Sean John Combs (born November 4, 1969),[4] also known by his stage names Puff Daddy, P. Diddy and Diddy, is an American rapper, singer, songwriter, actor, record producer and entrepreneur. He was born in Harlem and was raised in Mount Vernon, New York. He worked as a talent director at Uptown Records before founding his label Bad Boy Entertainment in 1993. His debut album No Way Out (1997) has been certified seven... Read More

Willie Wilbert Herenton (born April 23, 1940) is an American politician who was elected in 1991 as the first African-American mayor of Memphis, Tennessee, and re-elected to a total of five terms. He resigned in 2008 to run as superintendent of the school board. In 2010, he was a candidate for election to the U.S. House of Representatives, until his defeat... Read More

Harriet Tubman (born Araminta Ross; c. 1822 – March 10, 1913) was an American abolitionist, humanitarian, and an armed scout and spy for the United States Army during the American Civil War. Born into slavery, Tubman escaped and subsequently made some thirteen missions to rescue approximately seventy enslaved families and friends,[2] using the network of antislavery activists and safe houses known as the Underground Railroad. She later helped abolitionist John Brown recruit men... Read More

James Howard Meredith (born June 25, 1933) is a Civil Rights Movement figure, writer, political adviser and Air Force veteran. In 1962, he became the first African-American student admitted to the segregated University of Mississippi, after the intervention of the federal government, an event that was a flashpoint in the Civil Rights Movement. Inspired by President John F. Kennedy‘s inaugural address, Meredith decided... Read More

Edwin Reuben Hawkins (born August 18, 1943, Oakland, California) is an American gospel musician, pianist, choir master, composer, and arranger. He is one of the originators of the urban contemporary gospel sound. He (as leader of the Edwin Hawkins Singers) is probably best known for his arrangement of “Oh Happy Day” (1968–69), which was included on the Songs of the Century list. The Edwin... Read More

Viola Davis (born August 11, 1965) is an American producer and actress of stage, screen, and television. After graduating from the Juilliard School in 1993, Davis began her career on stage and won an Obie Award in 1999 for her performance as Ruby McCollum in Everybody’s Ruby. She played supporting and minor roles in several films and television series in the late 1990s... Read More

Maxie Cleveland “Max” Robinson, Jr. (May 1, 1939 – December 20, 1988) was an American broadcast journalist, and ABC News World News Tonight co-anchor. He was the first African-American broadcast network news anchor in the United States. He was a founder of the National Association of Black Journalists.

Sly Stone (born Sylvester Stewart, March 15, 1943, Denton, Texas) is an American musician, songwriter, and record producer, most famous for his role as frontman for Sly and the Family Stone, a band which played a critical role in the development of soul, funk, rock, and psychedelia in the 1960s and 1970s. In 1993, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a... Read More

Shirley Ann Jackson (born August 5, 1946) is an American physicist, and the eighteenth president of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. She received her Ph.D. in nuclear physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1973, becoming the first African-American woman to earn a doctorate at MIT.

Lonnie George Johnson (born October 6, 1949) is an American inventor and engineer who holds more than 80 patents. Johnson is best known for inventing the Super Soaker water gun, which has ranked among the world’s top 20 best-selling toys every year since its release.