Biographical Sketches

First African American to win an Oscar.

1895-1952. First African American film star to win an Oscar. Hattie McDaniel was born in Wichita , Kansas to Henry and Susan McDaniel. Her father was a freed slave who have become a Baptist minister; her mother was a gospel singer. McDaniel's father organized her and her brothers and sisters into a singing troupe to earn money.

Flamboyant central figure in the history of rock and roll.

1932- . Born in Macon, Georgia, as Richard Wayne Penniman. He was one of twelve children. His father, Charles "Bud" Penniman, was a Seventh Day Adventist preacher who sold moonshine on the side. The family lived on an unpaved street in a poor section of town. As a child Richard sang with the Penniman Singers and the Tiny Tots Quartet. By age fifteen he was a regular with Sugarfoot Sam's Minstrel Show.

Social reformer, suffragist, founder of the Friday Morning Club.

1820-1914. Born Caroline Seymour in Canandaigua , New York . She graduated at fifteen from the Female Seminary at Geneva , New York . In 1840 she married Theodoric C. Severance, a banker. She had five children, the first of which died when he was six weeks old. She was active in abolitionist causes in the years before the Civil War. After the war, in 1866, she helped Susan B. Anthony found the Equal Rights Association.