Born on this day, musical genius, Thomas Greene Wiggins, known as "Blind Tom." After the purchase of his parents by U.S. Colonel Neil Bethune, Wiggins was given out as a discount due to his blindness. From his infancy, Wiggins manifested an extraordinary ability to compose sounds. Bethune’s ...

Born on this day, May 25, 1972, Octavia Lenora Spencer. Spencer is an American actress and author. She is the recipient of several accolades, including an Academy Award, a British Academy Film Award, and a Golden Globe Award. Spencer was born in Montgomery, Alabama to Dellsena Spencer, her ...

BY WALTER OPINDE  On this day, May 25, 1919, the first female African-American, millionaire, entrepreneur, philanthropist, and civil rights activist, Madam C. J. Walker, died of kidney failure and hypertension complications at the age of 51 years. At the time of Walker’s death, she was the ...

Jo Etha Collier graduated from Drew High School in Drew, Mississippi in 1971. The school had been integrated not too long ago and had a student body of 200, mostly Black. Young Collier was a popular student and a top athlete as part of the school's track team. A neighbor of civil rights activist ...

The Well, was a 1951 movie that tackled the issues of collective behavior and racial tensions. The film centers on a five-year-old black girl, Carolyn who falls into a well. While walking to school, Carolyn stops to pick flowers. She does not the see the big hole in the ground because it is covered ...

Fanny Jackson Coppin, née Fanny Marion Jackson    (born 1837, Washington, D.C., U.S.—died Jan. 21, 1913, Philadelphia, Pa.), American educator and missionary whose innovations as head principal of the Institute for Colored Youth in Philadelphia included a practice-teaching system and ...

Matthew Henson was an African American explorer best known as the co-discoverer of the North Pole with Robert Edwin Peary in 1909. Synopsis Famed African-American explorer Matthew Henson was born in Charles County, Maryland, on August 8, 1866. Explorer Robert Edwin Peary hired Henson as his ...

At Black Then, we often see videos that make us stop and think. They frequently reveal information that is not broadcasted to the masses and are created by great talents that are not shown in mainstream media. In this video we found, we learn more about The Black Then Channel is an all-black ...

Future husband and lawyer William Grinstead would represent Elizabeth Key-Grinstead in suing for her freedom. Unlike other cases we'd detailed, this was a particularly difficult one to challenge. Her mother was born a slave so there was no legal loophole available to her...or was there?  ...

Born 1630 in Virginia's Warwick County, Elizabeth Key-Grinstead a slave who pursued legal action to gain her freedom in 1655. Elizabeth's early life mainly documented through the lives of her owners the Key family—particularly a lawsuit filed against her father early in her life. Elizabeth Key ...

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 ...

Background Ralph Johnson Bunche was born on August 7, 1904 (some sources say 1903), in Detroit, Michigan. After his family relocated to Albuquerque, New Mexico, Bunche's mother died during his early adolescence; reports vary on whether his father died soon after or had left the family. As a ...