- Thurgood Marshall
Thurgood Marshall was an American jurist and the first African American to serve on the Supreme Court of the United States. Prior to becoming a judge, he was a lawyer who was best remembered for his high success rate in arguing before the Supreme Court and for the victory in "Brown v. Board of Education". Marshall was born in Baltimore, Maryland, on July 2, 1908. - Sean Combs
Sean John Combs (born November 4, 1969) is an American record producer, mogul, CEO, clothing designer, and a rapper. As of October 2006, his nickname and recording name is Diddy. Previously, he had been known as Puff Daddy and later as P. Diddy ("Puff" being often used as a nickname, but never as recording names). He is still called "P. - Toni Morrison
Toni Morrison (born Chloe Anthony Wofford on February 18 1931), is a Nobel Prize-winning American author, editor, and professor. Her novels are known for their epic themes, vivid dialog, and richly detailed African American characters; among the best known are her novels "The Bluest Eye", "Song of Solomon", and "Beloved", which won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1988. - Debbie Allen
Debbie Allen (born Deborrah Kaye Allen on January 16, 1950 in Houston, Texas) is an American actor, choreographer, film director, television producer, and a member of the President's Committee on the Arts and Humanities. She is best known for her role as Lydia Grant in the hit television series, "Fame". Allen earned a B.A. degree in classical Greek literature, speech, … - Linda Lou McCall
Linda Lou McCall is a songwriter and music industry consultant specializing in entertainment marketing, street promotion, and creative development. She has notably worked with many artists over three decades, from veterans like The Delfonics and Con Funk Shun to contemporary artists like MC Hammer, Eminem and the Black Eyed Peas. She was the wife of Con Funk Shun co-founder/drummer Louis A. McCall, who died in 1997, and is the mother of their two children. (http://www.theloosebook.com) - Stokely Carmichael
Stokely Standiford Churchill Carmichael (June 29, 1941 - November 15, 1998), also known as Kwame Ture, was a Trinidadian-American black activist active in the 1960s American Civil Rights Movement. He rose to prominence first as a leader of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and later as the "Honorary Prime Minister" of the Black Panther Party. - Ossie Davis
Ossie Davis (December 18 1917 - February 4 2005) was an American film actor, director, poet, playwright, writer, and social activist. - Roberta Flack
Roberta Flack (born February 10 1939 in Asheville, North Carolina) is an American singer, notable in the areas of jazz, soul, and folk. Flack is best known for singles such as "Killing Me Softly With His Song," "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face," "Where is the Love", one of her many duets with Donny Hathaway, and "Feel Like Making Love." Killing Me Softly With His Song" won the 1974 Grammy for Record of the Year. - Ethel Hedgeman Lyle
Ethel Hedgeman Lyle (born Ethel Hedgeman, February 10, 1885 - November 28, 1950) was an African-American founder of the Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority (AKA). - Shaka Hislop
Neil Shaka Hislop (born 22 February 1969) is a professional football goalkeeper, currently playing for FC Dallas and the Trinidad and Tobago national football team. - Norma Elizabeth Boyd
Norma Elizabeth Boyd (died January 4, 1985) was an African-American sorority organizer and lobbyist. While still a student, she was one of two women who was both a founder and an incorporator of Alpha Kappa Alpha. She is best known for her work in establishing the Non-Partisan Council on Public Affairs in 1938. - Marjorie Hill
Marjorie Hill (d. 1909) was one of the twenty founders of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Incorporated, which is the oldest African-American sorority. Hill was a member of the original group of founders in 1908. Helpful, Hill was a "small, sweet girl" who fulfilled her tasks. After accomplishing a Bachelor of Arts degree in education and political science at Howard University in 1908, Hill taught at Morgan College in Lynchburg, Virginia. She died in 1909. - Andrew Young
Andrew Jackson Young, Jr. (born March 12, 1932) is an American civil rights activist, former mayor of Atlanta, Georgia, and was the United States' first African-American ambassador to the United Nations. Young is the namesake of the Andrew Young School of Policy Studies at Georgia State University in Atlanta, Georgia. International Boulevard, near the Centennial Olympic Park, has been re-named Andrew Young International Boulevard, … - Zora Neale Hurston
Zora Neale Hurston (January 7, 1891 - January 28, 1960) was an American folklorist and author during the time of the Harlem Renaissance, best known for the 1937 novel "Their Eyes Were Watching God". - Donny Hathaway
Donny Hathaway was an American soul musician. - Douglas Wilder
Lawrence Douglas Wilder (born January 17, 1931) is an American politician. He was the first African American to be elected as governor of a U.S. state, and the second of three to serve as governor. Wilder served as Governor of Virginia from 1990 to 1994. He is currently Mayor of Richmond, Virginia, having taken office in 2005. - E. Franklin Frazier
Dr. Edward Franklin Frazier (September 24, 1894 - May 17, 1962), was an American sociologist. His 1932 Ph.D. dissertation "The Negro Family in Chicago", later released as a book "The Negro Family in the United States" in 1939, analysed the cultural and historical forces that influenced the development of the African American family from the time of slavery. - Anthony Anderson
Anthony Alvin Anderson (born August 15, 1970) is an American comedian and actor. Anderson was born in Los Angeles, California, but grew up in Compton, California, to Doris, a telephone operator and actress; his step-father, Sterling Bowman, owns a chain of clothing stores. Anderson is an alumnus of the Los Angeles County High School for the Arts. Anderson first achieved recognition in the NBC television show "Hang Time" (1995–2000). - Paul Laurence Dunbar
Paul Laurence Dunbar"' (June 27, 1872 - February 9, 1906) was a seminal American poet of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Dunbar gained national recognition for his 1896 "Lyrics of a Lowly Life", one poem in the collection being Ode to Ethiopia. His poems were written mainly in black dialect. Dunbar was born in Dayton, Ohio to parents who had escaped from slavery; his father was a veteran of the American Civil War, … - Harris Wofford
Harris Llewellyn Wofford (born April 9, 1926) is an American politician and member of the Democratic Party who served as a U.S. Senator from Pennsylvania from 1991 to 1995. He was also the fifth president of Bryn Mawr College. Harris Wofford was born in New York City in 1926. While attending high school, he was inspired by Clarence Streit's plea for a world government to found the Student Federalists (see). - Mike Espy
Alphonso Michael Espy, usually called Mike Espy, (born November 30, 1953) was a U.S. political figure. From 1987 to 1993, he served in the U.S. House of Representatives from Mississippi. He served as the Secretary of Agriculture from 1993 to 1994. He was the first African American Secretary of Agriculture. - Marlon Wayans
Marlon Wayans (born July 23, 1972) is an American actor, producer, comedian, writer, and director of movies, beginning with his role as a pedestrian in "I'm Gonna Git You Sucka" in 1988. He is known for usually teaming with his brother Shawn. - Richard Smallwood
Richard Smallwood is an American Gospel music artist born in Atlanta, Georgia who formed The Richard Smallwood Singers in 1977 in Washington, DC. - Shirley Franklin
Shirley Clarke Franklin (born May 10 1945) is an American politician, a member of the Democratic Party, and, since January 7 2002, the mayor of Atlanta, Georgia. The 58th mayor of Atlanta, she was the first female to hold the post and became the first black woman to be elected mayor of any major Southern city. Franklin is the fourth black mayor of Atlanta, the latest in a line of African American mayors that stretches back to 1974. - Claude Brown
Claude Brown (February 23, 1937 - February 2, 2002) is the author of "Manchild in the Promised Land," published to critical acclaim in 1965, which tells the story of his coming of age during the 1940s and 1950s in Harlem. Autobiographical in nature, the book describes the cultural, economic, and religious conditions that suffused Harlem during Brown's early childhood and adolescence while constructing a narrative of Brown's tumultuous early life. - Edward Brooke
The first African American elected to the Senate by popular vote, Edward Brooke of Massachusetts served two full terms, from 1967 to 1979. Born in Washington, D.C. in 1919, Brooke graduated from Howard University before serving in the United States Army during World War II. After the war, he received a law degree from Boston University. - Tracie Thoms
Tracie Nicole Thoms (born August 19, 1975) is an American television, film, and stage actress. - Nnamdi Azikiwe
Benjamin Nnamdi Azikiwe, usually referred to as Nnamdi Azikiwe, or, informally and popularly, as "Zik", was the founder of modern Nigerian nationalism and the first President of Nigeria, holding the position throughout the Nigerian First Republic. - Kelly Miller
Kelly Miller (July 23, 1863 - December 29, 1939) was a mathematician, sociologist, essayist, and newspaper columnist, and an important figure in the intellectual life of black America for close to half a century. Born in Winnsboro, South Carolina in 1863, he worked his way through Howard University, then did postgraduate work at Johns Hopkins University, the first black ever admitted to that university. Appointed professor of mathematics at Howard in 1890, … - Cheddi Jagan
Cheddi Jagan, also known as Cheddi Berret Jagan (March 22, 1918 - March 6, 1997), was the chief minister (1957-1964) and president (1992-1997) of Guyana. The son of ethnic Indian sugar plantation workers, Jagan managed to attend Queen's College in Georgetown. He later studied at the Howard University Dental School in Washington, D.C., and Northwestern University in Chicago before returning home in the early 1940s. - Albert Wynn
WYNN: A win is a win. The DCCC says they are committed to supporting incumbents, so that's one weird dynamic. And then you've got the Congressional Black Caucus, which tends to support incumbents as well. Wynn is apparently a rainmaker for the CBC Foundation. Wynn has been doing a lot of local political outreach, he's joined the Out of Iraq and Progressive Caucuses, and altered his voting record dramatically. - Elijah Cummings
Elijah Eugene Cummings (born January 18 1951) is a Democratic member of the United States House of Representatives, representing the 7th district of the State of Maryland (map) since 1996. - David Dinkins
David Norman Dinkins (born July 10 1927 in Trenton, New Jersey) was the Mayor of New York City from 1989 through 1993, being the first and to date only African American to hold that office. He is the most recent Democrat to have been elected Mayor of New York City. During World War II he served in the United States Marine Corps. Dinkins is a graduate of Howard University, with a degree in Mathematics, and Brooklyn Law School. - La La
Alani "La La" Vasquez (born in June 25, 1979, in Brooklyn) is an American disc jockey, television personality and MTV VJ. - Jessye Norman
Jessye Norman is an American opera singer. Norman is one of the most admired contemporary opera singers and recitalists, and one of the highest paid performers in classical music. A true dramatic soprano with a majestic stage presence, Norman is associated in particular with the roles of Aïda, Cassandre, Alceste, and Leonora in "Fidelio". Norman has been given the nickname 'Just Enormous' for her powerful voice and range. - James A. Porter
James Amos Porter (December 22, 1905 - February 28 1970) was a pioneer in establishing the field of African American art history. He was instrumental as the first scholar to provide a systematic, critical analysis of African American artists and their works of art. An artist himself, he provided a unique and critical approach to the analysis of the work. Dedicated to educating and writing about African American artists, … - George Padmore
George Padmore (1902-1959), born Malcolm Nurse, was a Trinidadian communist and later a leading Pan-Africanist with anti-communist sympathies. Through his work with communism and decolonisation Padmore was one of the most influential figures of the twentieth century. He was born in Arouca, Trinidad. In 1924 he travelled to Fisk University in Tennessee where he studied medicine. - Harold Ford Sr.
Harold Eugene Ford, Sr. (born May 20, 1945) was a United States Representative from Tennessee from 1975 to 1997. He is a Democrat. Ford was born in Memphis to Vera Davis and Newton Jackson Ford, a funeral home director. His was a prominent black family who were leaders in the funeral industry in Memphis' black community, dating back to the days of E.H. Crump. He attended Tennessee State University in Nashville, graduating in 1967. - Charlene Drew Jarvis
Charlene Drew Jarvis, Ph.D (born July 31 1941 in Washington, D.C. as Charlene Rosella Drew) is an American educator and former scientific researcher and politician who currently serves as the president of Southeastern University. Jarvis is the daughter of the famed blood plasma and blood transfusion pioneer, Dr. Charles Drew. Dr. Jarvis earned her Bachelor of Arts degree from Oberlin College in 1962, … - Nellie Quander
Nellie Quander (b. February 11, 1880, Washington, D.C., - d. October 23, 1961) to John Pierson Quander and Hannah Bruce Ford Quander. John Pierson Quander was a direct descendant of Nancy and Charles Quander, Nancy having been among the slaves freed by President George Washington in his last will and testament. Hannah Bruce Ford Quander was a direct descendant of West Ford, the slave-born putative son of Bushrod Washington, nephew of George Washington.
|
| |