Birthday Celebrations — November 11

Born on this day. These are the birthdays we celebrate on November 11 — the people whose lives added to the story of Black history.

Shirley Graham Du Bois

Full name: Lola Shirley Graham Du Bois

Born November 11, 1896 — died March 27, 1977

Composer, playwright, biographer and Pan-African activist.

Shirley Graham wrote the opera ‘Tom-Tom,’ which premiered in Cleveland in 1932 before crowds of more than 25,000, making her the first Black woman to write and produce an all-Black opera. She later wrote biographies of Frederick Douglass, Paul Robeson and George Washington Carver and won the Anisfield-Wolf Award in 1949. She married W. E. B. Du Bois in 1951, moved with him to Ghana in 1961 and in 1964 became director of Ghana’s television service.

Daisy Bates

Full name: Daisy Lee Gatson Bates

Born November 11, 1914 — died November 4, 1999

Mentor of the Little Rock Nine and Arkansas NAACP president.

Daisy Bates and her husband L.C. Bates published the Arkansas State Press, a Black newspaper that campaigned against segregation. As president of the Arkansas NAACP she organized and guided the nine students who integrated Little Rock Central High School in 1957. Her memoir ‘The Long Shadow of Little Rock’ won an American Book Award, and Arkansas observes Daisy Gatson Bates Day.

Claude Clark

Full name: Claude Clark Sr.

Born November 11, 1915 — died April 21, 2001

Painter, printmaker and art educator.

Claude Clark worked in the graphic arts shop of the WPA Federal Art Project in Philadelphia from 1939 to 1942, beside Dox Thrash, who discovered the carborundum print process there. His paintings and prints depicted Black life and labor. He taught at Talladega College from 1948 to 1955 and at Merritt College in Oakland from 1968 to 1981.

Ernestine Anderson

Full name: Ernestine Irene Anderson

Born November 11, 1928 — died March 10, 2016

Jazz and blues singer, four-time Grammy nominee.

Ernestine Anderson sang with Johnny Otis and Lionel Hampton before her breakthrough album ‘Hot Cargo’ in 1958. She recorded more than 30 albums, especially for Concord Records, and performed at Carnegie Hall and the Monterey Jazz Festival. She was a fixture of the Seattle jazz scene, where she grew up.

Arthur Cunningham

Born November 11, 1928 — died March 31, 1997

Composer who blended classical, jazz and rock.

Arthur Cunningham studied at Fisk, Juilliard and Columbia’s Teachers College and composed more than 75 works, from art songs to rock opera, joining contemporary classical writing with rock, gospel and jazz. His rock musical for children, ‘Ostrich Feathers,’ was staged in New York in 1965.

LaVern Baker

Full name: Delores LaVern Baker

Born November 11, 1929 — died March 10, 1997

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame R&B singer of ‘Tweedle Dee’ and ‘Jim Dandy’.

LaVern Baker recorded 15 rhythm-and-blues hits for Atlantic Records from 1955 to 1965, including ‘Tweedle Dee’ (1955), ‘Jim Dandy’ (1957) and ‘I Cried a Tear’ (1959). When white singers copied her records, she asked Congress to treat such copying as a violation of the law. She was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1991.

Corrine Brown

Born November 11, 1946

Florida congresswoman 1993-2017.

Corrine Brown served in the Florida House from 1983 to 1993 and was elected to Congress in 1992, among the first African Americans to represent Florida in the House since Reconstruction; she served 12 terms, to 2017. In 2017 she was convicted on fraud and tax charges tied to a charity; an appeals court overturned the conviction in 2021, and in 2022 she pleaded guilty to a single tax charge.

Fred Luter

Full name: Fred J. Luter Jr.

Born November 11, 1956

First Black president of the Southern Baptist Convention.

Fred Luter was elected president of the Southern Baptist Convention in 2012, the first African American to lead the denomination, which has pro-slavery origins; in 2011 he had become its first Black vice president. As pastor of Franklin Avenue Baptist Church in New Orleans from 1986, he grew it from fewer than 100 members to more than 7,000 by 2005, the largest Southern Baptist church in Louisiana, and rebuilt it after Hurricane Katrina.

Lee Haney

Born November 11, 1959

Eight-time Mr. Olympia bodybuilding champion.

Lee Haney won the Mr. Olympia title eight straight times from 1984 to 1991, a record later tied by Ronnie Coleman. He chaired the President’s Council on Physical Fitness and Sports under President Clinton. He later founded a youth ministry and fitness programs.

Barrington Irving

Full name: Barrington Irving Jr.

Born November 11, 1983

Pilot who flew solo around the world at 23.

Barrington Irving flew solo around the world in 2007, at 23, in a single-engine plane he named ‘Inspiration,’ and a House resolution honored him as the youngest pilot and first person of African descent to make the flight. Born in Jamaica and raised in Miami, he founded the nonprofit Experience Aviation in 2005 to bring young people into aviation and later created the Flying Classroom.

Jon Batiste

Full name: Jonathan Michael Batiste

Born November 11, 1986

Musician who won Album of the Year and an Oscar.

Jon Batiste led the house band on ‘The Late Show with Stephen Colbert’ from 2015 to 2022. His album ‘We Are’ won the 2022 Grammy for Album of the Year among five Grammys that night, and he shared the Academy Award for Best Original Score for Pixar’s ‘Soul.’ He comes from a long line of New Orleans musicians and studied at Juilliard.

Kwame Onwuachi

Born November 11, 1989

James Beard Award-winning chef and author.

Kwame Onwuachi won the James Beard Rising Star Chef award in 2019 and wrote the memoir ‘Notes from a Young Black Chef.’ He opened Tatiana at Lincoln Center in 2022, which The New York Times named the city’s best restaurant in 2023 and 2024. He draws on Nigerian, Jamaican, Trinidadian and Creole roots.

Samara Joy

Full name: Samara Joy McLendon

Born November 11, 1999

Jazz singer and Best New Artist Grammy winner.

Samara Joy won the 2023 Grammy for Best New Artist, a rare honor for a jazz musician, along with Best Jazz Vocal Album for ‘Linger Awhile.’ While studying at SUNY Purchase, where she graduated in 2021, she won the Sarah Vaughan International Jazz Vocal Competition. Her grandparents co-founded the Philadelphia gospel group the Savettes.