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Black History Month


THE UNDEFEATED 44 MOST INFLUENTIAL BLACK AMERICANS IN HISTORY

44 African Americans who shook up the world

The Undefeated February 9, 2017


44 AFRICAN AMERICANS WHO SHOOK UP THE WORLD

See Full List



Introduction
Robert Abbott
Alvin Ailey
Muhammad Ali
Richard Allen
Maya Angelou
Ella Baker
James Baldwin
Jean-Michel Basquiat
Mary McLeod Bethune
Shirley Chisholm
Benjamin O. Davis Sr.
Frederick Douglass
Dr. Charles Drew
W.E.B. Du Bois
Duke Ellington
Aretha Franklin
Jimi Hendrix
Zora Neale Hurston
Jesse Jackson
Michael Jackson
Jay Z
Katherine Johnson
Quincy Jones
Michael Jordan
Martin Luther King Jr.
Henrietta Lacks
Malcolm X
Thurgood Marshall
Toni Morrison
Barack Obama
Jesse Owens
Gordon Parks
Sidney Poitier
Richard Pryor
Jackie Robinson
Sojourner Truth
Harriet Tubman
Madam C.J. Walker
Booker T. Washington
Ida B. Wells
Serena Williams
August Wilson
Oprah Winfrey
Stevie Wonder

44 AFRICAN AMERICANS WHO SHOOK UP THE WORLD INTRO BY KEVIN MERIDA / PORTRAITS BY
ROBERT BALL

This is a list of The Undefeated 44, a collection of dreamers and doers, noisy
geniuses and quiet innovators, record-breakers and symbols of pride and
aspiration.

A dashing lawyer who redefined fearlessness and broke Jim Crow’s back. The most
gravity-defying, emulated athlete the world has ever produced. A brilliant
folklorist of fierce independence who was a proudly “outrageous woman.”

‘The Undefeated 44’ is now available as a children’s book!

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt has published a version of this list for middle school
readers called The Fierce 44/Black Americans Who Shook Up The World. It is
available in stores and can also be ordered at these sites: Amazon, Barnes &
Noble, and IndieBound.

This is not a list of The Greatest African-Americans of All Time or The Most
Influential Blacks in History. Or even The Dopest Brothers and Sisters Who
Matter Most This Week. It is a list — fervently debated among our staff,
chiseled and refined — of 44 blacks who shook up the world or at least their
corner of it. We recognize that this is not a complete list of jaw-dropping
black achievers; we know that such a list would never run out of names. Why
limit ours to 44? It’s an homage to the first African-American president, whose
own stunning accomplishment was something our mothers and grandfathers and
great-grandmothers never thought they’d see in their lifetimes.

You may have favorites we overlooked or thought about and decided against. We’d
love to hear from you. We’ll publish some of your picks and critiques of our
list. In the meantime, enjoy The Undefeated 44, which includes:

The rawest, most piercingly funny comedian ever. The Olympic sprinter who
exploded the canard of white athletic superiority only to be rewarded with
low-paying jobs like pumping gas. Oprah — just because “she is, after all, every
single thing.”

Let the debate continue. We are The Undefeated. Not Conventional. Never Boring.

ROBERT ABBOTT BECAUSE HE GAVE VOICE TO THE VOICELESSFOUNDER OF THE CHICAGO
DEFENDER B. 1870 – 1940

Because he gave voice to the voicelessFounder of The Chicago Defender b. 1870 –
1940

The story of the pioneer of the black press involves slaves, Nazis and 25 cents.

Born just five years after the end of the Civil War, Robert Sengstacke Abbott
founded a weekly newspaper, The Chicago Defender, one of the most important
black newspapers in history, in 1905. Without Abbott, there would be no Essence,
no Jet (and its Beauty of the Week), no Black Enterprise, no The Source, no The
Undefeated.

The success of The Chicago Defender made Abbott one of the nation’s most
prominent postslavery black millionaires, along with beauty product magnate
Madam C.J. Walker and paved the way for prominent black publishers such as Earl
G. Graves, John H. Johnson and Edward Lewis.

The son of slaves, Abbott grew up with a half-German stepfather whose relatives
eventually joined the Third Reich during the 1930s. Ironically enough, young
Robert was taught to hate racial injustice, despite encountering it at every
turn in his life, from his early foray into the printing business to his time in
law school in Chicago, all the way to religious institutions.

An alum of Hampton University (then named Hampton Institute), Abbott was a
catalyst for the Great Migration at the turn of the 20th century, when 6 million
African-Americans from the rural South moved to urban cities in the West,
Northeast and Midwest, with 100,000 settling in Chicago. Like a politician
promising tax breaks to out-of-state companies to inspire relocation, Abbott
took it upon himself to lay out the welcome mat for the millions of blacks
abandoning the Jim Crow South to head to the Windy City, where manufacturing
jobs were awaiting as World War I approached.

What started off as 25 cents in capital and a four-page pamphlet distributed
strictly in black neighborhoods quickly grew into a readership that eclipsed
half a million a week at its peak, numbers that mirror the Miami Herald and
Orlando Sentinel today. The paper’s rise in stature and circulation was due in
large part to Abbott being a natural hustler. The Defender was initially banned
in the South due to its encouragement of African-Americans to abandon the area
and head North, but the Georgia native used a network of black railroad porters
(who would eventually become the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters) to
distribute the paper in Southern states.

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After the influx of blacks in the Midwest following the Great Migration, Abbott
and The Defender turned their attention to other issues afflicting blacks in the
early 20th century, including Jim Crow segregation, the presidency of Woodrow
Wilson and the deadly 1919 Chicago riots that mirrored recent-day demonstrations
seen in Baltimore and Ferguson, Missouri.

Abbott’s nephew, John H. Sengstacke, took The Defender over in the 1940s,
eventually heading black newspapers in Detroit and Memphis, Tennessee, and the
historic Pittsburgh Courier. – Martenzie Johnson

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ALVIN AILEY BECAUSE HE BROUGHT DANCE AND THE BEAUTY OF BLACK BODIES TO THE FIGHT
FOR JUSTICEFOUNDER OF ALVIN AILEY AMERICAN DANCE THEATER B. 1931 – 1989

Because he brought dance and the beauty of black bodies to the fight for
justiceFounder of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater b. 1931 – 1989

Sometimes I play a little what-if game with deceased artists whom I admire. What
if so-and-so were still alive? What kind of righteous, glorious, angry,
transcendent art would he/she bring forth in our age of Barack Obama and Donald
Trump, Aleppo, Syria, and Standing Rock Indian Reservation, Trayvon Martin and
gay marriage, social media and gun violence?

Fortunately for us, Alvin Ailey, the legendary modern dance pioneer,
choreographer and civil rights artist-as-activist, left us his answers. Although
Ailey died nearly 30 years ago, many of his best-known pieces have become as
emblematic of vibrant, relevant American art as tap dance, jazz, the literature
of Toni Morrison and hip-hop. Ailey explored issues of social justice, racism
and spirituality in the African-American experience. This was during the height
of the civil rights movement, when the notion of black classically trained
dancers moving to the music of Duke Ellington, gospel, blues, Latin and African
pop was truly revolutionary, if not unfathomable.

Born into poverty in Texas in 1931, Ailey drew from his emotional well of
close-knit black churches, rural juke joints, fiery protest songs and a lonely
childhood as a closeted gay man to fuel his passion for dance. He befriended
many of his fellow mid-century American masters (Maya Angelou, Carmen De
Lavallade, Merce Cunningham and Katherine Dunham, to name a few) while living in
New York. After Ailey’s death from an AIDS-related illness in 1989, the company
and school grew into the premier repository for emerging black choreographers,
and is still the most popular dance touring company on the international
circuit.

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Ailey created “a human dance company and school that didn’t fit any model,” said
author and arts and dance patron, Susan Fales-Hill. “His dancers were and are
multicultural, and his company was an amalgam of the African and European
diaspora. He always addressed the pain of the African-American journey, but he
also celebrated the triumph and redemption of the human spirit” in pieces such
as Revelations (1960), Ailey’s most celebrated work. The up-from-slavery dance
suite finds beauty in the midst of tragedy and pain, celebrates black folks’
resilience and humanity, and allows hope to overcome tribulation. “Ailey
understood that the arts are a litmus test for who’s civilized and who isn’t
civilized,” Fales-Hill said. “The fact that he raised people of color to the
level of great, universally recognized artists was an enormous triumph.” – Jill
Hudson

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MUHAMMAD ALI BECAUSE HE WAS THE GREATEST, JUST LIKE HE SAID HE WASBOXER,
ACTIVIST B. 1942 – 2016

Because he was the greatest, just like he said he wasBoxer, activist b. 1942 –
2016

Muhammad Ali is the undisputed president of athletes, taking office on June 4,
1967.

Just over a month earlier, the heavyweight boxing champion refused 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.”

There is a now iconic photograph of Ali and his newly formed “cabinet.” Flanked
by eventual Hall of Famer Brown and eventual Hall of Famers Bill Russell and
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (then Lew Alcindor) the champ also had eventual Hall of
Famers Willie Davis and Bobby Mitchell as well as attorney Carl Stokes (who
would become Cleveland’s mayor and the first African-American mayor of a major
city) behind him.

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.”

As a boxer, Ali is considered the greatest of all time. His style, power, ring
savvy and winning of an Olympic gold medal and the world heavyweight title three
times was unprecedented.

He lost the heavyweight crown in 1971. His religious conversion to Islam only
made him more resolute.

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.

At the memorial service held after his death on June 3, 2016, his widow, Lonnie
Ali, said this: “Muhammad indicated that when the end came for him, he wanted us
to use his life and his death as a teaching moment for young people, for his
country and for the world.”

Born in 1942 in Louisville, Kentucky, as Cassius Clay, he will be forever known
simply as “The Greatest.” – Derrick Z. Jackson

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RICHARD ALLEN BECAUSE GOD DOESN’T SEGREGATE, BUT HUMANS DOPREACHER.
ABOLITIONIST. FORMER SLAVE. EDUCATOR. B. 1760 – 1831

Because God doesn’t segregate, but humans doPreacher. Abolitionist. Former
slave. Educator. b. 1760 – 1831

A Feb. 20, 1898, sermon by the Rev. John Palmer on Richard Allen’s place in
African-American history reads:

“If true greatness consists in that self-sacrificing heroism and devotion which
makes a man insensible and indifferent to his own personal welfare, interest,
comfort and advantages; and to deny himself of all for the sake of others, and
for the elevation and advancement of others, without a single promise of reward
— we say, if these constitute greatness, then Richard Allen, the first bishop of
the AME church, was great.”

Allen is considered the founder of the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church
in America. That church, now with a membership of more than 2.5 million people
and 6,000 churches, was the country’s first independent black denomination.

Former slave. Born into servitude in 1760 in Philadelphia, “Negro Richard”
earned $2,000 to buy his freedom and that of his brother in 1780. Richard Allen,
the name he chose as a freedman, came of age during the American Revolution,
just as the antislavery movement and denominational Christianity were gaining
prominence.

Allen discovered religion after hearing a Methodist preacher at a secret
gathering of slaves in Delaware. In his biography, The Life Experiences and
Gospel Labors of the Rt. Rev. Richard Allen, he wrote, “I was awakened and
brought to see myself, poor, wretched and undone, and without the mercy of God
must be lost.”

Preacher. Allen, his wife Sarah and others opened the doors of Bethel AME Church
on July 29, 1794, on the site of a converted blacksmith shop on Sixth Street in
Philadelphia. Allen was ordained the church’s pastor. Driven to establish
“Mother Bethel” by white Methodists’ segregation of blacks, Allen brought other
black Methodist congregations in Philadelphia together in 1816. They elected
Allen bishop, a position he held until his death in 1831.

Abolitionist. Allen focused his sermons on the freedom of slaves, cessation of
colonization, education of youths and temperance. He created denominational
groups to care for and educate the poor. His home and Bethel AME were stops on
the Underground Railroad.

Educator. Recognizing that former slaves and freedmen needed education, he
opened a day school for black children and a night school for adults. Allen
published articles in Freedom’s Journal attacking slavery, colonialism and
organizations that advocated the migration of blacks back to Africa. He authored
three pamphlets about escaping the bonds of slavery, including An Address to
Those Who Keep Slaves and Approve the Practice.

Allen’s legacy lives on today in the AME church’s work, whose motto is “God Our
Father, Christ Our Redeemer, the Holy Spirit Our Comforter, Humankind Our
Family.” – John X. Miller

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MAYA ANGELOU BECAUSE SHE ROSE TO GREATNESS DESPITE FACING SOME OF LIFE’S
CRUELEST HARDSHIPSPOET, ACTIVIST B. 1928 – 2014

Because she rose to greatness despite facing some of life’s cruelest
hardshipsPoet, activist b. 1928 – 2014

Maya Angelou lived a life just as remarkable as the poetry and prose she crafted
in her 86 years on this earth.

And it was the documentation of Angelou’s life that resonated with her audience
and earned her a myriad of accolades, including three Grammy awards, the
Presidential Medal of Freedom, and a host of honorary degrees.

Despite horrific periods in her life, Angelou rose. At 8 years old, she was
raped by her mother’s boyfriend. After being convicted, Angelou’s abuser was
found beaten to death. The once garrulous girl from Stamps, Arkansas, silenced
herself for nearly five years, believing that her voice had killed the man
because she identified him to her family. Instead, she memorized poetry during
her silence, rearranging cadences and reciting Shakespearean sonnets in her
head.

With the help of a teacher, Angelou was able to speak again. She used literature
to recover from trauma, but got pregnant at 16. She found work as San
Francisco’s first African-American female cable car conductor and later worked
in the sex trade and as a calypso singer to support her family. Angelou spoke
honestly of her experiences, unashamed to walk in the truths of her past.

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Later, she joined the Harlem Writers Guild and with help from friend and fellow
author James Baldwin, went on to write I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings in 1969 —
the first in what would become a seven-volume, best-selling autobiographical
series. Nearly a decade later, Angelou struck poetic gold with And Still I Rise,
a collection that remains one of her most important works.

Angelou was also a fearless and determined civil rights activist, serving as the
northern coordinator for Martin Luther King Jr.’s Southern Christian Leadership
Conference, and working with Malcolm X to establish the Organization of
Afro-American Unity.

Life tried hard to break Angelou, but in the face of it all, still she rose. –
Maya A. Jones

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ELLA BAKER BECAUSE SHE DIDN’T LET HER GENDER KEEP HER FROM DEFENDING HER
RACECIVIL RIGHTS ACTIVIST B. 1903 – 1986

Because she didn’t let her gender keep her from defending her raceCivil rights
activist b. 1903 – 1986

Proof that visibility is not necessary to make an impact, Ella Baker is one of
history’s lesser-known civil rights heroes, yet one of the most important. If
Martin Luther King Jr. was the head of the civil rights movement, Ella Baker was
its backbone.

Born on Dec. 13, 1903, in Norfolk, Virginia, and raised in North Carolina, Baker
cultivated her passion and desire for social justice at a young age. Her
grandmother, who was a slave, once told her a story of being whipped for
refusing to marry a man of her slave owner’s choosing — fueling Baker’s desire
for systematic change and justice for her people.

In the 1940s, she developed a grassroots approach as an NAACP field secretary to
gather and convince black people of the group’s message — a vision that holds
true today — that a society of individuals can and should exist “without
discrimination based on race.” In 1957, Baker moved to Atlanta to help King form
the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, through which she facilitated
protests, built campaigns and ran a voter registration campaign called the
Crusade for Citizenship.

Baker did grow frustrated at the lack of gender equality within the group, and
came close to quitting in 1960. But then, on Feb. 1, four black college students
sat at a lunch counter at Woolworth’s in Greensboro, North Carolina. After being
denied service, they were asked to leave. Instead, they refused to leave and a
movement was born.

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A graduate of Shaw University in Raleigh, North Carolina, who during her time
there often challenged university policies, Baker viewed young people as one of
the strongest and most important aspects of the civil rights movement. Inspired
by the courageous sit-ins, Baker laid the framework for the Student Nonviolent
Coordinating Committee (SNCC). SNCC became one of the most important
organizations in American civil rights history because of its commitment to
effecting change through Freedom Rides and its particular emphasis on the
importance of voting rights for African-Americans.

Baker earned the nickname “Fundi,” which is Swahili for a person who teaches a
craft to the next generation. As a dedicated change agent, Baker taught young
people that their spirit was essential to the movement. As long as they had the
audacity to dream of a better, equal and brighter tomorrow — through the means
of relentless peaceful protest and endurance — a fairer society awaited them.
Baker died on Jan. 13, 1986, on her 83rd birthday. – Trudy Joseph and Callan
Mathis

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JAMES BALDWIN BECAUSE HE EMBRACED THE RESPONSIBILITY TO BE A VOICE OF HIS
NATIONNOVELIST, PLAYWRIGHT B. 1924 – 1987

Because he embraced the responsibility to be a voice of his nationNovelist,
playwright b. 1924 – 1987

James Baldwin knew it was his job to reveal the truth. The truth about his race.
The truth about his country. The ugly truths of racism, poverty and inequality
that plagued the United States during his lifetime — and that continue even now,
29 years after his death. He confronted American racism with fearless honesty
and courageously explored homosexuality through his literature and in his life.

And he did it with style. His brilliant prose combined his own experience with
the best — and worst — of that of the black life around him: the joy, the blues,
the sermons, the spirituals and the bitter sting of discrimination. As he said
in his essay The Creative Process, “a society must assume that it is stable, but
the artist must know, and must let us know, that there is nothing stable under
heaven.”

The work of Baldwin, a product of Harlem, New York, and a citizen of the world,
consistently reflected the experience of a black man in white America. His
travels to France and Switzerland only nuanced his understanding of the social
conditions of his race and his country. Although written abroad, his first
novel, Go Tell It on the Mountain, published in 1953, illuminated the struggle
of poor, inner-city residents and drew on the passion of the pulpit. His
collection of essays The Fire Next Time explosively represented black identity
just as the country was coming to terms with just how much white supremacy was
in its DNA. Giovanni’s Room dove straight into the taboo that was homosexuality
— elevating the notion of identity through sexuality and socioeconomic status
without ever mentioning race once.

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As an impoverished black gay man, Baldwin was asked if he felt he’d had a bad
luck of the draw. In fact, he believed he’d hit the jackpot. His identity
informed his artistry. And his artistry strove to represent every individual
whose access to American civil liberties was hampered by race, gender, sexuality
and socioeconomic status.

Baldwin knew that as an artist he was among “a breed of men and women
historically despised while living and acclaimed when safely dead.” So he
unapologetically implored a nation to see its true self through the beauty of
its most marginalized. The truth of his words is not a history lesson of
American culture gone by, it is a reflection of the country alive and in the
here and now. – Danielle Cadet

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JEAN-MICHEL BASQUIAT BECAUSE WITHOUT BASQUIAT, THERE’D BE NO GRAFFITI. WITHOUT
BASQUIAT, THERE’D BE NO BANKSY. GET IT?ARTIST B. 1960 – 1988

Because without Basquiat, there’d be no graffiti. Without Basquiat, there’d be
no Banksy. Get it?Artist b. 1960 – 1988

Eight short years. That’s how long it took Jean-Michel Basquiat to secure his
legacy as an art world prodigy. He died at the age of 27 from a heroin overdose,
leaving behind paintings, drawings and notebooks, many of which explored themes
of counterculture American punk, the urban plight of the African diaspora,
improvisational jazz music and the vagaries of fame during the Ronald Reagan-era
1980s.

Born to a Haitian father and Puerto Rican mother, Basquiat dropped out of high
school and cut his artistic chops as a graffiti artist in Soho and Manhattan,
New York’s Lower East Side. He had his first important gallery show in 1980 and
soon befriended the pop in pop art stars Andy Warhol and Keith Haring. Basquiat
was handsome, fashionable and famously eccentric. He produced vibrant and
emotional canvases with a kind of refined cool reminiscent of improvisational
jazz greats such as Charlie Parker, Thelonious Monk and Miles Davis.

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The drawing in Basquiat’s best-known pieces may be primitive-looking at first
glance, but the images were sexy, complex and sophisticated. While his worldview
was undeniably black, urban and hypermasculine, his bold paint-splash technique
was influenced more by modern abstract masters Jackson Pollock and Cy Twombly.
But there is a definite through line to early 20th-century African-American
greats such as Romare Bearden and Jacob Lawrence to contemporary artist Kara
Walker. His most recognizable motifs — a black male oracle who wears a bold
king’s crown, West African griots and ferocious figures sharing space with
childlike scribbles — appeared in many of his most famous pieces.

As influential as Basquiat is, most of his work is privately owned and very few
public galleries or museums own or exhibit any of his best-known pieces. His
paintings very rarely appear at auction and now attract stratospheric prices
when they do. In May 2016, Basquiat’s 1982 Untitled painting shattered his
auction world record when it was sold for $57.3 million at Christie’s, making
him the most financially successful African-American painter in history.
Celebrity collectors of his work include Leonardo DiCaprio and Johnny Depp, and
an entire generation of hip-hop artists — Kanye West, Lil Wayne, Killer Mike,
Rick Ross and J. Cole — routinely name-check the Brooklyn, New York-born cool
kid. Basquiat fanboy (and collector) Jay Z even bragged in his 2013 song Picasso
Baby — It ain’t hard to tell, I’m the new Jean-Michel. In other words, legendary
dopeness and enigmatic brilliance will never go out of style. – Jill Hudson

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MARY MCLEOD BETHUNE BECAUSE THE ‘FIRST LADY OF THE STRUGGLE’ LEFT US AN
INDELIBLE LEGACY OF LOVE, HOPE AND DIGNITYCIVIL RIGHTS ACTIVIST, EDUCATOR B.
1875 – 1955

Because the ‘First Lady of the Struggle’ left us an indelible legacy of love,
hope and dignityCivil rights activist, educator b. 1875 – 1955

Though she was able-bodied, Mary McLeod Bethune carried a cane because she said
it gave her “swank.”

An educator, civil rights leader and adviser to five U.S. presidents, the “First
Lady of the Struggle” has been synonymous with black uplift since the early 20th
century. She turned her faith, her passion for racial progress, and her
organizational and fundraising savvy into the enduring legacies of
Bethune-Cookman University and the National Council of Negro Women. She
understood the intersections of education, optics and politics and was fierce
and canny in using them to advance the cause of her people.

Bethune, the 15th of 17 children, grew up in rural South Carolina and started
working in the fields as a young girl. She hoped to become a missionary in
Africa after attending Scotia Seminary in North Carolina and Chicago’s Moody
Bible Institute, but was told black missionaries were unwelcome. So, she turned
to educating her people at home, founding the Daytona Literary and Industrial
Training School for Negro Girls in 1904 with $1.50 and six students, including
her young son.

Twenty years later, the school was merged with Cookman Institute of
Jacksonville, Florida. In 1924, Bethune, one of the few female college
presidents in the nation, became president of the National Association of
Colored Women. A decade later, in a move to centralize dozens of organizations
working on behalf of black women, Bethune founded the influential National
Council of Negro Women.

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Bethune helped organize black advisers to serve on the Federal Council of Negro
Affairs, the storied “Black Cabinet,” under President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
First lady Eleanor Roosevelt considered Bethune one of her closest friends.
Photos featuring her with the president or first lady ran prominently in black
publications, helping to normalize the notion of black faces in high places.

Bethune worked to end poll taxes and lynching. She organized protests against
businesses that refused to hire African-Americans and demonstrated in support of
the Scottsboro Boys. She lobbied for women to join the military. She organized,
she wrote, she lectured, and she inspired.

Perhaps her most enduring written work was her last will and testament:

I LEAVE YOU LOVE … I LEAVE YOU HOPE … I LEAVE YOU THE CHALLENGE OF DEVELOPING
CONFIDENCE IN ONE ANOTHER … I LEAVE YOU A THIRST FOR EDUCATION … I LEAVE YOU
RESPECT FOR THE USES OF POWER … I LEAVE YOU FAITH … I LEAVE YOU RACIAL DIGNITY …
I LEAVE YOU A DESIRE TO LIVE HARMONIOUSLY WITH YOUR FELLOW MEN … I LEAVE YOU
FINALLY A RESPONSIBILITY TO OUR YOUNG PEOPLE. – Lonnae O’Neal

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SHIRLEY CHISHOLM BECAUSE BEFORE ‘YES WE CAN’ THERE WAS ‘UNBOUGHT AND
UNBOSSED’POLITICIAN B. 1924 – 2005

Because before ‘Yes We Can’ there was ‘Unbought and Unbossed’Politician b. 1924
– 2005

When thinking about how contentious things are in Congress today, imagine being
the sole black female congresswoman nearly 50 years ago, at the height of the
civil rights movement. Shirley Chisholm was relentless in breaking political
barriers with respect to both race and gender. She was a pioneer.

In 1968, Chisholm became the first black woman elected to the U.S. Congress,
representing New York’s 12th District for seven terms from 1969 to 1983. As both
a New York state legislator and a congresswoman, Chisholm championed the rights
of the least of us, fighting for improved education; health and social services,
including unemployment benefits for domestic workers; providing disadvantaged
students the chance to enter college while receiving intensive remedial
education; the food stamp program; and the Special Supplemental Nutrition
Program for Women, Infants and Children program.

Chisholm noted that she faced more discrimination because of gender than race
during her New York legislative career, while acknowledging the additional
struggle that black women encounter specifically because of their race. All
those Chisholm hired for her congressional office were women; half of them were
black. “Tremendous amounts of talent are lost to our society just because that
talent wears a skirt,” she said.

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Before President Barack Obama’s “Yes We Can” slogan and Hillary’s “Stronger
Together,” there was Chisholm’s “Unbought and Unbossed.” In 1972, Chisholm
became the first black candidate for a major party’s nomination for president of
the United States, and the first woman to run for the Democratic Party’s
presidential nomination.

Chisholm remarked in words that still resonate today that “in the end,
anti-black, anti-female, and all forms of discrimination are equivalent to the
same thing: anti-humanism.” The next time you queue up Solange Knowles’ album, A
Seat at the Table, be reminded of Chisholm’s words: “If they don’t give you a
seat at the table, bring a folding chair.” – April Reign

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BENJAMIN O. DAVIS SR. BECAUSE HE LED THE FIGHT AGAINST ENEMIES BOTH FOREIGN AND
DOMESTICGENERAL OFFICER B. 1880 – 1970

Because he led the fight against enemies both foreign and domesticGeneral
officer b. 1880 – 1970

Benjamin Oliver Davis Sr., the first African-American general for the U.S. Army,
battled segregation by developing and implementing plans for the limited
desegregation of U.S. combat forces in Europe during World War II.

Davis, who was born in Chicago in 1877 and Howard University-educated, began his
military career in the trenches of the Spanish-American War as a volunteer
grunt. He liked the military’s discipline and order, so when he was discharged
as a volunteer, he enlisted after deciding he wanted a military career.

In the throes of segregation for four decades, he commanded troops in Liberia
and the Philippines, where his unit was the famed Buffalo Soldiers. He was three
times assigned as a professor of military science and tactics at Wilberforce
University in Ohio and Tuskegee Institute in Alabama.

His duty assignments were designed to avoid him being put in command of white
troops or officers. He rose slowly through the ranks, becoming the first black
colonel in the army in 1930. All of his appointments were considered temporary,
a move designed to limit his exposure to white troops.

During World War II, he headed a special unit charged with safeguarding the
status and morale of black soldiers in the army, and he served in the European
theater as a special adviser on race relations. In 1940, he was promoted to
brigadier general by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, a move some thought was
only because Roosevelt needed black votes in the presidential election. Davis
retired in 1948 after 50 years of service.

Following many years of service, he became an adviser for the military on racial
discrimination, pushing for full integration of the armed forces. He earned a
Bronze Star and Distinguished Service Medal.

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Davis’ determined and disciplined rise in the Army paved the way for black men
and women — including his son, Benjamin O. Davis Jr., a West Point graduate who
in 1954 became the second African-American general in the U.S. military and the
first in the Air Force.

Davis Jr. led the Tuskegee Airmen and continued the fight against the
establishment and tradition to advance the cause of blacks in the military.

In 1948, President Harry S. Truman ordered the end of discriminatory practices
in the armed forces, relying on the foundation built by Davis. After his death
in 1970, he was buried at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia.

In January 1997, the U.S. Postal Service issued a Black Heritage Stamp to honor
his service and contributions. – John X. Miller

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FREDERICK DOUGLASS BECAUSE HIS VOICE ROSE FROM THE HORROR OF SLAVERY TO
CHALLENGE THE DENIAL OF BLACK HUMANITYABOLITIONIST, AUTHOR B. 1818 – 1895

Because his voice rose from the horror of slavery to challenge the denial of
black humanityAbolitionist, author b. 1818 – 1895

A slave. A free person among slaves. A free person who must still fight for full
emancipation. Every black person who has called America home has existed in one
of these three states. Frederick Douglass endured them all and spoke to these
unique human conditions while demanding complete black inclusion in the American
experiment.

With his autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, published
in 1845, Douglass provided arguably the most influential slave narrative. Born
in Maryland in 1818, the son of a slave mother and a white father, possibly his
owner, Douglass escaped bondage by fleeing North. Through his vivid portrayals
of brutality, the severing of familial bonds and mental torture, he documented
the iniquity of the peculiar institution and disproved the Southern propaganda
of the happy slave.

Douglass rose to prominence in the abolitionist movement, partly due to his
personal experience of having lived as chattel, but also he knew how to
enrapture an audience. One observer described him as strikingly memorable. “He
was more than six feet in height, and his majestic form, as he rose to speak,
straight as an arrow, muscular, yet lithe and graceful, his flashing eye, and
more than all, his voice, that rivaled Webster’s in its richness, and in the
depth and sonorousness of its cadences, made up such an ideal of an orator as
the listeners never forgot.”

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Particularly relevant today, Douglass leaves behind a blueprint for challenging
racism. In August 1862, President Abraham Lincoln invited black leaders to the
White House to sell them on the idea of black immigration out of the country.
Douglass called Lincoln’s idea “ridiculous” and believed the president showed a
“pride of race and blood” and “contempt for negroes.” Through a subsequent
friendship with Douglass, Lincoln learned he had erred.

Douglass was not always successful in changing the mind of a president. At the
White House in 1866, Douglass told President Andrew Johnson that “we do hope
that you … will favorably regard the placing in our hands the ballot with which
to save ourselves.” Johnson continued to oppose black suffrage, yet Douglass
taught everyone the small victories to be reaped by simply resisting the
shackles of oppression.

He died in 1895, but his spirit in standing before white supremacy and calling
it by its name remains. – Brando Simeo Starkey

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DR. CHARLES DREW BECAUSE HE WAS A TRUE-BLOOD PIONEER WHO HAS SAVED, AND IS STILL
SAVING, MILLIONS OF LIVESPHYSICIAN B. 1904 – 1950

Because he was a true-blood pioneer who has saved, and is still saving, millions
of livesPhysician b. 1904 – 1950

The blood bank is something we take for granted now, but it wasn’t always so. As
a researcher and surgeon, Dr. Charles Drew revolutionized the understanding of
plasma, the liquid portion of blood without cells. Plasma lasts much longer than
whole blood, making it possible to be “banked” for long periods of time.

As a young man, Drew was an exceptional athlete, starring in football, baseball,
basketball and track and field at Washington, D.C.’s, Dunbar High School. He was
an All-American halfback at Amherst College in Massachusetts and captain of the
track team. But he couldn’t afford medical school in the United States and
attended McGill University in Montreal. He later moved back to the United States
and taught at Howard University’s medical school.

After becoming the first African-American to get his doctorate from Columbia
University in 1940, Drew was the world’s leading authority on blood transfusions
and storage, just as the United States and Great Britain were becoming deeply
involved in World War II. His research established protocols on how blood should
be collected and refrigerated, how donors should be recruited and screened, and
training methods for people who would collect and test blood.

As medical director of the American Red Cross National Blood Donor Service, Drew
led the collection of tens of thousands of pints of blood for U.S. troops. Some
historians say his work might have saved the world from Nazism, since
battlefield blood storage and transfusions didn’t exist before he was asked to
manage two of the largest blood banks during the war.

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Even so, the U.S. military ruled that the blood of African-Americans would be
segregated and not used on white troops, although blood has no racial
characteristics. Outraged, Drew resigned from the Red Cross and returned to
Howard as a professor and head of surgery at Freedman’s Hospital in Washington,
D.C., where he trained a generation of black physicians.

He died in 1950 at the age of 45 in a car accident in Burlington, North
Carolina, while returning from a clinic at Tuskegee Institute in 1950. Today,
according to the Red Cross, there are 15.7 million blood donations a year in the
United States from 9.2 million donors. – John X. Miller

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W.E.B. DU BOIS BECAUSE HE OBSERVED THE MULTIFACETED NATURE OF
AFRICAN-AMERICANSSOCIOLOGIST, WRITER, ACTIVIST B. 1868 – 1963

Because he observed the multifaceted nature of African-AmericansSociologist,
writer, activist b. 1868 – 1963

In the introduction to The Souls of Black Folk, published in 1903, William
Edward Burghardt Du Bois wrote that “the problem of the Twentieth Century is the
problem of color line.” Though this prophetic remark is perhaps his most
indelible, in a career spanning over a half-century until his death in 1963, Du
Bois possessed the most perpetual voice on race in American history.

Attentive to both sides of the color line, Du Bois provided the most cogent
explanation why whites to this day rebuff interracial political alliances even
when sharing economic interests with people of color. In Black Reconstruction in
America, published in 1935, Du Bois observed that working-class whites receive
the psychological wage of whiteness. “It must be remembered that the white group
of laborers,” he penned, “while they received a low wage, were compensated in
part by a sort of public and psychological wage.”

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Du Bois also wrote incisively on the black condition, including the observation
that blacks have a double consciousness. “It is a peculiar sensation, this
double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one’s self through the
eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in
amused contempt and pity. One ever feels his two-ness, — an American, a Negro;
two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one
dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder.”

This is the legacy of Du Bois — a veritable library of works that were essential
reading the moment he finished them because they spoke to the issues of the day
and yet speak just as loudly now. – Brando Simeo Starkey

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DUKE ELLINGTON BECAUSE ‘IN DEATH AS IN LIFE, HE IS THE EMBODIMENT OF
JAZZ’COMPOSER, BANDLEADER B. 1899 – 1974

Because ‘in death as in life, he is the embodiment of jazz’Composer, bandleader
b. 1899 – 1974

Just as soul music and Motown provided the aspirational soundtrack for the 1960s
civil rights movement, swing music furnished the upwardly-mobile score for the
mid-1900s Harlem Renaissance. And of all the formidable bandleaders of the era,
Edward “Duke” Ellington towered over the competition like a musical Everest.
Where Count Basie, Benny Goodman and competing bandleaders favored high-stepping
songs with hard-swinging arrangements, Ellington tunes such as “I Got It Bad
(And That Ain’t Good),” “In a Sentimental Mood,” and “Black and Tan Fantasy”
seem mysterious by comparison, romantic songs whose world-weary blues melodies
helped Ellington earn 11 Grammy Awards, 13 Grammy Hall of Fame nods, and a
Grammy Trustees Award.

An economical pianist and canny orchestra leader, music seemed to pour from the
D.C.-born wunderkind. Composing original songs at a furious clip, Ellington
wrote more than 1,000 tunes, many of which are considered part of the Great
American Songbook, including “Don’t Get Around Much Anymore,” “Satin Doll,” “I’m
Beginning to See the Light,” and more.

He was a pivotal player in jazz music’s metamorphosis into swing, the
evolutionary 1930s style that placed more emphasis on syncopated rhythms and
hard-driving bass. Ellington and songwriting collaborators, including Billy
Strayhorn, excelled at creating arrangements that showcased the orchestra’s most
dynamic soloists, including alto saxophonist Johnny Hodges,
multi-instrumentalist Ray Nance, and trombonist Joe Nanton, the latter of whom
employed a mute to create woebegone “wah-wah” effects. That Ellington was able
to manage such a crackerjack touring orchestra while composing hundreds of
topflight tunes is testament to his genius and industry.

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His original songs rank among the first examples of “crossover” pop. It’s
indisputable that Ellington performances such as “Take the ‘A’ Train” “In A
Sentimental Mood” and “It Don’t Mean a Thing (If It Ain’t Got That Swing)”
perfectly captured the essence of the black experience, but his facile
reconciliation of street-smart rhythm, tuxedo-clad melody and impressionistic
lyricism was also irresistible to white audiences.

One can easily quantify Ellington’s greatness by citing his many honors,
including the Presidential Medal of Freedom, a Pulitzer Prize special citation,
the Songwriters Hall of Fame Award, and honorary doctorates from Howard
University, Yale and Columbia, to list but a few. But Sir Duke’s legacy
transcends mere peer accolades. Play word association with phrases such as
“swing” and “big band music,” and Ellington’s name will likely leap first to
many people’s minds. In death as in life, he is the embodiment of jazz. — Bruce
Britt

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ARETHA FRANKLIN BECAUSE HERS IS A TITLE WELL-EARNED: THE QUEEN OF
SOULSINGER-SONGWRITER B. 1942 – 2018

Because hers is a title well-earned: The Queen of SoulSinger-songwriter b. 1942
– 2018

Curtsies are absolutely appropriate. Aretha Franklin is undisputed when it comes
to pouring gospel-inflected, bluesy wails of love-gone-wrong lyrics over
country-fried–yet-pop tracks. She plucked her Pentecostal pipes from the pulpit
and applied them to a secular sound, giving us Sunday morning righteousness on
any given Saturday night.

Fifty years ago, the daughter of popular Detroit Baptist minister C.L. Franklin
scored a No. 1 hit with her remake of Otis Redding’s Respect, a song with a bit
of a double entendre that helped soundtrack the civil rights movement. In 1967,
when there was racial unrest in her native Detroit, people ran through the
streets, daring cops to come near them while they shouted “sock it to me,” her
ad-lib from the song, as they protested. Her signature song — and her most
noted, as it’s been used many times over in TV and films and is a hot karaoke
tune — also served as a sororal call for women, who also were looking for
respect and to be taken seriously alongside their male counterparts. All these
years later, the single still resonates.

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But Franklin is bigger than one track. Her career has spanned five decades, and
she also was the first female performer inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of
Fame in 1987 — as she should have been. She’s had more than 100 singles that
have reached the Billboard charts, and 17 of them have been top 10 singles.
She’s won an impressive 18 Grammys, has sold more than 75 million albums, and
she’s one of the most influential voices ever, inspiring and paving the way for
acts such as Beyoncé, Whitney Houston and Mariah Carey. Franklin is a musician’s
musician — she can bang it on the piano as well as she can on a microphone — and
she can sing opera music as effortlessly as she can sing gospel. Few can hold a
candle to her four-octave range — many have tried, some have come close, but no
one has managed to sustain and strike quite the way Franklin has. All hail the
Queen. – Kelley L. Carter

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JIMI HENDRIX BECAUSE NO ONE CAN MATCH HIS GENIUSMUSICIAN, SINGER-SONGWRITERB.
1942 – 1970

Because no one can match his geniusMusician, singer-songwriterb. 1942 – 1970

For decades, a belief has taken hold among guitarists — to prove your ability,
you must pay homage to Jimi Hendrix.

He was hailed by the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame as “the most gifted
instrumentalist of all time.” Hendrix’s virtuosity looms so large that many
guitarists still vainly attempt to emulate him. Just as whiz-kid classical
pianists flaunt their chops by interpreting Mozart, so have guitarists such as
Eric Clapton, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Prince and John Mayer felt the need to perform
Hendrix classics such as “Hey Joe,” “Little Wing” and “Foxey Lady.” That’s why
rock’s magazine of record, Rolling Stone, named Hendrix the greatest guitar
player ever.

While Hendrix’s guitar artistry is indisputable, it‘s ultimately a puzzle piece
of his panoramic talent. He was also a composer of accessibly complex songs, and
a poet-caliber lyricist (“a broom is drearily sweeping / up the broken pieces of
yesterday’s life …”). The rock legend has posthumously earned multiple Hall of
Fame Grammy Awards, including the Recording Academy’s prestigious Lifetime
Achievement Award.

But just what makes Hendrix rock’s greatest expressionist? His live performances
were at times distractingly sloppy, his guitar tone ear-piercing. Curiously,
it’s these stylistic eccentricities that make him singular. For Hendrix, music
wasn’t about note-perfect performance, but rather a constant search for truth.
If that meant playing long, solo-intensive songs illustrating the savageness of
war, then so be it.

By the time of his death in 1970, Hendrix had so thoroughly changed musical
perceptions that even jazz legends such as Miles Davis and Gil Evans were taking
cues from him. It’s almost impossible to imagine influential jazz-fusion albums
like Davis’ Bitches Brew — or acid-funk masterpieces like Funkadelic’s Maggot
Brain — without Hendrix having laid the groundwork.

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He leaped effortlessly from metallic fury to gossamer balladry and jazzy
excursions. Arguably, Hendrix’s freakish talent is best demonstrated on his
Woodstock performance of the “The Star-Spangled Banner,” where he performs
guitar emulations of artillery and air-raid sirens in an audacious condemnation
of American militarism.

Since his demise, a horde of guitarists has challenged Hendrix’s primacy, yet
none have matched his genius. Sure, Eddie Van Halen is brilliant, but his solos
tell us little about him, or his time.

By contrast, a Hendrix masterwork like “If 6 was 9” allows us a glimpse into the
mind of a nonconformist and his anti-establishment generation. That’s why in the
world of electric guitar, there are two ages — the monochrome era Before
Hendrix, and the limitless, kaleidoscopic period After Hendrix. – Bruce Britt

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ZORA NEALE HURSTON BECAUSE SHE INSPIRED GENERATIONS OF PROUD BLACK SOUTHERN
ARTISTRYNOVELIST, WRITERB. 1891 – 1960

Because she inspired generations of proud black Southern artistryNovelist,
writerb. 1891 – 1960

Recently, Salvage the Bones author and Fire This Time editor Jesmyn Ward
published an essay rejoicing in the visibility and celebration of Southern
blackness and the fact that it had made its way to television in the form of
Atlanta and Queen Sugar. Ward is a Mississippian who drank in the words of Zora
Neale Hurston and Alice Walker because they spoke to her existence, and she,
like so many other black Southern artists and writers, owes a debt of gratitude
to Hurston.

Long before Andre 3000 took to the stage at the 1995 Source Awards to famously
proclaim “the South got somethin’ to say,” Hurston was laying the intellectual
groundwork for such a case. The author of four novels, including the now beloved
and celebrated Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937) and the autobiography Dust
Tracks on a Road (1942), was dismissed as a southern bumpkin by her male
contemporaries, including Richard Wright, Sterling A. Brown, Ralph Ellison and
Alain Locke. Even Langston Hughes, who co-founded Fire magazine with her and
Wallace Thurman in 1926, called her an “outrageous woman.”

Wright in particular derided her style and voice as “minstrel technique.”
Hurston had the pesky habit of writing the way black people in the South — and
in particular the all-black town of Eatonville, Florida, where she was raised —
actually spoke. Furthermore, she had the nerve not to think anything was wrong
with it, not even after spending six years studying at Howard University, from
1918 to 1924, which Hurston regarded as a clearinghouse of “Negro money, beauty
and prestige.” While she was a student there, Hurston founded The Hilltop,
Howard’s student-run newspaper.

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As a folklorist, Hurston is part of a literary tradition that shares its ethos
with the blues and with contemporary musical acts such as Alabama Shakes, the
Carolina Chocolate Drops and OutKast. You can draw lines from Hurston’s earnest
interest in hoodoo to Beyoncé’s embrace of all things Southern gothic in
Lemonade. The longstanding divide between Northern and Southern black people,
metropolitan vs. agrarian, is one that repeatedly informs our history and
culture, even the civil rights movement. It was Walker, who in 1975, brought
Hurston out of the American literary hinterlands with Looking for Zora, her
essay published in Ms. Magazine.

But Hurston retained a self-assured elegance and wit that didn’t bother worrying
itself with outside acceptance. And it’s that sort of thinking that allowed her
to gift us with this gem of quotation, and a philosophy we could all stand to
internalize, Southern or not: “Sometimes, I feel discriminated against, but it
does not make me angry. It merely astonishes me,” Hurston once said. “How can
any deny themselves the pleasure of my company? It’s beyond me.” – Soraya Nadia
McDonald

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JESSE JACKSON BECAUSE HE KEPT HOPE ALIVE AND MADE THE WHITE HOUSE REALCIVIL
RIGHTS ACTIVIST, POLITICIAN B. 1941

Because he kept hope alive and made the White House realCivil rights activist,
politician b. 1941

Jesse Jackson laid the foundation for electing a black president, one of the
signature achievements of the 21st century. Jackson’s are the biggest shoulders
that Barack Obama stands on. This is not conventional wisdom, but it is true.

It begins with Jackson’s decision to run for president himself in 1984, widely
seen then as an act of symbolism and hubris. Black leaders had been discussing
for years what it would take to seriously compete for the highest office in the
land, to build on what Shirley Chisholm did in 1972. After Harold Washington was
elected Chicago’s first black mayor in 1983 and with concern mounting about the
impact of Ronald Reagan’s presidency on black Americans, some thought the time
was ripe. But none of the most prominent black elected leaders would step up —
either they lacked courage or a big enough ego. Jackson lacked neither.

That he ran and won five Democratic primaries and caucuses on a minuscule budget
shocked the party establishment and elevated Jackson’s stature. With his second
presidential campaign in 1988, he established himself as the leader of the
progressive wing of the Democratic Party. He won 11 primaries and caucuses and
finished as runner-up to Democratic nominee Michael Dukakis.

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Before Jackson’s campaigns, blacks had been largely relegated to roles as
campaign surrogates on “urban issues” and get-out-the-vote specialists in black
communities. Jackson pried open the Democratic Party structure and helped
increase black participation in politics. The result was more field operatives,
strategists, fundraisers — and candidates for a wider range of offices — than
ever before. He pushed for changes in the party’s nominating process that
ultimately benefited Obama in his race against Hillary Clinton in 2008.

As Jackson has faded from national prominence, with his image taking a pelting
in recent years, it is easy to forget how electric he once was. It is not an
overstatement to call him one of the greatest political orators in American
history. His ability to inspire farmers and factory workers, maids who “catch
the early bus” and teenagers growing up in housing projects was unmatched.

He certainly deserves credit for his civil rights activism — in the Deep South
as a protégé of Martin Luther King Jr. and later on Wall Street and in Silicon
Valley. But Jackson’s most notable achievement was shaking up the American
political system by helping reform a major party and demonstrating that
occupying the Oval Office really was an attainable dream. – Kevin Merida

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MICHAEL JACKSON BECAUSE HE IS THE KING OF POPSINGER-SONGWRITER B. 1958 – 2009

Because he is the King of PopSinger-songwriter b. 1958 – 2009

It seems fate itself set the stage for Michael Jackson. When the musical
wunderkind was born in 1958, television was in its experimental age, Billboard
Magazine had just premiered its Hot 100 singles chart and the recording industry
was planning the 1959 premiere of an awards show called The Grammys.

Over a career spanning five decades, Jackson would bend all these emerging
cultural forces to his will. He arrived on the world stage at age 11, having
already sacrificed his youth performing at venues around his Indiana hometown of
Gary. Combining the soft-shoed grace of Sammy Davis Jr. with the slip-sliding
exuberance of James Brown, Michael and the Jackson 5 topped the Hot 100 with
their first Motown Records singles “I Want You Back” and “ABC”.

His 1979 coming-of-age solo album, Off The Wall — featuring the self-penned hit
“Don’t Stop ’Til You Get Enough” — raised the bar for dance music production.
The singer’s 1982 follow-up LP, Thriller, was so successful in assimilating
world music styles that it rocketed to No. 1 in most countries, including
apartheid-era South Africa. It was the first LP to place seven top 10 singles on
the Billboard Hot 100, while nabbing a record-breaking eight Grammys. Thriller
remains the best-selling album ever, having moved an undisputed 100 million
copies worldwide.

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Through his visionary music videos, Jackson established not only his musical
mastery, but a quirky fashion sense that incorporated multizippered jackets and
a single sequined glove. His videos were so powerful that Epic Records
threatened to censure MTV if the fledgling network did not break with its tacit
segregationist content policy and broadcast them. Ironically, the videos for
“Billie Jean,” “Beat It” and Thriller not only created unprecedented consumer
demand for MTV, they also demonstrated the universal appeal of black music,
opening a mainstream entry point for rap.

Jackson shattered so many industry norms and sales records that he justifiably
proclaimed himself the “King of Pop.” But greatness came at a price. Through
cosmetic enhancements, Jackson morphed into an androgynous, powder-complected
waif. He married and divorced Elvis Presley’s daughter, Lisa Marie Presley,
followed by marriage to a nurse who bore him two children. He successfully
fended off multiple allegations of child molestation, but at the sacrifice of
his once squeaky-clean image.

Today, Jackson haunts the charts in the form of The Weeknd, Bruno Mars, Justin
Timberlake and countless other acts he influenced. Forbes named him the
highest-earning celebrity of 2016. He remains the multiplatinum standard, a
symbol of near-unattainable excellence in entertaining. – Bruce Britt

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JAY Z BECAUSE HE’S SAVING HIP-HOP WHILE HANDLING HIS BUSINESSARTIST,
ENTREPRENEUR B. 1969

Because he’s saving hip-hop while handling his businessArtist, entrepreneur b.
1969

If hip-hop had a Mount Rushmore, there are three men whose faces would be
chiseled in granite: The Notorious B.I.G., Tupac Shakur and Jay Z. Notorious
B.I.G. and Tupac were both killed in their mid-20s. Jay Z is now 47. Maybe he
wasn’t supposed to be the best, but that’s what he became. Hov got flow though
he’s no Big and Pac, but he’s close / How I’m ‘posed to win, they got me
fightin’ ghosts, he rapped on New York City’s Hot 97 radio station in 2006, the
same year MTV named him the greatest MC of all time.

Shawn Corey Carter grew up in the Marcy Projects in Brooklyn, New York, where
his mother, Gloria Carter, remembers he’d be in the kitchen of their apartment
“beating on the table and rapping into the wee hours of the morning” until she
bought him his first boom box. But he’s never been an artist, he says — always
just a hustler. He never graduated from high school and sold crack cocaine until
he arrived as Jay Z with his 1996 debut album, Reasonable Doubt.

If Jay Z is the greatest, it’s not just because the only others in his league
are ghosts. It’s because when it looked like hip-hop itself was dead, Jay Z
brought it back to life. His 13 Billboard No. 1 albums are the most by any solo
artist in history. And they’re sprinkled with timeless tracks, from 2004’s “99
Problems,” a look at what it’s like to drive while black in America, to 2009’s
“D.O.A. (Death of Auto-Tune),” which single-handedly demolished a wave of music,
to “N—-s in Paris,” one of the hottest party records in the last decade.

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And as he climbed the charts, Jay Z also became an influential businessman with
an estimated net worth of $610 million. He is an owner of Tidal, a streaming
music service. He co-founded Roc-A-Fella Records, served as president of Def Jam
Records, founded entertainment company Roc Nation, and became part-owner of the
Brooklyn Nets before giving up his stake in the NBA franchise to found his own
sports agency, Roc Nation Sports.

Oh, and his wife is Beyoncé. He has lived the American dream of reinvention and
second chances. I’m not a businessman. I’m a business, man. Now let me handle my
business, damn! That’s hip-hop. – Aaron Dodson

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KATHERINE JOHNSON BECAUSE SHE USED NUMBERS TO FIND HER VOICE AT
NASAMATHEMATICIAN, PHYSICIST B. 1918—2020

Because she used numbers to find her voice at NASAMathematician, physicist b.
1918—2020

Every American kid — by the time he or she reaches fourth grade — has studied
the important history of this country’s space missions. The significance of NASA
being able to send John Glenn around the earth three successful times is
well-documented, well-reported on and appropriately looked at as one of the more
important gains in air and space. The critical nugget that always was missing
was the unseen black female force that helped him get there.

Thankfully, we now know better. Katherine Johnson, 98, was a physicist and
mathematician who helped launch the first use of digital electronic computers at
NASA, the independent federal government agency that handles aerospace research,
aeronautics and the civilian space program. Her wisdom with numbers and accuracy
was so highly regarded that her sign-off was paramount for NASA to modernize
itself with digital computers.

Be clear, Johnson wasn’t alone — many black women were hired by NASA in the
early 1950s to work in the Guidance and Navigation Department. Johnson came on
board in 1953 — a year before the civil rights movement kicked into high gear —
and she initially worked in a pool of black women who all were performing math
calculations. But it was Johnson who was plucked out of the pool to work with an
all-male flight research team. It was Johnson who helped calculate the orbit for
the 1969 Apollo 11 flight to the moon. And it was Johnson who co-authored 26
scientific papers, which NASA still links to via its archives.

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Her story — our story — was told in grand Hollywood fashion. Oscar-nominated
actor and Golden Globe winner Taraji P. Henson brought her life to the big
screen in the critically acclaimed Hidden Figures, and Henson boldly helped to
tell a story that so many of us never knew existed. Finally.

Johnson is a genius. She was a math prodigy who was 14 years old when she
graduated from high school, 18 years old when she earned a double degree in math
and French from West Virginia State College. And she helped to integrate the
graduate school at West Virginia University — where she was one of three black
students and, ahem, the lone woman — after a Supreme Court ruling. Yes, she has
a story worth telling. In 2015, then-President Barack Obama awarded Johnson the
Presidential Medal of Freedom for her pioneering work that led black women to
work in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. – Kelley L. Carter

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QUINCY JONES BECAUSE HE IS PRODUCING THE SOUNDTRACK OF OUR LIVESMUSIC PRODUCER,
SONGWRITER, ACTIVIST B. 1933

Because he is producing the soundtrack of our livesMusic producer, songwriter,
activist b. 1933

So many words can be used to describe the influence of Quincy Jones, but let’s
start with innovator. Others that work: producer, writer, arranger, composer and
humanitarian. The Chicago native (who came of age in Washington state) has been
making an impact on music and popular culture for six decades — he’s scored and
soundtracked the majority of our lives, contributing to and producing some of
the best-selling albums of all time.

Jones is responsible for a number of “firsts,” and also paved the way for other
African-Americans in the entertainment industry. Along with his music partner,
he was the first black composer nominated for an Academy Award in 1968. In 1971,
he was the first black musical director and conductor for the show. And in 1995,
Jones was the first black person to be honored with the Jean Hersholt
Humanitarian Award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
Musically, Jones is a wonder. He’s earned 79 Grammy nominations, collected 27
Grammys and was honored with a Grammy Legend Award in 1991.

Whew.

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He produced all three of Michael Jackson’s iconic albums — Off The Wall, Bad and
Thriller — the last of which sold more than 32 million copies in the United
States alone. Those albums have inspired a generation of pop stars, including
Chris Brown, Usher and Justin Timberlake. A song he produced in 1985 sealed his
reputation as a humanitarian. He gathered 37 of the biggest names in music at
that time together in one studio to record the Michael Jackson and Lionel
Richie-penned track We Are The World and support famine relief in Africa. The
album sold more than 20 million copies and the song is one of the
highest-selling singles of all time.

Jones’ influence extends across many media: He founded Vibe magazine in 1993, an
entertainment publication that gave urban Generation Xers a periodical that
reflected themselves. And Jones — who turns 84 in March — isn’t done. A monthly
vinyl subscription service announced Jones as an upcoming curator for its record
of the month, and a new headphone collaboration looks to give Dr. Dre a run for
his money. – Kelley L. Carter

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MICHAEL JORDAN BECAUSE IT’S GOTTA BE THE SHOESBASKETBALL PLAYER, PRINCIPAL OWNER
OF THE CHARLOTTE HORNETS B. 1963

Because it’s gotta be the shoesBasketball player, principal owner of the
Charlotte Hornets b. 1963

Michael Jordan operates on his own terms. The ruthless competitor in him has
made sure of that. Over the years, he molded himself into this lauded beast in
reaction to what perhaps only he considers failure. It all began in 1978, during
his sophomore year at Laney High School in Wilmington, North Carolina, when
Jordan was not selected for the varsity basketball team. A relentless nature and
a growth spurt ultimately got him to a level of athleticism and bravado he’s yet
to descend from. He dominated on varsity and received a basketball scholarship
to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. At UNC, he hit a game-winner
to clinch a national championship and was named the national college player of
the year. In the 1984 NBA draft, the Chicago Bulls selected him third overall.
Many have wondered why he didn’t go No. 1 or No. 2.

Debates could — but shouldn’t — be entertained regarding his place in the
history of the game. Jordan is the greatest player to ever touch a basketball
and it’s not even close. His six NBA titles in six NBA Finals appearances with
six NBA Finals MVPs are among the greatest feats sports has ever seen. Five
league MVPs, 10 league scoring titles, an NBA Defensive Player of the Year
Award, two NBA Slam Dunk contest trophies — remember the free throw line dunk? —
and the list goes on. The NBA told him not to wear the sneakers Nike made for
him, but he still did, eventually turning Air Jordan into an entire commercial
collection and billion-dollar brand. His Jumpman logo is likely more
recognizable than the NBA logo’s silhouette of Jerry West. At the peak of his
playing career, Jordan entered an early retirement to play Major League
Baseball. When he failed this time, he did so on his own terms, announcing his
return to the NBA with a two-word fax that read, “I’m back,” before winning
three more championship rings. Another retirement led to another comeback, and a
51-point game at the age of 38.

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When his playing days ended, Jordan turned a minority stake in an NBA franchise
to principal ownership of the Charlotte Hornets. And in 2016, in a rare public
statement on social justice, the only African-American majority owner in major
professional sports said he could “no longer stay silent” about the killings of
African-Americans and targeting of police officers.

Ruthless, relentless and peerless. That’s the Jordan way. – Aaron Dodson

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MARTIN LUTHER KING JR. BECAUSE HE WAS THE WARRIOR OF NONVIOLENCECIVIL RIGHTS
ACTIVIST, BAPTIST MINISTER B. 1929 – 1968

Because he was the warrior of nonviolenceCivil rights activist, Baptist minister
b. 1929 – 1968

“So the question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of
extremists we will be.”

Pick up a pencil. And write me a letter. Show the racial and economic apartheid
facing the Negro in the United States. Rouse the fearful souls who feel certain
it cannot be overcome. Dismiss the ones who say it shouldn’t be done. Calm the
ones who seek to kill to see it done. Set aside the certainty that your life is
in mortal peril — when has it not been?

Of course we are speaking of Martin Luther King Jr., and the challenge is Letter
from a Birmingham Jail. Why is it so hard now to see the blood and sweat behind
the monument King has become? Perhaps peaceful resistance feels so passive in
these pugnacious times? But when was it ever not so? Perhaps his eloquence lulls
the senses with its beauty. Perhaps martyrdom puts his exhortations out of reach
of the normal person.

Certainly, he was a man of incredible achievement: seminal leader of the civil
rights movement, co-founder of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, a
key figure in the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in 1963, the
Montgomery bus boycott, the Selma to Montgomery March in 1965, and a recipient
of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964. And after his assassination, the Presidential
Medal of Freedom, a federal holiday, a monument in Washington, D.C., a coloring
book page on every refrigerator in every house with a child under 6 during Black
History Month.

The key to that achievement? Here’s a hint from the man himself:

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“We decided to set our direct-action program around the Easter season, realizing
that, with exception of Christmas, this was the largest shopping period of the
year. Knowing that a strong economic withdrawal program would be the by-product
of direct action, we felt that this was the best time to bring pressure on the
merchants for the needed changes.”

Note the precision of the planning, the cunning in the details: King was waging
a war. This was not about turning the other cheek. He would not answer violence
with violence but would fight until he died. It is hard now to see the movement
behind the movement. What we glaze over as a glorious fight for our inalienable
rights was for him to put “pressure on the merchants for the needed changes.”

He is still etched in marble. But remember this: The tools he used are within
your possession. He asked for more than nonviolence. He asked that you use them.
– Raina Kelley

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HENRIETTA LACKS BECAUSE SHE WAS THE SUBJECT OF A MEDICAL EXPERIMENT THAT IS
STILL SAVING LIVES TODAYHELA CELL LINE B. 1920 – 1951

Because she was the subject of a medical experiment that is still saving lives
todayHeLa cell line b. 1920 – 1951

Doctors stole her cells. Henrietta Lacks was an accidental pioneer of modern-day
medicine; her cells are saving lives today even though she died in 1951.

Lacks was a 31-year-old mother of five when she was diagnosed with cervical
cancer. Just months before her death, doctors at Johns Hopkins Hospital in
Baltimore sliced pieces of tissue from her cancerous tumor without her consent —
in effect, stealing them. It was another instance of decades of medical
apartheid and clinical practices that discriminated against blacks. Lacks was
not a slave, but parts of her cancerous tumor represent the first human cells
ever bought and sold.

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Her cells, known among scientists as HeLa, were unusual in that they could
rapidly reproduce and stay alive long enough to undergo multiple tests. Lacks’
cells — now worth billions of dollars — live in laboratories across the world.
They played an important part in developing the polio vaccine, cloning, gene
mapping and in vitro fertilization. The HeLa cell line has been used to develop
drugs for treating herpes, leukemia, influenza and Parkinson’s disease. They’ve
been influential in the study of cancer, lactose digestion, sexually transmitted
diseases and appendicitis.

Lacks’ story is an example of the often-problematic intersection of ethics,
race, and medicine, a link to the dark history of exploitation of, and
experimentation on, African-Americans that ranges from the Tuskegee syphilis
study to a 19th-century doctor experimenting with gynecological treatments on
slave women without anesthetics. – Kelley D. Evans

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MALCOLM X BECAUSE HE WAS THE SPARK WHO SOUGHT TO IGNITE EQUALITY BY ANY MEANS
NECESSARYCIVIL RIGHTS ACTIVIST, MINISTER B. 1925 – 1965

Because he was the spark who sought to ignite equality by any means
necessaryCivil rights activist, minister b. 1925 – 1965

Malcolm X was royalty. He was the American Dream whether America wanted him to
be or not. Born Malcolm Little, Malcolm X overcame drug addiction and a life of
crime to become one of the country’s foremost civil rights leaders and champions
of black pride in the 20th century. Malcolm X converted to Islam while serving a
six-year prison sentence for burglary in Massachusetts. In just two years after
his 1952 release from prison, he became a minister at Nation of Islam temples in
Boston, Philadelphia and New York.

In 1957, Malcolm X founded the Nation of Islam newspaper Muhammad Speaks. The
paper remains one of his lasting legacies as it was the medium for him to spread
his revolutionary message. His philosophies on black pride, black beauty and
black power spread widely across the country — for a time in the 1960s it was
the most widely read black newspaper in the United States, boasting a
circulation in the 100,000s. Malcolm X’s theories became the blueprint for the
black power movements of the ’60s and ’70s. Malcolm X also receives credit for
cultivating the notion that “black is beautiful.” From 1952 to Malcolm X’s
murder in 1965, the Nation of Islam’s membership grew from around 1,000 to
20,000 (though estimates vary).

By 1963, Malcolm X had become the second-most sought after speaker in the United
States and was interviewed by Mike Wallace of CBS News. His Unity Rally in that
same year was one of the biggest civil rights gatherings at the time. His
friendship with Muhammad Ali is one of the more storied relationships of the
’60s, and they set the world on fire with their beliefs and willingness to speak
out.

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Malcolm X took a more diplomatic stance with regard to race relations after
leaving the Nation of Islam in 1964. Previously he’d been known for
segregationist views and acceptance of violence in the quest for equality. He
began though to preach peaceful resistance, and the benefits of integration and
unity. However, his break from the Nation of Islam would be short-lived, as he
was assassinated in New York City in 1965. He was 39.

Malcolm X’s legacy was cemented posthumously, as The Autobiography of Malcolm X,
written with Alex Haley, only expanded his influence. The paperback version of
the book sold 400,000 copies in its first year and is essential reading for any
American. He also became part of a Black Power movement in the early ’90s as
director Spike Lee’s adaptation of the autobiography reignited interest in the
leader and his ideals of Pan-Africanism. His most famous quote, “If you don’t
stand for something, you will fall for anything” is as important in 2017 as it
was in the 1960s. – David Dennis Jr.

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THURGOOD MARSHALL BECAUSE HE WAS THE MOST FEARED BLACK MAN IN THE SOUTHSUPREME
COURT JUSTICE B. 1908 – 1993

Because he was the most feared black man in the SouthSupreme Court justice b.
1908 – 1993

By the time Thurgood Marshall was nominated to be a Supreme Court justice in
1967, few lawyers in history had argued — and won — more cases before the
nation’s highest court. He racked up 29 wins (against just three losses),
including his most famous victory, Brown v. Board of Education, the 1954
landmark decision that forced public schools to desegregate.

Marshall is arguably the most pivotal figure in the destruction of Jim Crow, and
the most consequential lawyer of the 20th century. While other civil rights
leaders organized strategically vital sit-ins, marches and boycotts, Marshall
attacked inequality and racism where America had legally sanctioned it. As the
NAACP’s lead attorney and first director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and
Educational Fund, he traveled the South filing briefs in local courthouses,
representing poor black defendants in criminal cases, doing battle against
racist white juries and judges, and establishing grounds for appeals to higher
courts.

Marshall traveled 50,000 miles a year, often alone in some of the nation’s most
dangerous cities and towns. He stayed in the homes of appreciative black folks
who took elaborate steps to keep him safe and a step ahead of marauding
Klansmen. His courage was remarkable. He managed to maintain his gravitas and
fortitude amid daily death threats, sipping bourbon and telling stories.

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He feared no one — not his colleagues on the Supreme Court, whom he occasionally
pricked during his 24 years there, not even the national reverence for the
Constitution, which he labeled “defective from the start” on the occasion of its
bicentennial. He took shots at Malcolm X and Clarence Thomas alike.

It was fitting that he was called Mr. Civil Rights. Gilbert King, in his book,
Devil in the Grove, notes the reverence for Marshall among blacks who saw him
get case after case overturned by the Supreme Court.

No wonder that across the South, in their darkest, most demoralizing hours, when
falsely accused men sat in jails, when women and children stood before the ashy
ruins of mob-torched homes, the spirits of black citizens would be lifted with
two words whispered in defiance and hope:

“Thurgood’s coming.” – Kevin Merida

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TONI MORRISON BECAUSE SHE BELIEVED EVERYONE HAS A STORY TO TELLNOVELIST,
PLAYWRIGHT B. 1931 – 2019

Because she believed everyone has a story to tellNovelist, playwrightb. 1931 –
2019

“You your best thing, Sethe. You are.” That penultimate line from Toni
Morrison’s Beloved — her fifth novel and winner of the 1988 Pulitzer Prize for
fiction succinctly explains the significance of what Morrison, born Chloe
Ardelia Wofford, has contributed not only to literature but to the understanding
of the history of black people in the United States.

Many writers used fiction to tell the story of our people, to reveal the
physical and mental burden of half a millennium of systemic dehumanization. But
it was Morrison who told you straight up – from behind a lectern at Princeton
University or in her writings: Her “word-work” was not meant to “battle heroines
and heroes like you have already fought and lost,” she said in her acceptance
speech for the Nobel Prize in literature in 1993. She wrote for a reader who
whispered to her, “Stop thinking about saving your face. Think of our lives and
tell us your particularized world. Make up a story. Narrative is radical,
creating us at the very moment it is being created.”

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It was not her prose’s job to teach you the horrors of slavery. If you didn’t
know, she’d already told you in The Black Book, the seminal 1974 collection of
primary evidence documenting the joy and pain of the Africans brought to America
and the generations they begat. Morrison did not plumb the depths of our history
to prove to anybody, not even ourselves, that we were human. The power of her
novels lives in the voices of characters who are given their own stories — to
hell with you if you’re too scared to look.

There are no lectures in her novels. Not even in her magnum opus, Beloved, about
Sethe, a woman haunted by the child she killed instead of returning her to
slavery. Sethe’s story of survival in the face of breathtaking brutality is her
own. Her thirst for freedom for her children and for a future was not written to
make you feel grateful for yours. Her rage and sorrow may mirror our own, but it
is not ours. To read Morrison is to be reminded that each of us has our own
journey. We need only crack open one of her books at any page to find the
strength of fellow travelers. To be one with the last utterance in Beloved. “Me?
Me?” – Raina Kelley

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BARACK OBAMA BECAUSE HE WAS THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA44TH
PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES B. 1961

Because he was the president of the United States of America44th president of
the United States b. 1961

Barack Hussein Obama’s stride into history has been as confident as it has been
unlikely.

He announced his candidacy for president on Feb. 10, 2007, a black first-term
U.S. senator who previously had served just seven years in the Illinois Senate.
He had little support from established politicians, and many black voters did
not even know who he was. But his campaign became a movement. His soaring
speeches promising hope and change inspired millions. Less than two years later,
a record crowd gathered on the National Mall to witness what was once
unthinkable: the inauguration of the first black president of the United States.

It was a singular achievement by a man with a singular history. He was born in
Hawaii to a Kenyan father and white mother. As a child, he lived in Indonesia
before returning to Hawaii to be raised by his white grandparents.

As a teenager, he began to discover his black identity largely through
basketball. He admired and emulated the loose-limbed swagger of the guys who
played the game. He saw black as cool, and embraced the virtues of blackness
while managing to sidestep much of its complicated baggage.

All along, he behaved like a man unconstrained by stereotype. He married a black
woman from Chicago’s South Side, gushing in one of his books not only about her
beauty and intelligence but also the warmth and strength of her family. Asked to
name television shows he liked, he mentioned the gritty urban drama The Wire,
adding that his favorite character was Omar, a gay stickup man.

Through two terms as president, he tamed the Great Recession, rescued the
struggling auto industry and enacted a health care reform law that had eluded
Democrats for decades. He was disciplined and deliberative, even-tempered and
level-headed. He was often described as the smartest person in the room, which
everyone knew he knew.

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Overall, Obama governed as a moderate. Republicans were annoyed when he
punctuated his positions by saying “elections have consequences.” Black
progressives grumbled when he answered their pleas for programs targeting black
problems by saying, “I’m not the president of black America. I’m the president
of the United States of America.”

Obama remained confident even after voters chose as his successor, Donald Trump,
a man who in both style and substance is his polar opposite. Speaking to the
nation in his farewell address, Obama reprised the slogan that accompanied his
history-making rise to the White House:

“Yes we can,” he said. “Yes we did. Yes we can.” – Michael A. Fletcher

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JESSE OWENS BECAUSE HE WAS THE SPRINTER WHO HUMILIATED HITLERTRACK AND FIELD
ATHLETE B. 1913 – 1980

Because he was the sprinter who humiliated HitlerTrack and field athlete b. 1913
– 1980

One of racism’s tragic ironies is that black athletes once needed to prove
themselves athletically equal to whites. Heading into the 1936 Olympics in
Berlin, before the world fully recognized Adolf Hitler’s genocidal ambitions,
the German dictator’s popular theories claimed that no dark-skinned person could
compete with the blond-haired, blue-eyed “Aryan master race.” Hitler’s lunacy
was aided, a few months before the Olympics, when Germany’s Max Schmeling
knocked out the undefeated black heavyweight champion Joe Lewis.

Enter James Cleveland “Jesse” Owens. He almost didn’t make it to Berlin — the
United States considered boycotting the Olympics over Hitler’s treatment of
Jews, which had not yet reached its incomprehensibly horrific nadir. But many
African-Americans opposed a boycott, yearning for validation on a truly level
playing field. Owens already owned several world records and was recognized as
the fastest man alive. He emerged in Berlin as the unquestioned star of the
Olympics, setting or equaling records in the 100-meter dash, the 200-meter
sprint, the 400-meter relay and long jump.

German crowds enthusiastically applauded his performances, deepening Hitler’s
humiliation. It’s unclear whether Hitler directly snubbed Owens by refusing to
shake his hand, which has become part of the Owens legend. Olympic organizers
told Hitler to either shake all the winners’ hands or none — he chose none.

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Racism’s ironies have no end. Owens returned home to the oppression of Jim Crow.
“I wasn’t invited up to shake hands with Hitler,” he said, “but I wasn’t invited
to the White House to shake hands with the president, either.” Lacking a college
degree, forced through back doors and to the back of buses, he subsisted on
low-paying jobs such as pumping gas and demeaning public appearances such as
racing horses. Later, he established himself as a public speaker. As a believer
in pursuing equality through economic rather than political means, he initially
criticized the civil rights movement and the raised-fist 1968 Olympic protest by
John Carlos and Tommie Smith. “The only time the black fist has significance is
when there’s money inside,” Owens said. A smoker, he died of lung cancer in
1980.

Owens’ victories not only shattered the myth of white athletic superiority, but
established a black man as a heroic standard-bearer for America amid boiling
geopolitical conflict. In many ways, he was the first black sports hero for all
Americans. It took decades for another to rise. – Jesse Washington

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GORDON PARKS BECAUSE HE BROUGHT US PICTURES OF BLACK AMERICAPHOTOGRAPHER,
MUSICIAN, DIRECTOR B. 1912 – 2006

Because he brought us pictures of black AmericaPhotographer, musician, director
b. 1912 – 2006

“I picked up a camera because it was my choice of weapons against what I hated
most about the universe: racism, intolerance, poverty.” – Gordon Parks

From some of his earliest professional photographs of Ella Watson holding a mop
and broom with an American flag draped behind her, to fashion spreads for Vogue
magazine, Gordon Parks used the camera and the world around him to show not only
the state of African-American life, but also to bring attention to the
creativity of his people.

Born Nov. 30, 1912, in Fort Scott, Kansas, Parks first made a name for himself
while working at the Farm Security Administration. He went on to become the
first African-American photographer on the staff of Life magazine and produced
some of the best photo essays the world has ever seen, from showing the world
what it meant to be black in America to the story of 12-year-old Flavio in the
slums of Rio de Janeiro. These images resonated with readers and helped propel
Life to a level of photojournalism that many say has not been seen since.

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Outside of Parks’ documentary work, there was a lighter side that didn’t get as
much recognition until later in his life. Parks’ work for Vogue in the 1950s
changed the expectations of what an African-American photographer should be
doing. This path took Parks to Paris, Cuba and the streets of New York City,
creating pictures that showed the beauty of design, colors and creativity of
places that few people of color were able to reach.

Parks was the first African-American director of major motion pictures, starting
with The Learning Tree in 1969 and Shaft in 1971. The latter movie helped define
the blaxploitation era, while simultaneously expanding the identity of
African-Americans in films, from actors in front of the camera to producers and
directors behind it. Parks, who died in 2006, was a Renaissance man, with nearly
two dozen books ranging from autobiography, poetry and photography, as well as
12 films he wrote or directed.

His work transformed how generations of black artists, photographers and
musicians saw themselves and the world, opening their imaginations to the
possibility of storytelling through images of the black experience. – Brent
Lewis

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SIDNEY POITIER BECAUSE HE WAS THE PARADIGM SHIFT WHO USHERED IN THE MODERN BLACK
LEADING MANACTOR, FILMMAKER, DIRECTOR B. 1927

Because he was the paradigm shift who ushered in the modern black leading
manActor, filmmaker, director b. 1927

We all really should put the courtesy title “Sir” in front of acting legend
Sidney Poitier’s name.

He’s earned it.

In 1964, the legend became the first African-American to win an Academy Award
for Lilies of the Field, an important piece of cinema about a black handyman who
encounters a group of German, Austrian and Hungarian nuns who believe that he’s
been heaven-sent. Some may say the same about Poitier’s career.

At a time when black folks were about to see the fruits of the civil rights
struggle, the Oscar-winner challenged the American box office — and thus, the
average American — about what a movie star looked like. He was undeniably black,
and in 1967, the year that Thurgood Marshall was confirmed as the first
African-American Supreme Court justice, Poitier was one of the year’s most
successful movie stars. Change was a-coming.

The films that he created in 1967 were seminal — they all centered around race
and race relations and tapped into conversations everyday black folks were
having around their dinner tables. To Sir with Love dealt with racial and social
issues inside of a school in London’s East End. In the Heat of the Night
introduced us to a black detective who is investigating a murder in a small
Southern town and the much-referenced Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner addressed
interracial relationships the same year that a landmark Supreme Court civil
rights decision invalidated laws prohibiting interracial unions.

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Poitier grew up in his parents’ native Bahamas, though he was born in Miami, and
he came back to the States when he was 15. After a brief stint with the Army
during World War II, he found his calling. He earned a spot as a member of the
American Negro Theater after a successful audition, and by the end of the 1940s
he was dipping his toe in film. And we’re all the better for it. Perhaps the
most important thing Poitier pulled off was to understand the importance of
having someone who looked like him step behind the camera and direct. Visual
presence is paramount, and power comes at the hands of those who can shape it.
He helmed a number of important cinematic moments for black folks, including
Uptown Saturday Night, Let’s Do It Again, both of which he also starred in, and
the iconic comedic ebony-and-ivory pairing of Richard Pryor and Gene Wilder in
Stir Crazy.

Poitier has established a lane that an actor like Denzel Washington — who is
currently being celebrated for acting in and directing the poignant adaptation
of August Wilson’s Fences — can comfortably walk in. Poitier’s pioneering
presence helped make that happen. And now the cycle continues. – Kelley L.
Carter

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RICHARD PRYOR BECAUSE HE WAS THE COMEDIAN WHO REFLECTED AMERICA’S RACIAL PAIN
AND CONFUSIONCOMEDIAN B. 1940 – 2005

Because he was the comedian who reflected America’s racial pain and
confusionComedian b. 1940 – 2005

Pain was always Richard Pryor’s comedic easel of choice. Look no further than
his chillingly still relevant 1974 bit, “Niggers vs. Police,” from the
Grammy-award winning album That Nigger’s Crazy. Pryor’s jokes were a therapeutic
soundtrack for black America and a no-holds-barred crash course for those who
failed to understand what it meant to be an outsider in one’s own country a
century after the abolition of slavery. That same year, Rolling Stone caught up
with Pryor as he purchased a Walther .380 and Colt .357. At checkout, Pryor had
but one question for the gun shop owner: “Like, how come all the targets you
ever see are black?”

Born Dec. 1, 1940, in Peoria, Illinois, Richard Franklin Lennox Pryor III’s art
reflected his life — hard, vulgar, sensitive and, of course, hilarious. He was
molested at 6, abandoned by his mother, a sex worker, at 10, and was raised in
his grandmother’s brothel.

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No comedian has used the black experience more effectively to express its
complexities to diverse audiences. His was a comedy that black folks usually
heard in private, that sometimes made white folks squeamish — yet appreciative
of the reality check. The recipient of one Emmy and five Grammys from 1974 to
1982 — the last of which was for Live At The Sunset Strip, arguably comedy’s
greatest standup routine ever — Pryor also had a number of exceptional movie
roles, including credits in Lady Sings The Blues, The Mack, Uptown Saturday
Night, The Wiz, Jo Jo Dancer, Your Life Is Calling, and Harlem Nights.

His life and career are a vision board of incredible highs, debilitating lows,
tumultuous relationships and the ever-present demon of drug addiction. Later,
there was multiple sclerosis. Comedy legends such as Eddie Murphy, Robin Harris,
Martin Lawrence, Bernie Mac, Cedric the Entertainer, Dave Chappelle, Chris Rock
and Kevin Hart are direct beneficiaries of Pryor’s flawed genius. – Justin
Tinsley

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JACKIE ROBINSON BECAUSE HE WAS THE MAN WHO KNOCKED JIM CROW CLEAN OUT OF THE
PARKBASEBALL PLAYER, CIVIL RIGHTS ACTIVIST B. 1919 – 1972

Because he was the man who knocked Jim Crow clean out of the parkBaseball
player, civil rights activist b. 1919 – 1972

When considering Jackie Robinson, think about the basics, about the
justification for Jim Crow, which existed not because whites did not want to
live among blacks, just as the reason for segregation in baseball wasn’t because
white players and fans did not want to compete against blacks or watch them
play.

The justification lies in the basics, in the bones, that fundamental belief that
African-Americans were sociologically and scientifically incapable of joining
white society. The best way to consider Robinson is to consider the victory of
his opposition had he failed.

Joe Louis and Jesse Owens came before Robinson, but each participated in an
individual sport, where whites could appreciate black talent, but not have to
dine with them, share a cab with them, and yes, take a shower next to them.
Blacks were enjoyed without having to remove the invisible wall of segregation
as a national belief system or even consider the logic of its construction.

The African-American athlete is the most influential and important black
employee in American history. Robinson leads the list and always will because of
the colossal stakes of his failure. His opponents would have used him as proof
African-Americans could not walk and live among whites, not just because they
were black, but because they were convinced that blackness disqualified
African-Americans from cultivation, dignity, refinement, responsibility,
leadership, discipline and manners — the very foundations of Jim Crow and total
black subjugation. A Robinson misstep in performance was one thing, but in
temperament would have been catastrophic.

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Certainly another black player would have been given a chance to integrate, but
when? The dominoes of his failure alter the entire remainder of the 20th
century. On the small scale, Robinson’s failure would have certainly eliminated
or curtailed the legendary careers of Willie Mays, Henry Aaron, Bob Gibson,
Roberto Clemente in baseball, and probably Jim Brown in football, Bill Russell
and Wilt Chamberlain in basketball, as both the NBA and NFL integrated after
Robinson was signed by the Brooklyn Dodgers.

On the larger scale, a Robinson social failure likely keeps the military from
integrating its units, which it did in 1948, three years after Robinson was
signed, or allowing blacks to stay in major hotels in several cities, as
Robinson forced in St. Louis in the 1950s. Instead of being immortalized on a
stamp, Robinson would have been the symbol for his enemies and his likely cowed
white allies, the face not of why segregation couldn’t work, but why it needed
to remain. – Howard Bryant

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SOJOURNER TRUTH BECAUSE OF A FAMOUS SPEECH AMID A LIFETIME OF
ACTIVISMABOLITIONIST, ACTIVIST B. 1797 – 1883

Because of a famous speech amid a lifetime of activismAbolitionist, activist b.
1797 – 1883

Sojourner Truth, an escaped slave who lost her family, her first love and
children to the peculiar institution, turned her pain and Christian faith into
triumph by helping others — especially women — recognize their worth.

“That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages, and
lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere. Nobody ever helps me
into carriages, or over mud-puddles, or gives me any best place! And ain’t I a
woman? Look at me!”

That was the message that caught the attention of attendees during her
spontaneous speech at the Ohio Women’s Rights Convention in Akron, Ohio, in May
1851. Although she is famed for that speech, it’s unlikely the words are exact:
They come from a version published years later using a stereotypical Southern
dialect, while Truth grew up in New York and Dutch was her first language.

Regardless, she was a prominent and frequent speaker on women’s rights and
abolition. Born Isabella Baumfree in New York around 1797, she was the ninth
child born into an enslaved family. She gave herself the name “Sojourner Truth”
in 1843 after becoming a Methodist and soon began a life of preaching and
lecturing.

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Truth pursued political equality for all women and spoke against other
abolitionists for not pursuing civil rights for all black men and women. As the
movement advanced, so did Truth’s reputation. Her memoirs — The Narrative of
Sojourner Truth: A Northern Slave — were published in 1850 and she toured and
spoke before ever-larger crowds. During the Civil War, she helped recruit black
troops for the Union Army, which granted her the opportunity to speak with
President Abraham Lincoln.

Truth died in 1883 at her home in Battle Creek, Michigan. Four decades later,
the constitutional amendment extending the vote to women was ratified. – Kelley
D. Evans

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HARRIET TUBMAN BECAUSE SHE WAS A CONDUCTOR OF THE UNDERGROUND
RAILROADABOLITIONIST B. 1820 – 1913

Because she was a conductor of the Underground RailroadAbolitionist b. 1820 –
1913

Harriet Tubman, the influential “conductor” of the Underground Railroad, will be
the first African-American woman to appear on U.S. currency when her likeness
appears on the $20 bill beginning in 2020. She led hundreds of slaves out of the
South to freedom and each journey and every person mattered. “I was the
conductor of the Underground Railroad for eight years, and I can say what most
conductors can’t,” she said. “I never ran a train off the track and I never lost
a passenger.”

Born into slavery, she endured physical violence nearly every day in her early
years. In one such incident, Tubman encountered a slave who left the fields
without permission. When she refused to restrain the runaway, the overseer
hurled a two-pound weight at her, striking her in the head. The episode left
lifelong episodes of headaches and seizures.

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Tubman escaped from slavery in 1849, using the Underground Railroad to make the
90-mile trip from Maryland to Philadelphia. But her individual safety wasn’t
enough. Hearing that her niece and her children were going to be sold, she went
back to the South and led them on the path to Philadelphia. Soon she came for
her siblings. Then for her parents. After passage of the 1850 Fugitive Slave
Law, which dictated that slaves who escaped to the North could be recaptured and
returned to slavery, Tubman changed her route to end in Canada, a country where
slavery was outlawed. Even though there was a bounty for her capture, she made
at least 19 trips.

During the Civil War, she became a nurse and spy for the Union government. She
tended to the sick and wounded, caring for soldiers both black and white. After
the war, she cared for her parents and the needy, and turned her house into the
Harriet Tubman Home for Indigent and Aged Negroes. Tubman died of pneumonia in
1913 and was buried with military honors. – Callan Mathis

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MADAM C.J. WALKER BECAUSE SHE FOUND OUT YOU CAN NEVER GO BROKE WORKING BLACK
WOMEN’S HAIRENTREPRENEUR, ACTIVIST B. 1867 – 1919

Because she found out you can never go broke working black women’s
hairEntrepreneur, activist b. 1867 – 1919

At first, it was all about hair and an ointment guaranteed to heal scalp
infections. Sarah Breedlove – the poor washerwoman who would become millionaire
entrepreneur Madam C. J. Walker – was trying to cure dandruff and banish her
bald spots when she mixed her first batch of petrolatum and medicinal sulfur.

But what began as a solution to a pesky personal problem quickly became a means
to a greater end. With the sale of each 2-ounce tin of Walker’s Wonderful Hair
Grower, she discovered that her most powerful gift was motivating other women.
As she traveled throughout the United States, the Caribbean and Central America,
teaching her Walker System and training sales agents, she shared her personal
story: her birth on the same plantation where her parents had been enslaved, her
struggles as a young widow, her desperate poverty. If she could transform
herself, so could they. In place of washtubs and cotton fields, Walker offered
them beauty culture, education, financial freedom and confidence. “You have made
it possible for a colored woman to make more money in a day selling your
products than she could in a week working in white folks’ kitchens,” one agent
wrote to her.

The more money Walker made, the more generous she became — $1,000 to her local
black YMCA in Indianapolis, $5,000 to the NAACP’s anti-lynching fund.
Scholarships for students at Tuskegee and Daytona Normal and Industrial
institutes. Music lessons for young black musicians.

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In 1917 at her first national convention, Walker awarded prizes to the women who
sold the most products and recruited the most new agents. More importantly, she
honored the delegates whose local clubs had contributed the most to charity. She
encouraged their political activism in a telegram to President Woodrow Wilson,
urging him to support legislation that would make lynching a federal crime.

Walker was labeled a “Negro subversive” by Wilson’s War Department because of
her advocacy for black soldiers during World War I and her support of public
protests against the East St. Louis, Illinois, riot.

By the time she died in 1919 in her Westchester County, New York, mansion, she
had defied stereotypes, provided employment for thousands of women and donated
more than $100,000 to civic, educational and political causes.

As a philanthropist and a pioneer of today’s multibillion-dollar hair care
industry, she used her wealth and influence to empower others. One could say she
was woke a hundred years ago. – A’Lelia Bundles

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BOOKER T. WASHINGTON BECAUSE HE NEGOTIATED A PATH AROUND WHITE
SUPREMACYEDUCATOR, CIVIL RIGHTS ACTIVIST B. 1856 – 1915

Because he negotiated a path around white supremacyEducator, civil rights
activist b. 1856 – 1915

The task was like building a snowball factory in hell: launching a black college
deep in Alabama amid the burning embers of the Confederacy. The state asked for
a white man to lead Tuskegee Institute. Instead, Booker Taliaferro Washington
got the job.

Washington, born into slavery on a plantation just before the Civil War and
educated at Hampton Institute, started Tuskegee in 1881 with 30 students, $2,000
and a one-room shack. An educated Negro was a dangerous Negro, so Washington
told whites his students did not want equal rights, but to learn trades and
contribute to Southern prosperity. Tuskegee was allowed to grow. Donations from
Northern whites poured in.

In 1895, Washington was the only black speaker to address a mostly white
audience at the Cotton States and International Exposition in Atlanta. His
speech, critically dubbed the “Atlanta Compromise,” made Washington the most
influential black person in America. He advised his brethren to work with their
hands, “cast down your bucket” in the South, accept white supremacy and wait
patiently for real freedom.

Washington hosted President William McKinley at Tuskegee, visited President
Theodore Roosevelt at the White House and became an adviser to both on racial
matters. He lectured around the country, helped start the National Negro
Business League, and in 1901 published a best-selling autobiography, Up from
Slavery. Black intellectuals chafed at his practice of maintaining influence by
flattering and cajoling whites. Washington used that power to place
African-Americans in patronage positions across the country and secretly fund
challenges to Jim Crow laws.

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His sway waned in the face of criticism over his seeming compliance with racism,
leveled by Harvard graduate W.E.B. Du Bois in The Souls of Black Folk and
fortified by the 1909 establishment of the NAACP. In 1915, Washington died at
Tuskegee and was buried on the campus, which had grown to 1,500 students, 100
buildings and a $2 million endowment.

Washington is remembered as much for accommodating white supremacy as uplifting
his race. Was there another way forward when lynching was the law of the land?
Another path from Alabama shack to national university? Today, Washington’s
strategy can feel shameful. But it echoes in today’s race-neutral approach by
some black politicians as well as debates over respectability politics. As much
as Tuskegee itself, Washington’s legacy is the choices he introduced —
pragmatism or pride, self-improvement or social change — to the black freedom
struggle. – Jesse Washington

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IDA B. WELLS BECAUSE SHE WAS PART OF THE FOURTH ESTATE PUSHING FROM WITHIN TO
MAKE IT SEE BLACK AMERICAJOURNALIST, CIVIL RIGHTS ACTIVIST B. 1862 – 1931

Because she was part of the fourth estate pushing from within to make it see
black AmericaJournalist, civil rights activist b. 1862 – 1931

It’s too bad there isn’t more crossover between journalism and the practice of
writing comics, because if there was, surely Ida B. Wells would be rendered with
a superhero’s cape by now.

Known as a “Sword Among Lions,” Wells faced down threats of death and torture
for bringing international attention — not to mention shame — to the lynch mob
terror that afflicted post-Reconstruction black communities in the United
States.

Our reluctance to believe the worst about fellow human beings, especially those
we deem most familiar, is one of our most persistent shortcomings. Less than 100
years ago, many could not bring themselves to believe the atrocities committed
in World War II concentration camps without journalistic evidence. Just a few
decades before, Wells was sounding the alarm about the barbaric acts of her
countrymen in the pages of the Memphis Free Speech, the newspaper she co-owned.
She pushed for action in the face of widespread denialism.

Documenting the epidemic of lynching was miserable, disheartening work, but
Wells also found time to advocate for the suffrage and civil rights of black
women like herself. She wasn’t much concerned with being polite about it,
either. For her troubles, black men criticized her for being unladylike and The
New York Times labeled her a “slanderous and dirty-minded mulatress.”

Still, Wells rose to represent the best of the American journalistic tradition,
and in doing so wasn’t just an advocate for those most afflicted and least
comfortable, but a defender and protector of democracy, justice, and freedom for
all. She dared America to confront its hypocrisies head-on and live up to the
ideals upon which it was founded.

Wells’ crusade lives on, perhaps most directly, in the work of journalists who
document the killing of unarmed black people by the nation’s police forces and
the comparatively infinitesimal consequences for the officers behind those
killings. It’s not just journalists, though — Wells’ work continues in the form
of ordinary citizens who risk their own well-being to document fatal police
violence with cellphone video, in much the same way Wells was spurred to raise
the alarm about lynching after three of her friends were murdered by a Memphis,
Tennessee, mob in 1892. She lives on in black women who not only exercise their
right to vote but take it upon themselves to run for office (Wells ran for a
seat in the Illinois state Senate). She lives in the words and deeds of the
NAACP, which she co-founded, and in the practice of intersectional feminism
itself. – Soraya McDonald

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SERENA WILLIAMS BECAUSE SHE’S SIMPLY THE BESTTENNIS PLAYER B. 1981

Because she’s simply the bestTennis player b. 1981

Let’s have a conversation about the best — strike that — the greatest. This
isn’t an Aaron Rodgers vs. Tom Brady conversation, or Michael Jordan vs. Magic.
One name rises to the top — a name whose resume dominates in ways that no other
athletes can measure up to. Serena Williams.

Her resume boasts 23 Grand Slam titles (the record), six U.S. Opens, seven
Wimbledon titles, seven Australian Opens, three French Opens, four Olympic gold
medals, 23 doubles titles, and a career Golden Slam. Williams has won enough
awards for several lifetimes.

Born Sept. 26, 1981, in Saginaw, Michigan, and raised in Compton, California,
Williams is the youngest of five daughters. Her father, a former sharecropper
from Louisiana, learned from tennis books and videos how to coach his daughters
Serena and older sister Venus. In daily two-hour practices, the Williams sisters
worked themselves to the bone on a concrete court, avoiding potholes and often
practicing without nets. Growing up in Compton meant developing a sense of fight
— the same fight that would characterize their game on and off the court.

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Williams transcended tennis, a historically white and demure sport, by being
herself — with solid curves, a signature Afro-style ponytail, and an energetic
style of play. What makes Williams’ career, spanning more than two decades, so
remarkable is not a spotless record, but the spirit to rise above the criticism
of her age, game, and body and set the standard for accomplishment in sports.

Whether she’s serving tennis balls at 128 mph, designing affordable fashion, or
teaming up with Beyoncé in music videos, Williams’ lengthy resume solidifies her
place among sport’s all-time greats. – Trudy Joseph

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AUGUST WILSON BECAUSE HE IS AMERICA’S SHAKESPEAREPLAYWRIGHT B. 1945 – 2005

Because he is America’s ShakespearePlaywright b. 1945 – 2005

“You don’t sing to feel better,” says the title character in August Wilson’s
play Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom. “You sing ’cause that’s a way of understanding
life. You get that understanding and you done got a grip of life to where you
can hold your head up and go on and see what else life got to offer. The blues
help you to get out of bed in the morning. You get up knowing you ain’t alone.
There’s something else out there in the world. Something’s been added by that
song.”

Of all the lyrical, poignant and heart-stopping passages that Wilson wrote in
his career as a playwright, that one may serve best as his mission statement.
Wilson made his life’s work and his world-class art out of the drive to
document, explain and ratify the everyday lives of African-Americans and to
treat those experiences with epic ambition.

Between 1984, when Ma Rainey premiered to rapturous reviews at the Yale
Repertory Theatre, and 2005, when he died tragically young at age 60 in 2005,
Wilson produced what he called the American Century Cycle. It consisted of one
play for every decade of the 20th century, a trajectory that went from the
aftermath of slavery through the Great Migration and the civil rights movement
to the dawn of gentrification.

Wilson’s body of work stands as one of the greatest, aside from Shakespeare, in
the history of dramatic literature. For artistic fertility and consistent
excellence, he is the only American playwright worthy of comparison to Eugene
O’Neill and the only African-American writer in any genre who belongs in the
company of Toni Morrison. His two Pulitzer Prizes and multiple Tony and New York
Drama Critics’ Circle awards merely formalize the recognition of his talent.

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Born in 1945 and raised in Pittsburgh, self-educated since his teens and
inspired by the black arts movement, Wilson set nearly all of his work in his
home neighborhood of the Hill District. Yet it was only when he moved to largely
white St. Paul, Minnesota, in his 30s that he began to fully hear and channel
the spoken-word poetry of the musicians, preachers, gamblers, jitney drivers and
sanitation workers among whom he had lived.

With the American Century Cycle, Wilson transmuted their voices into art for the
ages. And in 2016, Denzel Washington directed and starred in the film adaptation
of Wilson’s first Pulitzer-winning play, Fences, bringing that masterpiece to
its largest audience ever and starting the process of putting the entire cycle
onto the screen. Something indeed has been added by Wilson’s song. – Samuel G.
Freedman

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OPRAH WINFREY BECAUSE IT’S OPRAH. YOU KNOW OPRAH.MEDIA MOGUL, PHILANTHROPIST B.
1954

Because it’s Oprah. You know Oprah.Media mogul, philanthropist b. 1954

A few days after Donald Trump’s presidential victory, Oscar-winning director
Michael Moore urged the Democratic Party to finally get real and nominate Tom
Hanks or Oprah Winfrey for president in 2020. “Why don’t we run somebody that
the American people love and are really drawn to, and that are smart and have
good politics and all that?” Moore asked.

If only it were that logical. Oprah is, after all, every single thing. First
African-American female billionaire. Academy Award-winner for her international
humanitarian efforts. Host of one of the most celebrated and longest-running
daytime talk shows in television history. Owner of a self-named 24-hour cable
network. Broadway musical producer and screen actress. Book publishing and
literary guru with a best-selling Midas touch. Star maker of countless
television hosts and self-help gurus (Dr. Phil, Iyanla Vanzant, Dr. Oz, Suze
Orman, Nate Berkus, Rachael Ray, Bob Greene and Gayle King). Cover girl on every
single issue of O, The Oprah Magazine since its debut in April 2000 (making her
one of the most influential cover models in publishing history).

Had Oprah gotten into the TV business 10 years earlier, the Mississippi-born
philanthropist wouldn’t have been let anywhere near the throne: She wasn’t
white, blonde, thin or male. When The Oprah Winfrey Show went into national
syndication in 1986, she yanked Phil Donahue’s self-help ball and turned TV into
something new.

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Broadcasting chops aside, Oprah’s secret superhero talent turned out to be
getting people to really, really like her. Women are used to keeping secrets,
and Oprah had a laundry list of her own. She was so potently self-confessional
that owning your shame suddenly felt modern and chic. Savvy marketers and A-list
sponsors were quick to buy in early on the Winfrey-approved gravy train. Who can
forget the scenes of screaming studio audience members who got new Pontiac G6s,
free trips to Australia or boatloads of holiday gifts? She was the first mass
media TV star to commercialize postracial wellness, spirituality and best-life
striving. But Oprah didn’t just lead black people; she became Pied Piper of
“Best You” agitprop.

With success comes an inevitable cascade of hateration, most of which Oprah
manages to side-eye. Her generosity, especially for educational endeavors, is
legendary. Mama Oprah, who is famously never-married and childless, funded a
girls-only private school in South Africa and tuition gifts to more than 415
Morehouse College students. She even used her televised bully pulpit to endorse
then-Sen. Barack Obama’s presidential campaign in 2008, and was rewarded with
great ratings and close relationship with the president and first lady Michelle
Obama that paid off handsomely over the eight years of their White House stay. –
Jill Hudson

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STEVIE WONDER BECAUSE NOBODY HAS UPLIFTED MORE SPIRITS THAN
HIMSINGER-SONGWRITER, PRODUCER B. 1950

Because nobody has uplifted more spirits than himSinger-songwriter, producer b.
1950

Since 1961, when the blind 11-year-old musical prodigy auditioned for Motown
Records, Stevie Wonder has composed a catalog of unmatched love, compassion,
justice and unity — and his instrumental virtuosity fills dance floors to this
day.

Born Stevland Judkins in Saginaw, Michigan, and dubbed “Stevie Wonder” by Motown
founder Berry Gordy, his first No. 1 hit came in 1963 with Fingertips, Part 2,
which referred to Wonder’s infectious bongo rhythms. In 2016, he released
“Faith” with Ariana Grande. In between came dozens and dozens of timeless songs,
melodies and moments.

Where to start? Maybe with Wonder’s head swaying in rapture, sunglassed eyes
fixed on a world of music only he could see but we all could feel. Or with his
1966 cover of Bob Dylan’s “Blowin’ In The Wind,” which became an anthem of the
civil rights movement. There’s the song that helped make a recalcitrant America
accept a Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, and the stern rebukes aimed at
President Richard Nixon. Wonder wrote, produced and played multiple instruments
on The Spinners’ 1970 hit “It’s A Shame,” and created his own hits such as
“Signed, Sealed, Delivered I’m Yours,” “Superstition,” “Living For The City” and
“Sir Duke.”

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No other musician has pulled so many heartstrings with a harmonica while
simultaneously jamming so ferociously on the piano. No other artist has inspired
a legendary annual series of dance parties where only Stevie Wonder music is
played. All along, he has maintained an unrelenting social consciousness. As
some stars flitted in and out of the struggle, Wonder remained, writing about
the unrelenting problems facing those on the bottom. But we are sick and tired
of hearing your song / Telling how you are gonna change right from wrong, he
sang in 1974. Cause if you really want to hear our views / You haven’t done
nothing!

Always, there was love. With Wonder, black love was nurturing and empowering, a
continuous source of validation and strength. For once in my life I have someone
who needs me / Someone I’ve needed so long / For once, unafraid, I can go where
life leads me / And somehow I know I’ll be strong, he sang in 1968. Half a
century later, in an era when most black music superstars dwell on earthly
obsessions, Wonder’s inner visions continue to elevate us to higher ground. –
Jesse Washington

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This Story Tagged: Aretha Franklin Jimi Hendrix Henrietta Lacks Serena Williams
August Wilson … View All Thurgood Marshall Jean-Michel Basquiat Harriet Tubman
Toni Morrison Stevie Wonder Shirley Chisholm Gordon Parks Malcolm X Black
History Month Richard Pryor Jackie Robinson Sojourner Truth Madam C.J. Walker
Muhammad Ali Robert Abbott Ida B. Wells Oprah Winfrey Alvin Ailey Frederick
Douglass Jay-Z Richard Allen Martin Luther King Jr. Ella Baker Jesse Jackson
Mary McLeod Bethune Michael Jackson Benjamin O. Davis Sr. Michael Jordan James
Baldwin Dr. Charles Drew Jesse Owens Quincy Jones W.E.B. Du Bois Maya Angelou
Zora Neale Hurston Duke Ellington Barack Obama Sidney Poitier Katherine Johnson

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   Object to Legitimate Interests Remove Objection

 * SELECT PERSONALISED ADS
   
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   Personalised ads can be shown to you based on a profile about you.
   
   Object to Legitimate Interests Remove Objection

 * CREATE A PERSONALISED CONTENT PROFILE
   
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   A profile can be built about you and your interests to show you personalised
   content that is relevant to you.
   
   Object to Legitimate Interests Remove Objection

 * SELECT PERSONALISED CONTENT
   
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   Personalised content can be shown to you based on a profile about you.
   
   Object to Legitimate Interests Remove Objection

 * SELECT BASIC ADS
   
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   Ads can be shown to you based on the content you’re viewing, the app you’re
   using, your approximate location, or your device type.
   
   Object to Legitimate Interests Remove Objection

 * MEASURE AD PERFORMANCE
   
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   The performance and effectiveness of ads that you see or interact with can be
   measured.
   
   Object to Legitimate Interests Remove Objection

 * MEASURE CONTENT PERFORMANCE
   
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   The performance and effectiveness of content that you see or interact with
   can be measured.
   
   Object to Legitimate Interests Remove Objection

 * APPLY MARKET RESEARCH TO GENERATE AUDIENCE INSIGHTS
   
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   Market research can be used to learn more about the audiences who visit
   sites/apps and view ads.
   
   Object to Legitimate Interests Remove Objection

 * DEVELOP AND IMPROVE PRODUCTS
   
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   Your data can be used to improve existing systems and software, and to
   develop new products
   
   Object to Legitimate Interests Remove Objection

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SPECIAL PURPOSES AND FEATURES

Always Active

 * ENSURE SECURITY, PREVENT FRAUD, AND DEBUG
   
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   Your data can be used to monitor for and prevent fraudulent activity, and
   ensure systems and processes work properly and securely.

 * TECHNICALLY DELIVER ADS OR CONTENT
   
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   Your device can receive and send information that allows you to see and
   interact with ads and content.

 * MATCH AND COMBINE OFFLINE DATA SOURCES
   
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   Data from offline data sources can be combined with your online activity in
   support of one or more purposes

 * LINK DIFFERENT DEVICES
   
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   Different devices can be determined as belonging to you or your household in
   support of one or more of purposes.

 * RECEIVE AND USE AUTOMATICALLY-SENT DEVICE CHARACTERISTICS FOR IDENTIFICATION
   
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   Your device might be distinguished from other devices based on information it
   automatically sends, such as IP address or browser type.

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PERFORMANCE COOKIES



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