Richard Arrington Jr. born in October of 1934 in Livingston, Alabama  was the first African American mayor of the city of Birmingham, Alabama  serving 20 years, from 1979 to 1999. He replaced David Vann and, upon retiring after five terms in office, installed then-City Council president William A. Bell as interim mayor. Bell went on to lose the next election to the current mayor, Bernard Kincaid.

Arrington's father moved his family to the steel-town of Fairfield from rural Sumter County, Alabama when Richard Jr. was five years old to take a job with U.S. Steel. The steady work was an improvement over sharecropping, but Richard Sr. still had to supplement the family income by working off-hours as a brick mason.   more »

Dr. Alonzo G. Moron, a 1932 Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Brown University and member of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, served for three years as commissioner of public welfare in the Virgin Islands, his birthplace. He was the first African-American head of public housing in the city of Atlanta.

On October 29, 1949, Dr. Alonzo G. Moron becomes the eighth president of Hampton Institute and the first African American to hold the position at the school. He served from 1948-1959. A 1927 graduate of the school, he administered the dormitory additions, changed the curriculum, phased out agricultural and the trades, established the academic program, addressed ideological conflicts, and provided an intellectual voice regarding school desegregation in Hampton. Dr. Moron is also recognized as the first Hampton Institute graduate to become President of the school.   more »