Coppin, Fanny Jackson (1837–21 January 1913), educator, civic and religious leader, and feminist, was born a slave in Washington, D.C., the daughter of Lucy Jackson. Her father’s name and the details of her early childhood are unknown. However, by the time she was age ten, her aunt Sarah Orr Clark had purchased her freedom, and Jackson went to live with relatives in New Bedford, Massachusetts. By 1851 she and her relatives had moved to Newport, Rhode Island, where Jackson was employed as a domestic by ...
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Coppin, Fanny Jackson (1837-1913), educator, civic and religious leader, and feminist
Linda M. Perkins
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Eagleson, William Lewis (1835-1899), editor and political activist
Dickson D. Bruce
Eagleson, William Lewis (09 August 1835–22 June 1899), editor and political activist, was born a slave in St. Louis, Missouri. The names of his parents and details about his early life are unknown. He married Elizabeth McKinney in 1865 in St. Louis; they had nine children. As a young man, he learned both printing and barbering, trades that he practiced intermittently throughout his life. In the 1870s, he settled in Fort Scott, Kansas, and started a newspaper, the ...
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Jasper, John (1812-1901), Baptist preacher and orator
Milton C. Sernett
Jasper, John (04 July 1812–30 March 1901), Baptist preacher and orator, was born in Fluvanna County, Virginia, the son of slave parents, Philip Jasper, a slave preacher, and Nina, head servant of the Peachy family. (His father served as a preacher at slave funerals.) John worked as a cart boy accompanying the plantation ox cart and on errands around the Peachy “great house.” In 1825 his master hired him out to Peter McHenry, for whom he worked one year in Richmond before returning to the Peachy plantation. He later labored in the coal mines of Chesterfield County. Jasper’s master sent him to Richmond a third time to work at Samuel Hargrove’s tobacco warehouse. Jasper led a life he later confessed to have been irreligious and riotous. A fellow slave taught him to read and spell....
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Turner, Jack (1840?–19 August 1882), political activist and party organizer
Mamie E. Locke
Turner, Jack (1840?–19 August 1882), political activist and party organizer, was born a slave in Alabama. His parents’ names are unknown. He lived on the Choctaw County farm of Beloved Love Turner, from whom he acquired his surname after emancipation. Turner had no formal education but was described as articulate, perceptive, and courageous, with a commanding physical presence. He married Chloe (maiden name unknown) in the late 1860s, and they had four children. He remained in Choctaw County after being freed, working as a farm laborer around Mount Sterling and Tuscahoma....
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Whipple, Prince (fl. 1776–1783), revolutionary war soldier
Sarah J. Purcell
Whipple, Prince (fl. 1776–1783), revolutionary war soldier, was born to unknown parents in Amabou, Africa. When Whipple was about ten, his parents sent him to America with either a brother or cousin, ostensibly to be educated in the manner of Prince’s older brother, who had returned from America four years before. Unfortunately, the captain of the ship on which the two boys traveled diverted to Baltimore, Maryland, and sold them into slavery instead....
