Category Archives: November

Pepe Julian Onziema

November 30, 2017 by Ubuntu Biography Project

Pepe Julian Onziema was born on November 30, 1980. Known to many as Opimva (“son of a chief”), he is an African citizen of Ugandan descent, a human rights defender, sexual and gender minority advocate, fearless influencer of society, and freedom fighter living openly as a transman in Uganda. Born into Ugandan royalty to Lieutenant George Ken Onzima and midwife Florence Naigwe Onzima, Pepe Julian Onziema’s heritage includes the Ma’di tribe in the West Nile Province. When Onziema was just […]

Categories: All, November, November 30, Onziema, Pepe Julian • Tags: 1980, November 30, Pepe Julian Onziema, Ubuntu Biography Project, Uganda

Billy Strayhorn

November 29, 2017 by The Altruistic Dissenter

Billy Strayhorn was born on November 29, 1915 (to May 31, 1967). He was a composer, pianist, and arranger, best known for his successful collaboration with bandleader and composer Duke Ellington. Their dynamic working relationship endured for nearly three decades, and produced such definitive American jazz compositions as “Take the ‘A’ Train,” “Chelsea Bridge,” and “Lush Life.” William Thomas Strayhorn was born in Dayton, Ohio, the fourth of nine children. Gravely ill at birth and born into an impoverished […]

Categories: All, November, November 29, Strayhorn, Billy • Tags: 1915, 1967, Billy Strayhorn, May 31, November 29, Ubuntu Biography Project

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Colman Domingo

November 28, 2017 by The Altruistic Dissenter

Colman Domingo was born on November 28, 1969. He is a Tony Award-nominated actor, writer and director of stage and screen whose credits include the films “42,” “Lee Daniels’ The Butler,” and “Selma,” Broadway’s “Chicago” and “The Scottsboro Boys,” and the AMC television series “Fear the Walking Dead,” in which he portrays Victor Strand. Domingo was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where he attended Overbrook High School and majored in journalism at Temple University. After relocating to San Francisco, California, Domingo […]

Categories: All, Domingo, Colman, November, November 28 • Tags: 1969, Colman Domingo, November 28, Ubuntu Biography Project

Ephraim Lewis

November 27, 2017 by The Altruistic Dissenter

Ephraim Lewis was born on November 27, 1967 (to March 18, 1994). He was an English soul/neo-soul and R&B singer and songwriter whose promising career was cut short by his mysterious death after releasing only one album. Ephraim Lewis was born the youngest of eight children in Wolverhampton, West Midlands, England. His father, Jabez, encouraged the siblings to pursue music as a family vocal group, but that dream ended with the death of Lewis’s mother in 1984. Jabez Lewis later […]

Categories: All, Lewis, Ephraim, November, November 27 • Tags: 1967, 1994, Ephraim Lewis, March 18, November 27, Ubuntu Biography Project

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Simon Tseko Nkoli

November 26, 2017 by The Altruistic Dissenter

Simon Tseko Nkoli was born on November 26, 1957 (to November 30, 1998). He was an important anti-apartheid, gay rights, and AIDS activist in South Africa. Simon Tseko Nkoli was born in Soweto, South Africa in a seSotho-speaking family. He grew up on a farm in the Free State, and his family later moved to Bophelong Township, near Sebokeng. South Africa’s apartheid laws imposed severe limitations on his family’s opportunities. Nkoli told the story of how, at age nine, he […]

Categories: All, Nkoli, Simon Tseko, November, November 26 • Tags: 1957, 1998, November 26, November 30, Simon Tseko Nkoli, Ubuntu Biography Project

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Oliver W. Martin III

November 25, 2017 by The Altruistic Dissenter

Oliver W. Martin III was born on November 25, 1958 (to April 19, 2014). He was a courageous HIV/AIDS activist, a preventative health care advocate, and a pioneering faith community leader. Oliver Wendell Martin, III was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and adopted at birth by Uther Jean Jones and Oliver W. Martin Jr. His large and loving family of seven brothers would later include a stepfather, Ernest R. Jones. Martin described his family heritage as African, Spanish, Indigenous American, and […]

Categories: All, Martin, Oliver W., November, November 25 • Tags: 1958, 2014, April 19, November 25, Oliver W. Martin III, Ubuntu Biography Project

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Morgan Powell

November 25, 2017 by The Altruistic Dissenter

Morgan Powell was born on November 25, 1973 (to September 29, 2014). He was a beloved Bronx, New York-based historian, ecologist, landscape designer, environmental activist, and gardener with a passion for Black history. Powell used that knowledge in founding Bronx River Sankofa, and shared his research as a major contributor to the Bronx African American History Project. Kristopher Morgan Powell was born in Mandevol, Jamaica, the youngest child of engineer Mervin Grant and civil servant Barbara Myfanwey Powell. He had […]

Categories: All, November, November 25, Powell, Morgan • Tags: 1973, 2014, Morgan Powell, November 25, September 29, Ubuntu Biography Project

Robin Roberts

November 23, 2017 by The Altruistic Dissenter

Robin Roberts was born on November 23, 1960. She is a television broadcaster and media personality, currently the anchor of the ABC morning show, “Good Morning America,” where she has been a fixture since 2005. Robin René Roberts was born in Tuskegee, Alabama, the daughter of Lucimarian Tolliver and Colonel Lawrence E. Roberts, a celebrated pilot with the Tuskegee Airmen. The youngest of four siblings, Roberts grew up in Pass Christian, Mississippi, and credited her parents as cultivating the “three […]

Categories: All, November, November 23, Roberts, Robin • Tags: 1960, November 23, Robin Roberts, Ubuntu Biography Project

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Jeffrey McCune

November 23, 2017 by The Altruistic Dissenter

Jeffrey McCune was born on November 23, 1977. He is an author, professor, public speaker, and spiritual leader. Jeffrey Quinn McCune, Jr. was born in Chicago, Illinois, to Sandra Brown (Hobbs) and Jeffrey McCune, Jr. He is the eldest of six siblings, raised in the household of Sandra Brown and Ronald Brown. McCune always says he has three parents, as all parties were active in his life. In 2015, Jeffrey married Terence McCune, a therapist to HIV+ black men in […]

Categories: All, McCune, Jeffrey, November, November 23 • Tags: 1977, Jeffrey McCune, November 23, Ubuntu Biography Project

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Irene Gandy

November 21, 2017 by Ubuntu Biography Project

Irene Gandy was born on November 21, 1943. She is a legendary, Tony Award-winning Broadway publicist and producer whose career has spanned nearly half a century. Gandy is the first and only Black woman registered in the Association of Theatrical Press Agents and Managers. Irene Gandy was raised in Westbury, Long Island, New York. She attended New York University for a mere six weeks before taking acting classes and landing a role as an extra in the film “A Man […]

Categories: All, Gandy, Irene, November, November 21 • Tags: 1943, Irene Gandy, November 21, Ubuntu Biography Project

Rev. Dr. Pauli Murray

November 20, 2017 by Ubuntu Biography Project

Reverend Pauli Murray was born on November 20, 1910 (to July 1, 1985). She was a pioneering civil rights and women’s rights activist, lawyer, writer, and cleric. Murray was the co-founder of the National Organization for Women (NOW), a founding member of the Congress of Racial Equality, and the first woman to be awarded a Juris Doctor degree from Yale University. She was also the first Black woman ordained as an Episcopalian priest. The Reverend Dr. Anna Pauline Murray was […]

Categories: All, Murray, Pauli, November, November 20 • Tags: 1910, 1985, July 1, November 20, Rev. Dr. Pauli Murray, Ubuntu Biography Project

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Glenn Burke

November 16, 2017 by Ubuntu Biography Project

Glenn Burke was born on November 16, 1952 (to May 30, 1995). He was a Major League Baseball (MLB) player for the Los Angeles Dodgers and Oakland Athletics from 1976 through 1979, and the first and only active MLB player known by teammates and team management to be same-gender loving. Glenn Lawrence Burke was born in Oakland, California. His father, Luther, was a sawmill worker, and left the family when Burke was only 11 months old; his mother, Alice, supported […]

Categories: All, Burke, Glenn, November, November 16 • Tags: 1952, 1995, Glenn Burke, May 30, November 16, Ubuntu Biography Project

Tuan N’Gai

November 16, 2017 by Ubuntu Biography Project

Tuan N’Gai was born on November 16, 1971. He is an activist, author, publisher, ordained minister, and co-founder of the Operation: REBIRTH social justice movement. Born Tuan N’Gai Ingram, he is a native of Wichita Falls, Texas, the first child of Reverend Kenneth and Mrs. Gilda Williams. Raised in the church, N’Gai was groomed for ministry by his late grandfather from the age of eight. He became very active in the Eastside Baptist Church music and youth departments, eventually becoming […]

Categories: All, N'Gai Tuan, November, November 16 • Tags: 1971, November 16, Tuan N'Gai, Ubuntu Biography Project

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Cornell Gunter

November 14, 2017 by Ubuntu Biography Project

Cornell Gunter was born on November 14, 1936 (to February 26, 1990). He was a well-known rhythm and blues and doo-wop singer in the 1950s and 1960s as a member of The Flairs and The Coasters, before joining the Los Angeles-based singing group The Platters, and being featured on their hits “Yakety Yak” and “Charlie Brown.” Cornelius E. Gunter was born in Coffeyville, Kansas, and moved to Los Angeles around 1942, where he studied at Jefferson High School. He became […]

Categories: All, Gunter, Cornell, November, November 14 • Tags: 1936, 1990, Cornell Gunter, February 26, November 14, Ubuntu Biography Project

Victoria Kirby York

November 14, 2017 by Ubuntu Biography Project

Victoria Kirby York was born on November 14. She is an organizer, advocate, political and electoral strategist, Christian lay leader, and LGBTQ movement leader. Victoria Kirby York was born in London, England, the daughter of Vincent Kirby, a machinist, and Monica Savage, a legal secretary and travel agent; she has a sister, Felicia. Kirby York attended Blake High School for the Arts in Tampa, Florida, and received a bachelor’s degree in communications and a master’s in public administration from Howard University. […]

Categories: All, November, November 14, York, Victoria Kirby • Tags: November 14, Ubuntu Biography Project, Victoria Kirby York

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Dr. Sylvia Rhue

November 13, 2017 by Ubuntu Biography Project

Dr. Sylvia Rhue was born on November 13, 1947. She is a widely respected writer, activist, filmmaker, producer, religious scholar, sexologist, and animal rescuer. Sylvia Rhue comes from a family with deep roots in America’s history. Her family’s heritage is a bittersweet snapshot of Americana sifted through the rigors of slavery. On the side of her father, Howard, Rhue’s forebears escaped from the Miles plantation in Virginia by way of the Underground Railroad, meeting up with Harriet Tubman in Detroit. […]

Categories: All, November, November 13, Rhue, Dr. Sylvia • Tags: 1947, Dr. Sylvia Rhue, November 13, Ubuntu Biography Project

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Kenyon Farrow

November 13, 2017 by Ubuntu Biography Project

Kenyon Farrow was born on November 13, 1974. He is a writer, activist, and strategist, and senior editor with TheBody.com and TheBodyPRO.com. Kenyon Farrow was born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio. As a young boy growing up in the 1980s, Farrow learned some early lessons about being gay and the burgeoning HIV/AIDS crisis. “This was when the AIDS epidemic was first gaining notoriety,” Farrow told “Black Enterprise” in 2011. “Since HIV/AIDS was automatically linked to homosexuality back then, you’d hear […]

Categories: All, Farrow, Kenyon, November, November 13 • Tags: 1974, Kenyon Farrow, November 13, Ubuntu Biography Project

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Kordale Lewis

November 12, 2017 by Ubuntu Biography Project

Kordale Lewis was born on November 12, 1988. He became a social media fixture after he and his partner, Kaleb Anthony, posted photos of them being everyday fathers. Lewis, Anthony, and their four children would become the first African American LGBTQ family to be featured in ads for a high fashion clothing line. Kordale Lewis was born in Chicago, Illinois. He was only two years old when his father was sentenced to life in prison for a double murder, and […]

Categories: All, Lewis, Kordale, November, November 12 • Tags: 1988, Kordale Lewis, November 12, Ubuntu Biography Project

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Thomas Glave

November 10, 2017 by Ubuntu Biography Project

Thomas Glave was born on November 10, 1964. He is an award-winning Jamaican-American essayist and author who is also widely respected as an influential cultural critic. Thomas Glave was born in the Baychester section of the Bronx, and lived there with his parents, but was frequently shuttled to family in Kingston, Jamaica, in the hope that he would be “as much Jamaican as American.” Both he and his late sister were educated in private and Catholic schools in New York […]

Categories: All, Glave, Thomas, November, November 10 • Tags: November 10, Thomas Glave, Ubuntu Biography Project

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Skye O’neal Adrian

November 9, 2017 by Ubuntu Biography Project

Skye O’neal Adrian was born on November 10, 1995. He is an LGBTQ youth advocate and HIV prevention activist based in New York City. Born in St. Andrew, Jamaica, Adrian came to New York City in 2015 to be with his parents, but was kicked out after he came out to them as gay. “I felt like when I came from Jamaica I was running from one problem and came to a whole other world of problems,” he told “Metro” […]

Categories: Adrian, Skye O'neal, All, November, November 10 • Tags: November 10, Skye O'neal Adrian, Ubuntu Biography Project

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Jackie Kay

November 9, 2017 by Ubuntu Biography Project

Jackie Kay MBE was born on November 9, 1961. She is an award winning Scottish poet, playwright, and novelist who was knighted Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (MBE) in 2006 for her “service to literature.” In 2016, she was named the third Scots Makar, the national poet of Scotland. Jackie Kay was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, to a Scottish mother and a Nigerian father. Her biological parents met when her father was a student at Aberdeen University and […]

Categories: All, Kay, Jackie, November, November 09 • Tags: 1961, Jackie Kay, November 9, Ubuntu Biography Project

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Benjamin Banneker

November 9, 2017 by Ubuntu Biography Project

Benjamin Banneker was born on November 9, 1731 (to October 9, 1806). He was an important Colonial American scientist, mathematician, astronomer, inventor, and publisher. Benjamin Banneker was born in Baltimore County, Maryland to Mary Banneky, the biracial daughter of Molly Welsh and her former slave, Banneka. Little is known about Benjamin’s father, Robert, a first generation slave who had fled his owner. There are plenty of inconsistencies in the history of Benjamin Banneker, and many of these involve his ancestry. […]

Categories: All, Bannecker, Benjamin, November, November 09 • Tags: 1731, 1806, Benjamin Banneker, November 9, October 9, Ubuntu Biography Project

Diana King

November 8, 2017 by Ubuntu Biography Project

Diana King was born on November 8, 1970. She is a singer and songwriter perhaps best known for her hit 1995 single, “Shy Guy,” and her remake of “I Say a Little Prayer,” which was featured on the “My Best Friend’s Wedding” soundtrack. In 2012, King became the first Jamaican artist to come out publicly as LGBTQ. Diana Eugena King was born in Spanish Town, Jamaica, to an Afro-Jamaican father and Indo-Jamaican mother. Growing up, King had a variety of […]

Categories: All, King, Diana, November, November 08 • Tags: 1970, Diana King, November 8, Ubuntu Biography Project

Roy Simmons

November 8, 2017 by Ubuntu Biography Project

Roy Simmons was born on November 8, 1956 (to February 20, 2014). He is a former National Football League player who played offensive line for the New York Giants and the Washington Redskins’ Super Bowl XVIII team in 1984. In 1992, he became only the second former NFL player to come out publicly as gay at the time, and, eleven years later, the first to reveal he was HIV positive. Roy Franklin Simmons was born in Savannah, Georgia, one of […]

Categories: All, November, November 08, Simmons, Roy • Tags: 1956, 2014, February 20, November 8, Roy Simmons, Ubuntu Biography Project

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Dexter “3D” Pottinger

November 6, 2017 by Ubuntu Biography Project

Dexter “3D” Pottinger was born on November 6, 1982 (to August 30, 2017). He was a celebrated fashion designer, hairstylist, make-up artist, video director, choreographer, event producer, television reality series judge, and activist who became known as the “Face of Pride” in his home country of Jamaica. Pottinger was raised with his siblings in the Waltham Park area of Kingston. Growing up, he didn’t initially have the support of his loved ones when it came to his sexuality. “It was […]

Categories: All, November, November 06, Pottinger, Dexter • Tags: 1982, 2017, August 30, Dexter Pottinger, November 6, Ubuntu Biography Project

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Jide Macaulay

November 4, 2017 by Ubuntu Biography Project

Jide Macaulay was born on November 4, 1965. He is a pastor and ordained minister, an LGBTQ, human rights, and HIV/AIDS activist, community builder, queer theologian, lawyer, and parent. Macaulay founded House of Rainbow, Nigeria’s first house of worship catering to the LGBTQ community, and currently serves as its executive director. Rowland Ayoola Babajide Macaulay was born in London, England. Macaulay’s father, August Olakunle Macaulay, is a theologian, principal, the founder of United Bible University, and the president of the Association of Christian Theologians in […]

Categories: All, Macaulay, Jide, November, November 04 • Tags: 1965, Jide Macaulay, November 4, Ubuntu Biography Project

Monte J. Wolfe

November 3, 2017 by Ubuntu Biography Project

Monte J. Wolfe was born on November 4, 1974. He is an accomplished actor, musician, producer, director, playwright, graphic designer, writer, and activist. Monte Jermaine Wolfe is a native of Kenosha, Wisconsin, the son of Nathaniel Wolfe and Carolyn Price. He grew up in Racine and Kenosha, Wisconsin, as well as Chicago, Illinois. He has an older sister, Sheri Price, who was more like Wolfe’s “second mama” growing up because of their difference in age. His love for music and […]

Categories: All, November, November 04, Wolfe, Monte J. • Tags: 1974, Monte J. Wolfe, November 4, Ubuntu Biography Project

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Jean Wimberly

November 3, 2017 by Ubuntu Biography Project

Jean Wimberly was born on November 3. She is an activist, and the founder and executive director of Circle of Voices, Inc. (COVI). Jean Wimberly was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, but moved to New York City in the 1970s. In those early days of living her truth as a lesbian, she recalled being harassed on the street—especially by men. “I came out as a three-piece butch,” Wimberly told BRIC TV in 2016. “I wore suits, and I padded things down—I […]

Categories: All, November, November 03, Wimberly, Jean • Tags: Jean Wimberly, November 3, Ubuntu Biography Project

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Mandy Carter

November 2, 2017 by Ubuntu Biography Project

Mandy Carter was born on November 2, 1948. She is a social justice activist and organizer of more than 50 years who co-founded the National Black Justice Coalition (NBJC) and Southerners On New Ground (SONG), a social justice organization that supports the LGBTQ community. In 2005, Carter was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. Mandy Carter was born in Albany, New York, growing up in two orphanages and the Schenectady Children’s Home in upstate New York. Despite those challenges, Carter […]

Categories: All, Carter, Mandy, November, November 02 • Tags: 1948, Mandy Carter, November 2, Ubuntu Biography Project

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Darren Young (Fred Rosser)

November 2, 2017 by Ubuntu Biography Project

Fred “Freddie” Rosser (known professionally as Darren Young) was born on November 2, 1983. He was the first professional wrestler to publicly come out as LGBTQ while signed to a major promotion. Frederick Douglas Rosser III was born in Union Township, New Jersey, the only child of Frederick and Robin Rosser. Although he played football while a student at Union High School and for his first year at Farleigh Dickinson University, professional wrestling was Rosser’s first love. “As a teenager, […]

Categories: All, November, November 02, Rosser, Fred, Young, Darren • Tags: Darren Young, Fred Rosser, November 2, Ubuntu Biography Project

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