Black History: 41 Names to Remember

Pyrrhus Concer (1814-1897)
Concer, of Southampton, bought his freedom and became a seaman on a whaling ship that was one of the first to sail into Japanese waters.

Gilbert Jackson (1846-1916)
Hempstead resident, member of the 20th Regiment, U.S. Colored Infantry, one of many in the Civil War.

Roy Wilkins (1901-1981)
A civil rights activist and former director of the NAACP who lived the last 30 years of his life in Flushing.

Samuel Ballton (1838-1917)
The ``Pickle King'' of Greenlawn began a lucrative life as an entrepreneur by buying the local pickle works. He went on to real estate development.

Ralph J. Bunche (1904-1971)
Won a Nobel Peace Prize in 1950 and lived in Kew Gardens.

Venture Smith (about 1729-1805)
Was kidnaped from West Africa into slavery and taken to Fishers Island when he was 7. Bought his freedom and lived in Suffolk County before moving to Connecticut.

Dennis P. Bell (1949-1995), of Uniondale
A journalist at Newsday who won a Pulitzer Prize in 1985, with reporter Josh Friedman and photographer Ozier Muhammad, for reporting on the famine in Ethiopia. Bell started at the newspaper as a floor sweeper and worked his way up to reporter and local editor.

William Edward Burghardt Du Bois (1868-1963)
Famed author and historian lived in St. Albans.

Joseph Cinque
Led the slave rebellion on the slave ship Amistad in 1839.

Lewis Howard Latimer (1848-1928)
Inventor from Flushing who worked with Alexander Graham Bell on patent drawings and patented carbon filaments for light bulbs.