30 Famous African Americans in History

30 Famous African Americans in History

This article highlights 30 famous African Americans in history who not only influenced America but also shook up the world. African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term “African American” generally denotes descendants of enslaved Africans who are from the United States. While some Black immigrants or their children may also come to identify as African-American, the majority of first-generation immigrants do not, preferring to identify with their nation of origin. African Americans constitute the second-largest racial group in the U.S. after White Americans, as well as the third-largest ethnic group after Hispanic and Latino Americans.  At the end of World War II, African Americans were poised to make far-reaching demands to end racism. They were unwilling to give up the minimal gains that had been made during the war. The campaign for African American rights—usually referred to as the civil rights movement or the freedom movement—went forward in the 1940s and ’50s in persistent and deliberate steps. When it comes to pioneers in African American history, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks, Maya Angelou, James Baldwin, and Muhammad Ali are often mentioned—and rightfully so. But there are countless other Black history heroes. Educators, activists and historians have long been attempting to shine a light and pinpoint famous African Americans in history.

 

Famous African American Civil Rights Luminaries

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. |1929 – 1968

Martin Luther King, Jr. (MLK), was born Michael Luther King, Jr., but later had his name changed to Martin. No single African American in history is perhaps as famous as Martin Luther King, Jr. A federal holiday on the third Monday of each January celebrates his legacy.  During the less than 13 years of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s leadership of the modern American Civil Rights Movement, from December 1955 until April 4, 1968, African Americans achieved more genuine progress toward racial equality in America. Dr. King is widely regarded as America’s pre-eminent advocate of nonviolence and one of the greatest nonviolent leaders in world history. Drawing inspiration from both his Christian faith and the peaceful teachings of Mahatma Gandhi, Dr. King led a nonviolent movement in the late 1950s and ‘60s to achieve legal equality for African-Americans in the United States. MLK’s assassination at the hands of a white man in 1968 sparked riots and mourning across the world.

Ruby Bridges | 1954-present

At the tender age of six, Ruby Bridges advanced the cause of civil rights in November 1960 when she became the first African American student to integrate an elementary school in the South, the all-white William Frantz Elementary School in Louisiana. She walked past hateful protesters to become the first Black child at the Louisiana school and was then taught alone for a year. She ate lunch alone and sometimes played with her teacher at recess, but she never missed a day of school that year. Bridges’ family paid a high price for their decision, her mother, who had been the chief advocate for her attending the white school, lost her job as a domestic worker. Her father, a Korean war veteran who worked as a service-station attendant, also lost his job on account of the Bridges’ newfound notoriety. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), which had played a big part in Bridges’ case, advised him not to go out and look for work, for his own safety. In 1999, she established The Ruby Bridges Foundation to promote tolerance and create change through education. In 2000, she was made an honorary deputy marshal in a ceremony in Washington, DC.

Learn more about Ruby Bridges

 W.E.B. Du Bois | 1868-1963

“It dawned upon me with a certain suddenness that I was different from the others; or like, mayhap, in heart and life and longing, but shut out from their world by a vast veil.”

By W. E. B. Du Bois

W.E.B. Du Bois, or William Edward Burghardt Du Bois, was an African American writer, teacher, sociologist and activist whose work transformed the way that the lives of Black citizens were seen in American society. Considered ahead of his time, Du Bois was an early champion of using data to solve social issues for the Black community. Du Bois’s evolving conceptualization of, methodological approach to, and political values and commitments regarding the problem of race in America. His conceptions were historical and global, his methodology empirical and intuitive, his values and commitments involving both mobilization of an elite vanguard to address the issues of racism and the conscious cultivation of the values to be drawn from African American folk culture. Du Bois was already well known as one of the foremost Black intellectuals of his era. The first Black American to earn a PhD from Harvard University, Du Bois published widely before becoming NAACP’s director of publicity and research and starting the organization’s official journal, The Crisis, in 1910.

 Al Sharpton  | 1954-present

Commissioner Sharpton is an internationally renowned civil rights leader and founder and President of the National Action Network (NAN). For decades, he has dedicated his life to the fight for justice and equality, turning the power of dissent and protest into tangible legislation impacting the lives of the disenfranchised. As head of NAN, Rev. Sharpton has taken the teachings of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and applied them to a modern civil rights agenda. Al Sharpton is a divisive political activist with the gift of the gab, he has worked with organizations that push for diversity in places of work. He established the National Youth Movement organization whose mission is to raise money for poor children and fight drugs. Sharpton has helped to organize demonstrations and protests as well as point the media’s eye toward cases of injustice. Called to the ministry at an early age, young Al started preaching at the age of 4, was ordained at 9, and went on tour as a child with gospel singer Mahalia Jackson.

 

Famous African American Sportspeople

 Mohammed Ali | 1942 – 2016

 

Ali was born on January 17, 1942, in Louisville, Kentucky and his birth name was Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr. He was an American professional boxer and activist. Nicknamed “The Greatest”, he is regarded as one of the most significant sports figures of the 20th century and is frequently ranked as the greatest heavyweight boxer of all time. In 1999, he was named Sportsman of the Century by Sports Illustrated and the Sports Personality of the Century by the BBC.  The heavyweight boxing champion is also remembered for refusing to be drafted into the Vietnam War. As Ali awaited conviction for draft evasion and the revocation of his title, several African-American athletes, led by the NFL’s Jim Brown, convened a meeting with him in Cleveland. Brown, fiercely independent himself, told The Cleveland Plain Dealer in 2012, “I felt with Ali taking the position he was taking, and with him losing the crown, and with the government coming at him with everything they had, that we as a body of prominent athletes could get the truth and stand behind Ali and give him the necessary support.”

The united front in Cleveland also proved an inspiration for Martin Luther King Jr. King praised Ali for his courage in one of his own most courageous statements about Vietnam: “Every young man in this country who believes that this war is abominable and unjust should file as a conscientious objector.”  His style, power, ring savvy and winning of an Olympic gold medal and the world heavyweight title three times were unprecedented. Ali’s professional record was 56–5 — but the fight that epitomizes his genius was the “Rumble in the Jungle,” the bout against heavyweight champion George Foreman in Kinshasa, Zaire. Ali, at age 32, was the underdog. But Ali’s “rope-a-dope” technique baited Foreman into throwing wild punches and exhausting himself. In an eighth-round knockout, Ali reclaimed the heavyweight title that had been taken from him 10 years earlier.

 Michael Jordan | 1963-present

Michael Jeffrey Jordan, more commonly known as Michael Jordan or MJ, is one of the most popular basketball players in the world. He was born on February 17, 1963. Today, Michael Jordan is the principal owner of the Charlotte Hornets NBA team. He was an instrumental figure in popularizing the sport in the last decade of the 90s. Moreover, he was part of two three-peats with the Bulls on either side of a short-lived Minor League Baseball stint. Michael Jordan is considered by many to be one of the best NBA players of all time. Besides winning six national championships, he has been awarded the NBA Finals MVP title six times, the NBA MVP award five times and the All-NBA scoring champion title ten times. As a freshman, he was a member of the Tar Heels’ national championship team in 1982. Jordan joined the Bulls in 1984 as the third overall draft pick, and quickly emerged as a league star, entertaining crowds with his prolific scoring while gaining a reputation as one of the game’s best defensive players. His leaping ability, demonstrated by performing slam dunks from the free throw line in Slam Dunk Contests, earned him the nicknames “Air Jordan” and “His Airness”.

Kobe Bryant | 1978-2020

Drafted right out of Lower Merion High School at the age of 17, Bryant won five titles as one of the marquee players in the Los Angeles Lakers franchise. He was a member of the gold medal-winning U.S. men’s basketball teams at the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games and the 2012 London Olympic Games. In 2015 Bryant wrote the poem “Dear Basketball,” which served as the basis for a short film of the same name he narrated. The work won an Academy Award for the best animated short film. A vocal advocate for the homeless Bryant and his wife, Vanessa started the Kobe and Vanessa Bryant Family Foundation aimed to reduce the number of homeless in Los Angeles. Bryant, his daughter Gigi, and seven other passengers died in a helicopter crash in late January.

Venus and Serena Williams

Venus and Serena Williams are arguably the most famous sisters in the world — at least, the most athletically talented. Serena Williams has often said there would be no her without Venus. For their last tournament together, they went out in the doubles game in the same manner as they arrived decades ago: as a team – The Williams sisters. Though her younger sister Serena was the first Williams to win a Grand Slam singles title (the 1999 U.S. Open) Venus emerged at the top of her game in 2000, winning her first Slam–Wimbledon–and going on to win the U.S. Open as well as an Olympic gold medal. Over the next decade, the extraordinary power and athleticism of the Williams sisters were credited with bringing the women’s tennis game to a new level, and final-round matches between the two sisters became common at Grand Slam events. Serena Williams was named America’s Greatest Athlete by The New Yorker and media often refer to her as the “Queen of the Court.” The flyest woman to ever hold a tennis racket was raised in Compton, CA and is the winner of 6 U.S. Opens and 5 Wimbledon.

Tiger Woods | 1975-present

Tiger Woods is known as one of the best golfers of all time. Woods was the very first golfer ever to hold all of 4 professional championships at once. He was the youngest person to finish a career “Grand Slam.” Tiger Woods was also the youngest person to win the Masters championship. He enjoyed one of the greatest amateur careers in the history of the game and became the dominant player on the professional circuit in the late 1990s and early 2000s. In 1997 Woods became the first golfer of either African American or Asian descent to win the Masters Tournament, one of the most prestigious events in the sport. With his victory at the 2001 Masters, Woods became the first player to win consecutively the four major tournaments of golf—the Masters, the U.S. Open, the British Open (Open Championship), and the PGA Championship.

Gail Devers  |1966- present

Gail Devers is a three-time Olympic gold medalist and five-time Olympian. Her 100-meter victory in 1996 made her the second woman to successfully defend the Olympic title. Born in Seattle, Devers won five outdoor championships throughout her career and four gold medals at the IAAF world indoor championships. Devers won her first Olympic 100 title by 0.06 seconds at the Olympic Games in Barcelona in 1992. She later won the 100 at the 1993 World Championship. At the Atlanta 1996 Games, Devers defended her 100 titles, becoming the first woman since Wyomia Tyus to do so. Devers was elected to the National Track & Field Hall of Fame in 2011 and was awarded the NCAA Silver Anniversary Award in 2013, an award presented to six distinguished former college student-athletes on the 25th anniversary of their college sports careers.

 

Illustrious African American Authors

Maya Angelou | Poet 1928-2014

 

Angelou was an American poet, singer, memoirist, and civil rights activist with a colorful and troubling past highlighted in her most famous autobiography, “I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings”.  The well-known American poet was born in St. Louis, Missouri in 1928 and is often referred to as a spokesman for African Americans and women through her many works, her gift of words connected all people who were committed to raising the moral standards of living in the United States.  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. Her works have been considered a defense and celebration of Black culture. Influenced by Black authors like Langston Hughes, W.E.B. Du Bois and Paul Lawrence Dunbar, her love of language developed at a young age. A prolific poet, her words often depict Black beauty, the strength of women and the human spirit, and the demand for social justice. Her first collection of poems Just Give Me a Cool Drink of Water ‘fore I Diiie was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in 1972, the same year she became the first Black woman to have a screenplay produced. Writing for adults and children, Angelou was one of several African American women at the time who explored the Black female autobiographical tradition.

James Baldwin | 1924-1987

Baldwin is widely known as a writer of novels, essays, short stories, plays and poetry, most of his literary work espouses racial and sexual tensions in 20th-century American society such as Giovanni’s Room (1956) and Going to Meet the Man (1965). His masterpiece, Go Tell It On The Mountain (1953) was ranked 39th on the MLA list. Though he spent most of his life living abroad to escape racial prejudice in the United States, James Baldwin is the quintessential American writer. Best known for his reflections on his experience as an openly gay Black man in white America, his novels, essays and poetry make him a social critic who shared the pain and struggle of Black Americans.

Born in Harlem in 1924, Baldwin caught the attention of fellow writer Richard Wright who helped him secure a grant in order to support himself as a writer. Baldwin wrote with a  unique perspective for the rest of his life. In 1956, Giovanni’s Room raised the issues of race and homosexuality at a time when it was taboo. And during the Civil Rights Movement, he published three of his most important collections of essays, “Notes of a Native Son” (1955), “Nobody Knows My Name” (1961) and “The Fire Next Time” (1963). James Baldwin provided inspiration for later generations of artists to speak out about the gay experience in Black America like Staceyann Chin and Nick Burd.

 

African American Abolitionists Voices

Frederick Douglass | 1818-1895

Frederick Douglass was born on a Maryland plantation as a slave who learned to read and escaped to become a popular anti-slavery speaker and amongst America’s greatest orators. He worked with abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison and others, published anti-slavery tracts, and wrote the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, which he first published in 1845 and which sold widely.  He subsequently published related titles including My Bondage and My Freedom (1855) and the Life and Times of Frederick Douglass (1882). Douglass believed that freedom of speech was essential to abolitionism. Additionally, he became a supporter of woman’s rights and later became the first black man to be appointed to positions of political power. Interestingly, he also was put on the Equal Rights Party ticket as vice presidential candidate without his agreement. This made him the first African American to be on the presidential ballot.

Click here for more information on the abolition movement.

Harriet Tubman  |  1820-1913

Nearly killed at the age of 13 by a blow to her head, “Minty”as she was then known recovered and grew strong and determined to be free. Nicknamed “Moses of her people,” Harriet Tubman was enslaved, escaped, and helped others gain their freedom as a “conductor” of the Underground Railroad. Tubman also served as a scout, spy, guerrilla soldier, and nurse for the Union Army during the Civil War. She is considered the first African American woman to serve in the military. Changing her name to Harriet upon her marriage to freeman John Tubman in 1844, she escaped five years later when her enslaver died and she was to be sold, one hundred dollars was offered for her capture. Vowing to return to bring her family and friends to freedom, she spent the next ten years making about 13 trips into Maryland to rescue them. She also gave instructions to about 70 more who found their way to freedom independently. Tubman successfully used the skills she had learned while working on the wharves, fields and woods, observing the stars and natural environment and learning about the secret communication networks of free and enslaved African Americans to affect her escapes. She later claimed she never lost a passenger. The famous abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison called her “Moses,” and the name stuck.

Sojourner Truth | 1797-1883

A former slave, Sojourner Truth became an outspoken advocate for abolition, temperance, and civil and women’s rights in the nineteenth century. Her Civil War work earned her an invitation to meet President Abraham Lincoln in 1864. Truth was born a slave in Dutch-speaking Ulster County, New York in 1797. She was bought and sold four times, and subjected to harsh physical labor and violent punishments. In her teens, she was united with another slave with whom she had five children, beginning in 1815. In 1827—a year before New York’s law freeing slaves was to take effect—Truth ran away with her infant Sophia to a nearby abolitionist family, the Van Wageners. The family bought her freedom for twenty dollars and helped Truth successfully sue for the return of her five-year-old-son Peter, who was illegally sold into slavery in Alabama. She was the first black person to successfully take a white man to court and win. The result of the case was the return of her son who was illegally sold and sent to Alabama. Originally named Isabella Baumfree, she changed her name to Sojourner Truth.

 

Famous African American Educators

Booker T. Washington | 1856-1915

Booker T. Washington was an author, educator, orator, philanthropist, and, from 1895 until his death in 1915, the United States’ most famous African American. The tiny school he founded in Tuskegee, Alabama, in 1881 is now Tuskegee University, an institution that currently enrolls more than 3,000 students. The most famous of the several books he authored, coauthored, or edited during his lifetime, Up from Slavery (1901), has become a classic of American autobiography, drawing comparisons not only to earlier slave narratives but also to such texts as The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin. In the eyes of many of his contemporaries, Washington was an exemplary American citizen, “a public man second to no other American in importance,” as the novelist William Dean Howells called him in 1901. When Washington became the first African American to receive an honorary degree from Harvard University in 1896, a Boston newspaper ranked him among “our national benefactors.” When he became the first to dine at the White House in 1901, he did so at the invitation of U.S. president Theodore Roosevelt, who would later call Washington “one of the most useful citizens of our land.” Even his foremost critic, the African American writer and intellectual W.E.B. Du Bois, acknowledged Washington’s status as both a racial and national leader.

Dr. Jeanne L. Noble |1926 – 2002

Jeanne Laveta Noble (July 18,) was an American educator who served on education commissions for three U.S. presidents. An educator and writer, Dr. Noble holds a lot of firsts to her name. She was the first African-American to study and write about the experiences of female African-Americans in college, to become a board member of the Girls Scouts of the USA, to serve the U.S. government’s Defense Department Advisory Committee on Women in the Services, and to receive tenure as a professor at New York University. Dr. Noble was an active participant in trying to desegregate her hometown of Augusta, GA, in the early 1960s, and she was also appointed by Presidents Johnson, Nixon and Ford, to serve on educational commissions. Dr. Jeanne L. Noble, a professor of education who in 1962 became one of the first African-American women to receive tenure at New York University.

Mary McLeod Bethune | 1875-1955

Mary McLeod Bethune was one of the most prominent African American women of the first half of the twentieth century–and one of the most powerful. Known as the “First Lady of the Struggle,” she devoted her career to improving the lives of African Americans through education and political and economic empowerment, first through the school she founded, Bethune-Cookman College, later as president of the National Council of Negro Women, and then as a top black administrator in the Roosevelt administration. Equal parts educator, politician and social visionary she is known for Bethune-Cookman University, which she founded as a girls’ school in 1904, Bethune was an educational leader all her life. She founded one of the first nursing schools for Black women, established the United Negro College Fund, and advised multiple presidents on education and civil rights. She wore many hats including educator, community organizer, public policy advisor, public health advocate, advisor to the President of the United States, patriot, and of course mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother. All in the service of her relentless pursuit of what she called “unalienable rights of the citizenship for Black Americans.”

 

African American Inventors and Innovators

 Garrett Morgan | 1877- 1963

With only elementary school education, Black inventor (and son of an enslaved parent), Garrett Morgan came up with several significant inventions, including an improved sewing machine and the gas mask. However, one of Morgan’s most influential inventions was the improved traffic light. Morgan’s was one of the first three-light systems that were invented in the 1920s, resulting in the widespread adoption of the traffic lights we take for granted today. Thanks to the successes of his other inventions, Morgan bought a car and as a motorist, he witnessed a severe car accident at an intersection in his city of Cleveland, Ohio. In response, he decided to expand on the current traffic light by adding a “yield” component, warning oncoming drivers of an impending stop. He took out the patent for the creation in 1923, and it was granted to him the following year. He was recognized at the Emancipation Centennial Celebration in Chicago, Illinois, in August 1963; schools and streets named in his honor; included in the 2002 book, “100 Greatest African Americans” by Molefi Kete Asante; honorary member of Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity

Frederick McKinley Jones |1893- 1961

Frederick McKinley Jones was born on May 17, 1893, in Cincinnati, Ohio.  His mother died when he was nine, and he was forced to drop out of school.  A priest in Covington, Kentucky, raised him until he was sixteen. Jones was a prolific early 20th-century black inventor who helped to revolutionize both the cinema and refrigeration industries.  Between 1919 and 1945 he patented more than sixty inventions in divergent fields with forty of those patents in refrigeration. He is best known for inventing the first automatic refrigeration system for trucks. If your refrigerator has any produce from your local grocery store, then you can credit him. Jones took out more than 60 patents throughout his life, including a patent for the roof-mounted cooling system that’s used to refrigerate goods on trucks during extended transportation in the mid-1930s. He received a patent for his invention in 1940, and co-founded the U.S. Thermo Control Company, later known as Thermo King. The company was critical during World War II, helping to preserve blood, food and supplies during the war.

 

Iconic African American Musicians

Michael Jackson | 1958-2009

Known as the “King of Pop,” Michael Jackson was a best-selling American singer, songwriter and dancer. As a child, Jackson became the lead singer of his family’s popular Motown group, the Jackson 5. Michael Jackson was a multi-talented musical entertainer who enjoyed a chart-topping career both with the Jackson 5 and as a solo artist. He released one of the best-selling albums in history, ‘Thriller,’ in 1982, and had other number-one hits on ‘Bad’ and ‘Off the Wall.’ The Guinness World Records notes Michael Jackson as being the most successful entertainer ever. His fame and influence in music, fashion and dance boosted him to the forefront of pop culture for more than four decades. He is known for popularizing the moonwalk dance move and some of his most notable songs were “Thriller,” “Billie Jean,” “Smooth Criminal” and “Beat It. In 1985, Jackson showed his altruistic side by co-writing “We Are the World,” a charity single for USA for Africa. A veritable who’s who of music stars participated in the project, including Lionel Richie, Ray Charles, Bob Dylan, Willie Nelson, Bruce Springsteen and Tina Turner.

Billie Holiday| 1915-1959

A teenage Billie Holiday began singing for tips in brothels and bars but soon got to sing regularly in a nightclub in Harlem, which led to her performances with accomplished jazz musicians like Benny Goodman, Artie Shaw, and Count Basie. When she returned to Baltimore, she was a touring musician who performed at clubs and restaurants along Pennsylvania Avenue. Taking the first name ‘”Billie”‘ from actress Billie Dove, she also changed her last name to Holiday. Although she had no formal musical training, Billie had an instinct for harmony and experience listening and singing along to blues and jazz; These skills enabled Billie to develop a unique and emotional singing style that was all her own. When she was eighteen, music producer John Hammond discovered Billie while she was singing in a Harlem jazz club. In 1933, Hammond secured recording work for Billie with jazz great Benny Goodman as the Harlem Renaissance began transitioning into the Swing. A series of recordings with Teddy Wilson and members of Count Basie’s band launched her career as the most prominent jazz singer of her time. She toured with Count Basie and with Artie Shaw in 1937 and 1938, with her career peaking between 1936 and 1942. Billie Holiday won 10 Grammy Awards for her songs and albums. She also was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, The Ertegun Jazz Hall of Fame and the ASCAP Jazz Wall of Fame. Billie Holiday died at the age of 44 from substance abuse. Later, her autobiography was turned into a movie called Lady Sings the Blues with Diana Ross playing her character.

Louis Armstrong| 1901-1971

Louis Daniel Armstrong nicknamed “Satchmo”, “Satch”, and “Pops”, was an American trumpeter and vocalist. Besides playing the trumpet, Louis Armstrong was also a singer, actor, comedian, bandleader and soloist. “a hard-working kid who helped support his mother and sister by working every type of job there was, including going out on street corners at night to sing for coins.” At age 7, he bought his first real horn–a cornet. When Armstrong was 11 years old, the juvenile court sent him to the Jones Home for Colored Waifs for firing a pistol on New Year’s Eve. While there, he had his first formal music lessons and played in the home’s brass band. After about 18 months he was released. From then on, he largely supported himself as a musician, playing with pick-up bands and in small clubs with his mentor Joe “King” Oliver. He made a tour of Europe in 1932. During a command performance for King George V, he forgot he had been told that performers were not to refer to members of the royal family while playing for them. Just before picking up his trumpet for a really hot number, he announced: “This one’s for you, Rex.” Some of his best-known songs are “What a Wonderful World,” “Star Dust” and “La Via En Rose.”

 

Most famous African American Politicians

Barrack Obama | 1961-present

Barack H. Obama is the 44th President of the United States. His story is the American story — values from the heartland, a middle-class upbringing in a strong family, hard work and education as the means of getting ahead, and the conviction that a life so blessed should be lived in service to others. With a father from Kenya and a mother from Kansas, President Obama was born in Hawaii on August 4, 1961. He was raised with help from his grandfather, who served in Patton’s army, and his grandmother, who worked her way up from the secretarial pool to middle management at a bank. While studying at Harvard, Barack Obama became the first African-American to be the editor of the Harvard Law Review. He received his law degree in 1991 and then became a civil rights lawyer.  Obama also became a professor at the University of Chicago Law School. He got involved in politics and won his first election to become an Illinios State Senator in 1996. In 2004 Obama won an Illinois U.S. Senate seat. Later, in 2008, he beat Republican John McCain to become the 44th president of the United States. He won re-election over Mitt Romney in 2012.

Colin Powell |1937-present

Colin Luther Powell remains the only African-American individual to be on the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He retired from the United States Army as a 4-star general. He helped guide the U.S. military to victory in the 1991 Persian Gulf War as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, then struggled a decade later over the U.S. invasion of Iraq as a beleaguered secretary of state under President George W. Bush. Born in New York to Jamaican immigrants, Gen. Powell rose rapidly through the Army to become the youngest and first Black chairman of the Joint Chiefs. His climb was helped by a string of jobs as a military assistant to high-level government officials and a stint as national security adviser to President Ronald Reagan. Charming, eloquent and skilled at managing, he had a knack for exuding authority while also putting others at ease. In the four years Powell served in that capacity, he oversaw 28 crises, including Operation Desert Storm in 1991. After his retirement in 1993, he founded America’s Promise, an organization which helps at-risk children.

Condoleezza Rice |1954-present

As a child Condoleezza Rice dreamed of becoming a concert pianist. Her love for international music translated into a successful career in international diplomacy. Throughout her career, Rice became the first African American woman to hold several positions, including Secretary of State. Condoleezza Rice was the first woman and African-American to become provost at Stanford University. She was also the first black woman to become national security adviser, holding this post under President George W. Bush. As a professor of political science, Dr. Rice has been on the Stanford faculty since 1981 and has won two of the highest teaching honors the 1984 Walter J. Gores Award for Excellence in Teaching and the 1993 School of Humanities and Sciences Dean’s Award for Distinguished Teaching. At Stanford, she has been a member of the Center for International Security and Arms Control, a Senior Fellow of the Institute for International Studies, and a Fellow (by courtesy) of the Hoover Institution. Her books include Germany Unified and Europe Transformed (1995) with Philip Zelikow, The Gorbachev Era (1986) with Alexander Dallin, and Uncertain Allegiance: The Soviet Union and the Czechoslovak Army (1984). She also has written numerous articles on Soviet and East European foreign and defense policy, and has addressed audiences in settings ranging from the U.S. Ambassador’s Residence in Moscow to the Commonwealth Club to the 1992 and 2000 Republican National Conventions.

 

African Americans who’ve left a mark in Media TV and Film

Nat King Cole | 1919-1965

Nathaniel Adams Coles, known professionally as Nat King Cole, was an American singer, jazz pianist, and actor. Cole’s music career began after he dropped out of school at the age of 15, and continued for the remainder of his life. He was the first African American entertainer with a network television series (1956–57), but, despite the singer’s great talent, his variety show had trouble attracting sponsors. In the decades following Cole’s death, many situation comedies were marketed with predominantly African American casts, and the large acting ensembles in dramatic series were often integrated. Redd Foxx and Demond Wilson starred in the popular series Sanford and Son (1972–77). One of the most acclaimed weekly shows ever produced was The Cosby Show (1984–92), starring comedian Bill Cosby. Keenen Ivory Wayans, star of the long-running satirical sketch comedy show In Living Color, won an Emmy Award for his work in 1990. The Bernie Mac Show, a sitcom starring comedian Bernie Mac, won a Peabody Award in 2001.

Oprah Winfrey | 1954-present

Oprah Winfrey is a talk show host, media executive, actress and billionaire philanthropist. She’s best known for being the host of her own, wildly popular program, The Oprah Winfrey Show, which aired for 25 seasons, from 1986 to 2011. In 2011, Winfrey launched her own TV network, the Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN). In 1976, Winfrey moved to Baltimore, Maryland, where she hosted the TV chat show People Are Talking. The show became a hit and Winfrey stayed with it for eight years, after which she was recruited by a Chicago TV station to host her own morning show, A.M. Chicago. Her major competitor in the time slot was Phil Donahue. Within several months, Winfrey’s open, warm-hearted personal style had won her 100,000 more viewers than Donahue and had taken her show from last place to first in the ratings. Besides The Oprah Winfrey Show, she has acted in movies, such as The Color Purple. “Oprah’s Book Club” has helped many unknown authors become huge successes. She has her own magazine and television network as well. She is the richest black person in the 20th century.

 Sidney Poitier | 1927-2022

Was a Bahamian American actor, director, and producer who broke the colour barrier in the U.S. motion-picture industry by becoming the first African American to win an Academy Award for best actor (for Lilies of the Field [1963]) and the first Black movie star. He also redefined roles for African Americans by rejecting parts that were based on racial stereotypes. When Sidney’s teenage best friend was sent to reform school, his father feared that Sidney too would fall into delinquency if he remained in Nassau. The elder Poitier urged his son to try his luck in the United States. An older brother had already settled in Miami, and at age 15, Sidney joined him there. His birth in Miami entitled him to U.S. citizenship, but for a young black man in the Florida of the 1940s, the rights of citizenship existed only on paper. He tried to audition for Harlem’s American Negro Theater, the foremost African American theatrical organization of its day, but the theater’s director ridiculed his Caribbean accent and poor reading skills. The young Poitier took the rejection as a challenge, and resolved to become an actor, if only to prove the man wrong. In 2009, a few days before his interview with the Academy of Achievement, he was presented with the Lincoln Medal for “accomplishments exemplifying the character and lasting legacy” of President Lincoln. The medal was awarded at the gala re-opening of Ford’s Theatre in Washington, attended by President Barack Obama. Later that year, President Obama selected Sidney Poitier to receive the nation’s highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Denzel Washington  | 1954-present

Born in Mount Vernon, New York, U.S., American actor celebrated for his engaging and powerful performances. Throughout his career, he was regularly praised by critics, and his consistent success at the box office helped to dispel the perception that African American actors could not draw mainstream white audiences. After graduating from Fordham University (B.A., 1977), Washington began to pursue acting as a career and joined the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco. After several successful stage performances in California and New York, he made his screen debut in the comedy Carbon Copy (1981). He first began to receive national attention for his work on the television drama St. Elsewhere (1982–88). For the film Cry Freedom (1987), he portrayed South African activist Stephen Biko, and he received an Academy Award nomination for best-supporting actor. He has also taken on the role of producer for some of his films, including The Book of Eli and Safe House. In 2016, he was selected as the recipient of the Cecil B. DeMille Lifetime Achievement Award at the 73rd Golden Globe Awards.