Enlightened Free Thinking Nubian Kings And Queens

Rosetta Tharpe was a groundbreaking, profoundly impacting American music history pioneer by pioneering the guitar technique that would eventually evolve into the rock and roll style played by Chuck Berry, Elvis Presley, and Eric Clapton. However, despite her great popularity and influence on music history, Sister Rosetta Tharpe was first and foremost a gospel musician. Born Rosetta Nubin on March 20, 1915, in Cotton Plant, Arkansas. Although the identity of her father is unknown, Tharpe's mother, Katie Bell Nubin, was a singer, mandolin player and evangelist. At the encouragement of her mother, Tharpe began singing and playing the guitar from a very young age, and was by all accounts a musical prodigy. She began performing onstage with her mother from the age of four.  By age six, she had joined her mother as a regular performer in a traveling evangelical troupe - before audiences all across the American South. By the mid-20s, Tharpe and her mother had settled in Chicago, Illi...

The Albany Movement was a desegregation campaign formed on November 17, 1961, in Albany, Georgia. Local activists from the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the Ministerial Alliance, the Federation of Woman’s Clubs, and the Negro Voters League joined together to create the movement. The Albany Movement challenged all forms of racial segregation and discrimination in the city. Martin Luther King Jr. and the Southern Leadership Conference (SCLC) joined the movement in December 1961.  SNCC members Charles Sherrod and Cordell Reagon traveled to Albany in October 1961 to help organize the local black community. Although earlier protests had occurred, black residents were frustrated with the city commission’s failure to address their grievances. Sherrod and Reagon organized workshops around nonviolent tactics for Albany’s African American residents in anticipation of a showdown with the local p...

Born on February 20, 1876, in Auburn, Alabama, Louis Augustus Carter was the second African American army chaplain to be promoted to colonel. Carter received his early education in a local public school, attended Tuskegee Institute (now Tuskegee University) from 1895 to 1897, and Selma University from 1897 to 1900, but he did not graduate from either institution. Then, from 1901 to 1904, he was a special student at the Virginia Union University Theological School and graduated with a Bachelor of Divinity degree. Carter returned home to Auburn, Alabama, to be ordained in 1904 and served as pastor for several churches in Alabama, Virginia, and Tennessee for the next eleven years. After attending the Guadalupe College of Texas, he was awarded a Doctor of Divinity degree in 1907. In 1909 Carter married Mary B. Moss, and in 1910, he enlisted into the United States Army. After his initial training, he applied for an appointment as chaplain of one of the four regular army regiments for A...

Dewey "Pigmeat" Markham was an African American entertainer. Though best known as a comedian, Markham was also a singer, dancer, and actor. His nickname came from a stage routine, in which he declared himself to be "Sweet Poppa Pigmeat". Dewey Pigmeat Markham was born April 18, 1904 in Durham, North Carolina. His family was the most prominent on their street, which was later officially renamed Markham Street. Running away from home in 1918, Markham began his career in traveling music and burlesque shows. He took up with a white showman he ambiguously referred to over the years as "Mr. Booker" owner of a "gilly carnival."  For a time he was a member of Bessie Smith's Traveling Revue in the 1920s and later appeared on burlesque bills with such comedy legends as Milton Berle, Red Buttons, and Eddie Cantor. He claims to have originated the Truckin' dance which became nationally popular at the start of the 1930s. Markham performed ...

Medical professor and civil rights leader Thomas Nathaniel Burbridge was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, on July 12, 1921. He received a bachelor of arts degree from Talladega College in Talladega, Alabama, in 1941. From 1942 through 1945, he served in the United States Navy. In 1948 Burbridge earned a medical degree from the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). He served in the United States Public Health Service as visiting lecturer in Indonesia from 1952 to 1955. The following year, he received a doctoral degree from UCSF and joined the faculty of the school of medicine as assistant professor of pharmacology and experimental therapeutics. His main research interests were alcohol metabolism, drug metabolism, and comparative pharmacology. Burbridge belonged to leading medical organizations in the 1960s, including the American Therapeutic Society and the Society for Experimental Biology and Medicine. He also worked to expand minority enrollment at UCSF, traveling fr...

Medical professor and civil rights leader Thomas Nathaniel Burbridge was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, on July 12, 1921. He received a bachelor of arts degree from Talladega College in Talladega, Alabama, in 1941. From 1942 through 1945, he served in the United States Navy. In 1948 Burbridge earned a medical degree from the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). He served in the United States Public Health Service as visiting lecturer in Indonesia from 1952 to 1955. The following year, he received a doctoral degree from UCSF and joined the faculty of the school of medicine as assistant professor of pharmacology and experimental therapeutics. His main research interests were alcohol metabolism, drug metabolism, and comparative pharmacology. Burbridge belonged to leading medical organizations in the 1960s, including the American Therapeutic Society and the Society for Experimental Biology and Medicine. He also worked to expand minority enrollment at UCSF, traveling fr...

Medical professor and civil rights leader Thomas Nathaniel Burbridge was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, on July 12, 1921. He received a bachelor of arts degree from Talladega College in Talladega, Alabama, in 1941. From 1942 through 1945, he served in the United States Navy. In 1948 Burbridge earned a medical degree from the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). He served in the United States Public Health Service as visiting lecturer in Indonesia from 1952 to 1955. The following year, he received a doctoral degree from UCSF and joined the faculty of the school of medicine as assistant professor of pharmacology and experimental therapeutics. His main research interests were alcohol metabolism, drug metabolism, and comparative pharmacology. Burbridge belonged to leading medical organizations in the 1960s, including the American Therapeutic Society and the Society for Experimental Biology and Medicine. He also worked to expand minority enrollment at UCSF, traveling fr...

Mary Jane McLeod was born in 1875 in a small log cabin near  Mayesville, South Carolina , on a rice and cotton farm in  Sumter County . She was the fifteenth of seventeen children born to Sam and Patsy (McIntosh) McLeod, both former slaves.   Most of her siblings had been born into slavery. Her mother worked for her former master, and her father farmed cotton near a large house they called "The Homestead." Her parents wanted to be independent so had sacrificed to buy a farm for the family. As a child, Mary would accompany her mother to deliver "white people’s" wash. Allowed to go into the white children’s nursery, Mary became fascinated with their toys. One day she picked up a book and as she opened it, a white child took it away from her, saying she didn’t know how to read. Mary decided then that the only difference between white and colored people was the ability to read and write. She was inspired to learn. McLeod attended Mayesville's one-room bl...

Phyllis Hyman was born in  Philadelphia ,  Pennsylvania , and grew up in  St. Clair Village , the  South Hills  section of  Pittsburgh . Born to an Italian mother, (Louise), and African-American father, (Phillip),  Hyman was the eldest of seven children. Through her paternal great-grandparents Ishmael and Cassandra (Cross) Hyman, she was also the first cousin once removed of actor  Earle Hyman  (best known for his recurring role on  The Cosby Show  as Cliff's father, Russell Huxtable). After leaving Pittsburgh, her music training started at a music school. On graduation, she performed on a national tour with the group New Direction in 1971. After the group disbanded, she joined All the People and worked with another local group, The Hondo Beat. At this time, she appeared in the film  Lenny  (1974). She also did a two-year stint leading a band called "Phyllis Hyman and the P/H Factor". She was discovered in 1975 by...