1977— Cricket player Adams, Paul, photograph. Touchline/Getty Images. With an unusual bowling (pitching) style and skill beyond his years, Paul Adams gained a reputation as an up and coming cricket player in the mid-1990s. His success, however, was hard earned. In high school, opponents often laughed at Adams' method of bowling, and because he did not attend the better-known c…
1962— Musician Atkins, Juan, photograph. AP/Wide World Photos. Reproduced by permission. Juan Atkins is generally recognized as one of the creators of techno music, which spawned a whole group of genres now known as electronica, and he was probably the first person to apply the word "techno" to music. His novel electronic soundscapes influenced nearly every genre of mus…
Model, actress 1973— Tyra Banks has parlayed her supermodel status into film, television, and music; her career is proceeding well according to her ambitious plans. A hit on the runways of top designers since the early 1990s, Banks's career segued first into television and later into film, when she was cast in a leading role in the 1995 film Higher Learning, written and directed by J…
1912-1988 Artist A master of technique best known for his collage and photomontage compositions, esteemed artist Romare Bearden consistently depicted African-American culture and experience in his work. His oeuvre reflects the influences of various art traditions and reveals themes common to many different cultures—themes of death, the family, religious ritual, and the beauty of natural lan…
1948— Corporate executive Bell, James A., photograph. AP/Wide World Photos. Reproduced by permission. Growing up in the working-class black community of south central Los Angeles, James Bell might have believed that the greatest success he could hope for was to land a steady job with the Post Office, like his father. Yet Bell recognized that an opportunity existed for another kind of…
1976— Writer Blair, Jayson, photograph. New York Times/Getty Images. Jayson Blair became embroiled in one of the most devastating scandals in American journalism when his employer, the esteemed New York Times, revealed that he had plagiarized several news stories from other sources, or filed stories from the field while actually holed up in his New York City apartment. Blair became o…
1962— Professional bowler In 1993 George Branham became the first African American to win a Professional Bowlers Association (PBA) title. He had bowled since the age of six and joined the PBA at age 24. In 17 years as a professional bowler, Branham won five major titles, including the sport's highest honor, the Tournament of Champions. He also rolled 23 games with a perfect score of …
1970— Vocalist, songwriter, producer Brown, Patrick "Sleepy", photograph. Sandra Rose/Getty Images. When Patrick "Sleepy" Brown contributed the "I love the way you move" refrain to rap duo OutKast's 2004 hit "The Way You Move," it was only the latest in a series of irresistible hooks, steeped in classic Southern soul, tha…
1946— Casting agent Cannon, Reuben, photograph. Ana Elisa Fuentes/Getty Images. Despite growing up in an inner-city Chicago housing project, Reuben Cannon knew his future lay in the entertainment industry. With luck, pluck, and a lot of hard work, Cannon broke into the competitive field and became the first African-American casting director in Hollywood—and one of the most suc…
1988— Musician Canada's Keshia Chanté is a teen pop star—but her background does not fit the typical pattern of other young performers who have emerged in recent years in either Canada or the United States. "She was not a contestant on either American Idol or Canadian Idol," noted the Edmonton Sun. "She is not a former star of a popular children…
1973— Actor, writer, comic From a very early age, Dave Chappelle could make people laugh. Chappelle realized the power of his natural talent and made some very serious goals for his art. As a teenager, he crafted his standup comedy act out of the realties of his life growing up black in the capital city of the United States. Racism and racial division became his main targets, and he approac…
1924-2005 Politician, writer, educator In becoming the first black, as well as the first woman, to ever seek a major political party's nomination for the U.S. presidency, former New York congresswoman Shirley Chisholm demonstrated that aspirations for the nation's executive office need not be the exclusive domain of white males. Chisholm's unsuccessful 1972 campaign for the De…
1935— Poet, educator An underappreciated figure of the Black Arts movement of the 1960s and 1970s, poet Sam Cornish wrote about the urban African-American experience in a voice just as tough and realistic as that of any other black poet of the time. His poems, however, replace the enthusiastic self-expression and the experimental African-American idioms of much modern black poetry with a te…
1951— Journalist, writer Ellis Cose was a Chicago newspaper columnist before he was old enough to vote, and from that brilliant beginning has gone on to build successful careers in three related fields. A respected journalist, Cose has worked as reporter and columnist for several major newspapers and went on to become editor of the New York Daily News's editorial page and contributin…
1954— College football coach Croom, Sylvester, photograph. AP/Wide World Photos. Reproduced by permission. When Sylvester Croom Jr. became head football coach at Mississippi State University (MSU) late in 2003, the history books beckoned. Croom was the first African American tapped to lead a Southeastern Conference (SEC) school in its 71-year history. National media swooped down on t…
1960— Writer Poet, playwright, and novelist Fred D'Aguiar prefers to be described simply as a writer. He was born in London but grew up in Guyana and belongs to a second generation of Caribbean-British writers. His work is often highly politicized, addressing a sense of divided or dual identity. In his early poetry in particular D'Aguiar attempts to reconcile his early experie…
1962-2003 Politician New York City councilman James E. Davis died in a bizarre city hall shooting in 2003 that caused panic in the municipal building as well as the activation of an emergency-event plan for Lower Manhattan. The Brooklyn Democrat was gunned down by a political rival, with whom he was trying to forge a more productive working relationship. It was a tragic end for the irascible Davis…
1917-2005 Actor, director, producer, writer With the build and vitality of an NFL lineman, Ossie Davis hardly looked like the grand old man of black theater. Known to younger audiences as Ponder Blue on television's Evening Shade and as "the mayor" in filmmaker Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing, Davis made his Broadway debut in Jeb in 1946. He directed the landmark film Co…
1924— Actress, civil rights activist, writer Actress and social activist Ruby Dee expressed her philosophy in I Dream a World: Portraits of Black Women Who Changed America: "You just try to do everything that comes up. Get up an hour earlier, stay up an hour later, make the time. Then you look back and say, 'Well, that was a neat piece of juggling there—school, marriage…
1932-1998 Writer, civil rights activist Thomas Covington Dent, usually known as Tom Dent, was an author, a playwright, a poet, an essayist, a civil rights activist, and an oral historian. He was a leading member of a group of black writers who during the 1950s merged artistic expression with explorations of black identity. Combining the quest for self-identity and cultural identity with a politica…
1974— Actor Faison, Donald, photograph. Amanda Edwards/Getty Images. Though his role as a surgical intern on the NBC hit series Scrubs brought him major fame, Donald Faison was no stranger to the limelight. He had acted since he was a child, steadily progressing from school plays to television commercials to major motion pictures. By 2005, in addition to Scrubs, he had several films …
1946(?)— Actor Fargas, Antonio, photograph. Dave Hogan/Getty Images. The career of actor Antonio Fargas has lasted over 40 years and has encompassed film, television, and live theater. He is most widely recognized, however, for a single role: that of Huggy Bear on the 1970s television series Starsky and Hutch. That single role brought Fargas into millions of living rooms around the U…
1935— Pharmacist, entrepreneur Throughout his career as a pharmacist, scientist, and business entrepreneur, Sylester Flowers has maintained his commitment to his full-service community-based pharmacy and his inner-city clients while taking full advantage of the technological advancements that have revolutionized his profession. As founder and chief executive officer (CEO) of the Ramsell Cor…
1949— Poet, psychologist Christopher Gilbert, often known as Chris Gilbert, won the 1983 Walt Whitman Award for his poetry collection Across the Mutual Landscape. He was recognized as a major force among the black American poets of the 1970s and 1980s who chanted and sang their poetry for enthusiastic audiences. Gilbert was born on August 1, 1949, in Birmingham, Alabama, the son of Floyd an…
1944— Engineer Structural engineer Henry R. Grooms has enjoyed a distinguished career of more than thirty years with Rockwell International (now Boeing), where he supervised projects for the Apollo, Skylab, and Space Shuttle programs. He is also noted for his commitment to community programs that promote youth achievement. Described as a "role model for aspiring professionals and stu…
1949— Automotive executive Hazel, Darryl B., photograph. Bill Pugliano/Getty Images. President of the Lincoln Mercury Division of the Ford Motor Company Darryl Hazel knows how to make the most out of his opportunities. Growing up as the only child of parents who had been young adults during the Great Depression of the 1930s, Darryl Hazel learned early the importance of hard work and …
1951— College president Hogan, Beverly Wade, photograph. AP/Wide World Photos. Reproduced by permission. When Mississippi's Tougaloo College was looking for a president in 2002, it did not have to look far. Lifelong Mississippian and Tougaloo alumna Beverly Wade Hogan had served six years on the school's board of trustees and five in its administrative ranks. She also h…
1905-1999 Museum founder and curator, teacher After 40 years as an art and special education teacher in New York City public schools, Lenon Hoyte—commonly known as Aunt Len—founded Aunt Len's Doll and Toy Museum in her Harlem home. It was one of the nation's largest private collections of dolls and related toys and became one of New York City's most popular speci…
1953— Singer Chaka Khan has enjoyed a long and fruitful recording career that spans over two decades, but her soaring voice has failed to put her in the same superstar strata as other African American divas of her generation like Patti LaBelle or Tina Turner. Khan's career came of age as disco dawned in the early 1970s, and with her first hit as a member of Rufus the singer became a …
1960— Vocalist, songwriter Kidjo, Angelique, photograph. AP/Wide world Photos, Reproduced by permission. A powerful singer and tireless performer, Angelique Kidjo has been one of the most successful performers to emerge on world music stages in the 1990s and 2000s. Her music not only draws from African traditions but also interprets the ways those traditions developed after Africans …
1943— Chief executive officer, Association of Black Cardiologists Throughout his life, B. Waine Kong has retained the good-natured sociability that he learned growing up in a small agricultural community in Jamaica. However, beneath his relaxed and likable personality, Kong has proved himself to be a dedicated and tireless worker. Whether earning a graduate degree by attending classes at ni…
1953— Writer, educator, publisher Jawanza Kunjufu has dedicated his career to addressing the ills afflicting black culture in the United States, working primarily as an educational consultant and author but more recently expanding into video and film production. All aspects of the African American experience occupy Kunjufu's attention, but the main thrust of his work has been directe…
1946— Television executive As executive vice president of national programming for the Public Broadcasting System (PBS) until 1996, Jennifer Lawson is, according to Jeremy Gerard in the New York Times, "the most powerful programming executive in public television." Lawson is responsible for overseeing the creation, promotion, and scheduling of national programming for the 330-…
1960— Singer, songwriter, bassist The music of Seattle-based artist Laura Love has been labeled as Afro-Celtic or folk-funk; it merges the rhythms of urban styles with the stringed-instrument sounds of folk and acoustic music, using the whole fusion to support an impressive set of original songs. After the 1997 release of her major-label debut, Octoroon, Love became one of the folk scene&#x…
1933— Labor union leader Lucy, William, photograph. AP/Wide World Photos. Reproduced by permission. For over three decades William (Bill) Lucy was at the fore-front of the labor movement. As Secretary-Treasurer of the American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) for 30-plus years, Lucy helped the group grow from 200,000 to over 1.4 million members in 3,500 uni…
1932— Singer, writer, activist South African singer and political activist Miriam Makeba is a preeminent chronicler of the black South African experience. In a career spanning more than three decades, she has established herself as a powerful voice in the fight against apartheid—the practice of political, economic, and social oppression along racial lines. Often referred to as …
1936— Library administrator On October 23, 1999, Sam Morrison, then director of the Broward County (Florida) Library System, watched the ground break for the African-American Research Library and Cultural Center. The center was the realization of his wish to build a facility for the exchange of information and ideas relating to African culture and the black experience that would attract vis…
1959— Actor Forging his reputation by playing tough and often frightening characters, Ving Rhames has built a career as a stage, film, and television actor that has had few lulls since he landed his first role in the early 1980s. Many of the characters he has played have been prototypes of real-life thugs and criminals who were commonplace in the gritty urban environment where he grew up. O…
1959(?)— Journalist One of the top young African-American journalists in the United States, Rochelle Riley received several awards for her nationally syndicated columns in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Originating at the Detroit Free Press and, prior to that, the Courier-Journal in Louisville, Kentucky, those columns found audiences beyond those cities because of Riley's down-to-ea…
1940— Artist "For me, art is not a job or a career," Columbus, Ohio, artist Aminah Robinson told the Cleveland Plain Dealer. "It's a way of life. Always has been." Many artists live by a similar credo, but few have immersed themselves in art as intensely as Robinson, who is reported to rise at 4 a.m. to begin work and to continue working until midnight or …
1931-1967 Classical pianist, writer One of the most unusual and perhaps most tragic figures in American cultural history, Philippa Schuyler gained national acclaim as a child prodigy on the piano. Her picture graced the covers of weekly news magazines, and she was hailed as a young American Mozart. Schuyler's life during adulthood, however, was a difficult one. She struggled with racial dis…
1939(?)— Musician Staples, Mavis, photograph. Carlo Allegri/Getty Images. Best known as the lead vocalist of the Staple Singers, a family soul-gospel ensemble that flourished from the 1950s through the 1970s and beyond, Mavis Staples has also released a series of albums as a solo artist. Her voice, not a gospel power-house, was instantly compelling with its deep-like-a-river quality …
1969— Fashion designer Michael Stoney seemed an unlikely candidate to lead a fashion revolution. An orphan, he was reared on a dual diet of poverty and crime. Instead of design school, Stoney attended the police academy, learning how wield guns and shields, not scissors and fabric. When a bullet forced him to retire, he became a man of leisure. That is when he realized he needed clothes for…
1949— National Chair of Girl Scouts USA, business owner, executive On October 19, 2002, Cynthia Bramlett Thompson was elected chair of the National Board of Directors of Girl Scouts of the USA (GSUSA)—the highest volunteer position in the world's largest female organization, with more than 3.7 million members nationwide. Thompson's business career as a company owner and…
1964— Musician Tinsley, Boyd, photograph. Tim Mosenfelder/Getty Images. A member of the acclaimed Dave Matthews Band, Boyd Tinsley has earned accolades for his innovative work on the violin. Critics have marveled at his ability to move from the traditional to the avant-garde, stretching the limits of an instrument not often associated with contemporary rock music. Tinsley has also re…
1964— Professional basketball player, musician Tisdale, Wayman, photograph. Kent Horner/NBAE via Getty Images. Bass player Wayman Tisdale played twelve years in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a power forward before turning his undivided attention to his first love: music. Releasing his first solo album in 1995 while still playing in the NBA, the six-foot, nine-inch tall…
1925-1989 Episcopalian Bishop The first African-American bishop of the Episcopal diocese of Washington, D.C., John T. Walker used his ministry to work tirelessly for social justice. He championed the rights of the poor and marginalized, and spoke out forcefully against South Africa's apartheid regime. After his death following heart surgery in 1989, Walker was remembered in Washington Post …
1969— Writer Walker, Rebecca, photograph. AP/Wide World Photos. reproduced by permission. Rebecca Walker, daughter of novelist Alice Walker, has forged her own successful career and identity as a writer, activist, and leading American advocate for women's issues. Author of the best-selling Black, White, and Jewish: Autobiography of a Shifting Self, Walker has written extensive…
1948-1997 Historian, educator, minister The church is recognized as an institution of paramount importance in African-American life, and its character and development have been traced in detail by historians and popular writers. The lives of individual African-American religious believers, however, received less attention until the Rev. Dr. James Melvin Washington published Conversations with God:…
1918-1971 Football player While the pathbreaking accomplishments of his college teammate Jackie Robinson are known even to casual sports fans, Kenny Washington is not a familiar name even though he was the first African American to play in the modern-day National Football League (NFL). The difference in recognition may be due to the fact that baseball was the undisputed king of sports in the late …
1970— Political analyst, television commentator A political analyst and commentator who joined CNN's political team in 2003, Carlos Watson has been described as a rising star at the network, representing a new generation of political journalists and interested as much in personalities as he is in policies and political goals. A graduate of Harvard University and Stanford Law School, …
1950— Automotive executive Welburn, Edward T., photograph. AP/Wide World Phoros. Reproduced by permission. Edward T. Welburn became chief designer of General Motors Corporation, the world's largest automaker, in 2003. The appointment made him the first African American to rise to what is considered one of the most prestigious jobs in the automotive industry. Welburn's m…
1955— Corporate executive President, CEO, and co-founder of Millennium Digital Media LLC, Kelvin R. Westbrook is one of the most sought-after executives and among the most influential black business leaders of the early twenty-first century. He sits on the boards of numerous high-profile companies, including the National Cable Satellite Corporation, better known as C-SPAN. In his early care…
1961-2004 Football player, minister, philanthropist For a decade and a half, Reggie White dominated the National Football League as one of its most ferocious defensive players. White habitually struck terror into opposing offenses with his great strength, but he also possessed speed, stamina, and the ability to size up situations for maximum impact. Former Philadelphia Eagles head coach Buddy Ryan…
1954— Research scientist, professor of sociology and public health Born into working-class poverty in a colonized society, David Williams observed the effects of racial and economic oppression from an early age. With the support of his family and his deeply held religious beliefs, he not only grew to believe in his ideas and abilities, but he also determined to live a life of service to oth…