Enlightened Free Thinking Nubian Kings And Queens

Painter and educator Laura Wheeler Waring was born on May 16, 1887, in Hartford, Connecticut.  The fourth child of six born to Reverend Robert Foster and Mary Wheeler, Laura was unusual in some respects because she had the advantage of a superior education and middle and upper class associations. Her father studied Theology at Howard University and received his diploma ten years before Laura’s birth. Laura’s education was exemplary.  She graduated from Hartford High School in 1906 with honors and went on to study for another six years at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, one of the leading art institutes in the United States. In 1914, she received the A. William Emlen Cresson Memorial Travel Scholarship that allowed her to continue her studies of arts in major cities of Europe for a period of time. On that first trip she spent much time in the Louvre where she studied the works of several master painters.   While in Europe she produced her first paintings, ...

While the name Dorothy Height is recognizable, many of her accomplishments are not. Height, who died recently in 2010 at the age of 98, was a social rights activist, administrator, and educator. After earning her bachelor’s and master’s degrees at New York University, Height later became active in fighting for social injustices. She was the president of the National Council of Negro Women for 40 years, and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1994, and the Congressional Gold Medal in 2004. Also during the height of the Civil Rights Movement, Height organized “Wednesdays in Mississippi” which brought together black and white women from the North and South to engage in dialogue about relevant social issues. Dorothy Height is quoted as saying “I want to be remembered as someone who used herself and anything she could touch to work for justice and freedom…I want to be remembered as one who tried,”a motto she lived by until her death. While the name Dorothy He...

Lucy Craft Laney, educator, school founder, and civil rights activist, was born on April 13, 1854 in Macon, Georgia to free parents Louisa and David Laney.   David Laney, a Presbyterian minister and skilled carpenter, had purchased his freedom approximately twenty years before Lucy Laney’s birth.  He purchased Louisa’s freedom shortly after they were married. Lucy Laney learned to read and write by the age of four and by the time she was twelve, she was able to translate difficult passages in Latin including Julius Caesar’s Commentaries on the Gallic War. Laney attended Lewis (later Ballard) High School in Macon, Georgia and in 1869, at the age of fifteen; she joined Atlanta University’s first class.  Four years later she graduated from the teacher’s training program at the University.  After teaching for ten years in Macon, Savannah, Milledgeville, and Augusta, she in 1883 opened her own school in the basement of Christ Presbyterian Church in...

Educator, essayist, journalist, scholar, social critic, and activist W.E.B. DuBois, was born to Mary Sylvina Burghardt and Alfred Dubois on February 23, 1868 in Great Barrington, Massachusetts.   He excelled in the public schools, graduating valedictorian from his high school in 1884.  Four years later he received a B.A. from Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee. In 1890 DuBois earned a second bachelor's degree from Harvard University.  DuBois began two years of graduate studies in History and Economics at the University of Berlin in Germany in 1892 and then returned to the United States to begin a two year stint teaching Greek and Latin at Wilberforce University in Ohio.  In 1895, DuBois became the first African American to earn a Ph.D. at Harvard University.  His doctoral thesis,  "The Suppression of the African Slave Trade in America, " became the first book published by Harvard University Press in 1896.  Later that year Du...

       M.P. Burley attended grammar and high school in his hometown of Macon, Georgia. His love of learning guided him to Ballard Normal School, where he excelled in a broad range of subjects, including Latin. Even though he was an outstanding scholar, Burley could find no work in his chosen field as an educator, so he took a job at a soap factory until a better opportunity came along.        In the Fall of 1903 he received a teaching job, but son concluded that his own education was incomplete. Burley then entered Atlanta University, where he finished college while supporting himself as a photographer during the Summers.        After graduation in 1909, he was appointed professor of English, Science and Latin at Homer College. Six years later, he left his native state to become Professor of Science at Miles College in Birmingham, Alabama. Burley's special talent for teaching was recognized by his promotion to President...