A glossary of important Black (African) American individuals from the past and present. A knowledgeable resource for all, brought to you with an artistic touch.
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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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).
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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.
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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).
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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).
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Althea Neale Gibson was an American tennis player and professional golfer, and one of the first Black athletes to cross the color line of international tennis. In 1956, she became the first African American to win a Grand Slam title.
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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.
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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.”
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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.
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Flora Jean “Flo” Hyman was an American athlete who played volleyball. She was an Olympic silver medalist and played professional volleyball in Japan.
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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.
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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.
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Ethel Blanche Hairston was an American professional wrestler whose ring name was Ethel Johnson. She debuted at age 16, becoming the first African-American women's wrestler. She was a fan favorite, billed as “the biggest attraction to hit girl wrestling since girl wrestling began.”
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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.
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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.
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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).
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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 long jump, and was recognized in his lifetime as “perhaps the greatest and most famous athlete in track and field history”.
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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.
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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.
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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).
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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”.
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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.
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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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