1831 – Lucy Stanton Day Sessions Is Born

Lucy Stanton Day Sessions, born free in Cleveland, Ohio, on October 16, 1831, was the first African American woman to complete a college-level course, graduating from Oberlin College in 1850. Her stepfather, abolitionist John Brown, helped establish Cleveland’s first school for Black children.

An educator, writer, and activist, Stanton became the first African American to publish a short story in 1854. She later taught freed people in the South and continued her advocacy until her death in 1910.

1833 – Ebenezer Bassett Is Born

Ebenezer D. Bassett, born in Connecticut on October 16, 1833, became the first African American diplomat when President Ulysses S. Grant appointed him U.S. Minister to Haiti in 1869. An educator and abolitionist, he had pr

See Full Page