Celebrate Black History Month ~ 2023

Learn more about our Faces of the Past and Present below.

Alice Ball

Alice Augusta Ball was an African American chemist who developed the first successful treatment for those suffering from Hansen’s disease (leprosy). Ball was also the very first African American and the first woman to graduate with a M.S. degree in chemistry from the College of Hawaii (now known as the University of Hawaii).

Angela Davis

Angela Davis is an activist, scholar and writer who advocates for the oppressed. She has authored several books, including 'Women, Culture & Politics.' She joined the U.S. Communist Party and was jailed for charges related to a prison outbreak, though ultimately cleared. Known for books like Women, Race & Class, she has worked as a professor and activist who advocates gender equity, prison reform and alliances across color lines.

Barbara Jordan

Barbara Jordan was a U.S. congressional representative from Texas and was the first African American congresswoman to come from the Deep South and the first woman ever elected to the Texas Senate (1966).

Barack Obama

Barack Obama was the 44th president of the United States and the first African American commander-in-chief. He served two terms, in 2008 and 2012.

Ben Carson

Ben Carson went from being a poor student to receiving academic honors and eventually attending medical school. As a doctor, he became director of pediatric neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins Hospital at age 33 and earned fame for his groundbreaking work separating conjoined twins. He retired from medicine in 2013, and two years later he entered politics, making a bid to become the Republican candidate for U.S. president in 2016.

Carter G. Woodson

Carter G. Woodson was the second African American to receive a doctorate from Harvard, after W.E.B. Du Bois. Known as the "Father of Black History," Woodson dedicated his career to the field of African American history and lobbied extensively to establish Black History Month as a nationwide institution. He also wrote many historical works, including the 1933 book The Mis-Education of the Negro.

Condoleezza Rice

In 2001, Rice was appointed national security adviser by President George W. Bush, becoming the first African American women (and woman) to hold the post, and went on to become the first Black woman to serve as U.S. Secretary of State.

Jackie Robinson

Robinson became the first Black athlete to play Major League Baseball in the 20th century when he took the field for the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947. Throughout his decade-long career, Robinson distinguished himself as one of the game's most talented and exciting players, recording an impressive .311 career batting average. He was also a vocal civil rights activist.

Garrett Morgan

With only an elementary school education, Garrett Morgan began his career as a sewing-machine mechanic. He went on to patent several inventions, including an improved sewing machine and traffic signal, a hair-straightening product, and a respiratory device that would later provide the blueprint for WWI gas masks.

Coretta Scott King

Coretta Scott met her husband, Martin Luther King Jr., while the two were both students in Boston, Massachusetts. She worked side by side with King as he became a leader of the civil rights movement, establishing her own distinguished career as an activist. Following her husband's assassination in 1968, Coretta founded the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change, and later successfully lobbied for his birthday to recognized as a federal holiday.

Mae C. Jemison

Mae C. Jemison is an American astronaut and physician who, on June 4, 1987, became the first African American woman to be admitted into NASA’s astronaut training program. On September 12, 1992, Jemison finally flew into space with six other astronauts aboard the Endeavour on mission STS47, becoming the first African American woman in space. In recognition of her accomplishments, Jemison has received several awards and honorary doctorates.

Michael Jackson

Known as the "King of Pop," Michael Joseph Jackson was a best-selling American singer, songwriter and dancer. As a child, Jackson became the lead singer of his family's popular Motown group, the Jackson 5. He went on to a solo career of astonishing worldwide success, releasing one of the best-selling albums in history, ‘Thriller,’ in 1982 and delivering No. 1 hits from the albums "Off the Wall" and "Bad."

Madame C.J. Walker

Madam C.J. Walker created specialized hair products for African American hair care and was one of the first American women to become a self-made millionaire. She was also known for her philanthropic endeavors, including a donation toward the construction of an Indianapolis YMCA in 1913. Walker's life was portrayed in the 2020 TV show Self Made.

Guion S. Bluford

As a mission specialist aboard the space shuttle 'Challenger' in 1983, Guion S. Bluford became the first African American to travel into space. Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1942, Guion S. Bluford was a decorated Air Force pilot in Vietnam before joining NASA in the late 1970s. Bluford completed three more NASA missions, compiling 688 hours in space by the time of his retirement in 1993.

Hattie McDaniel

Actress and radio performer Hattie McDaniel became the first African American to win an Oscar in 1940, for her supporting role as Mammy in Gone With the Wind.

Kobe Bryant

Former pro basketball player Kobe Bryant won five NBA titles with the Los Angeles Lakers while establishing himself as one of the game's all-time greats. Kobe Bryant spent his early years in Italy and joined the NBA straight out of high school. A dominant scorer, Bryant won five NBA championships and the 2008 MVP Award with the Los Angeles Lakers. Although later seasons were marred by injuries, he surpassed Michael Jordan for third place on the NBA all-time scoring list in December 2014 and retired in 2016 after scoring 60 points in his final game. In 2018, Bryant earned an Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film for Dear Basketball.

Maya Angelou

Maya Angelou was an American author, actress, screenwriter, dancer, poet and civil rights activist best known for her 1969 memoir, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, which made literary history as the first nonfiction bestseller by an African American woman. Angelou received several honors throughout her career, including two NAACP Image Awards in the outstanding literary work (nonfiction) category, in 2005 and 2009.

Steve Harvey

Steve Harvey got his start in stand-up comedy after quitting his job as a salesman to pursue his dream of being a comedian. Struggling to get a career started, he lived out of his car for three difficult years on less than $50 a week until he went on to land a hosting gig on Showtime at the Apollo and his own WB sitcom and became one of the four comedians featured in Spike Lee's The Original Kings of Comedy. Harvey launched a long-running radio program in 2000, went on to host a pair of daytime talk shows, and currently hosts the long-running game show Family Feud.

Harriet Tubman

Born into slavery in Maryland, Harriet Tubman escaped to freedom in the North in 1849 to become the most famous "conductor" on the Underground Railroad. Tubman risked her life to lead hundreds of family members and other slaves from the plantation system to freedom on this elaborate secret network of safe houses. A leading abolitionist before the American Civil War, Tubman also helped the Union Army during the war, working as a spy among other roles.

Ida B. Wells

Ida B. Wells was an African American journalist, abolitionist and feminist who led an anti-lynching crusade in the United States in the 1890s. She went on to found and become integral in groups striving for African American justice.

John Lewis

One of the "Big Six" leaders of the civil rights movement in the 1960s, John Lewis continued to fight for people's rights since joining Congress in 1987. He grew up in an era of racial segregation, but inspired by Martin Luther King Jr., he joined the burgeoning civil rights movement. Lewis was a Freedom Rider, spoke at 1963's March on Washington and led the demonstration that became known as "Bloody Sunday." He was elected to Congress in 1986 and received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2011.

Ruby Bridges

Ruby Bridges was the first African American child to integrate an all-white public elementary school in the South. On November 14, 1960, she was escorted to class by her mother and U.S. marshals due to violent mobs. Bridges' brave act was a milestone in the civil rights movement, and she's shared her story with future generations in educational forums.

Marian Anderson

Deemed one of the finest contraltos of her time, Marian Anderson became the first African American to perform with the New York Metropolitan Opera in 1955. Singer Marian Anderson displayed vocal talent as a child, but her family could not afford to pay for formal training. Members of her church congregation raised funds for her to attend a music school for a year, and in 1955 she became the first African American singer to perform as a member of the Metropolitan Opera.

Frederick Jones

Frederick Jones was an inventor best known for the development of refrigeration equipment used to transport food and blood during World War II. After a challenging childhood, Frederick Jones taught himself mechanical and electrical engineering, inventing a range of devices relating to refrigeration, sound and automobiles. These portable refrigeration units developed by Jones helped the United States military during World War II.

Michael Jordan

Michael Jordan is a former American basketball player who led the Chicago Bulls to six NBA championships and won the Most Valuable Player Award five times. Considered one of the best basketball players ever, he dominated the sport from the mid-1980s to the late 1990s.  With five regular-season MVPs and three All-Star MVPs, Jordan became the most decorated player in the NBA.

Mary Jackson

Mathematician Mary Jackson was one of a small group of African American women who worked as aeronautical engineers, called "human computers," at NASA during the Space Age. Along with serving a vital role in the development of the space program and becoming NASA’s first Black female engineer, she helped other women and minorities advance their careers. The story of her groundbreaking contributions to NASA was later dramatized in the 2016 film Hidden Figures.

Muhammad Ali

Muhammad Ali was a boxer, philanthropist and social activist who is universally regarded as one of the greatest athletes of the 20th century. Ali became an Olympic gold medalist in 1960 and the world heavyweight boxing champion in 1964. Following his suspension for refusing military service, Ali reclaimed the heavyweight title two more times during the 1970s, winning famed bouts against Joe Frazier and George Foreman along the way. Diagnosed with Parkinson's disease in 1984, Ali devoted much of his time to philanthropy, earning the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2005.

Mildred Loving

In 1967, Mildred Loving and her husband Richard successfully defeated Virginia's ban on interracial marriage via a famed Supreme Court ruling that had nationwide implications. Loving, who was of African American and Native American descent, became a reluctant activist in the civil rights movement of the 1960s when she and her white husband, Richard Loving, successfully challenged Virginia's ban on interracial marriage. In marrying, the couple violated Virginia's Racial Integrity Act. Following the case Loving v. Virginia, the Supreme Court struck down the Virginia law in 1967, also ending the remaining ban on interracial marriages in other states. The Lovings then lived as a legal, married couple in Virginia until Richard’s death in 1975.

Oprah Winfrey

Oprah Winfrey is a talk show host, media executive, actress and billionaire philanthropist. She’s best known for being the host of her own, wildly popular program, The Oprah Winfrey Show, which aired for 25 seasons, from 1986 to 2011. In 2011, Winfrey launched her own TV network, the Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN).

Rosa Parks

Rosa Parks was a civil rights leader whose refusal to give up her seat to a white passenger on a segregated bus led to the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Her bravery led to nationwide efforts to end racial segregation. Parks was awarded the Martin Luther King Jr. Award by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Congressional Gold Medal.

Nelson Mandela

Nelson Mandela was a social rights activist, politician and philanthropist who became South Africa’s first Black president from 1994 to 1999. For 20 years, he directed a campaign of peaceful, nonviolent defiance against the South African government and its racist policies. In 1993, Mandela and South African President F.W. de Klerk were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for their efforts to dismantle the country's apartheid system.

Wilma Rudolph

In 1960, Wilma Rudolph became the first American woman to win three gold medals in track and field at a single Olympics. She was a sickly child who had to wear a brace on her left leg but overcame her disabilities to compete in the 1956 Summer Olympic Games, and in 1960, she became the first American woman to win three gold medals in track and field at a single Olympics. Later on, she formed the Wilma Rudolph Foundation to promote amateur athletics.

Thurgood Marshall

Thurgood Marshall was instrumental in ending legal segregation and became the first African American justice of the Supreme Court. He was an American lawyer and the first African American to hold the position and served for 24 years, until 1991. Marshall studied law at Howard University. In 1954, he won the Brown v. Board of Education case, in which the Supreme Court ended racial segregation in public schools.

Morgan Harper Nichols

Morgan Harper Nichols is an artist and poet whose work is inspired by real life interactions and stories. She spent the first couple of years of her professional life as a college admission counselor, and then, as a full-time touring singer-songwriter and musician. It was on the road that she cultivated her curiosity and passion for writing, art, and design and slowly began to share her work online.

Martin Luther King Jr.

Martin Luther King Jr. was a Baptist minister and civil-rights activist who had a seismic impact on race relations in the United States, beginning in the mid-1950s. Among his many efforts, King headed the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). Through his activism and inspirational speeches, he played a pivotal role in ending the legal segregation of African-American citizens in the United States, as well as the creation of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. King won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964, among several other honors. He continues to be remembered as one of the most influential and inspirational African-American leaders in history.

Simone Biles

Simone Biles is the most decorated American gymnast, with more than two dozen Olympic and World Championship medals to her name. After dominating at the junior elite level, she won her first U.S. and world all-around titles in 2013. She went on to lead the U.S. Olympic women's gymnastics team, nicknamed "The Final Five," to victory at the 2016 Summer Games, while also winning gold in the individual all-around, vault and floor exercise and earning a bronze in the balance beam. Biles went on to grab a record sixth U.S. all-around title in 2019, and set another record by winning her 25th World Championship medal that fall.

Jesse Owens

Jesse Owens, also known as "The Buckeye Bullet," was an American track and field athlete who won four gold medals and broke two world records at the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin.

Claudette Colvin

Claudette Colvin is a civil rights activist who, before Rosa Parks, refused to give up her bus seat to a white passenger. She was arrested and became one of four plaintiffs in Browder v. Gayle, which ruled that Montgomery's segregated bus system was unconstitutional.

Louis Armstrong

Louis Armstrong was a jazz trumpeter, bandleader and singer known for songs like "What a Wonderful World," "Hello," "Dolly," "Star Dust" and "La Vie En Rose." An all-star virtuoso, he came to prominence in the 1920s, influencing countless musicians with both his daring trumpet style and unique vocals. Armstrong's charismatic stage presence impressed not only the jazz world but all of popular music.

Chadwick Boseman

Chadwick Boseman had early success as a stage actor, writer and director, before landing gigs on TV shows like Lincoln Heights. Boseman broke through with his big screen portrayals of two African American icons: baseball player Jackie Robinson in 42, and soul singer James Brown in Get on Up. Boseman later took on the role of Black Panther for a series of Marvel superhero films, including the immensely successful Black Panther in early 2018.

Michelle Obama

Michelle Obama is a lawyer and writer who was the first lady of the United States from 2009 to 2017. She is the wife of the 44th U.S. president, Barack Obama. As first lady, Michelle focused her attention on social issues such as poverty, healthy living and education. Her 2018 memoir, Becoming, discusses the experiences that shaped her, from her childhood in Chicago to her years living in the White House.

Muddy Waters

Muddy Waters grew up immersed in the Delta blues, and was first recorded by archivist Alan Lomax. In 1943, he moved to Chicago and began playing in clubs. A record deal followed, and hits like "I'm Your Hoochie Coochie Man" and "Rollin' Stone" made him an iconic Chicago blues man, ultimately influencing the name of the major music magazine as well as one of the most famous rock bands to date.

Ella Baker

Ella Baker became one of the leading figures of the civil rights movement of the 1950s and '60s. Following her early work for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, she was among the founders of Martin Luther King's Southern Christian Leadership Conference in 1957. Three years later, she helped launch the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee.

Jimi Hendrix

Jimi Hendrix learned to play guitar as a teenager and grew up to become a rock legend who excited audiences in the 1960s with his innovative electric guitar playing. One of his most memorable performances was at Woodstock in 1969, where he performed "The Star-Spangled Banner."

Carol M. Swain

Dr. Carol M. Swain is an award-winning political scientist, author, public speaker, political commentator, and a former professor of political science and professor of law at Vanderbilt University. She’s the author and/or editor of nine books with topics ranging from race relations, immigration, representation, evangelical politics, and the United States Constitution.

Amanda Gorman

Amanda S. C. Gorman is an American poet and activist. Her work focuses on issues of oppression, feminism, race, and marginalization, as well as the African diaspora. Gorman was the first person to be named National Youth Poet Laureate.

Medgar Evers

Civil rights activist Medgar Evers was the first state field secretary of the NAACP in Mississippi. As such, he organized voter-registration efforts and economic boycotts, and investigated crimes perpetrated against Black people.

Shirley Chisholm

Shirley Chisholm is best known for becoming the first Black congresswoman (1968), representing New York State in the U.S. House of Representatives for seven terms. She went on to run for the 1972 Democratic nomination for the presidency—becoming the first major-party African-American candidate to do so. Throughout her political career, Chisholm fought for education opportunities and social justice.

Featured in a forthcoming animation video produced by Kendall College of Art and Design, Digital Art and Design students. More information here.

Alvin Ailey

Alvin Ailey was a choreographer who founded the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater in 1958. It was a hugely popular, multi-racial modern dance ensemble that popularized modern dance around the world thanks to extensive world tours. His most famous dance is Revelations, a celebratory study of religious spirit. Ailey received the Kennedy Center Honors in 1988.

Carol Moseley Braun

Carol Moseley Braun served in the United States Senate from 1993 to 1999, becoming the first female senator from Illinois and the first African American woman to serve in the Senate.

Arthur Ashe

Arthur Ashe became the first (and remains the only) African American male tennis player to win the U.S. Open and Wimbledon singles titles. He was also the first African American man to earn the No. 1 ranking in the world and the first to earn induction into the Tennis Hall of Fame.