Black History Month is an annual celebration of achievements by African Americans and a time for recognizing their central role in U.S. history. Since 1976, every U.S. president has officially designated the month of February as Black History Month. Other countries around the world, including Canada and the United Kingdom, also devote a month to celebrating Black history.
To honor this month, members of our DEI Committee have each chosen to spotlight a hidden figure in Black history. Learn more below!
Robert L. Johnson
Creator of the first cable network, Black Entertainment Television (BET), to provide solely black programming, Johnson built his nearly $3 billion company on a format that featured black music videos and comedy. Johnson became the first African American billionaire.
Shirley Chisholm (1924-2005)
Shattering glass ceilings, Shirley Chisholm became the first Black woman elected to Congress from 1969-1983. She also became the first woman to run for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination in 1972. Shirley ran with the campaign slogan “Unbought and unbossed,” which perfectly embodies a woman who broke boundaries and paved the way for women to reach new heights.
Bayard Rustin
Bayard Rustin was a gay man who had controversial ties to Communism and was considered too much of a liability to be on the front lines. He organized the March on Washington in August 1963 in the shadows of Dr. King. Rustin is known as one of the most brilliant minds and served his community to push for more jobs and better wages.
Dr. Jane Cooke Wright was an African American woman who excelled in medicine, research, and academia. Her research on anti-cancer chemicals revolutionized cancer treatment, and she co-founded the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO). Dr. Wright held many high-ranking positions throughout her career and raised two daughters. The ASCO’s Young Investigator Award was renamed after her for her influence in the field.
Madam C.J. Walker was an extraordinary African American businesswoman who is recorded as the first female millionaire who came from the cotton fields of the South and worked her way to her own successful business. She created equity for women at a time when women struggled to create equity for themselves. Her best-known creation was her hair grower. Her early products included Glossine (a pressing oil) and a vegetable shampoo. In addition, she urged her client to shampoo often and to follow her “walker system”, using the hair grower, oil, and hot combs to produce healthier hair. However, as a businesswoman, she didn’t stop there. As her wealth increased she contributed to the YMCA, covered tuition for six African American students at Tuskegee Institute, and became active in the anti-lynching movement, donating $5,000 to the NAACP’s efforts. Throughout her life, she overcame many obstacles and was able to help many along the way. With that being said – never give up, even if you have to start at the bottom. We all have to start somewhere.
Daniel Hale Williams was a surgeon who, in 1893, became the first person to perform a successful open-heart surgery, opening the gate for a wider acknowledgment of cardiac surgical techniques and practices that have led to millions of lives being saved and extended past the expected lifespan of patients with cardiac conditions. This also opened the door for greater equality in the medical profession. He studied medicine at Chicago Medical College, now Northwestern University Medical School. When a local Chicago woman was denied admission to Cook County School of Nursing because she was Black, Dr. Daniel Hale Williams gathered financial resources from the local community and founded Provident Hospital, the first non-segregated hospital in the United States. The hospital provided a residency training program for doctors and a training school for nurses. This allowed many people, who would not have been accepted at other institutions because of the color of their skin, to pursue their dream of studying medicine.
Isaac Dockery was a free man, very prominent in Sevier County, and owned property in three East Tennessee Counties. He ran his own construction business and was very active in community affairs. He was the first person in the area to build a kiln large enough to make brick for other people, and because of the quality and craftsmanship of his work, people across Sevierville wanted his bricks for their homes. He didn’t just build homes, he built relationships and motivated people to cross stringent racial lines, selling brick to both Black and white clientele. He often inscribed his brick with his initials, ID. Many structures in East Tennessee still standing today are made with Dockery bricks.
Although Isaac was a free man, he worked for a prominent merchant clerk named McKinley Thomas, where he honed his skillset and met his wife, Charlotte. Near the end of the Civil War, the Union supporting the Thomases fled, and this left Isaac in charge of looking after the entire property and the merchant store. Confederate soldiers made their way into town and found Isaac. When he refused to give up McKinley Thomas, the Confederate soldiers dragged him by a rope tied around his neck through the downtown streets he helped build. He bore the scars for the rest of his life. Without his sacrifice and bravery, they could have burned the city and courthouse.
When Isaac died in 1910 the local paper honored his life. His great-grandson, Ronald Brabson, cherishes those words centuries later. “There was an obituary in one of the Sevierville papers,” Brabson said. “It talks about a trusted loyal colored man who died today, and he was known as Uncle Ike. It says he was the most honorable man, and he was trusted by both Blacks and whites.”
Dockery and his family made bricks for many buildings in Sevierville, including the Masonic Lodge, the New Salem Baptist Church, the original Murphy College building, and the Sevier County Courthouse. A talented master builder, he taught several generations of brick masons, including his sons, sons-in-law, and grandsons.
For almost a century, the Dockery-McMahan family (two of Isaac’s daughters married into the McMahan family) held a key role in bricks and brick construction in Sevierville.
Black builders constructed nearly every important late 19th and early 20th-century public building in the county. Its tight-knit community produced at least a dozen brick masons, prolific all-black construction companies, and an exceptional carpenter and furniture maker.
The persona I am proud to elevate is one that is hiding in plain sight. She is incomparable but yet seldomly put into the major spotlight. Leontyne Price was born in 1927 and developed a taste for music listening to her mother singing in the church choir. Her gift for music became apparent when she mastered musical instruments during her school years, and eventually headed to college to become a music teacher. Upon witnessing her vocal talent during a recital, one of her professors convinced her to change her major and pursue vocal performance. Upon graduating, she won a full scholarship to continue studying music at the Juilliard School of Music as the recipient of a full scholarship. Fast forward, Leontyne Price made history as the first African American soprano to receive international acclaim. With an impressive 3-1/2 octave range, she is one of the most frequently recorded opera singers and was the recipient of more than 20 Grammy Awards, including a lifetime achievement award (1989). She also received the Presidential Medal of Freedom (1964), a Kennedy Center Honor (1980), and the National Medal of the Arts (1985).