Biographical Dictionary of African Americans, Revised Edition

Rachel Kranz

Description

For centuries, African Americans have made important contributions to American culture. From Crispus Attucks, whose death marked the start of the Revolutionary War, to Oprah Winfrey, perhaps the most recognizable and influential TV personality today, black men and women have played an integral part in American history. This greatly expanded and updated edition of our best-selling volume, The Biographical Dictionary of Black Americans, Revised Edition profiles more than 250 of America's important, influential, and fascinating black figures, past and present—in all fields, including the arts, entertainment, politics, science, sports, the military, literature, education, the media, religion, and many more.

 

Sujets

• Histoire
• Biography
• DEI
• Dictionary
• African American
• Diversity
• United States
• Cultural Studies
• Diplôme d'État d'infirmier
• History

Informations

• Publié par: Infobase Publishing
• Date de parution: 01 janvier 2021
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781438198774
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

Biographical Dictionary of African Americans, Revised Edition
Copyright © 2021 by Infobase
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher. For more information, contact:
Facts On File An imprint of Infobase 132 West 31st Street New York NY 10001
ISBN 978-1-4381-9877-4
You can find Facts On File on the World Wide Web at http://www.infobase.com
Contents Entries Aaron, Hank Abernathy, Ralph Ailey, Alvin Aldridge, Ira Ali, Muhammad Allen, Richard Alston, Charles H. Anderson, Marian Angelou, Maya Antoine, Cesar C. Armistead, James Armstrong, Louis Ashe, Arthur Attucks, Crispus Baker, Josephine Baldwin, James Bambara, Toni Cade Banneker, Benjamin Bannister, Edward M. Baraka, Amiri Barnett, Claude A. Barth , Richmond Bassett, Ebenezer Bearden, Romare Beckwourth, James Belafonte, Harry Berry, Chuck Bethune, Mary McLeod Binga, Jesse Blake, Eubie Bland, James Bluford, Guion Bontemps, Arna Brooke, Edward W. Brooks, Gwendolyn Bunche, Ralph Cardozo, W. Warrick Carney, William H. Carver, George Washington Chamberlain, Wilt Chesnutt, Charles Waddell Childress, Alice Chisholm, Shirley Chuck D Cinque, Joseph Coleman, Bessie Coltrane, John Cosby, Bill Couvent, Madame Cromwell, Oliver Crummell, Alexander Cuffe, Paul Cullen, Countee Dailey, Ulysses Grant Davis, Angela Davis, Benjamin O., Jr. Davis, Benjamin O., Sr. Davis, Ossie Davis, Sammy, Jr. Dee, Ruby Delany, Martin Robison Dixon, Dean Douglass, Frederick Drew, Charles Richard Du Sable, Jean-Baptiste Pointe DuBois, W. E. B. Dunbar, Paul Laurence Dunham, Katherine Edelman, Marian Wright Elders, Joycelyn Ellington, Duke Ellison, Ralph Evans, Mari Evanti, Madame Lillian Evers, Medgar Fauset, Jessie Redmon Flora, William Forten, James Fortune, T. Thomas Franklin, Aretha Franklin, John Hope Freeman, Morgan Garnet, Henry Highland Garvey, Marcus Gaston, Arthur G. Gates, Henry Louis, Jr. Gibson, Althea Gilpin, Charles S. Giovanni, Nikki Goldberg, Whoopi Gordy, Berry, Jr. Gourdine, Meredith Charles Grimk , Archibald H. Grimk , Charlotte Forten Hale, Clara Haley, Alex Hamer, Fannie Lou Handy, W. C. Hansberry, Lorraine Harris, Kamala Hayes, Roland Healy, James Hemings, Sally Hendrix, Jimi Henson, Matthew Holiday, Billie Horne, Lena Houston, Charles H. Houston, Whitney Hughes, Langston Hunt, Richard H. Hunter-Gault, Charlayne Hurston, Zora Neale Jackson, Jesse Jackson, Michael Jackson, Reggie Jay-Z Jefferson, Blind Lemon Jemison, Mae Johnson, Charles S. Johnson, James Weldon Johnson, John H. Johnson, Katherine G. Johnson, Magic Jones, James Earl Joplin, Scott Jordan, Barbara C. Jordan, Michael Jordan, Vernon E., Jr. Joyner-Kersee, Jackie Julian, Percy L. Just, Ernest E. Karenga, Maulana King, Martin Luther, Jr. King, Martin Luther, Sr. Lafon, Thomy Larsen, Nella Latimer, Lewis Howard Lawless, Theodore K. Lawrence, Jacob Leadbelly Lee, Canada Lee, Spike Leidesdorff, William A. Lester, Julius B. Lewis, Edmonia Locke, Alain Louis, Joe Malcolm X Marsalis, Wynton Marshall, Thurgood Matzeliger, Jan Earnst Mays, Benjamin E. McCoy, Elijah McCullough, Geraldine Hamilton McDaniel, Hattie McKay, Claude Micheaux, Oscar Morgan, Garrett A. Morrison, Toni Moseley Braun, Carol Motley, Constance Baker Muhammad, Elijah Myers, Isaac Newton, Huey P. Norton, Eleanor Holmes Obama, Barack Obama, Michelle Odetta Overton, Anthony Owens, Jesse Paige, Satchel Parker, Charlie Parks, Gordon Parks, Rosa Paul, Thomas Payne, Daniel Perkins, Marion Poitier, Sidney Powell, Adam Clayton, Jr. Powell, Colin Price, Leontyne Prosser, Gabriel Queen Latifah Rainey, Ma Randolph, A. Philip Rapier, James T. Rice, Condoleezza Rillieux, Norbert Robeson, Eslanda Goode Robeson, Paul Robinson, Jackie Ross, Diana Rudolph, Wilma Russwurm, John Brown Salem, Peter Scarborough, William S. Schomburg, Arthur Scott, Dred Shabazz, Hajj Bahiyah Betty Shakur, Tupac Simmons, William J. Simpson, O. J. Singleton, Pap Smalls, Robert Smith, Bessie Smith, Ferdinand C. Smythe, John H. Spaulding, Charles Clinton Still, William Tanner, Henry Ossawa Terrell, Mary Church Thomas, Clarence Thomas, Vivien Thurman, Howard Tolton, Augustine Toomer, Jean Trotter, James Monroe Truth, Sojourner Tubman, Harriet Turner, Henry McNeal Turner, Nat Tyson, Neil deGrasse Vann, Robert Varick, James Vesey, Denmark Walker, Alice Walker, David Walker, George Walker, Madam C. J. Walker, Maggie L. Walker, Margaret Washington, Booker T. Washington, Denzel Waters, Ethel Weaver, Robert C. Wells, Ida B. West, Cornel Wheatley, Phillis Whipper, Ionia Rollin Whipple, Prince White, Clarence C. White, Walter F. Williams, Bert Williams, Daniel Hale Williams, George Washington Williams, Paul Revere Williams, Venus and Serena Wilson, August Wilson, J. Finley Wilson, William Julius Winfrey, Oprah Wonder, Stevie Woods, Granville T. Woods, Tiger Woodson, Carter Wright, Richard Young, Andrew Young, Charles
Entries
Aaron, Hank
Also known as: Henry Aaron
(b. 1934–d. 2021)
baseball player

Baseball's home run king from 1976 to 2007, Henry Louis (Hank) Aaron, nicknamed "the Hammer,"  slugged 755 home runs during his 23 seasons in the major leagues. In addition to his heroics on the field, Aaron was a successful executive and a major voice for equal opportunity in baseball.
Born in Mobile, Alabama, on February 5, 1934, Aaron was the third of eight children. He developed an early love for baseball, playing first for a local sandlot team and then for Central High School. In 1952, when Aaron was 18, the Indianapolis Clowns of the Negro Leagues signed him to a $200-a-month contract. Later in the year, the Clowns made a tidy profit by selling Aaron's contract to the Milwaukee Braves of the National League for $10,000.
Aaron quickly worked his way up through Milwaukee's minor league system, and in 1954 he was promoted to the major league club as the starting right fielder. He performed well during his rookie season, batting .280 with 13 home runs and 69 RBI. The following year, Aaron did even better, raising his average to .314 and driving in 106 runs. He emerged as a star in 1956, winning the National League batting championship with a .326 average.
Aaron enjoyed his finest individual season in 1957, when he batted .322 with 44 home runs and 132 RBI and won the National League pennant for the Braves with a dramatic late-inning home run against the St. Louis Cardinals. He continued to excel in the World Series, hitting three home runs as the Braves defeated the mighty New York Yankees in seven games. During the off-season, the nation's sportswriters selected Aaron as the National League's Most Valuable Player.
Throughout the 1960s, with the Braves relocated to Atlanta, Aaron's power totals mounted steadily. Fans and sportswriters soon realized that Aaron could even challenge Babe Ruth's lifetime mark of 714 home runs, once considered an untouchable record. Steadily closing in on Ruth, Aaron hit his 500th home run in 1968, his 600th in 1971, and his 700th in 1973. As he entered the 1974 season, his total stood at 713. Unfortunately, there were those who disliked the idea of an African American taking Ruth's crown, and Aaron received a large volume of hate mail and a number of death threats. Hurt and angry but undeterred, Aaron hit his 714th homer in the first game of the 1974 season, against the Los Angeles Dodgers at Atlanta's Fulton County Stadium. The following night, April 8, a nationwide TV audience watched as Aaron powered a fastball from pitcher Al Downing into the left field seats, touching off a wild celebration and putting himself in the history books.
Now an undisputed baseball legend, the 40-year-old Aaron completed the 1974 season with 20 home runs and was then traded to the Milwaukee Brewers of the American League. He played two seasons in Milwaukee, where he had remained a celebrity despite the Braves' departure, and retired with 755 lifetime home runs. In the ultimate gesture of respect, both the Braves and the Brewers retired Aaron's uniform number, 44.
Though Aaron's home run total claims the most attention from fans and baseball historians, his all-around production was truly remarkable. Eclipsing Ruth once again, he drove in a total of 2,297 runs, the most in major league history. In addition, Aaron ranks first on the all-time list in total bases (6,856), first in extra-base hits (1,477), third in hits (3,771), third in runs scored (2,147), and third in games played (3,298). It came as no surprise when Aaron was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1981, his first year of eligibility.
Upon his retirement as a player, Aaron joined the Atlanta Braves' front office as Senior Vice President and director of player development. In 1990, he became a vice president of the Turner Broadcasting Company and a special assistant to Braves president Ted Turner. As one of the few black executives in the game, Aaron frequently criticized major league baseball for failing to create more opportunities for African Americans on the managerial level. He was also active in a number of charities and devoted considerable time to the Hank Aaron Chasing a Dream Foundation, which raises funds to provide scholarships for young people. In addition, he owned chains of automobile dealerships and restaurants.
Although his home run record was finally eclipsed by Barry Bonds in 2007, Aaron's talents as a player continue to be recognized. In April of 1999, on the 25th anniversary of the day he broke Babe Ruth's home run record, baseball inaugurated its first new award in 30 years, the Hank Aaron Award. The award is presented annually to the best all-around hitters in both the National and American leagues. It was the first major award to be introduced in more than 30 years and was the first to be named after a player who was still alive. Later that same year, baseball fans voted