mulan
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Registered: 12/24/06
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Reply with quote | #1 |
Here are some notable African descendants from Pennsylvania. Take a close look.
Bill Cosby
He is an African-American entertainer, author, educator, and businessperson.
Bayard Rustin
He was an African-American civil rights activist and principal organizer of the 1963 march on Washington.
Phyllis Hyman
Jazz singer
Jill Scott
Billy Eckstine
RES
Questlove and the Roots
Will Smith
These people are all related/connected
Benjamin Tanner (1835-1923)
From Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania he was a Bishop in the AfricanMethodist Episcopal Church (1st ordained in 1860) and founder of theA.M.E. Church Review. He was also a prolific writer and scholar and published several books.
Henry Ossawa Tanner (1859-1937) (bishops son)
One of the first African-American artists to achieve a reputation in both America and Europe, Henry Ossawa Tanner worked in the Naturalist and genre traditions of American art. Though his work grew increasingly mainstream and allegorical, his early depictions of humble black folk about their daily lives are regarded as classic statements of African-American pride and dignity.
Henry's 1885 painting, Sand Dunes at Sunset, Atlantic City, hangs in the White House's Green Room. Henry is the first African-American artist to have a work included in the White House collection.
In 1893 most American artists painted African-American subjects either as grotesque caricatures or sentimental figures of rural poverty. Henry Ossawa Tanner, who sought to represent black subjects with dignity, wrote: "Many of the artists who have represented Negro life have seen only the comic, the ludicrous side of it, and have lacked sympathy with and appreciation for the warm big heart that dwells within such a rough exterior." The banjo had become a symbol of derision, and caricatures of insipid, smiling African-Americans strumming the instrument were a cliche. In The Banjo Lesson, Tanner tackles this stereotype head on, portraying a man teaching his young protege to play the instrument - the large body of the older man lovingly envelops the boy as he patiently instructs him. If popular nineteenth-century imagery of the African-American male had divested him of authority and leadership, then Tanner in The Banjo Lesson recreated him in the role of father, mentor, and sage. The Banjo Lesson is about sharing knowledge and passing on wisdom.
The Banjo Lesson
Dr. Hallie Tanner Johnson (bishops daughter)
Dr. Hallie Tanner Johnson was a graduate of the Women's Medical College and the first woman of any race admitted to practice medicine in Alabama. She established the Nurses School and Hospital at Tuskegee Institute in Alabama
A family portrait with the people above and the rest of the family
Bishop Tanner and His Family, 1890
Benjamin Tucker Tanner (1835-1923), a Bishop in the African Methodist Episcopal Church. Bishop Tanner had seven children, the best known of whom is the painter Henry O. Tanner (1859-1937). Another daughter of Bishop Tanner, Hallie Tanner Johnson, became a social worker and physician and established the Nurses' School and Hospital at Tuskegee Institute in Alabama.
Nathan Francis Mossell, M.D., 1882 (1856-1946)
The first African-American to graduate from Penn's Medical School. In 1895 Dr. Mossell was a co-founder of the Frederick Douglass Hospital, which later merged with Mercy Hospital to form Mercy-Douglass.
Aaron Albert Mossell II (1863-1951)
The first African American to graduate from the University of Pennsylvania Law School.
Portrait of the family of the two brothers I just posted..the guys above are also in this pic
The Mossell Family
The Mossell Family, ca. 1880....refused to have any children born into slave territory. They sold their house and brickyard in Baltimore and moved to Hamilton, Ontario to have three sons and one daughter.After Emancipation that the Mossells moved back to the United States, and settled in Lockport, New York. All three sons graduated from Lincoln University in Pennsylvania
Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander (January 2, 1898 - November 1, 1989) (daughter of Aaron Albert Mossell II Paternal Grandparents are the Mossells--Maternal Grandparents are the Tanners)
She was born in Philadelphia in 1898 to Aaron Albert Mossell II (1863-1951) and Mary Louise Tanner (1867-?).
Was one of the first African Americans to receive a Ph.D. in the United States and the first woman to receive a law degree from the University of Pennsylvania.
She served on many boards, committees, and commissions and held office in many local and national organizations including: President Harry Truman's Committee on Human Rights in 1947 and on the Commission on Human Relations of the City of Philadelphia from 1952 until 1968. She worked in her husband's law firm from 1927 until 1959, when he was appointed to the Court of Common Pleas in Philadelphia. She practiced law on her own until 1976, when she joined the firm of Atkinson, Myers, and Archie as a general counsel. She retired in 1982, and died in 1989
Sadie selling Negro Heroes comic books
Raymond Pace Alexander (1897-1974) (married Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander )
Born on October 13, 1897 in Philadelphia to a respected but impoverished family of seven, Raymond Pace Alexander faced a daunting future. But as a determined, brilliant young man, he owned a newspaper, a magazine, and a bootblack stand before his thirteenth birthday. Alexander’s ambition and fortitude enabled him to obtain a scholarship to attend Central High School, the best secondary school in Philadelphia. After graduating from Central with honors, Alexander received a scholarship to attend the University of Pennsylvania where he graduated with honors in three years while working on evenings and weekends as a waiter. In 1920 Alexander matriculated to Harvard Law School and earned the Juris Doctorate in 1923.
Proud, vain, handsome, Victorian, and imperious in demeanor, the exceedingly conscientious Alexander gained lifelong acquaintances and friends at Harvard and parlayed the experience into a myriad of successes upon his return to Philadelphia. In 1926 he married Sadie Tanner Mossell and established the most successful black law firm in Philadelphia. In 1929 Alexander became president of the National Bar Association. As head of the fledgling organization, Alexander literally forced every black attorney in the nation to become a civil rights advocate and provided the legal direction that ultimately forced the courts to move toward rendering more equitable decisions regarding blacks. In 1935 Alexander became instrumental in having a Civil Rights Bill passed in Pennsylvania.Alexander enjoyed a successful career in private practice, directly challenging racism and discrimination and helping to end segregation in a number of Philadelphia institutions, before becoming counsel for NAACP.Between 1933 and 1935 Alexander served as president of the National Bar Association and sought a federal appointment.
Though the prevailing racial climate made it difficult for him to break into national politics, Alexander was appointed honorary consul to the Republic of Haiti in 1938. He was considered for an ambassadorship to Ethiopia in 1951, but though he had President Truman's support, he was not confirmed. By 1939 Alexander’s reputation had been so firmly established that Thurgood Marshall presented a brief for his review that provided the framework for the Brown v. Board of Education decision of 1954. In January 1959 Governor George M. Leader appointed Alexander to fill a vacancy as judge in the Common Pleas Court of Philadelphia. He retained a position on the bench until his death in 1974.
 (His mother)
His wedding with Sadie
A few others from that group..
Lewis Baxter Moore (1866 - 1928) (married one of the Tanner daughters )
Born in Huntsville, Alabama in 1866 Moore won his B.A. (1889) and his M.A. (1893) from Fisk University in Nashville. In 1896 he earned the one of the first doctorates awarded to a black person in the United States. He did this at the University of Pennsylvania with a dissertation entitled "The Stage in Sophocles." He taught Latin at Howard University until 1899 when he became an administrator there.
*** Ph.D. 1896
***First African-American to earn the Doctor of Philosophy Degree from Penn
***Professor and Dean at Howard
***Presbyterian minister
In 1896 Lewis Baxter Moore (1866-1928) made history when he became the first African-American to earn his Doctor of Philosophy degree from the University of Pennsylvania. At the time Moore wrote his dissertation "The Stage in Sophocles' Plays" and completed his doctorate in the classics department at Penn, only four other African-Americans had earned doctor of philosophy degrees at any university. Moore, a native of Alabama, came to Penn after earning his A.B. and A.M. degrees from Fisk University.
After his graduate work at Penn, Dr. Moore went on to teach Latin, pedagogy, psychology, philosophy and education at Howard University where he served for many years as the Dean of Howard's Teachers' College. After becoming an ordained minister, the Rev. Dr. Moore spent the last three years of his life in Philadelphia as the pastor of the Faith Presbyterian Church in Germantown.
Lewis Baxter Moore's first wife was Sadie Elizabeth Tanner, a sister of the artist Henry O. Tanner and the maternal aunt for whom Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander (B.A. 1918, Ph.D. 1921, LL.D. 1927) was named. Sadie T.M. Alexander was particularly close to her Moore cousins, for she made her home with them in Washington, D.C. while attending high school.
Gertrude Bustill Mossell (July 3, 1855-January 21, 1948) (wife of Nathan Francis Mossell )
Born in Philadelphia,she rote the black feminist manifesto The Work of the Afro-American Woman, a collection oforiginal essays and poems, in 1894. She was also a contributing writer tomany major publications.
William Adger
Freeway
Dr. Alain Leroy Locke
Alain LeRoy Locke was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, as the only child of Pliny Ishmael Locke and Mary Hawkins Locke. He grew up in Philadelphia and attended Central High School and the Philadelphia School of Pedagogy. Locke entered Harvard in 1904 and graduated in 1907 with a distinguished academic record (magna cum laude), and became a member of Phi Beta Kappa.
(1886-1954), educator and scholar, became the first African-American Rhodes Scholar. He studied at Oxford in England (1907-1910) and the University of Berlin in Germany (1910-1911).
Alain Leroy Locke was born in 1886 during the post-reconstruction era and died in 1954, a month before the Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision. An intellectual steeped in the realities of color in 20th century America, Locke possessed a range of interests that makes chronicling and interpreting his career in adult education challenging. Most widely known for his leadership in the New Negro movement of the 1920s, he also was a leading African American figure in the adult education movement of the 1930s.
Other notable activities and contributions include the following: An annual publication of a review of the literature and scholarship on the Negro from 1928 until 1953; service as visiting professor at several universities including the Universities of Wisconsin and California, the City College of New York, the New School of Social Science in New York and as guest professor at the Harvard Academic Festival in Salzburg. Under the auspices of the Progressive Education Association, he along with the social anthropologist Bernard Stern conducted summer workshops at Sarah Lawrence College and at Chicago, Northwestern and Syracuse Universities. He lectured in Latin America, Haiti and throughout the United States. He made regular visits to Africa, Paris and Rome. He wrote for or was associated with magazines and journals such as The Crisis, Opportunity, and Phylon and served on the editorial boards for The American Scholar, Progressive Education, and the Conference on Science, Philosophy, and Religion. He was a member of the American Philosophical Association, the International Institute of African Languages and Cultures, the AcadÈmie des Science Coloniales, Paris.
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| | Ajax
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Reply with quote | #2 |
  All beautiful people
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I'm Black and I'm PROUD
I'm Native American and I'm PROUD
I'm Chinese and I'm PROUD
I'm German/French and I'm PROUD
I'm American and I'm PROUD |
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| | caribe
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Reply with quote | #4 |
Don't forget Shabba-Doo from "Soul Train", the movie "Breakin'", and "What's Happenin'". |
| | OTHER
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Reply with quote | #5 |
Quote: Originally Posted by caribeDon't forget Shabba-Doo from "Soul Train", the movie "Breakin'", and "What's Happenin'". Shabba-Doo was on "What's Happenin'"?
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| | caribe
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Reply with quote | #6 |
Yeah..He was a member of the LA Lockers or something like that. Re-run AKA Fred Barry (I think that's his name) was also a member. There was an episode of the show where he played one of Re-run's friends or something. |
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