Date: May 14, 2025
Legacy Makers: Stories of Black Inventors and Icons
Title and Show Info
Episode #27. The Opening: A Tale of Toussaint Louverture.
Featuring: Toni Davis (Host & Storyteller).
Summary
🎙️ The Opening: A Tale of Toussaint Louverture
Before revolutions roar, before empires crumble—there is a boy, and a gatekeeper who sees the storm in his soul.
In this thrilling episode, we meet Toussaint Louverture, not as the indomitable general of legend, but as a quiet, slave boy on the Breda Plantation with eyes like open doors, watching, listening, learning. A curious soul in the stables, he deciphers the world through hooves and whispers, with Pierre-Baptiste Simon, the old carpenter, keeping silent vigil.
This is no ordinary origin story. It’s the spark before the fire, the hush before the uprising. Toussaint’s mind is already galloping ahead of his time, speaking three languages and dreaming in fourths: freedom, dignity, strategy, and legacy.
The groundwork for this saga is laid unlike any other—where history meets prophecy, and a child of bondage quietly rewrites the fate of nations.
Tune in as we peel back the curtain on one of history’s greatest unsung minds—before the revolts, before the treaties, before the betrayal—when he was just a boy, and the world didn’t yet know it should fear him.
This isn’t just the start of a podcast.
It’s the Opening.
New episodes every week. Subscribe now, and don’t just hear history—feel it.

Highlights:
00:56- INTRO.
02:29- TOUSSAINT LOUVERTURE’S BIRTH.
03:28- STABLEMAN & COACHMAN.
03:59- MANUMITTED.
04:22- MARRIES.
04:37- CHILDREN.
05:34- SLAVE REVOLT.
06:07- JOINS THE REBELLION WITH THE SPANISH.
06:27- COMMANDER.
07:27- THE BRITISH SEND TROOPS TO CRUSH THE REBELLION.
07:41- SPAIN DECLARES WAR AGAINT ENGLAND & FRANCE.
07:49- FRANCE DECLARES WAR AGAINST ENGLAND.
08:27- ADOPTS THE NAME “LOUVERTURE”.
08:49- FRANCE ABOLISHES SLAVERY.
08:56- ABANDONS SPAIN AND FIGHTS FOR FRANCE.
09:32- 1798 ENGLAND AND US TREATIES.
10:16- “WAR OF THE KNIVES”.
10:29- CONQUERS SANTO DOMINGO & FREES IT’S SLAVES.
10:37- DRAFTS A NEW CONSTITUTION FOR SAINT DOMINGUE.
10:41- GENERAL FOR LIFE.
11:02- SENDS THE CONSTITUTION TO FRANCE.
11:07- FRANCE SENDS TROOPS.
11:33- CEASEFIRE.
11:49- ARRESTED AND EXILED.
12:20- IMPRISONED AT FORT DE JOUX IN FRANCE.
12:46- TOUSSAINT LOUVERTURE PASSES AWAY.
13:39- SAINT DOMINGUE IS RENAMED HAITI AND DECLARED AN INDEPENDENT NATION.
14:10- CONCLUSION.
Subscribe to the podcast.

Links to additional resources:
Toussaint Louverture | Biography, Significance, & Facts | Britannica
The Wrongful Death of Toussaint Louverture | History Today
Toussaint Louverture | National Museum of African American History and Culture
How Toussaint L'ouverture Rose from Slavery to Lead the Haitian Revolution | HISTORY
Toussaint L'Ouverture (1743-1803) | BlackPast.org
Toussaint L'Ouverture: Biography, Haitian Indepenence Movement
Toussaint Louverture | Slavery and Remembrance
Toussaint Louverture - Kids | Britannica Kids | Homework Help
Toussaint Louverture - Wikipedia

Date: April 30, 2025
Legacy Makers: Stories of Black Inventors and Icons
Title and Show Info
Episode #26. What You See Is What You Get: The Flip Wilson Story (A Story of Heart, Humor, and Hope)
Featuring: Toni Davis (Host & Storyteller).

Summary
🎙 What You See is What You Get: The Flip Wilson Story
Before the bright lights, standing ovations, and catchphrases that captured a nation, there was a boy, born on a gray December day in Jersey City, 1933. Clerow Wilson Jr., later known to the world as Flip Wilson, entered a world weighed down by the Great Depression and lifted himself up with nothing but wit, hope, and an unstoppable spark.
In this thrilling episode, we trace Flip’s unlikely rise from the brick-lined alleys of Jersey City to the bright lights of stardom.
From hustling smiles in Air Force barracks, to crashing the smoky nightclub circuit with a head full of jokes and a suitcase of dreams, Flip turned his pain into punchlines and his hardships into laughter. His gift for creating characters, his razor-sharp timing, and his fearless spirit caught fire — leading him to the Apollo, the Tonight Show, and eventually, into America’s living rooms.
Flip Wilson’s story is more than a biography — it’s a masterclass in resilience, genius, and heart.
🎧Press play and discover how a foster kid from Jersey City became a legend whose truth was simple: What You See is What You Get. 🎤

Highlights:
00:56- INTRO.
01:06- CLEROW WILSON JR’S BIRTH.
01:15- HIS FATHER CLEROW WILSON, SR.
01:19- HIS MOTHER CORNELIA BULLOCK.
02:08- CORNELIA ABANDONS THE FAMILY.
02:22- FOSTER CARE.
04:05- US AIR FORCE.
04:35- FLIP WILSON.
05:10- DISCHARGED FROM THE US AIR FORCE.
05:26- MANOR PLAZA HOTEL.
05:44- COMEDY DURING INTERMISSIONS.
07:29- 1950s AFRICAN AMERICAN COMEDY “ CHITLIN” CIRCUIT.
09:53- SPONSORED $50/WK.
11:01- THE APOLLO THEATER IN HARLEM, NY.
11:26- DEBUT COMEDY ALBUM, "FLIPPIN".
11:44- “LIVE AT THE VILLAGE GATE” & “FLIP WILSON’S POT LUCK”.
12:06- RED FOXX.
12:33- THE TONIGHT SHOW WITH JOHNNY CARSON.
13:35- THE ED SULLIVAN SHOW.
14:38- COMEDY ALBUM, “COWBOYS AND COLORED PEOPLE”.
15:38- “COWBOYS AND COLORED PEOPLE” EARNS A GRAMMY NOMINATION.
16:00- MULTIPLE VARIETY SHOWS.
16:28- EARNS FIVE GRAMMY NOMINATIONS.
17:02- WINS A GRAMMY FOR HIS COMEDY ALBUM, “THE DRESS MADE ME BUY THIS DRESS”.
17:30- “ HEAH COME THE JUDGE” SLOGAN.
17:38- THE FLIP WILSON SHOW ON NBC.
19:23- THE FLIP WILSON HANDSHAKE.
19:34- GERALDINE & THE REVEREND LEROY.
20:03- WINS TWO EMMY AWARDS.
20:18- WINS A GOLDEN GLOBE.
20:34- NAMED “FIRST BLACK SUPERSTAR” BY TIME MAGAZINE.
20:54- AIRS THE FINAL EPISODE OF THE FLIP WILSON SHOW.
21:26- FAMOUS TECH ACRONYM WYSIWYG (WHAT YOU SEE IS WHAT YOU GET).
21:45- CO-STARS IN FILMS.
23:17- SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE.
23:37- CO-STARS IN TELEVISION SITCOMS.
23:59- CAMEO APPEARANCES.
24:13- COMEDY ALBUM, “FUNNY AND LIVE AT THE VILLAGE GATE”.
24:23- SURGERY FOR A MALIGNANT TUMOR.
24:39- FLIP WILSON PASSES AWAY.
24:51- CREMATED AT CRESTWOOD VILLAGE MEMORIAL PARK CEMETERY.
25:10- 2019 NEW JERSEY HALL OF FAME INDUCTEE.
25:35- CONCLUSION.
Subscribe to the podcast.

Links to additional resources:
Flip Wilson | Biography, Comedy, Movies, TV Shows, Geraldine, & Facts | Britannica
Flip Wilson – New Jersey Hall of Fame
Flip Wilson - Biography - IMDb
Flip Wilson - IMDb
Flip Wilson - Latest News, Updates, Photos and Videos | Yahoo
Richest Actors | nichesss
Flip Wilson dies of liver cancer
Flip Wilson - Ed Sullivan Show
TV Comedian Flip Wilson Dies at 64 - Los Angeles Times
Flip Wilson's Life Was No Joke: Behind His Legacy of Laughter | Closer Weekly
Comedian Flip Wilson Dies at 64
Flip Wilson dies at 64
Comedian Flip Wilson's Son David Has Been Paralyzed from the Shoulders down for over 20 Years
Flip Wilson - Wikipedia

Date: April 16, 2025
Legacy Makers: Stories of Black Inventors and Icons
Title and Show Info
Episode #25. Phillis Wheatley: The Journey of a Literary Light
Featuring: Toni Davis (Host & Storyteller).

Summary
Before her words graced drawing rooms and royal courts, Phillis Wheatley was just a child — stolen from the sunlit rhythms of West Africa and thrust into the cold, indifferent belly of a slave ship. Our story begins not with ink and parchment, but rather, with iron and salt, fear and survival.
In this episode, we chart the haunting beginnings of an extraordinary life. A seven-year-old girl, barely strong enough to stand, washes ashore in Boston aboard the Phillis slave ship — a floating tomb for the enslaved. Purchased for “a mere trifle” by the Wheatley family, no one imagined this frail child would one day shake the very foundations of colonial society with nothing but the might of her pen.
But before the fame, and before the poems that would captivate America and London alike, there was only silence — the silence of loss, of forced migration, of being renamed by strangers.
Through evocative narration and gripping detail, we peel back the layers of history to uncover the roots of genius: the shipwrecked beginnings, the quiet mercies, and the slow-burning spark of intellect that defied every expectation.
Phillis Wheatley: The Journey of a Literary Light is more than a biography — it’s a testament to survival, resilience, and the unyielding power of the written word.
Join us on Legacy Makers: Stories of Black Inventors and Icons, where history doesn’t just whisper... it stings like salt spray.
Subscribe now — because this story is only just beginning.

Highlights:
00:58- INTRO.
01:04- SLAVE SHIP.
01:13- 7 YEAR OLD GIRL
01:44- THE ATLANTIC OCEAN.
02:38- THE PHILLIS DOCKS IN BOSTON.
03:10- THE AUCTION BLOCK.
03:51- PURCHASED BY THE WHEATLEY FAMILY.
04:00- TAKEN TO THE WHEATLEY HOME.
04:44- NAMED PHILLIS WHEATLEY.
05:01- TUTORED BY MARY WHEATLEY AND NATHANIEL WHEATLEY.
05:27- PHILLIS CAN READ & WRITE.
06:49- “ TO THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE, IN NEW ENGLAND.”
08:09- "ON MESSRS. HUSSEY AND COFFIN,".
08:52- NEWPORT MERCURY PUBLISHES HER POEM.
09:36- "TO THE KING’S MOST EXCELLENT MAJESTY."
10:06- “ON BEING BROUGHT FROM AFRICA TO AMERICA.”.
11:09- "AN ELEGIAC POEM, ON THE DEATH OF THAT CELEBRATED DIVINE, AND EMINENT SERVANT OF JESUS CHRIST, THE REVEREND AND LEARNED GEORGE WHITEFIELD.”.
11:38- WHITEFIELD ELEGY PUBLISHED IN THREE CITIES.
12:05- WHITEFIELD ELEGY PUBLISHED IN LONDON.
12:46- WRITTEN 28 POEMS.
12:57- ADVERTISEMENTS PLACED IN BOSTON NEWSPAPERS.
13:24- PANEL OF BOSTON LUMINARIES.
14:14- ATTESTATION.
14:31- LONDON SUPPORT.
15:27- PUBLISHES HER FIRST COLLECTION OF POEMS, “POEMS ON VARIOUS SUBJECTS, RELIGIOUS AND MORAL.”
17:07- “NIOBE IN DISTRESS FOR HER CHILDREN SLAIN BY APOLLO, FROM OVID’S METAMORPHOSES, BOOK VI, AND FROM A VIEW OF THE PAINTING OF MR. RICHARD WILSON”.
17:26- “TO MAECENAS”.
17:36- LONDON MAGAZINE.
17:48- “HYMN TO THE MORNING”.
17:58- RETURNS TO THE US.
18:16- MANUMITTED BY THE WHEATLEY FAMILY.
8:30- SUZANNA WHEATLEY PASSES AWAY.
18:47- “TO HIS EXCELLENCY, GEORGE WASHINGTON.”
20:05- INVITED TO CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS.
20:42- THOMAS PAINE REPUBLISHES “TO HIS EXCELLENCY, GEORGE WASHINGTON”.
21:11- JOHN WHEATLEY AND MARY WHEATLEY PASS AWAY.
21:26- MARRIES JOHN PETERS, A FREE BLACK MAN.
21:57- 300 PAGES IN OCTAVO.
22:32- NATHANIEL WHEATLEY PASSES AWAY.
22:48- “AN ELEGY, SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF THAT GREAT DIVINE, THE REVEREND AND LEARNED DR. SAMUEL COOPER”.
22:18- “LIBERTY AND PEACE” UNDER THE NAME PHILLIS PETERS.
24:39- BOARDINGHOUSE SERVANT & FAILING HEALTH.
25:17- JOHN PETERS IMPRISONED.
25:29- PHILLIS WHEATLEY PASSES AWAY.
25:56- ACCOLADES.
30:18- CONCLUSION.
Subscribe to the podcast.

Links to additional resources:
Phillis Wheatley Peters | The Poetry Foundation
Phillis Wheatley | National Women's History Museum
Phillis Wheatley (1753-1784): A Poetic Peacemaker | Criswell College
Phillis Wheatley | Biography, Poems, Books, & Facts | Britannica
Phillis Wheatley: Her Life, Poetry, and Legacy | National Portrait Gallery
Phillis Wheatley (U.S. National Park Service)
Phillis Wheatley - Wikipedia