History Department’s 17 School Days of Black History Series

At the beginning of February, St. Luke’s History Department launched the 17 School Days of Black History Series. The series introduced students, faculty, and staff to prominent Black figures in American history — from civil rights activists and political leaders to educators and poets, including the first African American Pulitzer Prize winner. 

Below is a snapshot of the 17 figures, as well as links to resources where you can learn more about each of their stories.

Barbara Jordan: Jordan was the first Black woman from the South to be elected to the United States House of Representatives. Before that, she was the first African American woman elected to serve in the Senate of the State of Texas.

Scipios Africanus Jones: In 1863, Jones was born into slavery during the Civil War. He grew up a free man in Arkansas, was educated at some of the nation's first Black colleges, and eventually became a prominent attorney in Arkansas, which led to a long political career in the early 20th century.

Elizabeth Key: Key was born in the 1630s in Virginia, the child of an African servant woman and a white man. As the child of a white man, she believed she would inherit his status as a free person. When she was facing the prospect of lifelong slavery, she sued for her freedom in the court of colonial Virginia, claiming both that as the child of a white father and a baptized Christian she could not be legally enslaved. In 1656, she won her case.

Onesimus Comstock: Onesimus, a slave of the Comstock family, was born in 1761 in New Canaan. He was enslaved for many decades. However, in an 1840 census record, he was listed as a free man. Even after his freedom, he lived with the Comstock family for the rest of his 96-year-life. After passing, Onesimus was buried in the Comstock family burial ground.

Amelia Platt Boynton: In the 1930s, as an agent for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Boynton helped families in Selma, Alabama improve farming techniques during the Great Depression. After registering to vote in 1934, she began a campaign to help local Black residents increase their education and attempt to register to vote. For decades, she led the Dallas County Voters League.

Emmett Bassett: Bassett was born in Virginia in 1921. He attended a segregated one-room schoolhouse but managed to learn a lot despite the limited educational resources available to him. He studied under George Washington Carver at the Tuskegee Institute, served in the U.S. Army during WWII, and became the first African American to earn a Ph.D. in dairy technology.

Sister Rosetta Tharpe: “The Godmother of Rock ‘N’ Roll,” Tharpe challenged the rigidity of the gospel world with her tendency to merge secular and religious themes. Tharpe’s style would come to be known as a combination of Delta Blues, New Orleans Jazz, and gospel music.

Henry Highland Garnet: Garnet was an important voice in the fight to end slavery in the United States. His charismatic leadership empowered many free Blacks in northern states to join the abolitionist movement in the 1840s.

Unita Blackwell: In 1976, Blackwell became the first Black woman to be elected mayor in Mississippi.

James Armistead Lafayette: Lafayette was a Revolutionary War hero who, although a slave, served in the forces in Virginia. Posing as a runaway, he would cross the lines between colonial and British armies to spy on the British.

Autherine Lucy: Paving the way for equal access to schools, before Ruby Bridges and James Meredith, Lucy gained admission to a graduate degree program at the University of Alabama in 1956.

James McCune Smith: Smith was the first African American to earn a medical degree, and the first Black man to own and operate a pharmacy in New York City.

Mary Emma Townsend Seymour: A political activist from Connecticut, Seymour helped establish the Connecticut Chapter of the NAACP in 1917. Immediately following the Women’s Suffrage Movement, she was one of the first African American women in the country to run for state office.

Onesimus: As an enslaved man in Massachusetts during the smallpox epidemic, Onesimus shared details on an African method known as variolation to help combat the disease. This process is what we now know in the United States as a vaccine.

Fanie Lou Hamer: A persuasive leader and speaker, Hamer co-founded the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP) in 1964. That year, she and members of the party went to the Democratic National Convention, arguing to be recognized as the official delegation because their group was open to all races.

John Jack: Brought to Concord, Massachusetts as a slave, he used his strong will and hard work to earn enough money to purchase his freedom and a small farm. Jack also opened a cobbler shop.

Mary McLeod Bethune: Bethune was a lifelong educator, civil and human rights activist, and founder of what is known today as Bethune-Cookman University.