Category: Biography

  • On Being a Black Female Math Whiz During the Space Race The New York Times 2016-09-05 Cara Buckley, Culture Reporter Katherine Johnson, left, and Christine Darden, two of the former NASA mathematicians in the book “Hidden Figures.” Credit:  Chet Strange for The New York Times HAMPTON, Va. — Growing up here in the 1970s, in…

  • A look at historical multiracial families through the House of Medici OUPblog: Oxford University Press’s Academic Insights for the Thinking World 2016-09-04 Catherine Fletcher Catherine Fletcher is author of The Black Prince of Florence: The Spectacular Life and Treacherous World of Alessandro de’ Medici. The Medici, rulers of Renaissance Florence, are not the most obvious…

  • The first-ever biography of Alessandro de’ Medici, arguably the first black head of state

  • Meet American Olympian Anthony Ervin: The Oldest-Ever Individual Olympic Swimming Gold Medalist Democracy Now! 2016-08-15 Amy Goodman, Host and Executive Producer While Michael Phelps dominated the Olympic headlines over the weekend by scoring a historic 23rd gold medal, another American male swimmer has also made history in Rio. Thirty-five-year-old Anthony Ervin became the oldest-ever individual…

  • Katherine Johnson, the NASA Mathematician Who Advanced Human Rights with a Slide Rule and Pencil Vanity Fair September 2016 Charles Bolden, Administrator National Aeronautics and Space Administration Katherine Johnson, photographed at Fort Monroe, in Hampton, Virginia. Photograph by Annie Leibovitz NASA chief Charles Bolden recalls the historic trajectory of the “human computer” who played a…

  • Half-Caste Actresses in Colonial Brazilian Opera Houses Latin American Theatre Review Volume 45, Number 2, Spring 2012 pages 57-71 DOI: 10.1353/ltr.2012.0016 Rosana Marreco Brescia Universidade Nova de Lisboa Operatic and theatrical historians in both Brazil and Portugal frequently mention that around the last quarter of the 18th century, Queen Maria I forbade women to perform…

  • The Senator and the Socialite: The True Story of America’s First Black Dynasty HarperCollins 2006-06-27 512 pages 5.313 in (w) x 8 in (h) x 0.821 in (d) Hardcover ISBN: 978-0060184124 Paperback ISBN: 9780060985134 eBook ISBN: 9780061873911 Lawrence Otis Graham Blanche Kelso Bruce was born a slave in 1841, yet, remarkably, amassed a real-estate fortune…

  • Madame E. Azalia Hackley was an African American classical singer, social worker, writer, philanthropist, and activist who championed the use of African-American spirituals among the African-American people as a tool for social change. Her efforts laid the groundwork for the use of spirituals as freedom songs during the Civil Rights Movement.

  • Mathematician Katherine Johnson at Work NASA History National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) 2016-02-25 Sarah Loff, Editor Image Credit: NASA NASA research mathematician Katherine Johnson is photographed at her desk at Langley Research Center in 1966. Johnson began her career in 1953 at the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), the agency that preceded NASA,…

  • Obama Returns to His Biography The Atlantic 2016-07-27 Yoni Appelbaum, Senior Editor/Washington Bureau Chief Mark Kauzlarich / Reuters Twelve years after introducing himself to the American public as the son of an immigrant, the president recast himself as a bearer of Scotch-Irish values. Twelve years ago, Barack Obama introduced himself to America as just a…