Nancy Green  (March 4, 1834 – August 30, 1923 [1] [2] ) was a storyteller, cook, activist, and the first of several  African-American  models hired to promote a corporate trademark as " Aunt Jemima ". [3] Biography Green was born into  slavery  on March 4, 1834, near  Mount Sterling  in  Montgomery County, Kentucky . [4]  She was hired in 1890 [5]  by the R.T. Davis Milling Company in  St. Joseph, Missouri , to represent "Aunt Jemima", an advertising character named after a song from a  minstrel show . [3]  Davis Milling had recently acquired the formula to a ready-mixed, self-rising pancake flour from  St. Joseph Gazette  editor  Chris L. Rutt  and Charles Underwood and were looking to employ an African-American woman as a  Mammy archetype  to promote their new product. [6]  In 1893 Green was introduced as Aunt Jemima at the  World's Columbian Exposition  held in...

three sculptures representing two rappers and a DJ who made a major impact on the hip-hop scene called "A Cypher in Queens."  The works feature busts atop renditions of stacked speaker boxes. Three dearly departed masters of hip-hop are living on at the Queens Public Library. artist Sherwin Banfield‘s trio of sculptures called "A Cypher in Queens" will take up residence at the Central Library in Jamaica. The 9-foot-tall sculptures offer markers for fans and the Queens community to recognize, honor and celebrate three late examples of borough’s talent. DJ Jam Master Jay of Run-D.M.C. was killed in 2002, Phife Dawg of A Tribe Call Quest died in 2016 from complications from diabetes, and Prodigy of Mobb Deep died after battling sickle cell anemia in 2017 .

John Witherspoon January 27, 1942 – October 29, 2019) was an American actor and comedian who performed in various television shows and films. He played Willie Jones in the Friday series,[1] and starred in films such as Hollywood Shuffle 1987, Boomerang 1992, The Five Heartbeats 1991, and Vampire in Brooklyn 1995. In addition, Witherspoon made appearances on television shows such as The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air (1994), The Wayans Bros. 1995–1999), The Tracy Morgan Show 2003, Barnaby Jones 1973, The Boondocks 2005–2014, and Black Jesus 2014–2019.He wrote a film, From the Old School, in which he played an elderly working man who tries to prevent a neighborhood convenience store from being developed into a strip club.

Frank Isaac Robinson (born December 28, 1938), known in his early musical career as Sugar Chile Robinson, is an American jazz pianist and singer. A Detroit native, Robinson became famous as a child prodigy in the mid-1940s.

Thornton was the first to record Leiber and Stoller's "Hound Dog", in 1952,[3] which was written for her. It became Thornton's biggest hit, selling over 500,000 copies and staying seven weeks at number one on the Billboard R&B chart in 1953.[4] According to New York University music professor Maureen Mahon, "the song is seen as an important beginning of rock-and-roll, especially in its use of the guitar as the key instrument".[5] Thornton's other recordings include her song "Ball and Chain", made famous in the late 1960s by Janis Joplin. Though later recordings of her songs by other artists sold millions of copies, she was denied royalties by not holding the publishing copyrights to her creativity. Thornton died of a heart attack and liver disorders, penniless in a boarding-house in Los Angeles, California, and was buried in a shared pauper's grave. In 2024, Thornton was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in th...

Legendary and award-winning actress  Diahann Carroll  —widely known for her trailblazing TV show  Julia , as well as her roles on  Dynasty  and  Grey’s Anatomy  —   died of cancer Friday in Los Angeles, her daughter, Susan Kay, confirms to PEOPLE. She was 84. Born Carol Diahann Johnson to subway motorman John and nurse Mabel Johnson in the Bronx, New York, Carroll grew up in Harlem, where her family moved when she was an infant. Carroll started her career at 15, modeling for  Essence  magazine but her heart was in performing: “I always knew I had to do something that was in front of an audience,” Carroll told PEOPLE in 2008. After graduating from New York’s High School of Music and Art, she briefly attended New York University to study child psychology. Those plans changed in 1954 when she won $3,000 on a TV talent show called  Chance of a Lifetime . Singing engagements at prominent New Yor...

John Rogan was born in  Hendersonville ,  Tennessee , on February 16, 1868. He was the son of the former  slave  William Rogan, as the fourth of twelve children. John began to grow very rapidly at the age of 13, [1]  leading to  ankylosis  (abnormal rigidity of the skeletal joints). By 1882, he could not stand or walk. Although he could not perform physical labor due to his condition, Rogan made a living by selling portraits and postcards at a train station. An 1897 article in the  Kansas City Journal  mentions that a number of his drawings were published. Despite his success in this regard, he declined all offers to join carnivals and  sideshows . By 1899, he had grown to a height of 8 ft 6 in (2.59 m) and often appeared in newspapers, referred to as the "negro giant". He used a cart like a  wheelchair ; it was pulled by  goats . He was always the center of attention, often noted for his deep voice and pl...

C.T. Fletcher  (born June 8, 1959) is an American powerlifting  vlogger , media personality, actor, personal trainer, and former powerlifter and bodybuilder. He is a three-time World Bench Press Champion and three-time World Strict Curl Champion. [1] [2] [3] [4] [ Biography Fletcher was born in  Pine Bluff, Arkansas  on June 8, 1959, the son of Walter and Ogie Rea Fletcher. He has an older brother, Walt. During the time of his birth, his father was a field worker and his mother was a housewife. Approximately one year after his birth, he and his family moved to  Watts, California  and later to  Compton, California , where he resided during his youth. He grew up with an abusive father who at the time was preaching in a four-car garage. When he began junior high, they had moved to  Lakewood, California , where his father invested in his own church. At age 12, Fletcher acquired a job at a gas station. [6]  In 1977, aged 18, he joined the...

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Emily Perez Born in Heidelberg, West Germany, of African American and Hispanic parents in a U.S. military family, she graduated from Oxon Hill High School in Maryland, where she ranked among the top-10 students in her class. In July 2001, after graduation from high school, Perez entered the United States Military Academy at West Point. There she was an exemplary student and talented track athlete, becoming the highest-ranking African-American female cadet in the history of West Point. Following graduation from West Point in 2005, she was commissioned a Second Lieutenant in the 204th Support Battalion, 2nd Brigade, 4th Infantry Division of the United States Army. Perez was killed in action on September 12, 2006, while leading a convoy through Al Kifl, Iraq, a mission for which she had volunteered. She was the first female African-American officer in US military history to die in combat. Death Grave of Emily Perez, West Point Cemetery (2013) Perez was deployed to Iraq in December as ...

Dangerfield newby Born into slavery in Fauquier County, Virginia, Newby married a woman also enslaved. Newby's father was Henry Newby, a landowner in Fauquier County. His mother was Elsey Newby, who was a slave, owned not by Henry, but by a neighbor, John Fox. Elsey and Henry lived together for many years and had several children, although interracial marriage was illegal in Virginia. Dangerfield was their first child. Dangerfield Newby, his mother and his siblings were later freed by his father when he moved them across the Ohio River into Bridgeport, Ohio. John Fox, who died in 1859, apparently did not attempt to retrieve Elsey, Dangerfield, or any of his siblings.[2] Dangerfield's wife and their seven children remained in bondage.[3] A letter found on his body revealed some of his motivation for joining John Brown and the raid on Harpers Ferry. Dangerfield Newby's wife, Harriet Newby, was the slave of Jesse Jennings, of Arlington or Warrenton, Virginia. She and her chi...

The Girl Scouts of America began as an all-white organization in Savannah, Ga., in 1912.  Five years later, in 1917, the troop introduced its first African American girl scouts, possibly in the New York area. This positive change led to the integration of more scout troops in 1950, 14 years before the Civil Rights Movement. It forged the creation of a Native American troop in 1921, followed by a Mexican American girl troop. In the late 1930’s, the first southern region African American Dixie troop was formed. In the archives of the Girls Scouts of America, there is a photo of both black and white girl scouts at Camp Indian Run in Philadelphia, 1941. With an eye for diversity, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. described the Girl Scouts as “a force for desegregation” in 1956. In1969, Dr. Dorothy B. Ferebee served as the first black vice president of Girl Scouts USA. Then Dr. Gloria Scott was chosen as their first black president in 1975. Dr. Scott was a Texas native and ...

A Georgia mother has been arrested and charged with murder after she allegedly left her 1-year-old in a hot car while she got her hair done at a salon. The mom also  faces additional charges  of child cruelty and concealing the death of Skylar Fowler. The toddler died on June 15. She was found dead in an Emory University Hospital parking garage in Atlanta. According to an arrest warrant, the mother left the air conditioner running whil she was in the salon, but she returned and the car had died. When emergency crews arrived, the child had died.

The Golden Thirteen  were the thirteen African American  enlisted  men who became the first  African American  commissioned and warrant officers in the  United States Navy .

Anthony Bowen Rev. Anthony Bowen  (1809-1872), was a civic leader among the African-American community in Washington, D.C., and the first African-American employee of the United States Patent Office. Both the Anthony Bowen YMCA and Anthony Bowen Elementary School in Washington, D.C., are named in his honor. BornOctober 8, 1809 Prince George's County, Maryland Died1871 (aged 61–62) Washington, DCOccupationUnited States government employee Born a slave on October 8, 1809, in Prince George's County, MD, on the estate of William Bradley, he was one of four children of Mr. and Mrs. Henry Bowen. In 1826, he bought his freedom and started the first black YMCA. He moved to the Southwest Section of Washington. [1] Despite having no formal education, Bowen was able to become a clerk in the United States Patent Office. He started as a laborer, moving up to messenger before being named to a clerkship. [1] In addition to his work, Bowen was a leader of the community. His ho...

Thomas Mundy Peterson Thomas Mundy Peterson  (October 6, 1824 – February 4, 1904) of  Perth Amboy, New Jersey was the first  African-American  to  vote  in an  election  under the just-enacted provisions of the  15th Amendment  to the  United States Constitution . His vote was cast on March 31, 1870. [1] [2] Thomas Mundy Peterson  BornOctober 6, 1824 Metuchen, New Jersey DiedFebruary 4, 1904 (age 79) Perth Amboy, New Jersey Known forThe first African American to vote in the United States after the passage of the 15th Amendment BiographyEdi He was born in  Metuchen, New Jersey . His father, also named Thomas, worked for the Mundy family. He was a slave and his mother, Lucy Green, was a slave of Hugh Newell (1744–1816) of Freehold Township, New Jersey. Thomas was  manumitted  at age 21 by Newell's will. He was a  school  principal between 1870 and 1878 and a general handyman i...

Freedom Riders were civil rights activists who rode interstate buses into the segregated southern United States, in 1961 and subsequent years, in order to challenge the non-enforcement of the United States Supreme Court decisions Morgan v. Virginia (1946) and Boynton v. Virginia (1960),[3] which ruled that segregated public buses were unconstitutional.[4] The Southern states had ignored the rulings and the federal government did nothing to enforce them. The first Freedom Ride left Washington, D.C., on May 4, 1961,[5] and was scheduled to arrive in New Orleans on May 17.[6]

Prince Hall c. 1735/8 – December 7, 1807 was an American abolitionist and leader in the free black community in Boston. He founded Prince Hall Freemasonry and lobbied for education rights for African American children. He was also active in the back-to-Africa movement

Thomas "Blind Tom" Wiggins (May 25, 1849 – June 14, 1908) was an American pianist and composer. He had numerous original compositions published and had a lengthy and largely successful performing career throughout the United States. During the 19th century, Wiggins was one of the best-known American performing pianists and one of the best-known Black musicians.

Macon Bolling Allen (born Allen Macon Bolling;[1] August 4, 1816 – June 11, 1894) is believed to be both the first African American licensed to practice law and to hold a judicial position in the United States. Allen passed the bar exam in Maine in 1844 and became a Massachusetts Justice of the Peace in 1848. He moved to South Carolina after the American Civil War to practice law and was elected as a probate court judge in 1874. Following the Reconstruction Era, he moved to Washington, D.C., where he worked as an attorney for the Land and Improvement Association.

Yasuke (variously rendered as 弥助 or 弥介, 彌助 or 彌介 in different sources.[1]) (b. c. 1555–1590) was a black Samurai of African origin who served under the Japanese hegemon and warlord Oda Nobunaga in 1581 and 1582. Early life A Nanban group traveling in Japan According to Histoire Ecclesiastique Des Isles Et Royaumes Du Japon, written by François Solier of the Society of Jesus in 1627, Yasuke was likely from Portuguese Mozambique.[2] Solier's account may, however, have been an assumption as it was written so long after the event and there is no surviving contemporary account that corroborates it. A 2013 investigation by the light entertainment television program Discovery of the World's Mysteries (世界ふしぎ発見) suggested that Yasuke was a Makua named Yasufe.[3] This name seems to be derived from the more popular Mozambican name, Issufo.[4] This was not a highly journalistic in...

Black Caesar (died 1718) was an 18th-century African pirate. For nearly a decade, he raided shipping from the Florida Keys and later served as one of Captain Blackbeard's, a.k.a. Edward Teach's, crewmen aboard the Queen Anne's Revenge. He was one of the surviving members of Blackbeard's crew following his death at the hands of Lieutenant Robert Maynard in 1718. Caesar's Rock, one of three islands located north of Key Largo, is named in his honor,[1] and is the present-day site of his original headquarters. Biography according to legend Black Caesar, according to traditional accounts, was a prominent African tribal war chieftain. Widely known for his "huge size, immense strength, and keen intelligence", he evaded capture from many different slave traders. Caesar was finally captured when he and twenty of his warriors were lured onto a ship by a slave trader. Showing him a watch, the trader promised to show him and his warriors more objects which were ...

The tale of George and Willie Muse, albino brothers living in the rural South during the late 1800s, is stirring. According to accounts, the brothers were kidnapped as boys, sold off to a local carnival sideshow and paraded around the country. The Muse brothers were a rarity: Black albinos would be a lucrative attraction for a carnival with a so-called “human oddities” segment. According to a report by The Roanoke Times, the brothers were tricked by a bounty hunter working for a sideshow promoter and taken away from their mother. The man told the brothers that their mother was dead. In the circus, the dreadlocked brothers were first said to hail from “a colony of sheep-headed people.” The brothers learned to play guitar and mandolin, which became a feature of their act. Showman Al G. Barnes then promoted them as White Ecuadorian cannibals. The Muse brothers traveled with Barnes all across the country and into Canada. Amazingly, they were never paid for their wo...

Della Reese born Delloreese Patricia Early; July 6, 1931 – November 19, 2017 was an American singer, actress, television personality, author and ordained minister. As a singer, she recorded blues, gospel, jazz and pop. Several of her singles made the US Hot 100, including the number two charting song, "Don't You Know?" 1959. As a television personality and actress, she was the first black woman to host her own talk show and appeared on the highly-rated CBS television series Touched by an Angel. Della appeared on The secret path as Honey

Antoine Caliste Domino Jr. February 26, 1928 – October 24, 2017, known as Fats Domino, was an American singer-songwriter and pianist. One of the pioneers of rock and roll music, Domino sold more than 65 million records. Born in New Orleans to a French Creole family, Domino signed to Imperial Records in 1949. His first single "The Fat Man" is cited by some historians as the first rock and roll single and the first to sell more than 1 million copies. Domino continued to work with the song's co-writer Dave Bartholomew, contributing his distinctive rolling piano style to Lloyd Price's "Lawdy Miss Clawdy" 1952 and scoring a string of mainstream hits beginning with "Ain't That a Shame" 1955. Between 1955 and 1960, he had eleven Top 10 US pop hits. By 1955, five of his records had sold more than a million copies, being certified gold

SGT LaDavid T. Johnson paid the ultimate sacrifice while serving the United States Army as a Wheeled Vehicle Mechanic with the 3d Special Forces Group, Fort Bragg, NC with duty in Niger. SGT Johnson was posthumously awarded a Silver Star for actions near Tonga Tongo, Niger in early October 2017. The joint United States - Nigerian team came under enemy fire, dismounted their vehicles in order to counter the attack, but quickly realized that they were greatly outnumbered and were forced to break contact. During the fallback, SGT Johnson was among other soldiers to assume a second fighting position and again engage the enemy. Forced to break contact again, he and two Nigerien soldiers attempted to push back toward their vehicles but were forced to flee on foot due to the heavy enemy fire. The militants closed in and killed the two Nigerien soldiers within about 600 meters. SGT Johnson made it nearly a kilometer and took cover behind thick brush, continuing to fight under suppressive e...

Stevie Williams (born December 17, 1979 is a professional skateboarder who was included in the twenty-seventh position of the "30 Most Influential Skaters of All Time" list that was compiled by Transworld Skateboarding in late 2011.

Comer Joseph Cottrell Jr.(December 7, 1931 - October 3, 2014) was an American entrepreneur most notable for founding Pro-Line Corp., a business that created the Curly Kit, which brought the Jheri curlhairstyle to the masses and made it easy to achieve at home. Personal lifeEdit He was born in Mobile, Alabama and died in Plano, Texas at age 82. He briefly attended the University of Detroitand served in the Air Force during theKorean War. VenturesEdit He founded Pro-Line Corp. in 1970.[1] It was originally based in Los Angeles. In 1979, he created the Curly Kit and in 1980, he moved the company toDallas.[2] Forbes Magazine called the Curly Kit "the biggest single product ever to hit the black cosmetics market." In 2000, he sold the company to Alberto-Culver for $75 million to $80 million.[3]With his brother, James, he turned Pro-Line into one of the most successful black-owned companies in the United States. In 1990, he purchased the campus ofBishop College and moved Paul ...

Frederick Douglas Patterson was the first African American to build motorized cars. His father, Charles Rich Patterson, a former enslaved person, created C. R. Patterson and Sons Company, located in Greenfield, Ohio. Beginning in 1865, the company built fashionable carriages. Frederick Patterson inherited the company upon the death of his father and began building motorized vehicles. The first Patterson automobile, the Patterson-Greenfield, rolled off the line on September 23, 1915. Unfortunately, Henry Ford debuted the Model T on October 1, 1908 and by that point had captured most of the American car-buying market.

Kevin Ferguson February 8, 1974 – June 6, 2016, better known as Kimbo Slice, was a Bahamian-born American mixed martial artist, professional boxer, and actor. Originally a bare-knuckle boxer, he became noted for his role in mutual combat street fight videos which were spread online, leading Rolling Stone to call him "The King of the Web Brawlers

C. T. Ali Fletcher born June 8, 1959 is an American vlogger, media personality, actor, personal trainer, and former powerlifter and bodybuilder. He is a three-time World Bench Press Champion and three-time World Strict Curl Champion.

Barack Hussein Obama II[a] (born August 4, 1961) is an American politician and lawyer who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the first African-American president in U.S. history. Obama previously served as a U.S. senator representing Illinois from 2005 to 2008 and as an Illinois state senator from 1997 to 2004.

Muhammad Ali (/ɑːˈliː/;[2] born Cassius Marcellus Clay, Jr., January 17, 1942 – June 3, 2016[3]) was an Americanprofessional boxer, generally considered one of the greatestheavyweights in the history of the sport. Early in his career, Ali was known for being a controversial and polarizing figure both inside and outside the boxing ring.[4][5] He was one of the most recognized sports figures of the past 100 years, crowned "Sportsman of the Century" by Sports Illustrated and "Sports Personality of the Century" by the BBC.[6][7] He also wrote several best-selling books about his career, includingThe Greatest: My Own Story and The Soul of a Butterfly. Ali, originally known as Cassius Clay, began training at 12 years old and at the age of 22 won the world heavyweight championship in 1964 from Sonny Liston in a stunning upset. Shortly after that bout, Ali joined the Nation ...