Occupations

Academics & Education

Richard Allen

Richard Allen was a minister, educator, writer, and one of America's most active and influential black leaders. In 1794, he founded the African Methodist Episcopal Church, the first independent black denomination in the United States.

Dr. Patricia Bath

Dr. Patricia Era Bath was an American ophthalmologist, inventor, humanitarian, and academic. She was the inventor of laser cataract surgery. Her invention was called Laserphaco Probe.

Mary McLeod Bethune

Mary McLeod Bethune was an American educator, stateswoman, philanthropist, humanitarian, and civil rights activist best known for starting a private school for African-American students in Florida and co-founding UNCF on April 25, 1944 with William Trent and Frederick D. Patterson.

Julian Bond

Julian Bond was an American social activist and leader in the Civil Rights Movement, politician, professor and writer. While a student at Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia, during the early 1960s, he helped to establish the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC).

Gwendolyn Brooks

Gwendolyn Brooks was an American poet, author, and teacher. Her work often dealt with the personal celebrations and struggles of ordinary people in her community. She won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry on May 1, 1950, for Annie Allen, making her the first African American to receive the Pulitzer.

George Washington Carver

George Washington Carver, was an American agricultural scientist and inventor. He actively promoted alternative crops to cotton and methods to prevent soil depletion (while a professor at Tuskegee Institute).

Shirley Chisholm

Shirley Chisholm was an American politician, educator, and author. In 1968, she became the first black woman elected to the United States Congress, and she represented New York's 12th congressional district for seven terms from 1969 to 1983.

Septima Poinsette Clark

Septima Poinsette Clark was an African American educator and civil rights activist. Clark developed the literacy and citizenship workshops that played an important role in the drive for voting rights and civil rights for African Americans in the Civil Rights Movement.

Janet Collins

Janet Collins was a ballet dancer, choreographer, and teacher. She performed on Broadway, in films, and appeared frequently on television. She was among the pioneers of black ballet dancing, one of the few classically trained Black dancers of her generation.

Patricia Hill Collins

Patricia Hill Collins is an American academic specializing in race, class, and gender. She is a distinguished university professor of sociology emerita at the University of Maryland, College Park. She is also the former head of the Department of African-American Studies at the University of Cincinnati, and a past president of the American Sociological Association (ASA).

David Dinkins

David Norman Dinkins is an American politician, lawyer, and author who served as the 106th Mayor of New York City, from 1990 to 1993. He was the first and, to date, the only African American to hold that office.

W.E.B. Du Bois

William Edward Burghardt Du Bois was an American sociologist, historian, civil rights activist, Pan-Africanist, author, writer and editor. Du Bois was one of the founders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1909.

Ralph Ellison

Ralph Ellison was an American novelist, literary critic, and scholar best known for his novel Invisible Man, which won the National Book Award in 1953. He also wrote Shadow and Act (1964), a collection of political, social and critical essays, and Going to the Territory (1986).

John Hope Franklin

John Hope Franklin was an American historian of the United States and former president of Phi Beta Kappa, the Organization of American Historians, the American Historical Association, and the Southern Historical Association.

Bell Hooks

Gloria Jean Watkins, better known by her pen name Bell Hooks, was an American author, professor, feminist, and social activist. The name “bell hooks” is borrowed from her maternal great-grandmother, Bell Blair Hooks.

Alain Leroy Locke

Alain Leroy Locke was an American writer, philosopher, educator, and patron of the arts. Distinguished in 1907 as the first African-American Rhodes Scholar, Locke became known as the philosophical architect ‐ the acknowledged “Dean” ‐ of the Harlem Renaissance.

Audre Lorde

Audre Lorde was an American writer, feminist, womanist, librarian, and civil rights activist. As a poet, she is best known for technical mastery and emotional expression, as well as her poems that express anger and outrage at civil and social injustices she observed throughout her life.

Augusta Savage

Augusta Savage was an African-American sculptor associated with the Harlem Renaissance. She was also a teacher whose studio was important to the careers of a generation of artists who would become nationally known. She worked for equal rights for African Americans in the arts.

Ida B. Wells-Barnett

Ida Bell Wells-Barnett was an African-American investigative journalist, educator, and an early leader in the civil rights movement. She was one of the founders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).

Dr. Carter G. Woodson

Carter Godwin Woodson was an American historian, author, journalist and the founder of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History. In February 1926, he launched the celebration of “Negro History Week”, the precursor of Black History Month.

Chinua Achebe

Chinua Achebe was a Nigerian novelist, poet, and critic who is regarded as the most dominant figure in modern African literature. His first novel and magnum opus, Things Fall Apart, occupies a pivotal place in African literature and remains the most widely studied, taught and read African novel.

LeVar Burton

LeVar Burton Jr. is an American actor, presenter, director and author. He is best known for his role in Star Trek: The Next Generation, hosting the long-running PBS children's series Reading Rainbow and in the 1977 award-winning ABC television miniseries Roots.

Pat Cleveland

Patricia Cleveland is an American fashion model who initially attained success in the 1960s and 1970s and was one of the first African-American models within the fashion industry to achieve prominence as a runway model and print model.

Janet Collins

Bill Cosby

Bill Cosby, Jr. is an American stand-up comedian, actor, musician, author, and convicted sex offender. He held an active career for over six decades before being convicted and imprisoned for sex offenses in 2018.

Keith David

Keith David Williams is an American actor, voice artist, and producer. A graduate of the Juilliard School, he is known for his signature deep voice and commanding screen presence, in over 300 roles across film, stage, television, and interactive media.

Sammy Davis, Jr.

Samuel Davis Jr. was an American singer, musician, dancer, actor, vaudevillian, comedian and activist known for his impressions of actors, musicians and other celebrities. In 2017, he was inducted into the Rhythm & Blues Hall of Fame for being one of the Greatest Entertainers in the World.

Edward Joseph Dwight, Jr.

Edward Joseph Dwight Jr. is an American sculptor, author, and former test pilot. He is the first African American to have entered the Air Force training program from which NASA selected astronauts. He was controversially not selected to officially join NASA.

Redd Foxx

John Sanford, better known by his stage name Redd Foxx, was an American stand-up comedian and actor. Foxx gained success with his raunchy nightclub acts during the 1950s and 1960s. Known as the “King of the Party Records”, he performed on more than 50 records in his lifetime.

Dick Gregory

Dick Gregory was an American comedian, civil rights activist, social critic, writer, conspiracy theorist, entrepreneur, and occasional actor. During the turbulent 1960s, Gregory became a pioneer in stand-up comedy for his “no-holds-barred” sets, in which he mocked bigotry and racism.

Eddie Griffin

Edward Rubin Griffin is an American comedian and actor. He is best known for portraying Eddie Sherman in the sitcom Malcolm & Eddie, the title character in the 2002 comedy film Undercover Brother, and Tiberius Jefferson “T.J.” Hicks in Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo.

Arsenio Hall

Arsenio Hall is an American comedian, talk show host, actor, writer and producer. He is best known for hosting The Arsenio Hall Show, a late-night talk show that ran from 1989 until 1994, and again from 2013 to 2014.

Jay Hawkins

Jalacy “Screamin’ Jay” Hawkins was an American singer-songwriter, musician, actor, film producer, and boxer. Famed chiefly for his powerful, operatic vocal delivery and wildly theatrical performances of songs such as “I Put a Spell on You.”

Geoffrey Holder

Geoffrey Lamont Holder was a Trinidadian-American actor, voice actor, dancer, choreographer, singer, director and painter. He was known for his height, “hearty laugh”, and heavily accented bass voice combined with precise diction.

D.L. Hughley

Darryl Lynn Hughley is an American actor, political commentator, radio host, author and stand-up comedian. Hughley is best known as the original host of BET's ComicView from 1992 to 1993, the eponymous character on the ABC/UPN sitcom The Hughleys, and as one of the “Big Four” comedians in The Original Kings of Comedy.

Bishop T.D. Jakes

Thomas Dexter Jakes Sr., known as T. D. Jakes, is a pastor, author and filmmaker. He is the pastor of The Potter's House, a non-denominational American megachurch. Jakes's church services and evangelistic sermons are broadcast on The Potter's Touch.

Grace Jones

Grace Jones is a Jamaican-American model, singer, songwriter, record producer, and actress. In 2016, Billboard magazine ranked her as the 40th greatest dance club artist of all time.

Martin Lawrence

Martin Lawrence is an American stand-up comedian, actor, producer, talk show host, and writer. Lawrence came to fame during the 1990s, establishing a Hollywood career as a leading actor, most notably in the Fox sitcom Martin and films like House Party, Boomerang, and Bad Boys.

‘Sugar’ Ray Leonard

Ray Charles Leonard, best known as “Sugar” Ray Leonard, is an American former professional boxer, motivational speaker, and occasional actor. Often regarded as one of the greatest boxers of all time, winning world titles in five weight divisions.

LL Cool J

James Todd Smith, known professionally as LL Cool J, is an American rapper, songwriter, record producer, and actor. His breakthrough success came with his single “I Need a Beat” and his debut album, Radio, in 1985.

Moms Mabley

Loretta Aiken, known by her stage name Jackie “Moms” Mabley, was an American standup comedian. A veteran of the Chitlin’ Circuit of African-American vaudeville, she later appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show and The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour.

Bernie Mac

Bernard McCullough, better known by his stage name Bernie Mac, was an American comedian, actor, and voice actor. Born and raised on Chicago's South Side, Mac gained popularity as a stand-up comedian.

Paul Mooney

Paul Gladney, better known by the stage name Paul Mooney, is an American comedian, writer, social critic, and television and film actor. He is best known for his appearances on Chappelle's Show and as a writer for comedian Richard Pryor.

Rudy Ray Moore

Rudolph Frank Moore, known as Rudy Ray Moore, was an American comedian, singer, actor, and film producer. He created the character Dolemite, the pimp from the 1975 film Dolemite and its sequels, The Human Tornado and The Return of Dolemite.

Charlie Murphy

Charles Quinton Murphy was an American actor, comedian, and writer. He was best known as a writer and cast member of the Comedy Central sketch-comedy series Chappelle's Show and as the co-star of the sitcom Black Jesus.

Eddie Murphy

Edward Murphy is an American actor, comedian, and singer. Murphy was a regular cast member on Saturday Night Live from 1980 to 1984. He has worked as a stand-up comedian and was ranked No. 10 on Comedy Central's list of the 100 Greatest Stand-ups of All Time.

Patrice O’Neal

Patrice O'Neal was an American stand-up comedian, actor, and radio host. He grew up in Boston and developed an interest in stand-up comedy at a young age, first performing in 1992 when his act mainly focused on conversations with his audience.

Richard Pryor

Richard Pryor was an American stand-up comedian and actor. He reached a broad audience with his trenchant observations and storytelling style, and is widely regarded as one of the greatest and most influential stand-up comedians of all time.

Faith Ringgold

Faith Ringgold is a painter, writer, mixed media sculptor and performance artist, best known for her narrative quilts.

Chris Rock

Christopher Rock is an American comedian, actor, writer, producer, and director. After working as a stand-up comedian and appearing in supporting film roles, Rock came to wider prominence as a cast member of Saturday Night Live in the early 1990s.

Esther Rolle

Esther Rolle was an American actress. Rolle is best known for her role as Florida Evans, on the CBS television sitcom Maude, for two seasons, and its spin-off series Good Times, for five seasons.

RuPaul

RuPaul Andre Charles is an American drag queen, actor, model, singer, songwriter, and television personality. Since 2009, he has produced and hosted the reality competition series RuPaul's Drag Race, for which he has received six Primetime Emmy Awards, in 2016, 2017, 2018, and 2019.

Nipsey Russell

Julius “Nipsey” Russell was an American comedian, poet, and dancer best known for his appearances as a panelist on game shows from the 1960s through the 1990s, including Match Game, Password, Hollywood Squares, To Tell the Truth, and Pyramid.

Sinbad

David Adkins, better known by his stage name Sinbad, is an American stand-up comedian and actor. He became known in the 1990s from being featured on his own HBO specials, appearing on several television series such as A Different World, The Sinbad Show, Necessary Roughness, Jingle All the Way, Good Burger, and Planes.

Augusta Savage

Donna Summer

LaDonna Adrian Gaines, widely known by her stage name, Donna Summer, was an singer, songwriter and actress. She gained prominence during the disco era of the late 1970s and became known as the “Queen of Disco”, while her music gained a global following.

Chris Tucker

Christopher Tucker is an American actor and stand-up comedian. He is known for playing the role of Smokey in F. Gary Gray's Friday and as Detective James Carter in Brett Ratner's Rush Hour film series. He became a frequent stand up performer on Def Comedy Jam in the 1990s.

Danitra Vance

Danitra Vance was an American comedian and actress best known as a cast member on the NBC sketch show Saturday Night Live during its eleventh season and for work in feature films like Sticky Fingers, Limit Up and Jumpin’ at the Boneyard.

Jimmie Walker

James Carter Walker Jr. is an American actor and comedian. Walker is best known for portraying James Evans Jr., the oldest son of Florida and James Evans Sr. on the CBS television series Good Times, which ran from 1974 to 1979..

George Wallace

George Wallace is a standup comedian and writer who is recognized for having been a regular at the world famous Comedy Store in Los Angeles, CA. In 1995, he was named the Best Standup Comedian at the American Comedy Awards.

Fats Waller

Thomas Wright “Fats” Waller was an American jazz pianist, organist, composer, violinist, singer, and comedic entertainer. His innovations in the Harlem stride style laid the groundwork for modern jazz piano.

Keenan Ivory Wayans

Keenen Ivory Wayans Sr. is an American actor, comedian, filmmaker, and a member of the Wayans family of entertainers. He first came to prominence as the host and the creator of the 1990–1994 Fox sketch comedy series In Living Color.

Arts

Flip Wilson

Clerow “Flip” Wilson Jr. was an American comedian and actor best known for his television appearances during the late 1960s and the 1970s. From 1970 to 1974, Wilson hosted his own weekly variety series, The Flip Wilson Show, and introduced viewers to his recurring character Geraldine.

John Witherspoon

John Witherspoon is an American comedian and actor who has performed in many television shows and films. Best known for his role in the Friday series, Witherspoon has also starred in films such as Hollywood Shuffle (1987), Boomerang (1992) and Vampire In Brooklyn (1995).

Wally Amos

Wallace “Wally” Amos, Jr. is an American TV personality, entrepreneur, and author. He is the founder of the Famous Amos chocolate-chip cookie, the Cookie Kahuna, and Aunt Della’s Cookies gourmet cookie brands, and was the host of the adult reading program, Learn to Read.

Sam Cooke

Samuel Cook, known professionally as Sam Cooke, was an American singer, songwriter, civil-rights activist and entrepreneur. Influential as both a singer and composer, he is commonly known as the King of Soul for his distinctive vocals and importance within popular music.

Marcus Garvey

Marcus Garvey, Jr. ONH was a Jamaican political activist, publisher, journalist, entrepreneur, and orator. He was the founder and first President-General of the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League (UNIA-ACL, commonly known as UNIA).

Dick Gregory

Earvin ‘Magic’ Johnson

Earvin “Magic” Johnson Jr. is an American retired professional basketball player and former president of basketball operations of the Los Angeles Lakers of the National Basketball Association (NBA). He played point guard for the Lakers for 13 seasons.

Michael Jordan

Michael Jordan, also known by his initials MJ, is an American former professional basketball player and the principal owner of the Charlotte Hornets of the National Basketball Association (NBA).

Madam C.J. Walker

Sarah Breedlove, known as Madam C. J. Walker, was an African-American entrepreneur, philanthropist, and a political and social activist. Walker was considered the wealthiest African-American businesseswoman and wealthiest self-made woman in America at the time of her death in 1919.

Hosea Williams

Hosea Lorenzo Williams was an American civil rights leader, activist, ordained minister, businessman, philanthropist, scientist, and politician. A former aide to Martin Luther King Jr., was a principal leader of the civil rights movement.

Muhammad Ali

Muhammad Ali was an American professional boxer, activist, and philanthropist. Nicknamed “The Greatest,” he is widely regarded as one of the most significant and celebrated sports figures of the 20th century and as one of the greatest boxers of all time.

Maya Angelou

Maya Angelou was an American poet, singer, memoirist, and civil rights activist. She published seven autobiographies, three books of essays, several books of poetry, and is credited with a list of plays, movies, and television shows spanning over 50 years.

Ella Baker

Ella Baker was an African-American civil rights and human rights activist. She was a largely behind-the-scenes organizer whose career spanned more than five decades. In New York City and the South, she worked alongside some of the most noted civil rights leaders of the 20th century.

Josephine Baker

Josephine Baker was an American-born French entertainer, activist, and French Resistance agent. Her career was centered primarily in Europe, mostly in her adopted France.

James Baldwin

James Arthur Baldwin was an American novelist, playwright, and activist. His essays, as collected in Notes of a Native Son (1955), explore intricacies of racial, sexual, and class distinctions in Western societies, most notably in mid-20th-century North America.

Afrika Bambaataa

Afrika Bambaataa is an American disc jockey, rapper, songwriter and producer from the South Bronx, New York. He is notable for releasing a series of genre-defining electro tracks in the 1980s that influenced the development of hip hop culture.

Amiri Baraka

Amiri Baraka, previously known as LeRoi Jones and Imamu Amear Baraka, was an American writer of poetry, drama, fiction, essays and music criticism. He was the author of numerous books of poetry and taught at several universities.

Daisy Bates

Daisy Bates was an American civil rights activist, publisher, journalist, and lecturer who played a leading role in the Little Rock Integration Crisis of 1957.

Harry Belafonte

Harry Belafonte is an American singer, songwriter, activist, and actor. One of the most successful Jamaican-American pop stars in history, he was dubbed the “King of Calypso” for popularizing the Caribbean musical style with an international audience in the 1950s.

Mary McLeod Bethune

Mum Bett

Elizabeth Freeman, also known Mum Bett, was the first enslaved African American to file and win a freedom suit in Massachusetts. The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruling, in Freeman's favor, found slavery to be inconsistent with the 1780 Massachusetts State Constitution.

The Black Panther Party

The Black Panther Party (BPP), originally the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, was a revolutionary political organization in Oakland, California. The party was active in the United States from 1966 until 1982, with chapters in numerous major cities and international chapters.

Julian Bond

James Brown

James Joseph Brown was an American singer, songwriter, dancer, musician, record producer and bandleader. A progenitor of funk music and a major figure of 20th-century music and dance, he is often referred to as the “Godfather of Soul”.

Jim Brown

James Nathaniel Brown is an American former professional football player and actor. He was a running back for the Cleveland Browns of the National Football League (NFL) from 1957 through 1965.

Stokely Carmichael

Kwame Ture, born Stokely Standiford Churchill Carmichael, was a prominent organizer in the civil rights movement in the United States and the global pan-African movement. Born in Trinidad, he grew up in the United States from the age of 11 and became an activist while attending the Bronx High School of Science.

Septima Poinsette Clark

Sam Cooke

Samuel Cook, known professionally as Sam Cooke, was an American singer, songwriter, civil-rights activist, and entrepreneur. Influential as both a singer and composer, he is commonly known as the King of Soul for his distinctive vocals and importance within popular music.

Ruby Dee

Ruby Dee was an American actress, poet, playwright, screenwriter, journalist, and civil rights activist. She is perhaps best known for originating the role of “Ruth Younger” in the stage and film versions of A Raisin in the Sun (1961).

Frederick Douglass

W.E.B. Du Bois

James Farmer

James Leonard Farmer Jr. was an American civil rights activist and leader in the Civil Rights Movement “who pushed for nonviolent protest to dismantle segregation, and served alongside Martin Luther King Jr.” He was also the initiator and organizer of the first Freedom Ride in 1961.

Aretha Franklin

Aretha Franklin was an American singer, songwriter, pianist, and civil rights activist. By the end of the 1960s, Aretha Franklin had come to be known as “The Queen of Soul”.

Marcus Garvey

Dick Gregory

Fannie Lou Hamer

Fannie Lou Hamer was an American voting and women's rights activist, community organizer, and a leader in the civil rights movement. She was the co-founder and vice-chair of the Freedom Democratic Party, which she represented at the 1964 Democratic National Convention.

Dorothy Height

Dorothy Height was a revolutionary leader for the civil rights movement, known for her contributions and ideological breakthroughs. She's often referred to as being an extremely prominent figure, as she was of great significance in both women's rights and civil rights movements.

Bell Hooks

Lena Horne

Lena Horne was an American singer, dancer, actress, and civil rights activist. Horne's career spanned over 70 years appearing in film, television, and theater. Horne joined the chorus of the Cotton Club at the age of 16 and became a nightclub performer before moving to Hollywood.

Thomas L. Jennings

Thomas L. Jennings was an African-American inventor, tradesman, entrepreneur, and abolitionist in New York City, New York. He has the distinction of being the first African-American patent-holder in history; he was granted the patent in 1821 for his novel method of dry cleaning.

Barbara Jordan

Barbara Jordan was an American lawyer, educator and politician who was a leader of the Civil Rights Movement. Also, the first African American elected to the Texas Senate after Reconstruction and the first Southern African-American woman elected to the U.S. House of Representatives.

Coretta Scott King

Coretta Scott King was an American author, activist, civil rights leader, and the wife of Martin Luther King Jr. An active advocate for African-American equality, she was a leader for the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s.

Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Martin Luther King Jr. was an American Baptist minister and activist who became the most visible spokesperson and leader in the civil rights movement from 1955 until his assassination in 1968.

Jenifer Lewis

Jenifer Jeanette Lewis is an American actress, singer and activist. She began her career appearing in Broadway musicals and worked as a back-up singer for Bette Midler before appearing in films Beaches and Sister Act.

Audre Lorde

Miriam Makeba

Zenzile Miriam Makeba, nicknamed Mama Africa, was a South African singer, songwriter, actress, United Nations goodwill ambassador, and civil rights activist. Associated with musical genres, she was an advocate against apartheid and white-minority government in South Africa.

Nelson Mandela

Nelson Mandela was a South African anti-apartheid revolutionary, political leader, and philanthropist who served as President of South Africa from 1994 to 1999. He was the country's first black head of state and the first elected in a fully representative democratic election.

Cynthia McKinney

Cynthia McKinney is an American politician and activist who is an Assistant Professor at North South University, Bangladesh. As a member of the Democratic Party, she served six terms in the United States House of Representatives.

James Meredith

James Howard Meredith is an American civil rights movement figure, writer, political adviser, and Air Force veteran. In 1962, he became the first African-American student admitted to the theretofore segregated University of Mississippi, after the intervention of the federal government, an event that was a flashpoint in the civil rights movement.

Rosa Parks

Rosa Louise McCauley Parks was an American activist in the civil rights movement best known for her pivotal role in the Montgomery bus boycott. The United States Congress has honored her as “the first lady of civil rights” and “the mother of the freedom movement”.

A. Phillip Randolph

Asa Philip Randolph was a leader in the Civil Rights Movement, the American labor movement, and socialist political parties. In 1925, he organized and led the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, the first predominantly African-American labor union.

Faith Ringgold

Faith Ringgold is a painter, writer, mixed media sculptor and performance artist, best known for her narrative quilts.

Bayard Rustin

Bayard Rustin was an American leader in social movements for civil rights, socialism, nonviolence, and gay rights. Rustin worked with A. Philip Randolph on the March on Washington Movement in 1941 to press for an end to racial discrimination in employment.

Augusta Savage

Betty Shabazz

Betty Shabazz, also known as Betty X, was an American educator and civil rights advocate. She was the wife of Malcolm X. Along with her husband, Shabazz left the Nation of Islam in 1964.

Sojourner Truth

Sojourner Truth was an African-American abolitionist and women's rights activist. Truth was born into slavery in Swartekill, Ulster County, New York, but escaped with her infant daughter to freedom in 1826.

Harriet Tubman

Harriet Tubman was an American abolitionist and political activist. Born into slavery, she escaped and subsequently made some 13 missions to rescue approximately 70 enslaved people using the network of antislavery activists and safe houses known as the Underground Railroad.

Desmond Tutu

Desmond Tutu is a South African Anglican cleric and theologian known for his work as an anti-apartheid and human rights activist. He was the Bishop of Johannesburg from 1985 to 1986 and then the Archbishop of Cape Town from 1986 to 1996.

Alice Walker

Alice Walker is an American novelist, short story writer, poet, and social activist. In 1982, she wrote the novel The Color Purple, for which she won the National Book Award for hardcover fiction, and the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

Booker T. Washington

Booker Taliaferro Washington was an American educator, author, orator, and advisor to presidents of the United States. Between 1890 and 1915, Washington was the dominant leader in the African-American community.

Ida B. Wells-Barnett

Roy Wilkins

Roy Ottoway Wilkins was a prominent activist in the Civil Rights Movement in the United States from the 1930s to the 1970s. Wilkins’ most notable role was his leadership of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

Hosea Williams

Malcolm X

Malcolm X was an American Muslim minister and human rights activist who was a popular figure during the civil rights movement. He is best known for his controversial advocacy for the rights of blacks.

Whitney Young, Jr.

Whitney Young, Jr. was an American civil rights leader who spent most of his career working to end employment discrimination in the United States, along with elevating the National Urban League.

Richard Allen

George Foreman

George Foreman is an American former professional boxer. Nicknamed “Big George”, he is a two-time world heavyweight champion and an Olympic gold medalist. Outside the sport he is an ordained minister, author, and entrepreneur.

Bishop T.D. Jakes

Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Martin Luther King Jr. was an American Baptist minister and activist who became the most visible spokesperson and leader in the civil rights movement from 1955 until his assassination in 1968.

Desmond Tutu

Hosea Williams

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is an American retired professional basketball player who played 20 seasons in the National Basketball Association (NBA) for the Milwaukee Bucks and the Los Angeles Lakers.

Obba Babatundé

Obba Babatundé is an American stage and movie actor, voice actor, producer, director and singer. A native of Queens, New York, Babatundé has appeared in more than seventeen stage productions, thirty theatrical films, sixty made-for-television movies, and two prime-time series.

Mary J. Blige

Mary Jane Blige is an American singer, songwriter, actress, and philanthropist. Her career began in 1991 when she was signed to Uptown Records. She went on to release 13 studio albums, eight of which have achieved multi-platinum worldwide sales. Blige has sold 100 million records worldwide.

Chadwick Boseman

Chadwick Aaron Boseman was an American actor. During his two-decade career, Boseman received two Screen Actors Guild Awards, a Golden Globe Award, a Critics’ Choice Movie Award, and a Primetime Emmy Award, among other accolades. He was also nominated for an Academy Award.

Bobby Brown

Robert Barisford Brown is an American singer, songwriter and dancer. Brown, alongside frequent collaborator Teddy Riley, is noted as one of the pioneers of new jack swing: a fusion of hip hop and R&B.

Jim Brown

James Nathaniel Brown is an American former professional football player and actor. He was a running back for the Cleveland Browns of the National Football League (NFL) from 1957 through 1965.

LeVar Burton

Bernie Casey

Bernard Casey was an American actor, poet, and professional football player. He was an actor and director, known for Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure (1989), Revenge of the Nerds (1984) and Never Say Never Again (1983).

Cedric The Entertainer

Cedric Antonio Kyles, better known by his stage name Cedric the Entertainer, is an American actor, stand-up comedian, and game show host. He hosted BET's ComicView during the 1993–1994 season and Def Comedy Jam in 1995.

Wilt Chamberlain

Wilton Chamberlain was an American basketball player who played as a center and is considered one of the greatest players in history. He played for the Philadelphia/San Francisco Warriors, the Philadelphia 76ers, and the Los Angeles Lakers of the National Basketball Association (NBA).

Bill Cosby

Dorothy Jean Dandridge

Dorothy Jean Dandridge was an American film and theatre actress, singer, and dancer. She is perhaps one of the most famous black actresses to have a successful Hollywood career and the first to be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress for the 1954 film Carmen Jones.

Keith David

Sammy Davis, Jr.

Samuel Davis Jr. was an American singer, musician, dancer, actor, vaudevillian, comedian and activist known for his impressions of actors, musicians and other celebrities.

Ruby Dee

Loretta Devine

Loretta Devine is an American actress and singer, best known for her roles as Marla Hendricks in the Fox drama series Boston Public, and for her recurring role as Adele Webber on the medical drama Grey's Anatomy, for which she won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series in 2011.

Michael Clarke Duncan

Michael Clarke Duncan was an American actor best known for his breakout role as John Coffey in The Green Mile (1999), for which he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor and various similar honors.

Starletta Dupois

A gifted veteran character actress, Starletta DuPois has breathed life into a bevy of unforgettable roles both onstage and onscreen. Starletta is recognized from her roles in many cult classics including Friday After Next with Ice Cube and Mike Epps, Big Momma's House with Martin Lawrence, and Oliver Stone's South Central.

Antonio Fargas

Antonio Fargas is an American actor known for his roles in 1970s blaxploitation movies, as well as his portrayal of Huggy Bear in the 1970s TV series Starsky & Hutch.

Redd Foxx

John Sanford, better known by his stage name Redd Foxx, was an American stand-up comedian and actor. Foxx gained success with his raunchy nightclub acts during the 1950s and 1960s.

Morgan Freeman

Morgan Freeman is an American actor, film director, and film narrator. Freeman won an Academy Award in 2005 for Best Supporting Actor with Million Dollar Baby, and he has received Oscar nominations for Street Smart, Driving Miss Daisy, The Shawshank Redemption, and Invictus.

Ron Glass

Ronald Glass was an American actor. He was best known for his roles as literary Det. Ron Harris in the television sitcom Barney Miller, and as the spiritual Shepherd Derrial Book in the science-fiction series Firefly and its sequel film Serenity.

Whoopi Goldberg

Whoopi Goldberg is an American actor, comedian, author, and television personality. She has been nominated for 13 Emmy Awards and is one of the few entertainers to have won an Emmy Award, a Grammy Award, an Academy Award, and a Tony Award (EGOT).

Berry Gordy

Berry Gordy III is an American record executive, record producer, songwriter, film producer and television producer. He is best known as the founder of the Motown record label and its subsidiaries, which was the highest-earning African-American business for decades.

Eddie Griffin

Pam Grier

Pamela Grier is an American actress. Grier became known in the early 1970s for starring in a string of 1970s women in prison and blaxploitation films such as The Big Bird Cage, Coffy, Foxy Brown, and Sheba, Baby.

Arsenio Hall

Irma P. Hall

Irma Dolores Player Hall is an actress who has appeared in films and television shows since the early 1970s. Hall often played matriarchal figures in films including A Family Thing, The Ladykillers and Soul Food, in which she portrayed Josephine “Big Mama Joe” Joseph.

Jay Hawkins

Heavy D and The Boyz

Heavy D & the Boyz was a group which included Heavy D, the former leader, along with dancers/background vocalists G-Whiz, “Trouble” T. Roy, and Eddie F.

Geoffrey Holder

D.L. Hughley

Ice-T

Tracy Lauren Marrow, better known by his stage name Ice-T, is an American rapper, songwriter, actor, and producer. He began his career as an underground rapper in the 1980s and was signed to Sire Records in 1987, when he released his debut album Rhyme Pays ‐ reportedly the first hip-hop album to carry an explicit content sticker.

The Jackson 5

The Jackson 5 are an American pop band composed of members of the Jackson family. The group was founded in 1964 in Gary, Indiana, by Joe Jackson, as well as by brothers Jackie, Tito, and Jermaine, with younger brothers Marlon and Michael joining soon after.

Grace Jones

Grace Jones is a Jamaican-American model, singer, songwriter, record producer, and actress. In 2016, Billboard magazine ranked her as the 40th greatest dance club artist of all time.

James Earl Jones

James Earl Jones is an American actor. His career spans more than seven decades, and he has been described as “one of America's most distinguished and versatile” actors and “one of the greatest actors in American history“

Whitney Houston

Whitney Houston was an American singer and actress. She was cited as the most awarded female artist of all time by Guinness World Records and remains one of the best-selling music artists of all time with 200 million records sold worldwide.

Jim Kelly

James Milton Kelly was an American athlete, actor, and martial artist. Kelly rose to fame in the early 1970s appearing in several blaxploitation films. Kelly is perhaps best known for his role as Williams in the 1973 martial arts action film Enter the Dragon.

Kid ’n Play

Kid ’n Play is a hip-hop duo from New York City that was popular in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Besides their successful musical careers, they are also notable for branching out into acting.

Kool Moe Dee

Mohandas Dewese, better known by his stage name Kool Moe Dee, is an American rapper, writer and actor. Considered one of the forerunners of the new jack swing sound in hip hop, he gained fame in the 1980s as a member of one of the pioneering groups in hip hop music, the Treacherous Three, and for his later solo career.

Yaphet Kotto

Yaphet Kotto is an American actor known for numerous film roles, as well as starring in NBC's Homicide: Life on the Street as Lieutenant Al Giardello. Films include Alien, and the Arnold Schwarzenegger science-fiction/action film The Running Man.

Queen Latifah

Dana Elaine Owens, known professionally as Queen Latifah, is an American rapper, singer, songwriter, actress, and producer. She has long been considered one of hip-hop's pioneer feminists.

Martin Lawrence

Spike Lee

“Spike” Lee is a film director, producer, writer, and actor. His production company, 40 Acres and a Mule Filmworks, has produced over 35 films since 1983. He made his directorial debut with She's Gotta Have It, and has since directed such films as Do the Right Thing and Malcolm X.

Jenifer Lewis

Delroy Lindo

Delroy Lindo is a British-born American actor and theatre director. Lindo has been nominated for Tony and Screen Actors Guild awards and has won a Satellite Award. He is perhaps best known for his roles in three Spike Lee films, Malcolm X, Crooklyn, and Clockers.

LL Cool J

Bernie Mac

Bernard Jeffrey McCullough, better known by his stage name Bernie Mac, was an American comedian, actor, and voice actor. Born and raised on Chicago's South Side, Mac gained popularity as a stand-up comedian.

Cheryl Miller

Cheryl D. Miller is an American former basketball player. She was formerly a sideline reporter for NBA games on TNT Sports and also works for NBA TV as a reporter and analyst, having worked previously as a sportscaster for ABC Sports, TBS Sports, and ESPN.

Kelly Jo Minter

Kelly Jo Minter is an American former actress. Minter made her acting debut as “The Pilot” in an after school short movie with the same name, in 1984. Then the following year as Lorrie in Mask.

Paul Mooney

Rudy Ray Moore

Roger E. Mosley

Roger Earl Mosley was an American actor, director, and writer best known for his role as the helicopter pilot Theodore “T.C.” Calvin in the CBS television series Magnum, P.I., which originally aired from 1980 until 1988.

Eddie Murphy

Nichelle Nichols

Nichelle Nichols is an American actress, singer, and voice artist. She sang with Duke Ellington and Lionel Hampton before turning to acting. Nichols played Nyota Uhura aboard the USS Enterprise in the Star Trek television series, as well as the succeeding motion pictures.

Patrice O’Neal

Ron O’Neal

Ron O'Neal was an American actor, director and screenwriter, who rose to fame in his role as Youngblood Priest, a New York cocaine dealer, in blaxploitation films Super Fly and Super Fly T.N.T.. O'Neal was also a director and writer for the sequel, and for the film Up Against the Wall.

Outkast

Outkast were an American hip hop duo formed in 1992 in East Point, Georgia, consisting of Atlanta-based rappers André “3000” Benjamin and Antwan “Big Boi” Patton. Outkast is often regarded as one of the greatest and most influential hip hop acts of all time.

Gordon Parks

Gordon Parks was an American photographer, musician, writer and film director, who became prominent in U.S. documentary photojournalism in the 1940s through 1970s ‐ particularly in issues of civil rights, poverty and African-Americans ‐ and in glamour photography.

Melvin Van Peebles

Melvin “Block” Van Peebles is an American actor, filmmaker, playwright, novelist and composer. He is most famous for creating (and starring in) the acclaimed film Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song, which heralded a new era of black-focused films.

Wendell Pierce

Wendell Edward Pierce is an American actor and businessman. He is known for roles in HBO dramas such as Detective Bunk Moreland in The Wire and trombonist Antoine Batiste in Treme; as well as portraying James Greer in Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan, high-powered attorney Robert Zane in Suits, and Michael Davenport in Waiting to Exhale.

Sidney Poitier

Sir Sidney Poitier is a Bahamian-American actor and film director. He received two nominations for the Academy Award for Best Actor, winning one, by which he became the first black actor to win the Award.

Richard Pryor

Sheryl Lee Ralph

Sheryl Lee Ralph is an American actress, singer, author, and activist. She made her screen debut in the 1977 comedy film A Piece of the Action, before landing her breakthrough role as Deena Jones in the Broadway musical Dreamgirls, for which she received Tony Award nomination.

Lou Rawls

Louis Allen Rawls was an American singer, songwriter, actor, voice actor, and record producer. Rawls released more than 60 albums, sold more than 40 million records, and had numerous charting singles, most notably his song “You'll Never Find Another Love like Mine”.

Chris Rock

Diana Ross

Diana Ross is an American singer, actress, and record producer. Ross rose to fame as the lead singer of the the Supremes, which became Motown's most successful act, and are the best charting girl group in U.S. history, as well as one of the world's best-selling girl groups of all time.

Richard Roundtree

Richard Roundtree is an American actor and former model. Roundtree is noted as being “the first black action hero” for his portrayal of private detective John Shaft in the 1971 film Shaft, and its four sequels, released between 1972 and 2019.

RuPaul

Nipsey Russell

Sinbad

John Singleton

John Singleton was a film director, screenwriter, producer, and actor. He was best known for directing Boyz n the Hood, for which he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Director.

Tupac Shakur

Tupac Amaru Shakur, known professionally as 2Pac and Makaveli, was an American rapper and actor. Much of Shakur's work has been noted for addressing contemporary social issues that plagued inner cities, and he is considered a symbol of resistance and activism against inequality.

Kimbo Slice

Kevin Ferguson, better known as Kimbo Slice, was a Bahamian-American mixed martial artist, boxer, bare-knuckle boxer, professional wrestler and occasional actor. He became noted for mutual combat street fights which were spread across the Internet, leading Rolling Stone to call him “The King of the Web Brawlers”.

Wesley Snipes

Wesley Snipes is an American actor, director, film producer, martial artist, and author. His prominent film roles include New Jack City, White Men Can't Jump, Passenger 57, Demolition Man, and the Marvel Comics character Blade in the Blade film trilogy.

Chris Tucker

Tina Turner

Tina Turner is a retired singer, songwriter, and actress who is internationally recognized. One of the best-selling recording artists of all time, she has been referred to as The Queen of Rock ‘n’ Roll and has sold more than 200 million records worldwide.

Cicely Tyson

Cicely Tyson is a actress and former fashion model. In a career spanning more than six decades, she became known for her portrayal of strong African-American women. She's also a recipient of multiple awards, including Emmys, Black Reels, and more.

Mike Tyson

Michael Tyson is a former professional boxer who competed from 1985 to 2005. He reigned as the undisputed world heavyweight champion and holds the record as the youngest boxer to win a heavyweight title at 20 years, four months and 22 days old.

Danitra Vance

Jimmie Walker

Keenan Ivory Wayans

Lynn Whitfield

Lynn Whitfield is an American actress. She began her acting career in television and theatre before progressing to supporting roles in film. She won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Limited Series or Movie and a Golden Globe Award nomination for HBO's The Josephine Baker Story.

Billy Dee Williams

“Billy Dee” Williams, Jr. is an American actor, artist, and singer. Williams is best known for his role as Lando Calrissian in the Star Wars film franchise, first appearing in The Empire Strikes Back.

Flip Wilson

Nancy Wilson

Nancy Wilson was an American singer whose career spanned over five decades, from the mid–1950s until her retirement in the early–2010s. She was notable for her single “(You Don't Know) How Glad I Am” and her version of the standard “Guess Who I Saw Today”.

Oprah Winfrey

Oprah Winfrey is a media executive, actress, talk show host, television producer and philanthropist. She is best known for her talk show The Oprah Winfrey Show, which was the highest-rated television program of its kind in history and ran in national syndication for 25 years from 1986 to 2011.

John Witherspoon

Robert Sengstacke Abbott

Robert Sengstacke Abbott was an American lawyer, newspaper publisher and editor. Abbott founded The Chicago Defender in 1905, which grew to have the highest circulation of any black-owned newspaper in the country.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is a Nigerian writer whose works range from novels to short stories to nonfiction. Adichie, who was born in the city of Enugu in Nigeria, grew up as the fifth of six children in an Igbo family in the university town of Nsukka in Enugu State.

Chinua Achebe

Richard Allen

Maya Angelou

James Baldwin

Amiri Baraka

Gwendolyn Brooks

Shirley Chisholm

Frederick Douglass

Rita Dove

Rita Frances Dove is an American poet and essayist. From 1993 to 1995, she served as Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress. She is the first African American to have been appointed since the position was created by an act of Congress in 1986 from the previous “consultant in poetry” position.

Edward Joseph Dwight, Jr.

Ralph Ellison

Marcus Garvey

Dick Gregory

Lorraine Hansberry

Lorraine Hansberry was a playwright and writer. Hansberry was the first black female author to have a play performed on Broadway. Her best known work, the play A Raisin in the Sun, highlights the lives of Black Americans living under racial segregation in Chicago.

Josiah Henson

Josiah Henson was an author, abolitionist, and minister. Born into slavery, he escaped to Upper Canada in 1830, and founded a settlement and laborer's school for other fugitive slaves at Dawn, near Dresden, in Kent County, Upper Canada, of British Canada.

Bell Hooks

Langston Hughes

Langston Hughes was an American poet, social activist, novelist, playwright, and columnist. One of the earliest innovators of the then-new literary art form called jazz poetry, Hughes is best known as a leader of the Harlem Renaissance.

Zora Hurston

Zora Neale Hurston was an influential author of African-American literature, anthropologist, and filmmaker, who portrayed racial struggles in the early-20th-century American South, and published research on Haitian Vodou.

Gwen Ifill

Gwendolyn L. Ifill was an American journalist, television newscaster, and author. In 1999, she became the first woman of African descent to host a nationally televised U.S. public affairs program with Washington Week in Review.

Coretta Scott King

Etheridge Knight

Etheridge Knight was an African-American poet who made his name in 1968 with his debut volume, Poems from Prison. His second book, first published in Italy under the title Voce negre dal carcere, appeared in English in 1970 as Black Voices from Prison.

Kool Moe Dee

Alain Leroy Locke

Audre Lorde

James Meredith

Toni Morrison

Chloe Anthony Wofford Morrison, known as Toni Morrison, was an American novelist. Her first novel, The Bluest Eye, was published in 1970. The critically acclaimed Song of Solomon (1977) brought her national attention and won the National Book Critics Circle Award. In 1988, Morrison won the Pulitzer Prize for Beloved (1987); she was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1993.

Ishmael Reed

Ishmael Scott Reed is an American poet, novelist, essayist, songwriter, playwright, editor and publisher known for his satirical works challenging American political culture. Perhaps his best-known work is Mumbo Jumbo, a sprawling and unorthodox novel set in 1920s New York.

Faith Ringgold

Faith Ringgold is a painter, writer, mixed media sculptor and performance artist, best known for her narrative quilts.

Alice Walker

Margaret Walker

Margaret Walker was an American poet and writer. She was part of the African-American literary movement in Chicago, known as the Chicago Black Renaissance.

Richard Wright

Richard Nathaniel Wright was an American author of novels, short stories, poems, and non-fiction. Much of his literature concerns racial themes, especially related to the plight of African Americans during the late 19th to mid-20th centuries suffering discrimination and violence.

Guion Bluford

Guion Bluford Jr., Ph.D., is an American aerospace engineer, retired U.S. Air Force officer and fighter pilot, and former NASA astronaut, who is the first African American and the second person of African descent to go to space.

Edward Joseph Dwight, Jr.

Military

Henry Ossian Flipper

Henry Ossian Flipper was an American soldier, former slave and, in 1877, the first African American to graduate from the United States Military Academy at West Point, earning a commission as a second lieutenant in the US Army.

Marcus Garvey

James Meredith

Milton Lee Olive III

Milton Lee Olive III was a United States Army soldier and a recipient of America's highest military decoration ‐ the Medal of Honor ‐ for his actions in the Vietnam War. At the age of 18, Olive sacrificed his life to save others by falling on a grenade. He was the first African-American recipient of the Medal of Honor from the Vietnam War.

Shaka Zulu

Shaka kaSenzangakhona, also known as Shaka Zulu, was one of the most influential monarchs of the Zulu Kingdom.

Aaliyah

Aaliyah was an American singer, actress, and model. Billboard lists her as the tenth most successful female R&B artist of the past 25 years, and the 27th most successful in history.

Louis Armstrong

Louis Armstrong, nicknamed Satchmo, Satch, and Pops, was an American trumpeter, composer, vocalist and occasional actor who was one of the most influential figures in jazz. His career spanned five decades, from the 1920s to the 1960s, and different eras in the history of jazz.

Roy Ayers

Roy Ayers is an American funk, soul, and jazz composer, vibraphone player, and music producer. Ayers began his career as a post-bop jazz artist, releasing several albums with Atlantic Records, before his tenure at Polydor Records beginning in the 1970s, during which he helped pioneer jazz-funk.

Babyface

Kenneth Brian Edmonds, known professionally as Babyface, is an American singer, songwriter and record producer. He has written and produced over 26 number-one R&B hits throughout his career, and has won 11 Grammy Awards.

Josephine Baker

Josephine Baker was an American-born French entertainer, activist, and French Resistance agent. Her career was centered primarily in Europe, mostly in her adopted France.

Afrika Bambaataa

Count Basie

“Count” Basie was an American jazz pianist, organist, bandleader, and composer. In 1935, Basie formed his own jazz orchestra, the Count Basie Orchestra, and in 1936 took them to Chicago for a long engagement and their first recording.

Harry Belafonte

Chuck Berry

Charles Berry was an American singer and songwriter, and one of the pioneers of rock and roll music. With songs such as “Maybellene” and “Johnny B. Goode”, Berry refined and developed rhythm and blues into the major elements that made rock and roll distinctive.

Mary J. Blige

Bobby Brown

James Brown

Diahann Carroll

Diahann Carroll is an American actress, singer and model. She rose to stardom in performances in some of the earliest major studio films to feature black casts, including Carmen Jones and Porgy and Bess.

Grandmaster Caz

Curtis Brown, better known by his stage name Casanova Fly a.k.a Grandmaster Caz, is an American rapper, songwriter and DJ. He currently works as a celebrity tour guide for Hush Hip Hop Tours, a hip-hop cultural sightseeing tour company in New York City.

Ray Charles

Ray Charles was an American singer, songwriter, musician, and composer. Among friends and fellow musicians he preferred being called “Brother Ray”. He was often referred to as “The Genius”. Charles started losing his vision at the age of 5, and by 7 he was blind.

George Clinton

George Clinton is an American singer, songwriter, bandleader, and record producer. His Parliament-Funkadelic collective developed an influential and eclectic form of funk music during the 1970s that drew on science fiction, fashion, psychedelic culture, and surreal humor.

Nat King Cole

Nathaniel Adams Coles, known professionally as Nat King Cole, was an American jazz pianist and vocalist. He recorded over one hundred songs that became hits on the pop charts. His trio was the model for small jazz ensembles that followed.

John Coltrane

John Coltrane was an American jazz saxophonist and composer. Working in the bebop and hard bop idioms early in his career, Coltrane helped pioneer the use of modes and was at the forefront of free jazz.

Sam Cooke

Dorothy Jean Dandridge

Miles Davis

Miles Davis was an American jazz trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. Among the most influential and acclaimed figures in the history of jazz and 20th century music.

Sammy Davis, Jr.

Samuel Davis Jr. was an American singer, musician, dancer, actor, vaudevillian, comedian and activist known for his impressions of actors, musicians and other celebrities.

De La Soul

De La Soul is an American hip hop trio formed in 1988 in the Amityville area of Long Island, New York. They are best known for their eclectic sampling, quirky lyrics, and their contributions to the evolution of the jazz rap and alternative hip hop subgenres.

Death

Death is an American rock band formed in Detroit, Michigan in 1971 by brothers Bobby (bass, vocals), David (guitar), and Dannis (drums) Hackney. The trio started out as a funk band but switched to rock after seeing a concert by The Who. Seeing Alice Cooper play was also an inspiration.

DMX

Earl Simmons, known professionally as DMX, was an American rapper and actor. He began rapping in the early 1990s and released his debut album It's Dark and Hell Is Hot in 1998, to both critical acclaim and commercial success, selling 251,000 copies within its first week of release. DMX released his best-selling album, …And Then There Was X, in 1999, which included the hit single “Party Up (Up in Here)”.

Fats Domino

Antoine “Fats” Domino Jr. was an American pianist and singer-songwriter. One of the pioneers of rock and roll music, Domino sold more than 65 million records. Between 1955 and 1960, he had eleven Top 10 hits.

Lamont Dozier

Lamont Herbert Dozier was an American singer, songwriter, and record producer from Detroit, Michigan. He co-wrote and produced 14 US Billboard number-one hits and four number ones in the UK.

Earth, Wind & Fire

Earth, Wind & Fire (abbreviated as EW&F or simply EWF) is an American band that has spanned the musical genres of R&B, soul, funk, jazz, disco, pop, rock, dance, Latin, and Afro pop. They have been described as one of the most innovative and commercially successful acts of all time.

“Duke” Ellington

“Duke” Ellington was an American composer, pianist, and leader of a jazz orchestra, which he led from 1923 until his death over a career spanning more than six decades. Ellington was noted for his inventive use of the orchestra, or big band, and for his eloquence and charisma.

Ella Fitzgerald

Ella Fitzgerald was an American jazz singer sometimes referred to as the First Lady of Song, Queen of Jazz, and Lady Ella. She was noted for her purity of tone, impeccable diction, phrasing, intonation, and a “horn-like” improvisational ability, particularly in her scat singing.

DJ Grandmaster Flash

Joseph Saddler, better known by his stage name Grandmaster Flash is an American hip hop recording artist and DJ. He is considered to be one of the pioneers of hip-hop DJing, cutting, scratching and mixing.

Aretha Franklin

Aretha Franklin was an American singer, songwriter, pianist, and civil rights activist. By the end of the 1960s, Aretha Franklin had come to be known as “The Queen of Soul”.

Doug E. Fresh

Douglas Davis, better known by his stage name Doug E. Fresh, is a Barbadian-born American rapper, record producer and beatboxer, also known as the “Human Beat Box”.

Marvin Gaye

Marvin Gaye was an American singer, songwriter, and record producer. He helped to shape the sound of Motown in the 1960s, first as an in-house session player and later as a solo artist with a string of hits, earning him the nicknames “Prince of Motown” and “Prince of Soul”.

Berry Gordy

Jay Hawkins

Issac Hayes

Isaac Hayes was an American singer, songwriter, actor, and producer. Hayes was one of the creative forces behind the Southern soul music label Stax Records, where he served both as an in-house songwriter and as a session musician and record producer.

Heavy D and The Boyz

Heavy D & the Boyz was a group which included Heavy D, the former leader, along with dancers/background vocalists G-Whiz, “Trouble” T. Roy, and Eddie F.

“Jimi“ Hendrix

“Jimi“ Hendrix was an American rock guitarist, singer, and songwriter. His mainstream career lasted only four years, but he is widely regarded as one of the most influential guitarists in history and one of the most celebrated musicians of the 20th century.

Nona Hendryx

Nona Hendryx, is an American vocalist, record producer, songwriter, musician, author, and actress. Hendryx is known for her work as a solo artist as well as for being one-third of the trio Labelle, who had a hit with “Lady Marmalade.”

Billie Holiday

Eleanora Fagan, better known as Billie Holiday, was an African American jazz singer with a career spanning nearly thirty years. Nicknamed “Lady Day” by her friend and music partner Lester Young, Holiday had a seminal influence on jazz music and pop singing.

Lena Horne

Whitney Houston

Ice-T

The Isley Brothers

The Isley Brothers are an American musical group that started as a vocal trio consisting of brothers O’Kelly Isley Jr., Rudolph Isley, and Ronald Isley. The group has been cited as having enjoyed one of the “longest, most influential, and most diverse careers in the pantheon of popular music”.

“Freddie” Jackson

“Freddie” Jackson is an American Grammy-nominated singer. Originally from New York, Jackson began his professional music career in the late 1970s with the California funk band Mystic Merlin.

Janet Jackson

Janet Jackson is an American singer, songwriter, actress, and dancer. A prominent figure in popular culture, she is known for sonically innovative, socially conscious and sexually provocative records, and elaborate stage shows.

The Jackson 5

Mahalia Jackson

Mahalia Jackson was an American gospel singer, widely considered one of the most influential vocalists of the 20th century. With a career spanning 40 years, Jackson was integral to the development and spread of gospel blues in black churches throughout the U.S.

Michael Jackson

Michael Jackson was an American singer, songwriter, and dancer. Dubbed the “King of Pop”, he is regarded as one of the most significant cultural figures of the 20th century and one of the greatest entertainers.

Grace Jones

Grace Jones is a Jamaican-American model, singer, songwriter, record producer, and actress. In 2016, Billboard magazine ranked her as the 40th greatest dance club artist of all time.

Quincy Jones

Quincy Jones is an American record producer, multi-instrumentalist, singer, composer, arranger, and film and television producer. His career spans over 60 years in the entertainment industry with a record 80 Grammy Award nominations, 28 Grammys, and a Grammy Legend Award.

Big Daddy Kane

Antonio Hardy, better known by his stage name Big Daddy Kane, is a Grammy Award-winning American rapper and actor who started his career in 1986 as a member of the rap collective the Juice Crew. He is widely considered to be one of the most influential and skilled MCs in hip hop.

Chaka Khan

Yvette Marie Stevens, better known by her stage name Chaka Khan, is an American singer, songwriter and musician. Her career has spanned nearly five decades, beginning in the 1970s as the lead vocalist of the funk band Rufus.

Kid ’n Play

Kid ’n Play is an American hip-hop duo from New York City that was popular in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The duo was composed of Christopher Reid (“Kid”) and Christopher Martin (“Play”) working alongside their DJ, Mark “DJ Wiz” Eastmond.

Gladys Knight & The Pips

Gladys Knight & the Pips were an R&B/soul family musical act from Atlanta, Georgia that remained active on the music charts and performing circuit for three decades.

Music

Kool Moe Dee

Fela Kuti

Fela Kuti, or simply Fela, was a Nigerian multi-instrumentalist, musician, composer, pioneer of the Afrobeat music genre and human rights activist. At the height of his popularity, he was referred to as one of Africa's most “challenging and charismatic music performers.”

Queen Latifah

Dana Elaine Owens, known professionally as Queen Latifah, is an American rapper, singer, songwriter, actress, and producer. She has long been considered one of hip-hop's pioneer feminists.

Jenifer Lewis

Living Colour

Living Colour is an American rock band from New York City, formed in 1984. The band currently consists of guitarist Vernon Reid, lead vocalist Corey Glover, drummer Will Calhoun and bassist Doug Wimbish. Stylistically, their music is a creative fusion influenced by heavy metal, funk, jazz, hip hop, punk, and alternative rock.

LL Cool J

MC Lyte

Lana Michelle Moorer, known professionally as MC Lyte, is an American rapper who first gained fame in the late 1980s, becoming the first solo female rapper to release a full album with 1988's critically acclaimed Lyte as a Rock. She has long been considered one of hip-hop's pioneer feminists.

Miriam Makeba

Zenzile Miriam Makeba, nicknamed Mama Africa, was a South African singer, songwriter, actress, United Nations goodwill ambassador, and civil rights activist. Associated with various musical genres, she was an advocate against apartheid and white-minority government in South Africa.

Bob Marley

Robert Nesta Marley, OM was a Jamaican singer and songwriter. Considered one of the pioneers of reggae, his musical career was marked by blending elements of reggae, ska, and rocksteady, as well as forging a smooth and distinctive vocal and songwriting style.

Wynton Marsalis

Wynton Marsalis is an American virtuoso trumpeter, composer, teacher, and artistic director of Jazz at Lincoln Center. He has promoted classical and jazz music, often to young audiences.

Curtis Mayfield

Curtis Mayfield was an American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and record producer, and one of the most influential musicians behind soul and politically conscious African-American music.

The Miracles

The Miracles were an American rhythm and blues vocal group that was the first successful recording act for Berry Gordy's Motown Records, and one of the most important and influential groups in pop, rock and roll, and R&B music history.

Thelonious Monk

Thelonious Monk was an American jazz pianist and composer. Monk is the second-most-recorded jazz composer after Duke Ellington, which is particularly remarkable as Ellington composed more than a thousand pieces, whereas Monk wrote about 70.

N.W.A

N.W.A (Niggaz Wit Attitudes) was an American hip-hop group. They were among the earliest and most significant popularizers and controversial figures of the gangsta rap subgenre, and are widely considered one of the greatest and most influential groups in the history of hip-hop music.

Naughty By Nature

Naughty by Nature is an American hip hop trio from East Orange, New Jersey consisting of Treach (Anthony Criss), Vin Rock (Vincent Brown), and DJ Kay Gee (Keir Lamont Gist).

Nichelle Nichols

The Notorious B.I.G.

Christopher Wallace, known professionally as The Notorious B.I.G., Biggie Smalls, or Biggie, was an American rapper. Widely considered to be one of the greatest rappers of all time. He was noted for his “loose, easy flow”; dark, semi-autobiographical lyrics; and storytelling abilities.

Outkast

Charley Frank Pride

Charley Frank Pride was an American singer, guitarist, and professional baseball player. His greatest musical success came in the early to mid-1970s, when he was the best-selling performer for RCA Records since Elvis Presley. During the peak years of his recording career (1966–1987), he had 52 top-10 hits on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart, 30 of which made it to number one.

Prince

Prince was an American singer, songwriter, musician, record producer, dancer, actor, and filmmaker. With a career spanning four decades, Prince was known for his eclectic work and flamboyant stage appearances. He was also a multi-instrumentalist and regarded as a guitar virtuoso.

Public Enemy

Public Enemy is an American hip hop group known for their politically charged music and criticism of the American media, with an active interest in the frustrations and concerns of the African American community.

Rakim

William Michael Griffin Jr., better known by his stage name Rakim, is an American rapper. One half of golden age hip hop duo Eric B. & Rakim, he is widely regarded as one of the most influential and most skilled MCs of all time.

Lou Rawls

Ishmael Reed

Diana Ross

Diana Ross is an American singer, actress, and record producer. Ross rose to fame as the lead singer of the Supremes, becoming Motown's most successful act, and are the best charting girl group in U.S. history, as well as one of the world's best-selling girl groups of all time.

Ursula Rucker

Ursula Rucker is an American spoken word recording artist. Rucker is known for a diverse repertoire, and for using techniques that catch her listeners’ attention.

Run-D.M.C.

Run-D.M.C. was an American hip hop group, founded in 1983 by Joseph Simmons, Darryl McDaniels, and Jason Mizell. Run-DMC is widely acknowledged as one of the most influential acts in the history of hip hop culture and one of the most famous hip hop acts of the 1980s.

RuPaul

Sade

Helen Folasade Adu, CBE, known professionally as Sade Adu or simply Sade, is a British Nigerian singer, songwriter, and actress, known as the lead singer of her eponymous band.

Salt ’n Pepa

Salt-N-Pepa is an American hip-hop girl group formed in 1985. Group members included Salt, Pepa, and DJ Spinderella.

Pharoah Sanders

Pharoah Sanders is an American jazz saxophonist. A member of John Coltrane's groups of the mid-1960s, Sanders is known for his overblowing, harmonic, and multiphonic techniques on the saxophone, as well as his use of “sheets of sound”.

Mongo Santamaria

Ramón “Mongo” Santamaría Rodríguez was a Cuban percussionist and bandleader who spent most of his career in the United States. Primarily a conga drummer, Santamaría was a leading figure in the pachanga and boogaloo dance crazes of the 1960s. His biggest hit was his rendition of Herbie Hancock's “Watermelon Man”, which was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1998.

Scarface

Brad Terrence Jordan, better known by his stage name Scarface, is an American rapper, record producer, and politician, best known as a member of the Geto Boys, a hip hop group from Houston, Texas. In 2012, The Source ranked him #16 on their list of the Top 50 Lyricists of All Time.

Tupac Shakur

Roxanne Shante

Lolita Shanté Gooden, better known by her stage name Roxanne Shante, is an American rapper. Born and raised in the Queensbridge Projects of Queens, New York City, Shante first gained attention through the ‘Roxanne Wars’ and was part of the Juice Crew. The 2017 film, Roxanne Roxanne, is a dramatization of Shante's life.

Bessie Smith

Bessie Smith was an American blues singer. Nicknamed the Empress of the Blues, she was the most popular female blues singer of the 1920s and 1930s. She is often regarded as one of the greatest singers of her era and was a major influence on fellow blues singers, as well as jazz vocalists.

Donna Summer

The Temptations

The Temptations are an American vocal group who released a series of successful singles and albums with Motown Records during the 1960s and 1970s.

Rosetta Tharpe

Sister Rosetta Tharpe was an American singer, songwriter, and guitarist. She attained popularity in the 1930s and 1940s with her gospel recordings, characterized by a unique mixture of spiritual lyrics and rhythmic accompaniment that was a precursor of rock and roll.

Peter Tosh

Peter Tosh, OM was a Jamaican reggae musician. Along with Bob Marley and Bunny Wailer, he was one of the core members of the band the Wailers, after which he established himself as a successful solo artist and a promoter of Rastafari.

Tina Turner

Fats Waller

Barry White

Barry Carter, known as Barry White, was an American singer-songwriter, musician, record producer and composer. A three-time Grammy Award–winner known for his distinctive bass-baritone voice and romantic image, his greatest success came in the 1970s as a solo singer.

Bobby Womack

Robert Womack was an American singer, songwriter, musician, and record producer. Starting as the lead singer of his family musical group the Valentinos and as Sam Cooke's backing guitarist, his career spanned more than 60 years and multiple styles, including R&B and soul.

Stevie Wonder

Stevland Hardaway Morris, better known by his stage name Stevie Wonder, is an American singer, songwriter, musician and record producer. A prominent figure in popular music, he is one of the most successful musicians of the 20th century.

Julian Bond

Carol Moseley Braun

Carol Elizabeth Moseley Braun, also sometimes Moseley-Braun, is an American diplomat, politician, and lawyer who represented Illinois in the United States Senate from 1993 to 1999. She is the first female African-American U.S. Senator in history.

Shirley Chisholm

David Dinkins

Marcus Garvey

Barbara Jordan

Nelson Mandela

Cynthia McKinney

Hosea Williams

Dr. Patricia Bath

Dr. Patricia Era Bath was an American ophthalmologist, inventor, humanitarian, and academic. She was the inventor of laser cataract surgery. Her invention was called Laserphaco Probe.

Guion Bluford

Guion Stewart Bluford Jr., Ph.D., is an American aerospace engineer, retired U.S. Air Force officer and fighter pilot, and former NASA astronaut, who is the first African American and the second person of African descent to go to space.

George Washington Carver

W.E.B. Du Bois

Edward Joseph Dwight, Jr.

Zora Hurston

Mae Jemison

Mae Carol Jemison is an American engineer, physician, and former NASA astronaut. She became the first black woman to travel in space when she served as a mission specialist aboard the Space Shuttle Endeavour.

Thomas L. Jennings

Alain Leroy Locke

Mary Mahoney

Mary Eliza Mahoney was the first African American to study and work as a professionally trained nurse in the United States. In 1879, Mahoney was the first African American to graduate from an American school of nursing.

A. Phillip Randolph

Betty Shabazz

Betty Shabazz, also known as Betty X, was an American educator and civil rights advocate. She was the wife of Malcolm X. Along with her husband, Shabazz left the Nation of Islam in 1964.

Madam C.J. Walker

James Edward Maceo West

James Edward Maceo West is an American inventor and acoustician. He holds over 250 foreign and U.S. patents for the production and design of microphones and techniques for creating polymer foil electrets.

Hosea Williams

Dr. Carter G. Woodson

Hank Aaron

Henry Aaron, nicknamed “Hammer” or “Hammerin’ Hank,” is a American Major League Baseball athlete who serves as the senior vice president of the Atlanta Braves. He played 21 seasons for the Milwaukee/Atlanta Braves and two seasons for the Milwaukee Brewers in the American League.

Muhammad Ali

Henry Armstrong

Henry Jackson Jr. was an American professional boxer and a world boxing champion who fought under the name Henry Armstrong. Armstrong was one of the few fighters to win in three or more different divisions: featherweight, lightweight, and welterweight. He defended his welterweight title a total of nineteen times.

Arthur Ashe

Arthur Ashe Jr. was an American professional tennis player who won three Grand Slam titles. Ashe was the first black player selected to the United States Davis Cup team and the only black man ever to win the singles title at Wimbledon, the US Open, and the Australian Open.

Bob Beamon

Robert Beamon is an American former track and field athlete, best known for his world record in the long jump at the Mexico City Olympics in 1968. He broke the existing record by a margin of 55cm and his world record stood for almost 23 years until it was broken by Mike Powell.

Riddick Bowe

Riddick Lamont Bowe is a retired American professional boxer who competed between 1989 and 2008. He reigned as the undisputed world heavyweight champion in 1992, and as an amateur he won a silver medal in the super heavyweight division at the 1988 Summer Olympics.

Jim Brown

James Nathaniel Brown is an American former professional football player and actor. He was a running back for the Cleveland Browns of the National Football League (NFL) from 1957 through 1965.

Kobe Bryant

Kobe Bean Bryant was an American professional basketball player. A shooting guard, he spent his entire 20-year career with the Los Angeles Lakers in the National Basketball Association (NBA).

Rod Carew

Rodney Carew is a former Major League Baseball first baseman, second baseman and coach of Panamanian descent. He played from 1967 to 1985 for the Minnesota Twins and the California Angels and was elected to the All-Star game every season except his last.

Bernie Casey

Wilt Chamberlain

Ernie Davis

Ernest Davis was an American football player, a halfback who won the Heisman Trophy in 1961 and was its first African-American recipient. Davis played college football for Syracuse University and was the first pick in the 1962 NFL Draft.

Julius Erving

Julius Erving II, commonly known by the nickname Dr. J, is an American retired basketball player who helped popularize a modern style of play that emphasizes leaping and playing above the rim in his career at the ABA and the NBA.

George Foreman

Joe Frazier

Joseph Frazier, nicknamed “Smokin’ Joe”, was an American professional boxer who competed from 1965 to 1981. He reigned as the undisputed heavyweight champion from 1970 to 1973, and as an amateur won a gold medal at the 1964 Summer Olympics.

Marvin Hagler

Marvelous Marvin Hagler is an American former professional boxer. He reigned as the undisputed middleweight champion in the 1980's, making twelve defenses of that title, and currently holds the highest knockout percentage of all undisputed middleweight champions.

Herbie Hancock

Herbert Jeffrey Hancock is an American pianist, keyboardist, bandleader, composer and actor. He helped redefine the role of a jazz rhythm section and was one of the primary architects of the post-bop sound (with the Miles Davis Quintet).

Jay Hawkins

Evander Holyfield

Evander Holyfield is an American former professional boxer. He reigned as the undisputed champion at cruiserweight in the late 1980s and at heavyweight in the early 1990s, and remains the only boxer in history to win the undisputed championship in two weight classes.

Flo Hyman

Flora Jean “Flo” Hyman was an American athlete who played volleyball. She was an Olympic silver medalist and played professional volleyball in Japan.

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is an American retired professional basketball player who played 20 seasons in the National Basketball Association (NBA) for the Milwaukee Bucks and the Los Angeles Lakers.

Earvin ‘Magic’ Johnson

Jack Johnson

John Johnson, nicknamed the Galveston Giant, was an American boxer who, at the height of the Jim Crow era, became the first African American world heavyweight boxing champion. Among the period's most dominant champions, he remains a boxing legend.

Rocky Johnson

Rocky Johnson was a Canadian professional wrestler. Among many National Wrestling Alliance titles, he was the first black Georgia Heavyweight Champion. He won the World Tag Team Championship, along with his partner Tony Atlas, in 1983 to become the first black champions in WWE history.

Michael Jordan

Michael Jordan, also known by his initials MJ, is an American former professional basketball player and the principal owner of the Charlotte Hornets of the National Basketball Association (NBA).

Florence Griffith Joyner

Florence Griffith Joyner, also known as Flo-Jo, was an American track and field athlete. She is considered the fastest woman of all time based on the fact that the world records she set in 1988 for both the 100m and 200m still stand.

Jim Kelly

Jackie Joyner-Kersee

Jacqueline Joyner-Kersee is an American retired track and field athlete, ranked among the all-time greatest athletes in the heptathlon as well as long jump. She won three gold, one silver, and two bronze Olympic medals, in those two events at four different Olympic Games.

Junkyard Dog

Sylvester Ritter was an American professional wrestler and college football player, best known for his work in Mid-South Wrestling and the World Wrestling Federation as the Junkyard Dog (or JYD), a nickname he received while working in a wrecking yard. He was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame class of 2004.

Ernie Ladd

Ernest Ladd, nicknamed “The Big Cat”, was an American professional football player and professional wrestler. Ladd was inducted into the San Diego Chargers Hall of Fame in 1981, the Grambling State University Hall of Fame in 1989, and the WWF Hall of Fame in 1995.

‘Sugar’ Ray Leonard

Joe Louis

Joseph Louis Barrow, best known as Joe Louis was an American professional boxer who competed from 1934 to 1951. He reigned as the world heavyweight champion from 1937 to 1949, and is considered to be one of the greatest heavyweight boxers of all time.

Cheryl Miller

Jesse Owens

James Cleveland “Jesse” Owens was an American track and field athlete and four-time gold medalist in the 1936 Olympic Games. Owens specialized in the sprints and the long jump, and was recognized in his lifetime as “perhaps the greatest and most famous athlete in track and field history”.

Floyd Patterson

Floyd Patterson was an American professional boxer who competed from 1952 to 1972, and twice reigned as the world heavyweight champion between 1956 and 1962. As an amateur, he won a gold medal in the middleweight division at the 1952 Summer Olympics.

Charley Frank Pride

Frank Robinson

Frank Robinson was an American professional baseball outfielder and manager in Major League Baseball (MLB) who played for five teams, from 1956 to 1976. The only player to be named Most Valuable Player (MVP) of both the National League (NL) and the American League (AL).

Jackie Robinson

Jack Robinson was an American professional baseball player who became the first African American to play in Major League Baseball. He challenged the traditional basis of segregation that had then marked many other aspects of American life.

‘Sugar’ Ray Robinson

Sugar Ray Robinson was an American professional boxer who competed from 1940 to 1965. Robinson's performances in the welterweight and middleweight divisions prompted sportswriters to create “pound for pound” rankings, where they compared fighters regardless of weight.

Wilma Rudolph

Wilma Glodean Rudolph was an American sprinter born in Saint Bethlehem, Tennessee, who became a world-record-holding Olympic champion and international sports icon in track and field following her successes in the 1956 and 1960 Olympic Games.

Bill Russell

William Russell is an American former professional basketball player who played center for the Boston Celtics of the National Basketball Association (NBA). Russell is one of seven players in history to win an NCAA Championship, an NBA Championship, and an Olympic gold medal.

Kimbo Slice

Mike Tyson

Pernell Whitaker

Pernell Whitaker Sr. was an American professional boxer who competed from 1984 to 2001, and subsequently worked as a boxing trainer. A four-weight world champion (lightweight, light welterweight, welterweight, light middleweight; and the lineal lightweight and welterweight titles).

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