed to draw, not just ink."


Baker went on to draw DC's 1980s comics revival of the pulp fiction hero "The Shadow", beginning with "The Shadow Annual" #2 (1988), followed by the monthly series from issue #7 to the final issue, #19 (February 1988 - January 1989). He did assorted other DC work including "Justice, Inc." In 1990, Baker and writer Len Wein produced three issues of "Dick Tracy" for The Walt Disney Company's Hollywood Comics, the first two issues containing original stories, the third an adaption the 1990 "Dick Tracy" film.


He began scripting comics around this time: Baker penciled and inked First Comics' "Classics Illustrated" #3 & 21 (February 1990 & March 1991), adapting, respectively, "Through the Looking Glass" and "Cyrano de Bergerac". While Peter David scripted the latter, Baker himself wrote the adaptation of the Lewis Carroll work. "I'd never planned to become a writer," Baker said in 1999. "I wrote short gags, like the kind you see in the newspapers and Cowboy Wally, but not stories. I only learned to write stories because people kept paying me to write them. In the years 1991-1994, 90 percent of my income was from writing, and I received very few offers to draw. I figured I should learn to write."


Baker achieved recognition and won an Eisner Award for his 1990 graphic novel "Why I Hate Saturn", published by the DC Comics imprint Piranha Press. Baker said in 1999 of his breakthrough work,


Baker's cartoons and caricatures began appearing in "BusinessWeek, Details, Entertainment Weekly, ESPN, Esquire, Guitar World, Mad, National Lampoon, New York, The New York Times, Rolling Stone, Spin, Us, Vibe", and "The Village Voice". He spent three years illustrating the weekly strip "Bad Publicity" for "New York" magazine.


Baker's animation has appeared on BET and MTV, and in animated "Looney Tunes" projects, including the animated feature "". Baker was "guest art director" for Cartoon Network's "Class of 3000", and storyboarded the "Class of 3000" Christmas special.


Baker said in 1999 he was writing a Christmas movie for Paramount Pictures, titled "U Betta Watch Out", and was animating a TV-movie title "Corey Q. Jeeters, I'm Telling on You".