Christina Proenza-Coles

"Slavery, Freedom, Public History & National Identity: Charlottesville, Curaçao, Cartagena" explores these locations as Black spaces whose histories help us better appreciate the communities we are today. uva-center-for-cultural-landscapes-newsletter-features.mailchimpsites.com/african-dias...

Elijah McCoy, mechanical engineer, born in Canada after his parents fled slavery via the Underground Railroad. As an inventor in Michigan he acquired 57 patents for innovations that improved trains in an era when railways were the dominant mode of transport for people & goods.

Ralph Bunche, political scientist, won the Nobel in 1950. He & Barack Obama both descended from John Punch, an enslaved African man who had a son in 1630s VA with an indentured European servant. Their progeny bifurcated into the “white” Punches of VA (Obama’s line) & the “colored” Bunches of NC.

Dr. Chester Pierce (b. 1927) earned his MD from Harvard where he was a professor for 40 years. A US Navy Commander, he advised the Children's Television Network, the Surgeon General of the US Air Force, the US Arctic Research Commission, Peace Corps & the National Aeronautics & Space Administration.

Meta Fuller, sculptor. Her English grandfather had married her grandmother, a free Black woman, in VA. She challenged racial mores: "I was told the American Girls' Club was here for the American girl students who came to Paris to study. I felt that I, as an American girl, was entitled to come here."

Dr. Solomon Fuller - grandson of Virginians who bought their freedom & moved to Liberia - earned his MD from Boston University in 1897 & was invited by Alois Alzheimer to do research at University of Munich in 1904. He was among 1st neurologists to work on disease now called Alzheimers.

In 1799 Revolutionary War veteran John Chavis attended what is today Washington & Lee University. In 1808 he opened a highly regarded school in Raleigh, NC for Black & white students. See Helen Orthow, John Chavis: African American Patriot, Preacher, Teacher, & Mentor 1763-1838.

Dr. Matilda Evans performs surgery in the operating room of Taylor Lane Hospital which she founded in South Carolina in 1901. Dr. Evans was a public heath pioneer & benefactor who treated Black & white patients. She was an advocate & practitioner of health care as a human right.

Congressman George Henry White (b. 1852), son of a formerly enslaved mother, was an educator & lawyer as well as a U.S. Representative from North Carolina In 1900. White was the 1st member of Congress to introduce legislation making lynching a federal crime.

George Brown holding John Teter Jr., son of one of Brown's employees at the Cleveland Marine Steam Railways. Brown, an entrepreneur & carpenter, purchased substantial property & established key businesses as a founder of Punta Gorda. He paid his employees according to their skill rather than color.

"African Americans played a tremendous role in the establishment, history, & growth of Punta Gorda. Nearly half of the city’s original setters were African American. Despite Jim Crow norms, the pioneers created a society where shared prosperity & mutual respect prevailed." Blanchard House website

“Portrait of Frederick” c. 1840 now in the Mississippi Museum of Art. After the Civil War, Frederick took the surname Baker and was ordained as a minister. www.mississippifreepress.org/rare-portrai...

Barzillai Lew (b. 1743) served with distinction during the American Revolutionary War. He purchased the freedom of his future wife, Dinah Bowman, for $400 in 1767. The 1790 census lists him as head in a household of 14 free people of color. Their house became a stop on the Underground Railroad.

During Reconstruction, South Carolina congressman Robert Elliot put his own life at risk to enact measures to litigate & suppress Klan terrorism. He delivered a powerful speech in 1875 in support of the Civil Rights Act that banned discrimination in public transit, accommodations, & schools.