Alma John (b. 1906) nurse, civil rights activist, radio & television personality. In 1938 she was fired from Harlem Hospital for trying to unionize nurses. She consulted for the National Nursing Council for War Service throughout WWII. Produced & presented radio & TV 1954-1978.

Adah Thoms (b. 1870), director of the Lincoln School for Nurses, fought for Black nurses to serve as American Red Cross nurses during WWI & as US Army Nurse Corps nurses during the 1918 flu epidemic. She was inducted into the American Nursing Association Hall of Fame in 1976.

Charlotte Ray was a lawyer, educator & suffragist. She graduated from Howard’s Law School in 1872 & was among the 1st women in US history to earn a law degree. She was the 1st woman to pass the Washington DC bar exam & the 1st female attorney to argue before the DC Supreme Court.

Richard Greener (b. 1844) scholar, educator, editor, activist, attorney, diplomat, 1st Black graduate of Harvard (1870), 1st Black faculty member at a southern white college (University of South Carolina), dean of Howard Law School, & US consul in Russia. aaihs.org/richard-greene…

Attorney & civil rights activist Clement Garnett Morgan (b. 1859 in Virginia, enslaved) graduated Harvard in 1890 (where won the award for best orator) & then Harvard Law School in 1893. He practiced law & fought for equal rights & co-founded the Niagara Movement in 1905.

Francis Cardozo was born in South Carolina in 1837 to a formerly enslaved mother & a white Jewish father. He was a prize winning student at the University of Glasgow, twice elected to state office in South Carolina, an esteemed educator, & principal of an excellent school in DC.

Raphael Elizé was a WWI veteran from Martinique and veterinarian trained in Lyon who became France’s first elected Black mayor in 1929. In WWII Elizé worked with the French Resistance but was deported to Germany’s Buchenwald concentration camp in 1945 where he was killed.

'Pierre Toussaint, Philanthropist & Candidate for Sainthood. He became wealthy working as a hairdresser in New York, then used his funds to free enslaved people, build churches & house orphans of color.' nytimes.com/2024/02/18/obi…

Amanda Gray Hilyer (b. 1870) was a pharmacist, entrepreneur, & civic leader in Washington DC. She was active in the NAACP, supported WWI organizations & Black soldiers, helped to establish the Phillis Wheatley YWCA in DC, & was active in numerous social & civic organizations.

Dr. Iona Whipper earned her MD from Howard in 1903. Throughout the 1920s, she worked for the United States Children’s Bureau as an obstetrician. In 1931, she established an organization in DC to provide care for pregnant women & young children that continues to operate today.

Rosa Castellanos (b. 1834 in Cuba) was a formerly enslaved nurse who was appointed Health Captain of the Liberation Army during Cuba’s independence wars. Known as La Bayamesa, Castellanos operated field hospitals that saved countless lives as she risked hers for her country.

John Sella Martin fled enslavement in Alabama in 1856. He became a minister & abolitionist who spoke out for equal rights & his wife, Sarah, founded Boston’s Fugitive Aid Society. After the Civil War, they worked as educators in the South.

John Mitchell, civic leader, civil rights champion, editor of the Richmond Planet starting in 1884, fought against the epidemic of lynching. The son of formerly enslaved parents, he risked his life for justice, including initiating a boycott of segregated streetcars in 1904.

Astronaut, physician Dr. Mae Jemison recognizes that we are all a part of this universe & have the ability to figure out how to share the planet, combat climate change, end war, we have the knowledge but don’t yet use it effectively bc we don’t recognize that we're all connected.

On this day in 1803, Haiti’s Toussaint Louverture, revolutionary & advocate for human liberty, died in a jail cell in the Jura Mountains in France. Less than a year later, Haiti would declare its independence, marking the beginning of the end for slavery in the Western Hemisphere

Pauline Young (b. 1900) librarian, historian, educator, world traveler, Peace Corps volunteer, & human rights champion. Her life spanned most of the 20th century & intersected with several of its most prominent figures including WEB DuBois, Alice Dunbar, Jessie Owens, & Dr. King.

Lois Mailou Jones (b. 1905 in Boston) artist, educator, & mentor, recipient of awards & honors, exhibited her art internationally & served on Howard University’s art faculty for nearly 50 years. She was honored at the White House in 1980 for outstanding achievements in the arts.

The Reverend Amos Berman of Connecticut was a national leader during the mid-19th century, a champion of abolition, voting rights, & education. His grandfather, Caesar Berman, had been freed after serving in the American Revolutionary War. beinecke.library.yale.edu/collections/hi…

Attorney Gaius Bolin is pictured here graduating Williams College in 1889. His daughter Judge Jane Bolin earned her law degree from Yale in 1931 & was sworn in as a New York City judge in 1939.

In 1934 Mozella Lewis (pictured) opened the L & W Drug Store in Los Angeles with her business partner Helen Williams. The women were known as excellent pharmacists & the L & W pharmacy “rated as one of the best in the city.”