Types of Black People
Arthur Ashe is the first African American to win the men's singles at Wimbledon and the U.S. Open, and the first black American to be ranked No. 1 in the world. Our privacy policy has been updated. Please review the updated Privacy Policy.
Benjamin Banneker was born on November 9, 1731, in Ellicott's Mills, Maryland. A free black man who owned a farm near Baltimore, Banneker was largely self-educated in astronomy and mathematics. He was later called upon to assist in the surveying of territory for the construction of the nation's capital.
People used to be ashamed. Today, a woman has eight children with eight different 'husbands' -- or men or whatever you call them now. We have millionaire football players who cannot read. We have million-dollar basketball players who can't write two paragraphs. We, as black folks have to do a better job.
Booker T. Washington. Born a slave, Booker T. Washington became one of the most celebrated educators and orators in the world. Find out more about his life and work in this video.
Charles Drew was an African-American surgeon who pioneered methods of storing blood plasma for …
A street in Gelnhausen, Germany was named after him: "General-Colin-Powell-Straße". In 2002, scholar Molefi Kete Asante listed Colin Powell on his list of 100 Greatest African Americans. In 2009, an elementary school named for Colin Powell opened in El Paso.
Daniel Hale Williams was born in 1856 and raised in the city of Hollidaysburg, Pennsylvania. His father, Daniel Hale Williams Jr. was the son of a black barber and a Scots-Irish woman. His mother was African American and likely also mixed race.
Duke Ellington was born April 29, 1899, in Washington, D.C. A major figure in the history of jazz music, his career spanned more than half a century, during which time he composed thousands of songs for the stage, screen and contemporary songbook. He created one of the most distinctive ensemble sounds in Western music and continued to play what he called "American Music" until shortly before his death in 1974.
Elijah J. McCoy was born on May 2, 1844, in Colchester, Ontario, Canada, to George and Mildred Goins McCoy. The McCoys were fugitive slaves who had escaped from Kentucky to Canada via the Underground Railroad.
Frederick Douglass was a prominent American abolitionist, orator and author. Born a slave, Douglass escaped at age 20, and his three autobiographies are considered important works of the slave narrative tradition.
African-American educator and agricultural researcher George Washington Carver (c. 1864-1943) grew up in Missouri with the white family that originally kept his mother as a slave.
Born Henry Louis Aaron on February 5, 1934, in a poor black section of Mobile, Alabama, called "Down the Bay," Hank Aaron was the third of eight children born to Estella and Herbert Aaron, who made a living as a tavern owner and a dry dock boilermaker's assistant.
In 1849 Tubman fled Maryland, leaving behind her free husband of five years, John Tubman, and her parents, sisters, and brothers. “Mah people mus’ go free,” her constant refrain, suggests a determination uncommon among even the most militant slaves.
Jack Johnson, the heavyweight champion, and Battling Jim Johnson, another colored pugilist, of Galveston, Texas, met in a 10-round contest here tonight, which ended in a draw. The spectators loudly protested throughout that the men were not fighting, and demanded their money back.
Jackie Robinson made history in 1947 when he broke baseball’s color barrier to play for the Brooklyn Dodgers. A talented and versatile player, Robinson won the National League Rookie of the Year award his first season, and helped the Dodgers to the National League championship – the first of his six trips to the World Series.
In 2012 James Baldwin was inducted into the Legacy Walk, an outdoor public display that celebrates LGBT history and people. In 2014 128th Street, between Fifth and Madison Avenues, was named "James Baldwin Place" to celebrate the 90th anniversary of Baldwin's birth.
Jesse Owens (September 12, 1913 to March 31, 1980), also known as "The Buckeye Bullet," was an American track and field athlete who won four gold medals and broke two world records at the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin.
Mae C. Jemison was born on October 17, 1956, in Decatur, Alabama. Family. Mae Jemison is the youngest child of Charlie Jemison, a roofer and carpenter, and Dorothy (Green) Jemison, an elementary school teacher. Her sister, Ada Jemison Bullock, became a child psychiatrist, and her brother, Charles Jemison, is a real estate broker.
Malcolm X, theactivist and outspoken public voice of the Black Muslim faith, challenged the mainstream civil rights movement and the nonviolent pursuit of integration championed by Martin Luther King Jr.He urged followers to defend themselves against white aggression “by any means necessary ...
Born in Jamaica, Marcus Garvey (1887-1940) became a leader in the black nationalist movement by applying the economic ideas of Pan-Africanists to the immense resources available in urban centers.
Mary Jane McLeod Bethune (born Mary Jane McLeod; July 10, 1875 – May 18, 1955) was an American educator, stateswoman, philanthropist, humanitarian and civil rights activist best known for starting a private school for African-American students in Daytona Beach, Florida.
Matthew Henson was an African American explorer best known as the co-discoverer of the North Pole with Robert Edwin Peary in 1909. Synopsis Famed African-American explorer Matthew Henson was born in Charles County, Maryland, in 1866.
Phillis Wheatley was an African American poet and slave. She wrote Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral, making her the first African American and first slave to publish a volume of poetry. Learn more at Biography.com.
He believed in 'the essential goodness of all people, ... Ralph Bunche and the ... at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture; Ralph Bunche Records of ...
By refusing to give up her seat to a white man on a Montgomery, Alabama, city bus in 1955, black seamstress Rosa Parks (1913—2005) helped initiate the civil rights movement in the United States. The leaders of the local black community organized a bus boycott that began the day Parks was convicted of violating the segregation laws.
Shirley Chisholm was born Shirley Anita St. Hill on November 30, 1924, in a predominantly black neighborhood in Brooklyn, New York. Chisholm spent part of her childhood in Barbados with her grandmother.
Sojourner Truth was a prominent abolitionist and women’s rights activist. Born a slave in New York State, she had at least three of her children sold away from her. After escaping slavery, Truth embraced evangelical religion and became involved in moral reform and abolitionist work.
Thurgood Marshall argued thirty-two cases before the U.S. Supreme Court, more than anyone else in history. Between 1934 and 1961, as an attorney for the NAACP, Marshall traveled throughout the United States, representing all manner of clients whenever a dispute involved questions of racial justice–from trials for common crimes to appellate advocacy raising the most intricate matters of constitutional law.
Toni Morrison, in her New York apartment. Photograph: Tim Knox for the Guardian O f all the mantles that have been foisted on Toni Morrison’s shoulders, the heaviest has to be “the conscience of America”.