Author: Don Mayer

Mary Ellen Pleasant has been called the “Mother of Civil Rights in California” .  Long before Rosa Parks, Mary Ellen Pleasant was a famous and rich woman in San Francisco who played a significant role in abolition of slavery, the gold rush and the Civil War.  Histories of the west describe her as a madam,…

Mathieu Da Costa was a free Black African who in the early 1600s was employed as a translator by French and Dutch traders and explorers. He is thought to be the first Black man to have visited Canada. It was not unusual for Africans to act as translators for Europeans as it had been going…

Susie King Taylor was born a slave in 1848.  When she was seven her owner sent her to live with her grandmother in Savannah.  Even though Georgia had particularly horrible laws about the education of African Americans, she attended two schools taught by black women.  From them she gained literacy and furthered her education with…

I have an autographed copy of this picture of Rosa Parks being booked for her act of courage of refusing a bus driver’s instructions to give up her seat to a white passenger.  She later said that her refusal was not because she was physically tired but because she was tired of giving in. Rosa…