Gates Henry Louis - African American Lives

AFRICAN AMERICAN LIVES

EDITORIAL BOARD

William L. Andrews

E. Maynard Adams Professor of English
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

Vincent Carretta

Professor of English
University of Maryland

Harry J. Elam

Professor of Drama
Stanford University

Frances Smith Foster

Charles Howard Candler Professor of English and Womens Studies
Emory University

Gerald Gill

Associate Professor of History
Tufts University

Farah Jasmine Griffin

Professor of English and Comparative Literature
Columbia University

Bruce Kellner

Emeritus Professor of English
Millersville University

Kenneth Manning

Thomas Meloy Professor of Rhetoric and of the History of Science
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Ingrid Monson

Quincy Jones Professor of African-American Music
Harvard University

Stephanie Shaw

Professor of History
Ohio State University

ADVISORY BOARD

Darlene Clark Hine

John A. Hannah Distinguished Professor of History
Michigan State University

David Levering Lewis

Martin Luther King, Jr., Professor of History
Rutgers University

Nellie Y. McKay

Professor of Afro-American Studies
University of Wisconsin

Richard J. Powell

Professor of Art and Art History
Duke University

GENERAL EDITORS

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham

W. E. B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research, Harvard University

in association with the American Council of Learned Societies

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Copyright 2004 by Oxford University Press, Inc.
All American National Biography entries 2004 by the American Council of Learned Societies.
Prince Whipple entry based on a chapter previously published in Black Portsmouth 2004 by Mark
Sammons and Valerie Cunningham, used by permission of University Press of New England.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
African American lives / edited by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Evelyn
Brooks Higginbotham.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index.
ISBN 0-19-516024-X (hardcover : alk. paper)
1. African AmericansBiography. I. Gates, Henry Louis. II.
Higginbotham, Evelyn Brooks, 1945
E185.96 .A446 2004
920.009296073dc22
2003023640
Printing number: 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper

Editorial and Production Staff

Acquiring Editor
Casper Grathwohl

Project Editor
Martin Coleman

Editorial Assistant
Ryan Sullivan

Copy Editors
Janet Bale
Mary L. Gillaspy
Marcia Merryman Means
Neil Schlager

Proofreaders
Carol Holmes
Melodie Monahan
Neil Schlager
Ryan Sullivan

Art Coordinator
Sarah Feehan

Indexer
Katharyn Dunham

Compositor
Laserwords

Manufacturing Coordinator
Chris Critelli

Designers
Joan Greenfield (interior)
Nora Wertz (jacket)

Editing, Design, and Production Director
John Sollami

Director of Editorial Development
Timothy J. DeWerff

Publisher
Karen Day

EDITORIAL STAFF

General Editors

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

W. E. B. Du Bois Professor of Humanities

Chair of the Department of African and African American Studies

Director of the W. E. B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research
Harvard University

Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham

Victor S. Thomas Professor of History and of African and African American Studies
Harvard University

Executive Editors

Karen C. C. Dalton

Assistant Director of the W. E. B. Du Bois Institute
Director and Curator of the Image of the Black
in Western Art Project
Harvard University

Richard Newman

Research and Fellows Officer,

W. E. B. Du Bois Institute

Harvard University

Managing Editor

John K. Bollard

Associate Editors / Senior Writers

Sholomo B. Levy

Research Fellow, W. E. B. Du Bois Institute

Steven J. Niven

Research Fellow, W. E. B. Du Bois Institute

Lisa E. Rivo

Research Fellow, W. E. B. Du Bois Institute

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

African American Lives tells many stories and yet one. Its six hundred and eleven biographies span more than four centuries, presenting the lives of men and women whose backgrounds and achievements are as varied as their talents, skills, and knowledge. Taken together these lives of distinction attest to the integral character of African Americans to the life of this nationto their abiding influence on American culture and institutions. African American Lives presents this history through a mosaic of individuals, some known throughout the world and others all but forgotten. We chose to include both familiar and unfamiliar names in the belief that history is more than the coherent account of important national events and social movements and that it is more than great ideas and works of art. The contours and content of history are shaped by peoples lives, their personal choices and circumstances, individual uniqueness and creativity. Large events and small ones are brought about by ordinary people, for even the greatest of us is but an individual, while the least of usas can be seen frequently in African American Livesmay have a profound effect on the course of world events.

African American Lives is the first publication of a much larger project, the African American National Biography, produced jointly by Harvard Universitys W. E. B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research and Oxford University Press. The project is modeled after the superb twenty-five volume