Max Roach was born on January 10, 1924, in New Land, North Carolina. He was raised in Brooklyn and studied at the Manhattan School of Music. One of the great jazz drummers and a pioneer of bebop, he worked with Coleman Hawkins, Dizzy Gillespie, Stan Getz, Charlie Parker and Clifford Brown. Roach ...

William H. Dallas was a former slave and served during the Civil War. In 1874, he became a police officer with the Quincy Illinois Police Department. He also became the first black officer to lose his life in the line of duty in the state. Dallas grew up as a slave in South Carolina. Around ...

BY WALTER OPINDE  As you enjoy the weekend holiday memories as an American, do you really know the origins of the Memorial Day and who were behind its creation? Okay, the former (freed) slaves did it. This gives the Memorial Day an African-American origin. Currently, the Memorial Day in the ...

By the age of five, Thelma Carpenter knew she loved to sing and could often be heard on the "Kiddies Hour" radio show.  At the age of 11, she already had her own show on WNYC and at 15, she entered an amateur contest, at the Apollo Theater in New York, where singing "Stormy Weather" won her a ...

John Marrant lived a life of adventure and hardships in order to serve God. He was born in 1755 in a free black family in New York. His father died when he was four. Marrant lived with his mother and siblings in several colonies until he settled with an older sister's family in Charleston, SC, in ...

John Coltrane is remembered as a legendary and revolutionary saxophonist in the history of jazz music. His debut album "A Love Supreme" was a tribute to his victory over drug addiction. He started his own group and gained international recognition through his radical musical style, which he ...

At Black Then, we frequently see interesting photos that give us a glimpse into the past. They tend to show us a piece of black history that is often not covered in textbooks, in history classes, or shown in the media. In a photo that we found on Black History Album , we see this great ...

Charles Sherrod was a key member and organizer of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee during the Civil Rights Movement. He became the first SNCC field secretary and SNCC director of southwest Georgia. Sherrod was born in Petersburg, Virginia in 1937 and raised by his grandmother. He ...

By Bashir Muhammad Akiyele Editor: Victor Trammell Photo credits: ASCAC Hotep (Medu Neter for Peace)! Ankh, Udja, Seneb (Medu Neter for Life, Prosperity, Heath)! Greetings to my Black American family for Afrikan liberation! This blog post documents my third day in ...

John Wesley Dobbs was a postal clerk, civic leader, activist, and a key figure in the integration of Atlanta, Georgia. He was often referred to as the unofficial "Mayor" of Auburn Avenue. Dobbs was born in Marietta, Georgia on December 3, 1882. Two years after his birth his mother and father ...

In part one, we looked at the early life and training of Mestre Bimba—Manuel dos Reis Machado—now we look at how he established Capoeira Regional as a legit style in 1936. PROVING REGIONAL IS THE GREATEST There are other native martial arts in Brazil: luta livre, Brazilian jiu-jitsu. ...

Manuel dos Reis Machado was a Brazilian martial artist best known as Mestre Bimba, father of the Capoeira Regional style. Machado is also one of two people initially responsible for the modernization of capoeira during the 20th century. Born November 1899 in Salvador,  Bahia in Brazil. His ...