Honoring National Reading Month (Black PR Wire) This National Reading Month, we are reminded that books do more than just tell stories, they preserve our history and amplify the voices of those that might otherwise go…
Gail Fisher Born beautiful in 1935, Black American actor Gail Fisher became famous because of her talent. Now, she’s best known for the ‘firsts’ she accomplished during her career. Fisher started out as a beauty…
Roxy Roker Born in 1929 in Miami, where her dad had emigrated to from The Bahamas, Roxie Roker grew up in Brooklyn, New York. She became active in theater while attending Howard University. She graduated…
Nina Mae McKinney MGM didn’t have parts for Nina Mae McKinney and a role she did land, in “Reckless” with William Powell and Jean Harlow, was basically left on the cutting room floor. It was…
Oscar Micheaux The barrier-breaking Black American filmmaker Oscar Devereaux Micheaux was, first and foremost, a writer.Born in Illinois in 1884, to parents who had been enslaved, Micheaux published his first novel in 1913 and went…
Aida Overton Walker Born on Valentine’s Day in 1880, dancer, choreographer, actress and vaudeville performer Aida Overton Walker started out singing and dancing in musical theater. She was a sensation from the get-go. She met…
Bert Williams Bert Williams, a founding genius of Black American comedy, was born in the Bahamas in 1874. He grew up in Riverside, Calif. and started in the vaudeville business in San Francisco. There, he…
Ira Aldridge Ira Aldridge was an American-born actor who, like many Black American artists, had to leave the country to find work, creative satisfaction and respect. Following several triumphant tours of Europe and Russia, Aldridge…
James Hewlett unknown-1839Actor In 1821, six years before slavery was finally abolished in New York, two Black men – James Hewlett and William Alexander Brown – co-founded America’s first Black theater company, the African Grove…
Long before Black stories were welcomed on main stages and screens, visionary playwrights, actors, singers, and producers were creating spaces where Black voices could be seen, heard, and celebrated. Their creativity, courage, and determination transformed…