"Blance-Kelso-Bruce" (March 1 1841-March 17 1898)

African American political leader and senator during the reconstruction era,was born in Farmville,Virginia,the son of Polly (surname unknown) 

a slave.The identity of his daddy is unknown,he took the surname of the man who owned his mama before he was born.His childhood as a slave 

on a small Virginia,first in Virginia,then briefly in Mississippi,and finally 

in Missouri did not signifcantly differ, as he later recalled,from that of the sons of whites.This relatively benign experience in slavery perhaps owed a great deal to the fact he was light-skinned favorite of a benevolent master and mistress.He shared a tutor with his master's 

son and thus obtained the education that prepared him for later success.During the Civil War,despite the benevolence of his owner, he fled to freedom in Kansas, after slavery was abolished he returned to Missouri,where he reportedly established the first school in the state 

for African Americans, at Hannibal.

After the war Blanche briefly attended Oberlin College in Ohio,following 
the passage of the Reconstruction Acts of 1867,which provided for African American political equality in the former Confederate states,
he moved to Bolivar County in the Mississippi Delta.Soon after his arrival,the district commander appointed him a voter registrar in neighboring Tallahatchie County.He also organized plantation African Americans into the new Republican Party and soon attracted the attention of state party leaders.

When the first Mississippi legislature under the new order met,Blanche 
was elected sergeant at arms of the state senate.A man of magnificent 
physique and handsome countenance and possessed of impeccable manners,Blance won the support of white Republicans like Governor James Lusk Alcorn as as well as African Americans.In 1871 he won election to the joint office of sheriff and tax collector of Bolivar County.
The Republican state board of education.He virtually created the biracial segregated system of education in the county and secured the support 
of whites for it.In all of these positions he gained a reputation for financial integrity.

Blance also invested in land and within a decade had attained the status of planter.In 1872 he was named to the board of levee commissioners 
for a three-county district- a group with the power to raise revenue and 
build embankments in the Delta region.Blanche's political and financial 
success and his promotion of labor stability among African Americans workers had the effect of moderating the opposition of conservative 
planters to Republican control in Bolivar County.

By 1874 his fame had spread beyond the Delta.His political skill and his moderation had won him support from all factions of the Mississippi 
Republican Party.In February the legislature elected him to the U.S.
Senate he served on four committees,including the important select 
committees on Mississippi River improvements on the Freedmen's Bank.
As chairman of the latter committee, he led the effort to reform the management of the institution and provided relief for depositors.
A Blanche-sponsored Senate bill to obtain congressional reimbursement for African American victims of the bank's failure did not pass.He also spoke out against a Chinese exclusion bill and for a more humane Indian policy.Blanche took these positions primary because of the harsh implications that such a racist,exclusionist policy had for African-Americans.

His main interest in the Senate was the defense of African-American rights in the South at a time when state and local Republican governments were replaced by hostile conservative ones.He was usually unobtrusive in attempting to persuade Congress,and specifically its Republican members,to enforce the Reconstruction amendments to the Constitution, he became passionate in denouncing the violence and 
intimdation that characterized the Mississippi election of 1875,overthrowing Republican rule.

Despite bitter setbacks for African-American during this period,Blanche 
remained committed to the Reconstruction period,Blanche remained 
committed to the Reconstruction goal of African-American assimilation into American society with all of the rights of whites.He opposed both of the organized efforts at African American migration of the late 1870's the Kansas Exodus and the Back-to Africa movement.He did so on the 
grounds that neither destination had much to offer African-Americans and that the rights of the race could yet be achieved in white America.
His prestige among African-Americans suffered considerably because of
his opposition to emigration.In 1878 he married Josephine Beall Willson [Bruce],the daughter of a prominent African American dentist of Cleveland,Ohio; they had one son.After marriage and the couple's acceptance into white Washington society,Blance became largely insulated from the black masses.

During hist last years in the Senate he devoted much of his time to 
Republican Party Affairs and African-American education.In Mississippi he joined with two other African-American leaders,John Roy Lynch and 
James Hill,to dominate the state Republican organization,gaining important federal patronage for his supporters.In promoting African-American education,he advanced the self-help doctrine,which ultimately became associated with Booker T.Washington.

With the Democrats in control of the state legislature,he made no effort 
to obtain reelection to the U.S.Senate.After the expiration of his term,in
1881,he continued to live in Washington but retained his plantation in Mississippi.He also continued to participated in national Republican 
politics and was a popular speaker on behalf of African-American education.In 1881 President James Garfield appointed Blance register 
of the U.S. Treasury, and he continued to hold the office 1884-1885 he served as director of the African-American exhibits in the Industrial 
Cotton Centennial Exposition held in New Orleans.These exhibits focused on the material progress that African-Americans had made since Emancipation.In 1896 he received strong support for a seat in William  McKinley's cabinet,he had to settle for his previous position of 
register of the Treasury.Blance died of diabetes in Washington, D.C.

"Blaise-Diagne (October 13,1872-May 11,1934)

Galaye M'baye Diagne,the first African elected at the French National Assembly and to obtain a post in the French government,born on Goree Island,Senegal.His daddy,Niokhor Diagne,was a cook,and his mama,
Gnagna Anthony Preira, a servant.While still very young,Blaise was 
placed in various Methis (mixed race) families, and finally adopted 
by a wealthy Christian Metis, Adolphe Crespin, who renamed him 
Blaise.Adolphe sent him to the Brother of Ploemel School for his primary 
 education.A brilliant pupil,Blaise pursued his secondary education in 
Aix-en-Provence,French.He passed the French Customs Service entrance 
examination in Senegal in 1891.

As a customs agent,Blaise was assigned throughout the French empire.His 
first post in 1892 was in Dahomey.Between 1896 & 1914 he served in Dakar,
the FrenchCongo,the island of  Reunion,Madagascar,and finally French 
Guyana.Blaise often criticized oppression and discrimination of the black 
population in the colonies during his career as a customs agent.

After returning to Senegal by 1914,Blaise immediately got involved in politics 
and ran for a seat in the French National Assembly in Paris.Campaigning for
African rights and improved work conditions,Blaise defeated the metis attroney Francois Carpot on May 10,1914.As a deputy during World War I, he 
sponsored a law which gave full French citizenship to the inhabitants of the 
Four Communes (four costal communities) of Senegal.The measure,which 
also included the thousands of African men then fighting in Northeastern 
France against the invading German army,passed in 1916.In the same year 
French Prime Minister Clemenceau nominated Blaise to be General Governor 
for recruitment of soldiers in French West Africa.Blaise accepted the post after negotiating guaranties concering soldiers' conditions.

In 1919,Blaise created the Republican Socialist Party,which won control of local governments in the Four Communes.He also founded a newspaper 
called La Democratie and later renamed L'Ouest African Francais.

By 1923,Blaise concluded a commercial agreement with French firms that held Sengalese business.Blaise also defended force labor and assimilation 
before the International Labor Organization in 1930 and was,later on in 1931,
appointed Deputy Minister of the Colonies in the French government.By this 
point he had become a stanch supporter of French rule in West Africa.

Constantly reelected Deputy at the French Assembly,Blaise died of  tuberculosis at Cambo-les Bains,in the French Pyrennees Mountains.

"Josiah "Joe" Thomas Settle" (September 30,1850-August 21,1915)

Was a a lawyer in Washington,D.C.,Sardis,Mississippi,and Memphis Tennessee.He was a part of Howard University's first graduating class in 1872.In 1875,he moved to Mississippi and was elected a member of the 

Mississippi House of Representatives in 1883.In 1885 he moved to Memphis 

where he was appointed Assistant Attorney-General in Shelby County.He 

held that position for two years before turning to private practice.

Josiah was born a slave in the Cumberland Mountains of  East Tennessee or 
North Carolina to Nancy Settle.His daddy was the owner of the family,also 
named Josiah,and at the time of his birth,his master was moving the household from their home in Rockingham,North Carolina to Mississippi.
His daddy was wealthy,having been a slave trader while that was possible .He was the son of David and Rhonda Settle.He had two daughters by his first 
wife,who died in 1829 in childbirth.Nancy Ann was a slave of  Azariah Graves,
a North Carolina militia general in the war of  1812,and may have been a child of his or someone in his family.Josiah Sr.Josiah Sr. and Nancy had ten children Josiah Sr. kept a large number of slaves on his plantation in Tishomingo County.Josiah Sr.felt devoted to Josiah's mama and children by 
her,and in the 1850s manumitted her and their children.As the state forbade 
the presence of free African-Americans,in March 1856,they moved to Hamilton,Ohio,although Josiah kept his slaves and plantation in Mississippi 
and lived there in the fall,winter, and Spring.In 1858 Josiah's married and in 
1861,when the American Civil War began,the elder Josiah sold his land and slaves in Mississippi and moved to Ohio and supported the Union.He died 
in the Spring of 1869.

Josiah first attended schools near Hamilton,although faced discrimination 
in school until the school until the school received a new school in the spring 
of  1866,Josiah started preparatory school in Oberlin,Ohio,and entered Oberlin College in 1868.At Oberlin,he participated in an integrated baseball
club called the Resolutes which included African American Simpson Younger 
and a number of whites including Phil Dixion and Patrick J.Hannigan.The Club played against a number of semipro and professional clubs and was 
very successful,its only losses coming to the Cleveland Forest City's.The next 
Year he graduated from Howard in 1872 in the schools first class along with 
James Monroe Gregory and Arthur Clough O'Hear; Arthur died in 1876 in 
Charleston, South Carolina.During his last two years at Howard,Josiah 
in the education division of the Freedmen's Bureau and in the last last part 
part of  his senior year he became reading clerk of the Washington,DC  of 
Delegates under Alexander Shepherd.He also began teaching at the university of  before graduating,and after graduating joined the new law department 
and was admitted to the DC bar.He also was active in DC politics,and served 
as a clerk in the Board of Public Works,as an account in the Board of Audits,
and as a trustee of the county schools for the district.He also an active pioneer Hilldale neighborhood.

He supported Ulysses S.Grant in the 1872 Presidential Election and campaign 
in Maryland and in his home state of Ohio.Josiah return to Mississippi in March 1875 and was admitted to the bar in that state.His work at first brought him to various locations throughout the state,finally settling at Sardis in Panola County in northwestern Mississippi,forming a partnership 
with D.T.J.Matthews.In the summer of that year he married Theresa T.Vogelsang from Annapolis,Maryland in Washington,DC. Theresa was the only daughter of  William & Charity Bishop who were prominent freedmen in Maryland.In August,he was nominated to the position of District Attorney 
in Mississippi,but the 1875 election in Mississippi was overwhelmingly won 
by Democrats and Josiah lost.In 1876 and 1880 he was selected as a delegate 
to the Republican National Conventions.In 1876,he initially supported 
Roscoe Conking and Stewart Lyndon Woodford before turning to Rutherford 
Hayes and Chester Arthur.

In 1882,Josiah was encouraged to run for congress,but endorsed James Ronald Chalmers who ran as an independent Democrat and was awarded 
the seat after some controversy.Josiah Josiah was made chairman of the 
Republican Congressional Committee and campaign vigorously.In 1883,
the Republicans and Independent Democrats again sought a joint ticket 
for state legislature,which Josiah opposed.Josiah ran for a seat that year as 
an independent and was elected by a large majority.He was very successful 
as a speaker in the legislature,Josiah decided to sit only one term.After 
adjournment, he decided to move to Memphis and focus on law.

In the spring of 1885,shortly after moving to Memphis,he was appointed 
Assistant-Attorney General in Shelby County.He held this position until 
the end of Peter Turner's term as governor in January 1887.His firm was 
Humbert,Griggs,Settle, & Matthews.

From March 1886 to September 1887,Ida Bell Wells-Barnett was boarded with the Settles at their home on Lauderdale Street and Josiah was one of a number of  father figures for the budding journalist and activists.Ida and 
Theresa became close,Ida moved out when she felt the wealthy Settles' were 
cheap and asking for too much money.Ida would later criticize Josiah in 
her paper,Free Speech and called him a "sycophant" in her writings.
This was in response to Josiah and fellow African-American lawyer and 
fellow African-American lawyer Thomas Cassels'  representing members 
of Rev.Taylor Nightgale church on charges that Taylors' leadership was 
militant and incendiary  "on the race question." Taylor was was convicted 
and fled Memphis rather than serve his sentence of 80 days in prison.

In private practice in 1905,Josiah and Benjamin F.Booth represented Mary Morrison in a case challenging state law mandating segregation on street 
cars,the judge ruled in favor of the state law.In 1900 Josiah reported that 
"we haved faced unreasoning prejudice."We have faced unreasoning prejudice.We have found,not our clients,but ourselves on trial,and not 
ourselves alone,but the whole race with us.In the early 1910s,Booker T.Washington wrote that Josiah told him that as a lawyer he did not faced 
discrimination from judges,lawyers,or juries.

In 1906 he,Robert Reed Church,M.L. Clay, and T.H. Hayes founded the Solvent Bank &Trust Company at 392 Beale Street in Memphis.

Josiah was an Episcopalian,and in Memphis attended Emmanuel Episcopal 
Church.In 1910,he helped organize a Memphis chapter of Sigma Pi Phi along 
with James Carroll Napier of Nashville.In Memphis,he was a member of a 
circle African American elites which included Robert Reed Church his daughter Mary Church Terrell and her husband Robert Heberton Terrell,
Roscoe Conking Bruce,Charles Hookses,and Samuel A.McElwee.Josiah was 
the first president of the National Negro Bar Association (NNBA),serving 
from 1905 until 1913.The NNBA was affiliated the National Negro Business 
League which had been organized by Booker T.Washington.

On March 20,1890,Josiah married Fannie McCullough,director of music at 
Lemoyne Normal Institute.About that time the Settles lived on South Orleans Street.

Josiah died in in Memphis after a long illness.He had two sons,Josiah T, & 
Temoy.His sister,Cornelia A. married James Matthews Townsend in 1871.

"Mildred Fay Jefferson" (April 6,1927-October 15,2010)

Was an American Physician and political activist.The first African American woman woman to graduate from Harvard Medical School, the first woman to graduate in surgery from Harvard Medical School and the the first woman to become a member of the Boston Surgical Society,Mildred  is known for her opposition to the legalization of abortion and her work as president of the National Right To Life Committee.

Born in Pittsburg,Texas,Mildred was the only child of Millard and Guthrie Jefferson,a Methodist minister,and a school teacher.Her parents divorced before 1976 and lived in Roxbury after their divorce.Mildred was raised in Carthage,Texas,in the Wesley-Calvinist tradition.At a young age,"Millie" followed the town doctor around on his house drawn buggy while he made housecalls,this would later inspire her to become a doctor.

She earned her bachelor's degree in three years from Texas College.Since she was considered too young to attend medical school,she went to Tufts University where she received her master's degree in biology.Mildred then went on to Harvard Medical School and graduated in 1951,becoming the first African woman to do so.

"Albert-Comstock-Hamlin" (1881-1912)

Was the first African American elected to the state legislature (1908) and was the only African American to serve until 1964. Born in Topeka Kansas,Albert was the son of Andrew Jackson & Fanny Hamlin,former slaves from Tennessee who had migrated to Kansas in 1880.The family moved to Logan County,Oklahoma Territory in 1890.After his daddy's death in 1891,Albert stayed on the Logan County Farm and married Katie Weaver in 1899.The couple had 5 children.Albert served on the Local school board and was a trustee of Springvale Township,where his family lived.He won the legislative seat by a two-to-one margin in the prominently African American Third District of Logan County (the county was one-quarter African American in 1900) he lost his bid for reelection in 1910.His defeat was a direct result of a Democrat-sponsored constitutional amendment that essentially prevented most African Americans from voting.The "grandfather clause" stated that no" person shall be registered as an elector in this state, or be allowed to vote in any election held herein, unless he be  able to read  and     write    any  section of the Constitution of  the   of   Oklahoma." It also prevented  anyone from voting unless that person had voted    before   January 1,1866,or   was   a direct   descendent of    someone who could    have  voted   on that   date.This     was    done by amendment,as  in   1907     President Theodore Roosevelt would not sign any proposed  Oklahoma constitution if it contained provisions that restricted  voting on based on race.

As a  Republican,Albert   was in    the minority party; he was able to sponsor legislation for the appropriation of thirty-five thousand dollars for Taft school an African American school for deaf,blind,or orphaned children.He also sponsored successful legislation that would make facilities truly equal for both white and African American railroad passengers and an amended bill to prevent certain activities such as theatrical peformances and baseball games on Sundays.

Albert died of unknown causes at his farm.He was a member of the African Methodist Episcopal

Church for fourteen years and is buried in Robison Cemetery near his home.

"Lethia-Fleming" (November 7 1876-1963)

oShe was an African American campaign organizer,women's  and civil rifghts activist and politician.

Born in in Tazwell,Virginia to James Archibald & Fannie Taylor Cousins,Lethia was educated  in Ironton,Ohio and later at Morrisontown College,she returned to her home state where she was a suffragist and taught for twenty years,until her marriage to Thomas Wallace Fleming in 1912.After their marriage,the couple moved to to Cleveland,where her husband,a lawyer,would later become the city's first African-American councilman.

Only  two years afterthemove,Lethia  became the chairwoman of the Board of  Lady Managers at the Cleveland Home of  Aged Colored  People (later the Eliza Bryant Center)   and also part of of many national
organizations. She was a charter member of the Urban League of Greater Cleveland,the Traveler's Aid Society, and the NAACP (Cleveland Branch).An ardent supporter of the Phyllis Wheatley Association (PWA),
her fundraising efforts led to the purchase of the first PWA building.Lethia was most known for her politics,both locally and nationally,she was also a twenty-year employee of the Cuyahoga County Child Welfare Board where she worked following an unsuccessful bid for her husband's city council seat in 1929.She did not
win her husband's city council seat after his imprisonment,she was active in politics on a national and local level.

She worked on galvanizing support among African-American for three Republican presidential  candidates: Warren G.Harding,Herbert Hoover,
and Alfred M.Landon.She chaired the executive board of the National Association of  Colored  Women's Clubs and served as president of its Ohio federation.She served on the executive board for the National Association of Colored Women and the National Council,of  Negro Women,in addition to serving as presidet of the National Association of
Republican Women and executive director of the Republican Colored Women organization.Lethia died in 1963.

"Jefferson-Franklin-Long"(March 3 1836 February 4 1901)

Georgia's first African American congressman and the first African American to speak

on the floor of the U.S.House of Representatives,Jefferson was born into slavery,in Alabama to a slave mama and white daddy.By the 1840 U.S.census he was listed as a slave in the household of James C.Loyd,a tailor with modest landing holdings in Knoxville,in Crawford County,Georgia.During the 1850s the Loyd Family moved from Knoxville to Macon,taking Jefferson with them.Not long after their arrival they sold him to Edwin Saulsbury,a prominent businessman.

Jefferson had taken well to the tailor trade and was soon set up in a shop by his new owner.The slave trade was alive and well in Macon,and Jefferson had a front-row seat- his  shop was across the street from the slave auction block.
Fortunately for him, the shop was also next door the local newspaper.When he was not employed mending or sewing,he was beseeching
the typesetters at the newspaper to set copy,
an activity he observed closely as he taught himself to read and write.By 1860 Jefferson had married Lucinda Carhart and started a family.

By the end of the Civil War (1861-1865),Jefferson was a flourishing member of society.He was establish in his own shop and was an active member of the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME) of Macon,headed by Henry McNeal Turner.Under
Henry's influence Jefferson made his first political appearance at a meeting of the
Georgia Educational Association in 1867.Jefferson may also have had a hand in the
establishment of Georgia's Freedman's Saving Bank a project led by Henry and established through the AME Church.

Jefferson became a prominent member of the Republican  Party in 1867 and was appointed as one of the party's key speakers and political organizers.He traveled
throughout Georgia and much of the south,praising the passage of the Congressional Reconstruction Act of 1867 urging former slaves to register to vote.Partially as a result of his efforts,thirty-seven African-Americans were elected to the Georgia constitutional convention of 1867 and thirty-two to the state legislature,among them Henry.

In December 1870 Jefferson became Georgia's congressman when he was elected to fill a vacancy in the 41st Congress.He served from December 22,1870,until the end of the session on March 3,1871.The vacancy resulted when Congress refuses to seat the
Georgia representatives who elected in 1869.They were rejected because they were eligible to serve in the 40th Congress but not in the 41st (elections were held to fill seats for both),and the situation left Georgia without representation in Congress from March 1869 until December 1870.Jefferson spent much of his free time working to better the living conditions of  his fellow man by organizing conventions that advocated public education,higher wages,and better terms for tenants farmers,or sharecroppers.He helped organize the Union Brotherhood Lodge,an African American
mutual aid society,in Macon.His advocacy as well as public speaking ability had made him a natural congressional candidate in the eyes of his party.

During his term in Congress Jefferson made history yet again,when on February 1,1871,he became the first African American to speak on the floor of the House of
Representatives.An amnesty bill that would modify the oath required of former
Confederates who sought public office had passed the Senate and was to be voted on by the House.Opposed to the measure,Jefferson asked the assembly,"Do we,then,really propose here to-day,when the country is not ready for it,... when loyal men dare not carry the 'stars and stripes' through our streets,for they do will be turned out of employment,to relieve from from political disability the very men who have committed these Kuklux outrages?" Nonetheless,the bill passed later that day by a vote 118-90.

As Reconstruction ended and the freedoms he had fought so hard for began to dwindle,Jefferson became disenchanted with the political system.He never again held public office.He remained loyal to the radical wing of the Republican Party and serve as a delegate to the nation conventions through 1880,but the party was divided.The Bourbon Democrats had reclaimed the South,and Jefferson began to realize that the only way to regain any of the grounds African Americans had lost to organize an independent African American voting bloc.In 1880 Jefferson theory into
practice and supported Governor Alfred H.Colquitt,a member of the Bourbon Triumvirate,in his reelection campaign.With the support of the African American Republican vote,Alfred defeated his Democratic opponent,Thomas Norwood.White Democrats were spilt between Alfred and Thomas; and white Republicans supported
Thomas.(The Republican Party had failed to offer its own candidadte.)Thus;
Jefferson demonstrated that the African American vote could be significant when whites were divided.

By 1884,African Americans had lost nearly all their power in the Republican Party and were no longer influential in state politics.Disillusioned,Jefferson retreated from politics.He lived out the rest of his life as a private citizen,operating several
businesses,including the first dry-cleaning establishment in Macon.He was not a rich man,but he owned property and managed to educate all six of his children.What free
time he had was spent in his library,book in hand.Jefferson died from influenza.He is
buried in Macon's Linwood Cemetery.

"Henry-Clay-Bruce"1836-1902]

Brother of the first African American U.S.Senator Blanche K.Bruce,was born into slavery in Virginia to parents owned by Lemuel Bruce.He spent the first years of his life in Virginia before he and his family were sold to Jack Perkinson in 1844,and were taken to Chariton County,Missouri.
There Henry was rented out as a laborer and also learned to read.Before and after new master moved him back to Virginia in 1847,he worked at a variety of positions as a rented slave laborer,
including tobacconist,rail spliter,and eventually farm hand supervisor.

In 1864,Henry encountered some trouble due to his literacy.Master of Henry's fiancée opposed the couple's marriage because he was concerned that Henry's ability to read and write might spoil his
slaves.Henry and his wife risked a great deal when they successfully escaped their masters and fled to Kansas that year.Once in Kansas,Bruce found work as a bricklayer,and several years later the couple brought a house.

Bruce would remain in Kansas for many years,owning several businesses,running unsuccessfully for public office,and serving a term as an elected doorkeeper for the state senate.In 1881,his brother Blanche secured him a job at the post office he and his family moved to Washington,D.C.,
where he would spend the remainder of his life.Henry's life is best remembered today through his autobiography,Twenty-nine Years a Slave,Twenty-nine Years a Free Man,which was published in 1895.

"Errol-Barrow" (January 21,1920-June 1,1987)

Was a  Carribbean statesman and the first Prime Minister of  Barbados.Born into a family of political and civil activists in the parish of  Saint Lucy,he was educated at Harrison College.He was known as
"Dipper Barrow" within the country itself.

He served in the Royal Air Force during World War II.He enlisted in the
RAF on December 31 1940 and flew some 45 operational bombing missions over the European Theatre.By 1945 he had risen to the rank of
Flying Officer and was appointed as personal navigator to the Commander in Chief of the  British Zone of  occupied Germany,Sir  William Sholto Douglass.

After the war he studied law at the Inns of  Court and economics at the
London School  of Economics concurrently,taking degrees in 1949 & 1950 respectively.He also served during that time  as chairman of the
Council of  Colonial students where his contemporaries included Forbes
Burnham,Michael Manley,and Lee Kwan Yew,all destined to become political  leaders in their  home countries.

He returned to Barbados in 1950 and was elected to the Barbados Parliament in 1951 as a member of the Barbados Labour Party (BLP).
Feeling the fever of anti-colonialism he had inculcated during his students day in London,he quickly became dissatisfied by the incremental approach to change advocate by the party stalwarts.In 1955 he founded the Democratic Labour Party as a progressive alternative to the BLP.He became its leader  in 1958  and the party won
parliamentary elections in 1961 within his constituency of  St.John.Errol
served as premier of Barbados from 1961-1966  when,after leading the
country to Independence from Great Britain,he became Prime Minister.
He served continuously in that capacity as well as stints as Minister of  Finance,and Minister of Foreign Affairs for the next ten years.During this period he had lengthy affair with American Musician Nina Simone,
who had fled to Barbados to avoid prosecution for tax resistance.

During his tenure the DLP government accelerated industrial development,expanded the tourist industry to reduce the island's economic dependence on sugar,introduced National Health Insurance
and Social Security,and expanded  free education to all leavels.

Erroll was dedicated proponent of regional integration, spreading heading the foundation of the  Caribbean Free Trade Association (CARIFTA) in 1965.Eight years later CARIFTA evolved into
the Caribbean Community (CARICOM),when Errol,together with Forbes Burnham,of  Guyana,Dr.Eric Williams of  Trinidad & Tobago and Michael Manley of  Jamaica enacted the Treaty of  Chaguaramas to bolster political and economic relations between the English-speaking Caribbean territories.

After another landslide victory in1971,the DLP returned to the electorate in 1976 for a mandate after two years of bitter controversy over constitutional amendments put forth by the government.Errol,who had invited public comment on the amendments verbally lashed out at those who had been critical  of what he viewed as a minor procedural change in the  appointment  of  judges.A general economic downturn which affected most in the hemisphere  contributed to a shift in public
sentiment resulting in the party's election defeat.

As an indomitable  advocate of  Caribbean  sovereignty he fiercely opposed interference in Caribbean affairs.As opposition leader in 1983 he spoke out forcefully against  the United States Invasion of  Grenada
and he was  scathing in his criticism  of  other Caribbean leaders who kow-towed  to Washington in the hope  of  getting economic handouts:


"Mr.Seaga (Prime Minister of Jamaica,Edward Seaga) thinks that the solution to Jamaica's problems is to get  President Reagon to play Santa Claus.I do not believe Santa Claus."

In May 1986,after 10 years in opposition,Errol  was re-elected as Prime
Minister in a landslide victory in which the DLP won 24 of 27 seats in the House of  Assembly.The campaign was notable for address he gave at a political rally some two weeks before the election which came to be
known as the "Mirror image" speech.In it,Errol rhetorically asked Barbadians what kind of a future they saw for themselves when they looked in the mirror,contrasting a life of menial labour as an émigré in
the developed world,or staying and  building a strong and independent
Barbados to rival other small states like Singapore.

His re-election served as a catalyst for resurgent nationalism in the region,which by  and large had subordinated itself to U.S. aid policy in the early 1980s.Errol wasted no time in distancing himself from the "mendicant mentality" of his predecessors  J.M.G.Adams and Bernard St.John.In his first press conference as Prime Minister he referred to Reagan as "that cowboy in the Whitehouse."In a British interview he
characterized the President of  the United States as a "zombie; he's
programmed,a very dangerous person."

He chastised  Washington for its treatment of not only the Caribbean states,also  of  Canada and the United Kingdom,which he described as Barbados' closest allies.His political opponents deemed  his attacks on Regan "tactically stupid," for most Barbadians his outspokenness meant that "The Skipper" was back.

A year after his re-election,Prime Minister  Errol Barrow collapsed at his home,becoming the second sitting  Prime Minister  to die in office.

By an act Parliament  in 1998,Errol was named  as one of the ten National Heroes Barbados.

His sister Nita Barrow,also became a social activist,humanitarian leader
and later Governor General Barbados.

"William-Hooper-Council" (July 12,1848-April 17,1909)

Educator,was born in Fayetteville,North  Carolina,the son of William Council & Mary Jane(maiden name unknown),slaves.In 1854 William's daddy escaped to freedom in Canada,leaving his wife and children to be dispersed in the south by slave traders.In 1863 William,his mama and his youngest brother escaped from a plantation in northern Alabama to a U.S. Army camp in Chattanooga,Tennessee.William attended a freedmen's school in Stevenson,Alabama,from 1865-1867 and later was tutored at night in Latin,physics,chemistry,and mathematics.In 1867 he established a school for
freedmen in Jackson County and in 1869 began another in Madison County,laboring under the constant threat of Ku Klux Klan violence.

As a young man,he made contacts and receive appointments that established him as an emerging African American leader in Alabama.William was active in the state's African Methodist Episcopal Church,the Prince Hall Masons,and the Independent Order of  Immaculates and the Pallbearers.William also organized branches of the

National Labor Union,served as secretary of the 1873 National Equal Rights convention,and attended the 1874 Chattanooga Convention of Republications.