Briggs, Cyril Valentine (28 May 1888–18 October 1966), journalist, Pan-Africanist, black nationalist, and Communist, was born in Nevis, West Indies, now part of St. Kitts–Nevis. His mother, Marian Huggins, was black, while his father, Louis E. Briggs, a plantation owner, was white. He graduated from the Ebenezer Wesleyan school in 1904. As a youth he worked as a library assistant and later as a reporter for the ...
Article
Briggs, Cyril Valentine (28 May 1888–18 October 1966)
Todd Steven Burroughs
Article
Garvey, Amy Euphemia Jacques (1896-1973), journalist, Pan-Africanist, and the second wife of black nationalist Marcus Garvey
Ula Y. Taylor
Garvey, Amy Euphemia Jacques (31 December 1896–25 July 1973), journalist, Pan-Africanist, and the second wife of black nationalist Marcus Garvey, journalist, Pan-Africanist, and the second wife of black nationalist Marcus Garvey, was born in Kingston, Jamaica, the daughter of George Samuel Jacques, a property owner, and Charlotte (maiden name unknown). Amy Jacques’s family was rooted in the Jamaican middle class; thus, she was formally educated at Wolmer’s Girls’ School, an elite institution in Jamaica. As a young woman she suffered from ailing health due to recurring bouts with malaria. In need of a cooler climate, she emigrated to the United States in 1917 and settled in New York City where she had relatives. After hearing contradictory reports about the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), recently founded by Garvey, she attended a meeting in Harlem. She was intrigued by the organization and in 1918 became Garvey’s private secretary and office manager at UNIA headquarters in New York. She traveled with Garvey throughout the United States on behalf of UNIA, and they developed a relationship based on their mutual commitment to the organization. Marital problems between Garvey and his first wife, Amy Ashwood, had been evident within the first two months of their marriage. Garvey was granted a divorce from Ashwood in June of 1922, and he married Amy Jacques the next month in Baltimore, Maryland....
Image
Mitchel, John (1815-1875)
In
John Mitchel. Engraving, second half of the nineteenth century. Courtesy of the Library of Congress (LC-USZ62-103956).
Article
Mitchel, John (1815-1875), Irish nationalist and journalist
Michael F. Funchion
Mitchel, John (03 November 1815–20 March 1875), Irish nationalist and journalist, was born near Dungiven, County Derry (Londonderry), Ireland, the son of John Mitchel, a Presbyterian (and later Unitarian) clergyman, and Mary Haslett. In 1819 Mitchel’s family moved to Derry City and then in 1823 to Dromalane near Newry, County Down, where he spent the rest of his childhood. From 1830 to 1834 Mitchel was enrolled in Trinity College, Dublin. In late 1835 or early 1836 he began studying law in the office of a Newry solicitor. In February 1837, during his legal apprenticeship, he married Jane (Jenny) Verner of Newry. The couple had six children. In 1840 Mitchel completed his legal training and moved to nearby Banbridge, where he practiced law....
Article
Muñoz Rivera, Luis (1859-1916), resident commissioner for Puerto Rico in Washington, D.C., writer, and newspaper editor
Errol D. Jones
Muñoz Rivera, Luis (17 July 1859–15 November 1916), resident commissioner for Puerto Rico in Washington, D.C., writer, and newspaper editor, was born in Barranquitas, Puerto Rico, the son of Luis Ramón Muñoz Barrios, a merchant and landowner, and Monserrate Rivera Vásquez. Inhabitants of a small town in the mountainous interior of Puerto Rico, Muñoz Rivera’s parents sent him at age six to the only local school. At age ten he had gone beyond what formal education could be offered there and studied with private tutors. His father taught him the rudiments of bookkeeping and basic business practices, and Muñoz Rivera became a modestly successful businessman. His father was mayor of Barranquitas and a member of the pro-Spanish Conservative party, and his uncle Vicente was a member of the Liberal party, So Luis grew up listening to the political discussions that agitated the Spanish colony in the 1860s and 1870s. At issue was local autonomy versus control by Spanish-appointed governors and their hand-picked advisory councils. The issue continued to agitate Puerto Ricans despite a change of colonial masters after the Spanish-American War in 1898....
Article
Scholte, H. P. (1805-1868), Reformed cleric, journalist, and founder of the Pella, Iowa, Dutch colony
Robert P. Swierenga
Scholte, H. P. (25 September 1805–25 August 1868), Reformed cleric, journalist, and founder of the Pella, Iowa, Dutch colony, was born Hendrik Pieter Scholte in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, the son of Jan Hendrik Scholte, a sugar box factory owner, and Johanna Dorothea Roelofsz. The Scholte family for generations operated sugar refineries in Amsterdam, and young Hendrik, called “H. P.,” was destined to carry on the business tradition. Religiously, the family members were “outsiders” who belonged to a pietistic German Lutheran congregation rather than the national Dutch Reformed church, headed by the monarchy. The death of his father, grandfather, only brother, and mother, all within six years (1821–1827), freed Scholte to use his inheritance to enroll as a theology student at Leiden University. In 1832 he married Sara Maria Brandt. They would have five children before her death in 1844....
Article
Sonneschein, Rosa (1847-1932), editor and Zionist
Harriet Sigerman
Sonneschein, Rosa (12 March 1847–05 March 1932), editor and Zionist, was born in Nagykansiza, Hungary, the daughter of Hirsch B. Fassel, a rabbi, and Fannie Sternfeld. She attained a high school education in Hungary and at a young age, in 1864, married Solomon Hirsch Sonneschein, a Reform rabbi; they had four children. In 1869 they immigrated to the United States and settled in St. Louis, Missouri. From the outset, their marriage was a disaster because they were wholly incompatible and because of her husband’s alcoholism. During her tumultuous marriage, Sonneschein began a lifelong habit of smoking cigars after dinner, claiming that smoking helped alleviate the indigestion that resulted when she and her husband quarreled at the dinner table....
Article
Weisgal, Meyer Wolfe (1894-1977), journalist, theater producer, and Zionist executive
Evyatar Friesel
Weisgal, Meyer Wolfe (10 November 1894–29 September 1977), journalist, theater producer, and Zionist executive, was born in Kikol, Poland, the son of Solomon Weisgal, hasan (Jewish religious cantor), and Lea Friedman. He received a talmudic education in Poland before emigrating with his family to the United States in 1906 and settling in New York City. He served as a private in the U.S. Army in 1918. In 1923 he married Shirley Hirshfeld; the couple had three children....
