The Black American Glossary

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 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

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.

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 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

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.

Film & TV

Scatman Crothers

Benjamin Sherman Crothers, known professionally as Scatman Crothers, was an American actor and musician. He played Louie the Garbage Man on the TV show Chico and the Man and Dick Hallorann in Stanley Kubrick's The Shining.

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 in the film Carmen Jones.

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.

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).

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 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

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.

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

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.

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.

Ricky Harris

Ricky Harris was an American producer, actor and comedian. He is known for his role as Malvo in the UPN/CW sitcom Everybody Hates Chris.

Steve Harvey

Broderick Stephen Harvey is an American television presenter, comedian, actor, broadcaster, author, game show host and businessman. He hosts The Steve Harvey Morning Show, Family Feud, Celebrity Family Feud and the Miss Universe competition.

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.”

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

Hawthorne James

Hawthorne James is an American actor and director, known for his roles in the 1991 film The Five Heartbeats and Speed along with films and television series such as Seven, NYPD Blue and guest-starring on Frasier.

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“

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.

Patti LaBelle

Patti LaBelle is an American singer, actress, and businesswoman. LaBelle began her career in the early 1960s as lead singer of the vocal group, LaBelle. They later released the iconic disco song “Lady Marmalade” which later was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

Tom Lister, Jr.

Tommy “Tiny” Debo Lister was an American character actor and occasional professional wrestler known for his roles as the neighborhood bully Deebo in the 1995 film Friday and its 2000 sequel, Next Friday, and as President Lindberg in The Fifth Element.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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 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

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.

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”.

Della Reese

Delloreese Patricia Early, known professionally as Della Reese, was an American jazz and gospel singer, actress, and ordained minister whose career spanned seven decades. She began her long career as a singer, scoring a hit with her 1959 single “Don't You Know?”.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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, Boomerang and Vampire In Brooklyn.

Alfre Woodard

Alfre Woodard is an American actress, producer, and political activist. She has been named one of the most versatile and accomplished actors of her generation.

Film & Television

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

Obba Babatundé

Mary J. Blige

Chadwick Boseman

Bobby Brown

Jim Brown

LeVar Burton

Bernie Casey

Cedric The Entertainer

Wilt Chamberlain

Bill Cosby

Scatman Crothers

Dorothy Jean Dandridge

Keith David

Sammy Davis, Jr.

Ruby Dee

Loretta Devine

Michael Clarke Duncan

Starletta Dupois

Antonio Fargas

Redd Foxx

Morgan Freeman

Ron Glass

Whoopi Goldberg

Berry Gordy

Eddie Griffin

Pam Grier

Arsenio Hall

Irma P. Hall

Ricky Harris

Steve Harvey

Jay Hawkins

Heavy D and The Boyz

Geoffrey Holder

Whitney Houston

D.L. Hughley

Ice-T

Hawthorne James

Grace Jones

James Earl Jones

Jim Kelly

Kid ’n Play

Kool Moe Dee

Yaphet Kotto

Patti LaBelle

Queen Latifah

Martin Lawrence

Spike Lee

Jenifer Lewis

Delroy Lindo

Tom Lister, Jr.

LL Cool J

Bernie Mac

Cheryl Miller

Paul Mooney

Rudy Ray Moore

Roger E. Mosley

Charlie Murphy

Eddie Murphy

Nichelle Nichols

Patrice O’Neal

Ron O’Neal

Outkast

Gordon Parks

Melvin Van Peebles

Wendell Pierce

Sidney Poitier

Richard Pryor

Sheryl Lee Ralph

Lou Rawls

Della Reese

Chris Rock

Diana Ross

Richard Roundtree

Nipsey Russell

Sinbad

John Singleton

Tupac Shakur

Kimbo Slice