1445 Wampanoag Trail, Suite 203, East Providence, RI 02915-1019 | (401) 433-0044 | info@riheritagehalloffame.com
Ojetta R. Thompson was born in Anderson, South Carolina on August 8, 1951. Her mother was a teacher, and her father was a school principal. Her hometown was Greenville, a municipality named for Rhode Island Revolutionary War General Nathanael Greene who is regarded as a liberator of the South from British rule. From kindergarten through
Charles “Charlie” Butler was a pioneer in integrated amateur baseball in Rhode Island. Butler was born in Providence on June 11, 1926, the second to last of six children of Clarence A. and Sarah L. (nee Morris) Butler. His parents raised the Butler siblings in what was then known as the West Elmwood section of
Matilda Sissieretta (Joyner) Jones, an internationally acclaimed black opera singer, was born in Portsmouth, Virginia on January 5, 1868, the daughter of Jeremeah Joyner, a former slave and a minister, and Henrietta Beale Joyner, a homemaker, washerwoman, and singer in her church choir. The couple had three children, but only Sissieretta survived childhood. At the
Bertha Grant Higgins was an American and civil rights activist deeply involved in supporting women’s suffrage in Rhode Island. She strongly supported the Dyer Anti-Lynching Bill and worked towards equal rights for African Americans. Higgins was born Bertha Grant Dillard on November 18, 1872. Before she was married, she studied fashion design in London and Paris.She married her first husband, Walker
Roberta Dunbar was born in Narragansett, Rhode Island on July 10, 1868 to John and Louisa Cartwright Dunbar. By 1870 the family was living in Providence and Roberta attended the English High school. She worked in a number of professions including dressmaker, masseuse and hairdresser but her work of note was as an activist dedicated
William H. “Dixie” Matthews was considered one of the finest athletes Rhode Island has ever produced. He was born in Providence on Dec. 2, 1908, son of Charles and Mary Matthews. He was an incredible all-around athlete who excelled at baseball, basketball, and football. He captained the basketball team at Technical High School, was an
Reverend Mahlon Van Horne (1840 -1910) had a career that ranged from minister of the Gospel at the black Union Congregational Church at Newport to minister of diplomacy as United States Consul to St. Thomas in the West Indies. He was at heart always a teacher. Bom in Princeton New Jersey in 1840, Van Horne was
Mr. William (b. 1898) & Mrs. Olive F. Wiley (b.1903) were husband and wife for more than sixty years, many of which were devoted to their fellow man. William edited R.I.’s first African-American newspaper, the Providence Chronicle, for twenty years, while working full-time for the U.S. Postal Service. He was a co-founder and President of
Lloyd Griffin died on November 24, 1999, at the age of fifty nine. His memorial Mass on December 1 at Holy Rosary Church in his native Fox Point was well attended for an ordinary man; but Lloyd was not an ordinary man, and the church was far from over flowing. A few black community leaders
Fred Benson devoted eight decades to Block Island, R.I., serving as police commissioner, fireman, and president of the chamber of commerce. Islanders continue to revel in sharing their cherished memories of the legendary jack-of-all trades for whom the town’s beach pavilion is named. Born in Boston on April 14, 1895, Benson was the son of
Andrew J. Bell, Jr. was born in Providence in September 1907, the son of Andrew J. and Beatrice J. Bell. After graduating from Classical High School, Bell studied Business Administration at Bryant College and graduated from the New England Institute of Mortuary Science in Boston. In 1932, during the depths of the Great Depression, the
Frederick C. Williamson, Sr.,1915-2010, was State Director of the RI Department of Community Affairs and Rhode Island’s Historic Preservation Officer. He was instrumental in many of the state’s historic buildings and sites accepted for the National Historic Register. At the time of his death, in 2010, Frederick Williamson was the longest serving state historic preservation
Warwick’s George Wiley (1931-1973) compiled a record of service to his country which equals the sacrifices and service of his fellow hometowners, Nathanael and Christopher Greene. Like those men of the Revolutionary War generation, George, too, became a champion of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” Whereas the Greenes took direct military action against
James N. Williams was the first and long-time Executive Director of the Urban League of Rhode Island and participated in the triumphs in the battle for racial equality in this nation. He also was active in many civic endeavors and served as a member of the state Advisory Council on Aging and other organizations which
George S. Lima, Sr., the son of immigrants from Cape Verde, spent his adolescent years in Harlem, Fall River, and Providence with his Cape Verdean family. His life changed dramatically when he enrolled at North Carolina A&T State University in 1939 on a football scholarship. It was there he also learned to pilot planes. When
Matilda Sissieretta Joyner Jones (“Black Patti”) 1869-1933, was a famous concert singer of the 19th century. After becoming the the first African-American artist to perform at the Wallack’s Theatre in New York, she toured South America, Europe and Canada. Known as “the Black Patti,” after Italian diva Adelina Patti, Ms. Jones performed in Madison Square
He was the first African American editor of a white newspaper. He was a renowned speaker and defender of human rights, attacking segregation and discrimination. John Carter Minkins came into this life on January 29, 1869 in Norfolk, Virginia. His mother died very young and he never met his white father. Raised by his grandmother,
Edward M. Bannister was a nationally famous painter during the 19th century. He was a self-taught pioneer among African-American artists, and won a national award during the U.S. centennial celebration, in 1876.
Sevellon Brown, the publisher of the Providence Journal and The Evening Bulletin, was known as a person who expected great things from the American press and did everything in his power to achieve them. He founded the American Press Institute at Columbia in 1946 to improve the professional, leadership, and technical skills of those in
Fritz Pollard achieved legendary status at Brown University, compiling “firsts” as frequently as he gained first downs for the football team. He was the first African American to play in the Rose Bowl and the first to be named all-American by Walter Camp, who described Pollard as “one of the greatest runners these eyes have
Dr. Raymond T. Jackson, originally of Providence, is an accomplished concert pianist and graduate of the Julliard School of Music. Noted for bringing the music of African-American composers to the concert stage. He has compiled a three-volume anthology containing works by two dozen African-American composers dating back to the early 1800s. He has held positions
MICHAEL S. VAN LEESTEN, of Providence, Executive Assistant to the Chairman of the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation, is the former director of the Department of Planning and Development for the City of Providence, former director of the Opportunities Industrialization Center of Rhode Island, former chairman of the Rhode Island Housing and Mortgage Finance Corporation, and
In early nineteenth-century Rhode Island, a woman’s role was sharply circumscribed by tradition. A woman—even one of high social station—was thought of mainly as a wife and a mother. Those who ventured beyond the home (religious nuns excepted) might find work from the 1830s onward as a teacher in a primary school, as a school
The work of Paulina Kellogg Wright Davis as a women’s rights advocate, social reformer, educator, and author extended over forty years from the late 1830s to her death in 1876. She was born in Bloomfield, New York, on August 7, 1813, the daughter of Captain Ebenezer Kellogg and Polly Saxon. After the death of both
In Rhode Island, slavery was placed on the road to extinction on March 1, 1784, when the General Assembly passed a gradual manumission act making any Black born to a slave mother after that date free. Those who were slaves at that time had to be manumitted by their masters. Five such slaves were listed
“A Rhode Island Original” is a description used by Sarah O’Dowd to title her biography of Frances Whipple. It aptly describes one of Rhode Island’s most significant mid-nineteenth-century writers and reformers. Frances was born in Smithfield in September 1805, but the exact date is unknown. She was the eldest of the four children of George
Most Rhode Islanders recognize the strong relationship between their state and professional baseball at major and minor league levels. Few, however, are aware that this connection extends to the professional Black teams in the Negro Leagues during the age of racial segregation in the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s. In those years, African Americans participated in
Arnold Buffum, hatmaker, inventor, and abolitionist, was the second son among William Buffum’s and Lydia Arnold’s eight children. He was born on December 13, 1782, and raised in a farmhouse near Smithfield’s Union Village, now part of North Smithfield. Arnold’s childhood home, called the William Buffum House for his Quaker father, who built it, still