6 People of African Descent Who Made Major Contributions to Western Arts and Sciences

Alexander Pushkin (1799-1837) Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin was a Russian author of the Romantic era who is considered by many to be the greatest Russian poet and the founder of modern Russian literature. Pushkin published his first poem at the age of 15, and was widely recognized by the literary establishment by the time of his graduation from the Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum. Pushkin was born into Russian nobility in Moscow. His great-grandfather from his mother's side, Abram Petrovitch Ganibal, was enslaved and brought over from Africa to Russia where he rose to become an aristocrat. Ganibal was the favored general of Peter the Great, highly proficient in mathematics, engineering, and cryptology and treated as a member of the royal family. Pushkin's historical fiction “The Blackamoor of Peter the Great” is based on his great-grandfather. Even though he was considered nobility, Pushkin often faced racism because of his African heritage. His jaded yet proud defense of his ancestry in “My Genealogy” is in response to racial slurs aimed at him by his critics. Alexandre Dumas (1802-1870) Alexandre Dumas was a prolific French playwright, historian, and author, and is best known today for his historical novels of high adventure. Translated into nearly 100 languages, these have made him one of the most widely read French authors in history. Many of his novels, including "The Count of Monte Cristo", "The Three Musketeers", "Twenty Years After", and "The Vicomte de Bragelonne: 10 Years Later" were originally published as serials. His novels have been adapted since the early-20th century for nearly 200 films. Dumas was born on July 24, 1802 in the village of Villers-Cotterêts, just outside of Paris, the third child born to Marie Louise Labouret, daughter of an innkeeper, and Thomas Alexandre Davy de la Pailleterie a military General under Napoléon. Alexandre's grandfather, the Marquis Alexandre Davy de La Pailleterie married an enslaved Black woman from San Domingo (now Haiti) named Marie Louise Césette Dumas. Thomas took her last name when he enlisted with the French army. Le Chevalier de Saint-George (1745-1799) Joseph Boulogne, Chevalier de Saint-George, was an important French-Caribbean figure in the Paris musical scene in the second half of the 18th century. In his lifetime Saint George became an elite musketeer of the King’s Horse Guard; a master-swordsman and Europe’s fencing champion; a composer, violin impresario, and opera director that influenced Mozart, and a military hero in the French Revolution—ironically all in an age when slavery was endemic and white superiority was dogma. Known as the "Black Mozart," Boulogne was one of the earliest musicians of the European classical type known to have African ancestry. He was born on Dec. 25, 1745 on the Caribbean island of Guadeloupe, to Nanon, a Senegalese woman who was formerly enslaved and Georges Boulogne de Saint-George, a white French plantation owner. Joseph acquired the name de Saint-George, after one of his father’s properties. George Polgreen Bridgetower (1780-1860) George Augustus Polgreen Bridgetower was an Afro-Polish-born virtuoso violinist who lived in England for much of his life. He was the son of Frederich Bridgetower, an African prince and a Polish woman of German descent named Mary Ann. Bridgetower demonstrated an exceptional musical talent that pushed his parents to send him to London. After a year at the Drury Lane Theater in London under the patronage of the Prince of Wales, he studied music with renowned masters such as Franz Josef Hadyn, Francois Hyppolite Bartelemon Jarnovich and Giovanni Mane Giornovichi. For 14 years, he played in the orchestra of the Prince Royal Pavilion in London. In May 1803, he is 23 years old when he meets in Vienna, Ludwig von Beethoven. They work together and Beethoven was so impressed with Bridgetower's mastery of the violin, he dedicated the "Violin Sonata" to him and titled it "Sonata Per Uno Mulaticco Lunattico." The piece is now known in history under the title "Kreutzer Sonata", because a reportedly racist remark by Ludwig von Beethoven to his friend Bridgetower broke up their friendship. Beethoven then decided to re-dedicate the sonata to Rudolf Kreutzer and changed the title to "Kretzer Sonata." Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (1875–1912) Samuel Coleridge-Taylor was born Aug. 15, 1875 in Holborn, England (a suburb of London). His father, Daniel Hughes Taylor, was a native of Sierra Leone who left Africa to study medicine in England. His mother, Alice Hare Martin, was an Englishwoman. Daniel Taylor By 1896, Coleridge-Taylor had earned a reputation as a composer. His greatest success was undoubtedly his cantata "Hiawatha's Wedding-feast," which was widely performed by choral groups in England during Coleridge-Taylor's lifetime and in the decades after his death. Its popularity was rivaled only by the choral standards Handel's "Messiah" and Mendelssohn's "Elijah." Coleridge-Taylor also composed chamber music, anthems, and the African Dances for violin, among other works. "The Petite Suite de Concert" is still regularly played. The famed composer was received in America much more warmly than in England, where he suffered intense racism. He visited the USA three times, receiving great acclaim, and earned the title "the African Mahler" from the white orchestral musicians in New York in 1910. African Americans greatly admired Coleridge-Taylor, and in 1901, a 200-voice African-American chorus was founded in Washington, D.C., named the Samuel Coleridge-Taylor Society. He was, and remained till his death, an ardent supporter of the Pan African Movement. Anton Wilhelm Amo (1703 – ca. 1759) Anton Wilhelm Amo or Anthony William Amo was an African from what is now Ghana, who became a respected philosopher and teacher at the universities of Halle and Jena in Germany after studying there. Taken to Germany at the age of 4 after being enslaved by the Dutch West India Co., he was given as a "present" to Anthony Ulrich, Duke of Brunswick-Wolfenbütte. Amo was supposedly treated as a member of the royal family and became the first African known to have attended a European university. He attended law school at the University of Halle in 1727. He finished his preliminary studies within two years, his dissertation being: “The Rights of Moors in Europe”. For his further studies Amo moved to the University of Wittenberg, studying logic, metaphysics, physiology, astronomy, history, law, theology, politics, and medicine, and mastered six languages (English, French, Dutch, Latin, Greek, and German). His medical education in particular was to play a central role in much of his later philosophical thought. Dr. Amo returned to Halle as lecturer in 1736. At Halle, he taught psychology, 'natural law' and the decimal system - a universality which was then customary. In 1738 Amo's "Treatise on the Art of Philosophizing Soberly and Accurately" ( Tractatus de arte sobrie et accurate philosophandi ) was published in Halle. The following year moved to Jena University, where he gave his inaugural lecture on "The Frontiers of Psychology." Sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Pushkin; http://www.online-literature.com/alexander-pushkin/; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexandre_Dumas; http://www.online-literature.com/dumas/; http://www.100greatblackbritons.com/bios/samuel_coleridge-taylor.html; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Coleridge-Taylor; http://www.math.buffalo.edu/mad/special/amo-anton.html; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevalier_de_Saint-George; http://www.chevalierdesaintgeorge.com/bio_fulltext.html

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