Birthday Celebrations — November 7

Born on this day. These are the birthdays we celebrate on November 7 — the people whose lives added to the story of Black history.

Preston Taylor

Born November 7, 1849 — died April 13, 1931

Nashville minister, businessman and founder of Greenwood Cemetery.

Preston Taylor, born to enslaved parents, served as a drummer boy in the Union Army and became a Disciples of Christ minister and railroad contractor. In Nashville he founded Greenwood Cemetery in 1888, the city’s second-oldest Black cemetery, ran a funeral company and opened Greenwood Park for Black residents in 1905. He helped organize the One Cent Savings Bank, now Citizens Savings Bank and Trust.

Ruby Hurley

Full name: Ruby Ruffin Hurley

Born November 7, 1909 — died August 9, 1980

NAACP Southeast director, ‘Queen of Civil Rights’.

Ruby Hurley opened the NAACP’s first permanent office in the Deep South, in Birmingham, in 1951 and led its Southeast region until she retired in 1978. In 1955 she worked with Medgar Evers to investigate the murder of Emmett Till, and in 1956 she was forced to leave Alabama when the state banned the NAACP. In 1939 she served on the committee that arranged Marian Anderson’s concert at the Lincoln Memorial.

M. Athalie Range

Full name: Mary Athalie Wilkinson Range

Born November 7, 1915 — died November 14, 2006

First Black Miami city commissioner and Florida state agency head.

Athalie Range became the first African American on the Miami City Commission in 1966 and in 1971 became Secretary of Community Affairs, the first Black person to lead a Florida state agency since Reconstruction. She ran a family funeral business and led the campaign to preserve Virginia Key Beach, the historically Black beach. A Miami park bears her name.

Ellen Stewart

Born November 7, 1919 — died January 13, 2011

Founder of La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club.

Ellen Stewart founded Cafe La MaMa in a rented Manhattan basement in 1961 and built it into La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club, the center of Off-Off-Broadway, where Sam Shepard, Lanford Wilson and Harvey Fierstein were produced early. She received a MacArthur Fellowship in 1985 and was inducted into the Theater Hall of Fame in 1993. She had earlier worked as a fashion designer at Saks Fifth Avenue.

steve carter

Full name: Horace Edward Carter Jr.

Born November 7, 1929 — died September 15, 2020

Playwright of the Negro Ensemble Company (‘Eden,’ ‘Nevis Mountain Dew’).

steve carter, who spelled his name in lowercase, was a resident playwright of the Negro Ensemble Company, where ‘Eden’ (1976) and ‘Nevis Mountain Dew’ (1978) explored Caribbean and African American family life. He later worked with Chicago’s Victory Gardens Theater. His mother was from Trinidad.

Al Attles

Full name: Alvin Austin Attles Jr.

Born November 7, 1936 — died August 20, 2024

Warriors player and coach who won the 1975 NBA title.

Al Attles spent more than six decades with the Warriors as a player, coach and executive, and coached Golden State to the 1975 NBA championship, one of the first Black head coaches to win a title. He was the other player on the floor during Wilt Chamberlain’s 100-point game in 1962. He was inducted into the Naismith Hall of Fame in 2019.

Dee Clark

Full name: Delecta Clark

Born November 7, 1938 — died December 7, 1990

Soul singer of the million-seller ‘Raindrops’.

Dee Clark sang with the Kool Gents and the Delegates in Chicago before a solo career on Vee-Jay Records that produced ‘Nobody But You,’ ‘Just Keep It Up’ and ‘Hey Little Girl.’ His 1961 single ‘Raindrops’ reached No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 and sold over a million copies. He died of a heart attack in Smyrna, Georgia.

Lelia Foley

Full name: Lelia Kasensia Smith Foley-Davis

Born November 7, 1941

Mayor of Taft, Oklahoma, long recognized as the first Black woman elected mayor in the U.S.

Lelia Foley was elected mayor of the all-Black town of Taft, Oklahoma, on April 3, 1973, and has long been recognized as the first Black woman elected mayor in the United States. A divorced mother of five on welfare when she ran, she conferred with Presidents Ford and Carter and was named Oklahoma’s Outstanding Woman of the Year in 1974. She lost the office in the early 1980s and won it back in 2000.

Alexa Canady

Full name: Alexa Irene Canady

Born November 7, 1950

First Black woman neurosurgeon in the United States.

Alexa Canady became the first Black woman neurosurgeon in the United States, completing her neurosurgical residency at the University of Minnesota in 1981, and was board-certified in 1984. In 1987 she was named chief of neurosurgery at Children’s Hospital of Michigan, where she served until 2001. She is a member of the Michigan Women’s Hall of Fame.

Bonnie St. John

Born November 7, 1964

First Black Winter Paralympic medalist, Rhodes Scholar and author.

Bonnie St. John, whose right leg was amputated below the knee at age five, won a silver medal and two bronze medals in alpine skiing at the 1984 Winter Paralympics in Innsbruck, the first African American woman to win a medal at a Winter Games. She graduated from Harvard, was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford and served on the National Economic Council in the Clinton White House. She is an author and leadership speaker.

Hasim Rahman

Full name: Hasim Sharif Rahman

Born November 7, 1972

Two-time world heavyweight champion who knocked out Lennox Lewis.

Hasim Rahman knocked out Lennox Lewis in South Africa in April 2001 to win the WBC, IBF and IBO heavyweight titles in one of boxing’s great upsets. He lost the rematch that November but won the WBC title again in 2005. He fought professionally from 1994 to 2014.

Gervonta ‘Tank’ Davis

Full name: Gervonta Bryant Davis

Born November 7, 1994

Multi-division world champion boxer.

Gervonta Davis has won world titles in three weight classes and became one of boxing’s biggest pay-per-view draws, including his 2023 knockout of Ryan Garcia. He was trained from childhood by Calvin Ford in Baltimore and promoted early on by Floyd Mayweather. In 2023 he was sentenced for a 2020 hit-and-run crash in Baltimore that injured four people and served the rest of a 90-day term in jail.

Algee Smith

Full name: Algee Smith IV

Born November 7, 1994

Actor in ‘Detroit’ and ‘Euphoria’.

Algee Smith played Ralph Tresvant in BET’s ‘The New Edition Story’ and Larry Reed of the Dramatics in Kathryn Bigelow’s ‘Detroit’ (2017). He played Chris McKay on HBO’s ‘Euphoria’ and starred in ‘Judas and the Black Messiah.’ He is also a singer.