Enlightened Free Thinking Nubian Kings And Queens

Entrepreneur and philanthropist Annie Turnbo Malone was born to Robert Turnbo and Isabella Cook in Metropolis, Illinois on August 9, 1869.  Her parents were former slaves and her father joined the Union Army during the Civil War. Turnbo attended school in Peoria, Illinois, but she never finished high school.  Instead, she practiced hairdressing with her sister.  When she and her family moved to Lovejoy, Illinois, Annie decided she wanted to become a "beauty doctor."  At the age of 20 she had already developed her own shampoo and scalp treatment to grow and straighten hair.  Taking her creation to the streets, she went around in a buggy making speeches to demonstrate and promote the new shampoo. By 1902, Annie Turnbo's home shampoo venture thrived and she moved to St. Louis, Missouri, home of the nation's fourth-largest African American population, to expand her business.  She was largely successful and she trademarked her beauty products under the name "...

The Merikins were African-American refugees of the War of 1812 – freed black slaves who fought for the British against the USA in the Corps of Colonial Marines. freed black slaves were recruited by the British during the American Revolution. There was a similar policy and six companies of freed black slaves were recruited into a Corps of Colonial Marines along the Atlantic coast, from Chesapeake Bay to Georgia  After that war, they were settled in colonies of British Empire including Canada, Jamaica and the Bahamas. After the end of the War, the Colonial Marines were first stationed at the Royal Naval Dockyard, Bermuda, and on rejecting government orders to be transferred to the West India Regiments, agreed to be settled in Trinidad. The Governor of Trinidad, Sir Ralph Woodford, wanted to increase the number of small farmers in that colony and arranged for the creation of a village for each company on the Naparima Plain in the south of the island.They established as a community ...

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...

John T. Gayton, one of Seattle’s earliest black residents, a community leader, and patriarch of one of the city’s most outstanding black families, came to Seattle in 1889.  He was born in Benton, Mississippi to former slaves.  With little formal education, he moved to Yazoo City, Mississippi, and made the fortuitous decision to work for a physician, Dr. Henry Yandell, as servant and coachman.  It brought him to Seattle when Dr. Yandell joined the movement to the new state of Washington.    Soon after his arrival in Seattle, he tried his hand as a painter, painting contractor, barber, and bellboy.  He worked as a waiter at the Arctic Club and later at the Rainier Club, where he was promoted to head waiter.  In 1901 he became the first black steward at the Rainier Club, overseeing the servants and the preparation of food.   Before long, he was called upon to cater large parties and banquets.  He also catered every day for a downtow...

Lucile Berkeley Buchanan-Jones was the first African American woman to graduate from the University of Colorado.  Buchanan was born on June 13, 1884, on the second floor of the family’s mule and horse barn in the town of Barnum, southwest of Denver, Colorado.  She was the daughter of Sarah Lavinia and James Fenton Buchanan, emancipated slaves from adjoining plantations in northern Virginia. Sarah and James Buchanan were married in 1872.  Within ten years  of their marriage the couple, and their four Virginia-born children, migrated to Colorado. When the Buchanans arrived in Colorado in 1882, Lucile’s mother, Sarah, bought five lots of land in an unincorporated area outside the Denver city limits from P.T. Barnum of the Barnum and Bailey Circus.  The Buchanans were one of three black families in this predominately first-generation European immigrant community. In 1903, 19-year-old Lucile enrolled in the two-year teacher certification program at the Colorado...

Walter Arthur Gordon, attorney and civil rights activist was born on October 10, 1894, in Atlanta, Georgia, to Henry B. and Georgia Bryant Gordon.  He was the son of a Pullman porter and the grandson of slaves. His family moved to Riverside, California, in 1904. He graduated from Riverside Polytechnic High School in 1913. In 1914, Gordon entered the University of California at Berkeley. He was an intercollegiate boxer and wrestler, winning the state championship in both categories. He also played every position except center on the offensive and defensive lines of the varsity football team. Gordon was named to the annual football All-American team in 1918, the second African American to receive the award. Walter Gordon graduated from UC Berkeley in 1918. The following year, Chief August Vollmer invited him to join the Berkeley Police Department, where he became the city’s first black officer. While doing police work, Gordon earned a degree in 1922 from Boalt Hall Schoo...

Abner Leonard Howell was a star athlete in Utah whose accomplishments went largely ignored during the peak of his football career because of his race. Howell, born on August 9, 1877, moved with his family from Louisiana to Salt Lake City, Utah in 1890.  His father, Paul Cephas Howell, was appointed a police officer and detective. Both of Abner's parents, Paul Howell and his mother, Eliza Sharp, had been slaves. Howell’s athletic talent was obvious during high school. After one of the most important high school games, attended by 5,000 fans, the Desert News announced that “a colored fullback named Ab Howell was everything from the bandwagon to the steam calliope.” Howell led his team to a 32-0 victory against East Denver High. When the team went to a restaurant to celebrate, Abner was told that he would need to eat in the kitchen while the rest of the team enjoyed the dining area.  Teammate Nicholas Groesbeck Smith replied that they would all eat in the kitchen.  The...

Dayton, Ohio, August 7, 1865 To My Old Master, Colonel P.H. Anderson, Big Spring, Tennessee Sir: I got your letter, and was glad to find that you had not forgotten Jordon, and that you wanted me to come back and live with you again, promising to do better for me than anybody else can. I have often felt uneasy about you. I thought the Yankees would have hung you long before this, for harboring Rebs they found at your house. I suppose they never heard about your going to Colonel Martin's to kill the Union soldier that was left by his company in their stable. Although you shot at me twice before I left you, I did not want to hear of your being hurt, and am glad you are still living. It would do me good to go back to the dear old home again, and see Miss Mary and Miss Martha and Allen, Esther, Green, and Lee. Give my love to them all, and tell them I hope we will meet in the better world, if not in this. I would have gone back to see you all when I was working in the ...

In 1870 Republican Joseph Hayne Rainey became the first African American to be elected to the United States House of Representatives and take his seat.  Others were elected earlier but were not seated.  Rainey was born in Georgetown, South Carolina, on June 21, 1832. His parents had been slaves but his father purchased his family’s freedom and taught him to be a barber. The family moved to Charleston in 1846.  Rainey, however, traveled frequently outside the South. In 1859, Rainey went to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania There he met and married Susan, a free woman of color from the West Indies, who was also of African-French descent. They returned to South Carolina, where their three children were born: Joseph II, Herbert and Olivia. In 1861, with the outbreak of the American Civil War, Rainey was among free blacks drafted by the Confederate government to work on fortifications in Charleston, South Carolina. He also worked as a cook and laborer on blockade runner ships....

An interview with HAPPY PAYNE a descendant of slaves, talked about his family's history and his own long life. The interview with Harry Payne took place at his home on 10/23/99.   ----------------------------------------------- Harry Payne is a ninety one year old descendant of slaves. His paternal grandfather, John, came from Barbados, where he was not a slave, as a twelve-year-old child, in about 1820. Here he was bound as a slave in South Carolina. The wife of the slave holder gave him his freedom papers prior to the Civil War when her husband was killed in a duel. She then sold the farm and freed her slaves. Less is known about his mother's (Minnie Watson) side of the family except that her father, Kayto Watson, was born into an African/Asian American slave family. Kato's father "Yellow Toby," was brought to America as a slave from Mongolia. As a slave he was used as a "breeder." It took John Payne about four years to get from South Carolina t...