Project Type: 2022

Head shot of Samuel A Floyd

Samuel A. Floyd

Photo from University of California Press via Columbia College African American, Music, Archives Samuel A. Floyd, PhD (1937-2016) A music educator, archivist, and historian, Samuel A. Floyd Jr’s goal was to document and preserve the spectrum of Black music in written and performed forms to express African Diasporic cultures across genre, time period, geographic region, …

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Olly Woodrow Wilson, Jr.

Photographer unknown. Handout photo originally ran 02-06-2007 on SFgate.com African American, Music, Ethnography Olly Woodrow Wilson, Jr. (1937-2018) Composer and music professor Olly Wilson wrote several foundational articles illuminating key structural aesthetic practices commonly found in African derived musics.  Olly Woodrow Wilson, Jr was born in 1937 to Alma Grace Peoples Wilson, a seamstress and …

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Horace Clarence Boyer

Photo from the Journal of Gospel Music African American, Music Horace Clarence Boyer (1935-2009) Horace Clarence Boyer was a performer/scholar of African American gospel music who educated others on the performance and compositional practices of the music tradition. Horace Clarence Boyer was born in 1935 in Winter Park, Florida, the fourth of Climmie L. Sr. …

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Doreen Gamboa Fernandez

©️2002 Stella Kalaw Filipina American, Foodways, Theater, Literature Doreen Gamboa Fernandez (1934-2002) Dr. Doreen Gamboa Fernandez was a prolific scholar who wrote extensively on food, culture, literature, education, theater, and performance. She is best known for writing on the Philippines’ foodways, from the dizzying array of street foods to distinctive regional specialties, and about the …

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Roy Simon Bryce-Laporte

Image from Colgage University, https://www.colgate.edu/news/stories/roy-bryce-laporte-ex-alst-director-and-professor-dies West Indian Panamanian American, Sociology, Ethnic Studies, Diaspora Studies Roy Simon Bryce-Laporte (1933-2012) A trailblazer in African American, Latin American, and Caribbean studies programs, Roy Simon Bryce-Laporte developed innovative projects and curriculum that examined Black cultural traditions and migratory patterns in the Western Hemisphere. Roy Simon Bryce-Laporte, a Panamanian American …

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Ernest J. Gaines seated in a wheel chair

Ernest James Gaines

Gaines in conversation at Fall for the Book, 28 September 2015. Photo courtesy of S L O W K I N G (Wikipedia user Slowking4) African American, Literature Ernest James Gaines (1933-2019) Ernest James Gaines was a celebrated author and educator, who infused African American folklore into his writings. Ernest James Gaines was born on …

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Vine Deloria

Image from the University of Colorado Law School Native American (Standing Rock Sioux), Cultural Theory, Religion Vine Deloria (1933-2005) Vine Deloria, Jr. was a preeminent cultural theorist, theologian, and educator of Native American religion, epistemologies, rights, and culture.  Vine Deloria, Jr., a Hunkpapa Lakota, was born, in Martin, South Dakota, to Vine Deloria, Sr., and …

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Audre Lorde

Photo by K. Kendall, April 1980, Austin, TX, via Flickr African American, Cultural Theory, Philosophy, Library Work Audre Lorde (1932-1992) Audre Geraldine Lorde was a self-described “black, lesbian, mother, warrior, poet and essayist” whose work highlighted the tenets of intersectional critical theorizing in race, gender, and sexuality. Lorde was born in New York City to …

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P. Sterling Stuckey

Photo from the University of California Riverside African American, History P. Sterling Stuckey (1932-2018) Dr. Ples Sterling Stuckey, Jr. contributed to transforming scholarship on slavery from speculations by plantation owners to a focus on the voices, identities, and cultural practices of enslaved people. He was born in 1932 in Memphis, Tennessee, to Ples Sterling Stuckey, …

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Toni Morrison

Portrait by Timothy Greenfield-Sanders, courtesy of the photographer African American, Cultural Theory, Literature Toni Morrison (1931-2019) Born Chloe Anthony Wofford in 1931 in Lorain, Ohio to Ramah and George Wofford whose parents had fled Georgia to escape sharecropping, debt, and violence. Raised in a household that nurtured traditional storytelling, she learned to value ancestors, community …

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