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Flora, William (fl. 1775–1818), war hero and businessman  

Charles W. Carey Jr.

Flora, William (fl. 1775–1818), war hero and businessman, was born probably in the vicinity of Portsmouth, Virginia, the son of free black parents, whose names are unknown. On the eve of the American Revolution fewer than 2,000 free blacks lived in Virginia. The colony’s statutes forbade the manumission of slaves except those who exposed an incipient slave uprising. Consequently, Flora, who was known as “Billy,” was probably descended from Africans who arrived in Virginia before 1640, when blacks were treated like indentured servants rather than slaves....

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Grace, Charles Emmanuel "Daddy" (25 January 1881–12 January 1960), religious personality  

Richard Newman

Grace, Charles Emmanuel (25 January 1881–12 January 1960), African American religious personality, was born, probably as Marcelino Manuel da Graca, in Brava, Cape Verde Islands, of mixed Portuguese and African ancestry, the son of Manuel de Graca and Gertrude Lomba. In the charismatic church that he founded and headed, however, he managed to transcend race by declaring, “I am a colorless man. I am a colorless bishop. Sometimes I am black, sometimes white. I preach to all races.” Like many other Cape Verdeans, Grace immigrated to New Bedford, Massachusetts, around the turn of the century and worked there and on Cape Cod as a short-order cook, a salesman of sewing machines and patent medicines, and a cranberry picker....

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Vanderbilt, Gloria Laura (20 February 1924–17 June 2019), socialite, fashion designer, and entrepreneur  

Ann T. Keene

Vanderbilt, Gloria Laura (20 February 1924–17 June 2019), socialite, fashion designer, and entrepreneur, was born in New York City, the only child of Reginald Vanderbilt, great-grandson of Cornelius (“Commodore”) Vanderbilt, a legendary nineteenth-century shipping tycoon, and Gloria Morgan Vanderbilt, descended from a distinguished family of diplomats, judges, and a Civil War Union general. Reginald was a heavy-drinking heir to a railway fortune, a noted equestrian, and a playboy who was twenty-four years his wife’s senior. “Little Gloria,” as his daughter became publicly known, was a celebrity virtually from birth, heiress to a presumed fortune. Following Reginald Vanderbilt’s death in ...