The Unhidden Minute

Dred Scott (c. 1799 – September 17, 1858) was an enslaved  Black American man who unsuccessfully sued for his freedom and that of his wife, Harriet Robinson Scott, and their two daughters in the Dred…

As early as 1839 an enslaved Black man named Black man named Stephen Bishop lead many of the earliest explorations of Mammoth Cave in the state of Kentucky. One of the first tourist attractions in No…

Nat Turner was an enslaved Black American preacher who led the four-day rebellion in Southampton County, Virginia in 1831. The rebels killed between 55 and 65 people, making it the largest slave revo…

Born in 1800, Jordan B. Noble was enslaved to a Lieutenant in the 7th Regiment of the U.S. Army during the War of 1812. At the age of 14 he was pressed into service as a drummer boy under the common …

A pivotal figure in the Lewis & Clark Expedition of 1804 was an enslaved Black American named York. Listed among the participants as the enslaved person of William Clark, York was reported in the exp…

Benjamin Banneker was a Black American scientist, astronomer and surveyor. Born free in 1731 to a mulatto mother and a formerly enslaved African father, Banneker received a private educated through t…

Elizabeth Freeman also known as Mumbett was the first enslaved Black American to successfully sue and win her freedom in the United States of America. Born in slavery in 1744, Freeman was a passionat…

James Armistead Lafayette (born 1748 or 1760 – died 1830 or 1832)was an enslaved Black American who served the Continental Army as a spy during the American Revolutionary War. As an agent of the Marq…

Black soldiers fought in the American Revolutionary War from the moment of the first shots at Lexington and Concord in 1775 to the decisive Battle of Yorktown in 1781. As it was difficult to recruit …

Salem Poor was born into slavery in 1747 in Andover Massachusetts. However, Poor was eventually able to purchase his freedom on July 10, 1769. In 1775 Poor enlisted in the militia, serving under Capt…

Crispus Attucks, born 1723, was a whaler and stevedore of African and Native American descent. He was among the first casualties at The Boston Massacre on March 5th 1770. As a seminal moment in the l…

Phillis Wheatley was the first Black American author of a published book of poetry. Born 1753 in West Africa, likely Gambia or Senegal, she was kidnaped, sold into slavery at the age of seven, and tr…

At end of August in the year 1619, an English privateer ship call the White Lion reached Point Comfort on the Virginia peninsula. There, Governor George Yeardley and his head of trade bought 20 capti…

Captain Francisco Menéndez was a free black military leader serving the Spanish Crown in the 18th-century at St. Augustine, Florida. Born in 1709 he was one of the many enslaved people from the colon…

Juan Garrido was an African conquistador, born in the Kingdom of Kongo in 1487.  As a young man he went to Portugal  and converted to Catholicism. He chose the Spanish name, Juan Garrido or "Handsome…