BLACK AMERICAN BIOGRAPHIES
THE JOURNEY OF ACHIEVEMENT
AFRICAN AMERICAN HISTORY AND CULTURE
BLACK AMERICAN BIOGRAPHIES
THE JOURNEY OF ACHIEVEMENT
EDITED BY JEFF WALLENFELDT, MANAGER, GEOGRAPHY AND HISTORY
Published in 2011 by Britannica Educational Publishing
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First Edition
Britannica Educational Publishing
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Introduction by Laura Loria
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Black American biographies : the journey of achievement / edited by Jeff Wallenfeldt.
-- 1st ed.
p. cm. — (African American history and culture)
“In association with Britannica Educational Publishing, Rosen Education Services”
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-61530-176-8 (eBook)
1. African Americans—Biography--Dictionaries, Juvenile. I. Wallenfeldt, Jeffrey H.
E185.96.B523 2011
920.0092'96073—dc22
2010010373
On the cover: U.S. abolitionist, writer, and orator Frederick Douglass is among the brightest lights
in the African American firmament, an august gathering most recently illuminated by the ascendancy
of yet another eloquent and stirring leader, Pres. Barack Obama. Getty Images (Obama); MPI/Hulton
Archive/Getty Images (Douglass)
On pages 21, 72, 117, 147, 180, 213, 324: Martin Luther King, Jr. was among the hundreds of
thousands who came to the nation’s capital in August of 1963 to demand equal rights for black
Americans. Hulton Archive/Getty Images
CONTENTS
Introduction
CHAPTER 1: ABOLITIONISM AND ACTIVISM
Abolitionists
Martin R. Delany
Frederick Douglass
Gabriel
Harriet Tubman
Nat Turner
David Walker
Activists
Ralph David Abernathy
Ella Baker
Julian Bond
Stokely Carmichael
Eldridge Cleaver
W.E.B. Du Bois
Medgar Evers
James Farmer
Marcus Garvey
Fannie Lou Hamer
Benjamin L. Hooks
Jesse Jackson
Vernon E. Jordan, Jr.
Coretta Scott King
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Malcolm X
James Meredith
Rosa Parks
A. Philip Randolph
Bobby Seale
Al Sharpton
Emmett Till
Booker T. Washington
Ida B. Wells-Barnett
Roy Wilkins
Whitney M. Young, Jr.
Talented Tenth
CHAPTER 2: PROTECT AND SERVE
Politicians
Marion Barry
Tom Bradley
Edward Brooke
Blanche K. Bruce
Shirley Chisholm
Maynard Jackson
David Dinkins
Barbara C. Jordan
John R. Lynch
Carol Moseley Braun
Barack Obama
Michelle Obama
Pinckney Benton Stewart Pinchback
Hiram R. Revels
Adam Clayton Powell, Jr.
Robert Smalls
Carl Stokes
Harold Washington
Douglas Wilder
Coleman Young
Government Officials, Diplomats, and Soldiers
Crispus Attucks
Ralph Bunche
Benjamin O. Davis, Sr.
Patricia Roberts Harris
Colin Powell
Condoleezza Rice
Robert C. Weaver
Buffalo Soldier
Andrew Young
Tuskegee Airmen
Lawyers and Jurists
Marian Wright Edelman
Charles Hamilton Houston
Thurgood Marshall
Charlotte E. Ray
Clarence Thomas
CHAPTER 3: EXPLORATION, EDUCATION, EXPERIMENTATION, AND ECUMENISM
Explorers, Aviators, and Astronauts
Guion S. Bluford, Jr.
Bessie Coleman
Jean-Baptist-Point Du Sable
Matthew Alexander Henson
Mae Jemison
Educators and Academics
John Hope Franklin
Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
Cornel West
William Julius Wilson
Carter G. Woodson
Science and Medicine
Benjamin Banneker
George Washington Carver
Joycelyn Elders
Mary Mahoney
Charles Henry Turner
Businesspeople
Kenneth Chenault
John H. Johnson
Robert L. Johnson
Charles Clinton Spaulding
Religious Leaders
Richard Allen
Father Divine
Wallace D. Fard
Louis Farrakhan
CHAPTER 4: ARTS AND LETTERS
Writers and Poets
Maya Angelou
James Baldwin
Octavia E. Butler
Charles W. Chesnutt
Countee Cullen
Paul Laurence Dunbar
Ralph Ellison
Ernest J. Gaines
Nikki Giovanni
Alex Haley
Chester Himes
Langston Hughes
Audre Lorde
Claude McKay
Toni Morrison
Walter Mosley
Alice Walker
Phillis Wheatley
Richard Wright
Journalists
Ed Bradley
Max Robinson
Carl Rowan
Bernard Shaw
Painters and Photographers
Jacob Lawrence
Gordon Parks
Horace Pippin
Dancers and Choreographers
Alvin Ailey, Jr.
Katherine Dunham
Savion Glover
CHAPTER 5: STAGE AND SCREEN
Actors
Halle Berry
Ossie Davis
Ruby Dee
Jamie Foxx
Morgan Freeman
James Earl Jones
Hattie McDaniel
Eddie Murphy
Sidney Poitier
Will Smith
Woody Strode
Denzel Washington
Oprah Winfrey
Directors, Producers, and Playwrights
Amiri Baraka
Charles Burnett
Lonne Elder III
Spike Lee
Oscar Micheaux
Ntozake Shange
Melvin Van Peebles
Comedians
Bill Cosby
Whoopi Goldberg
Dick Gregory
Richard Pryor
Chris Rock
Bert Williams
CHAPTER 6: MUSIC
Jazz
Louis Armstrong
Count Basie
Buddy Bolden
Cab Calloway
Ornette Coleman
John Coltrane
Miles Davis
Duke Ellington
Ella Fitzgerald
Dizzy Gillespie
Lionel Hampton
Coleman Hawkins
Fletcher Henderson
Billie Holiday
John Lewis
Charles Mingus
Modern Jazz Quartet (MJQ)
Thelonious Monk
Jelly Roll Morton
King Oliver
Charlie Parker
Max Roach
Sonny Rollins
Billy Strayhorn
Sun Ra
Art Tatum
Sarah Vaughan
Fats Waller
Lester Young
Decca Records
Folk and Blues
Big Bill Broonzy
Willie Dixon
W.C. Handy
Alberta Hunter
Elmore James
Robert Johnson
B.B. King
Leadbelly
Ma Rainey
Bessie Smith
Muddy Waters
Rhythm and Blues
Chuck Berry
Ruth Brown
Ray Charles
Sam Cooke
Bo Diddley
Fats Domino
Jimi Hendrix
Howlin' Wolf
Etta James
Quincy Jones
Little Richard
Tina Turner
Jackie Wilson
Apollo Theater
Soul
James Brown
The Four Tops
Aretha Franklin
Marvin Gaye
Berry Gordy, Jr.
Al Green
Janet Jackson
Michael Jackson
Curtis Mayfield
Otis Redding
Smokey Robinson and the Miracles
The Supremes
The Temptations
Stevie Wonder
Funk
Parliament-Funkadelic
Prince
Sly and the Family Stone
Hip-Hop
Diddy
Jay-Z
Public Enemy
Run-D.M.C.
Tupac Shakur
Kanye West
Cabaret, Gospel, Opera, and Show Music
Nat King Cole
Sammy Davis, Jr.
Thomas Andrew Dorsey
Lena Horne
Mahalia Jackson
Jessye Norman
Leontyne Price
CHAPTER 7: SPORTS
Baseball
Hank Aaron
Cool Papa Bell
Barry Bonds
Lou Brock
Larry Doby
Bob Gibson
Josh Gibson
Rickey Henderson
Reggie Jackson
Buck Leonard
Willie Mays
Buck O'Neil
Satchel Paige
Frank Robinson
Jackie Robinson
Basketball
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
Kobe Bryant
Wilt Chamberlain
Cynthia Cooper
Julius Erving
Magic Johnson
Michael Jordan
Oscar Robertson
Bill Russell
Boxing
Muhammad Ali
George Foreman
Joe Frazier
Marvin Hagler
Jack Johnson
Don King
Sugar Ray Leonard
Joe Louis
Floyd Patterson
Sugar Ray Robinson
Mike Tyson
Football
Jim Brown
Marion Motley
Walter Payton
Jerry Rice
Eddie Robinson
O.J. Simpson
Track and Field
Bob Beamon
Lee Evans
Florence Griffith Joyner
Carl Lewis
Edwin Moses
Jesse Owens
Wilma Rudolph
Tennis, Golf, and Horse Racing
Arthur Ashe
Althea Gibson
Isaac Burns Murphy
Serena Williams
Venus Williams
Tiger Woods
Epilogue
Glossary
Bibliography
Index
INTRODUCTION
From the depths of slavery to the stewardship of a nation, the 400-year-long story of
African Americans has arced from extreme adversity to the ultimate in achievement. On
the facing page, Pres. Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama dance at the
Neighborhood Inaugural Ball, their first official dance as first couple, Jan. 20, 2009. The
Washington Post/Getty Images
For Americans, the pursuit of happiness has long been bound up with striving for excellence and
achievement. But, although the Declaration of Independence found the fundamental equality of all
people (or at least of men) to be self-evident and the right to liberty inalienable, for African
Americans the pursuit of not just achievement and excellence but of liberty and equality was long
obstructed by barriers of “race” and class and by the social and economic framework of life in the
United States. As this book details, the black experience in America has been marked by hardship
unlike that experienced by any other ethnic group in the country. Within these pages, readers will
meet or rediscover a host of African Americans who have overcome these barriers to make important
contributions to American political, religious, social, economic, and cultural life. In doing so, these
men and women not only improved the lot of African Americans but that of all Americans.
Slavery is the scourge of American history, a source of national shame that dates from the arrival
of the first African slaves in Jamestown colony in 1619. As this “peculiar institution” persisted into
the 19th century, many African Americans fought for the emancipation of their people through
methods varying from written protest to violent uprising. The most effective slave revolt in U.S.
history was led by Nat Turner in 1831. Turner, the seven other slaves who were his initial followers,
and those who joined them sustained their uprising for two days, killing his owners’ family as well as
60 other white people before being stopped by the Virginia militia. After six weeks in hiding, Turner
was tried and hanged. His rebellion led to a tightening of restrictions placed on slaves in regard to
education and their ability to hold meetings precisely because it had served notice that slaves were
capable of and willing to organize, arm themselves, and put life and limb on the line in order to escape
bondage.
Risk came in many forms for abolitionists, who battled slavery with words as wells as deeds.
Harriet Tubman, an escaped slave, was heralded as “the Moses of her people” for her courageous work
as a conductor on the Underground Railroad. Risking her own liberty over the course of 19 separate
expeditions into the slave state of Maryland, Tubman led more than 300 slaves to freedom in Canada.
Skillful stealth of another sort was employed by David Walker. His pamphlet “Appeal … to the
Colored Citizens of the World,” published in 1829, called for a slave uprising to end bondage in the
South. A Boston clothing storeowner, Walker cleverly slipped these pamphlets into the pockets of the
garments he sold to white sailors or passed them on directly to black sailors, hoping his call to action
would reach Southern ports. Reach the South the documents did, but not without consequences for
Walker, as explained in this book.
Newspapers also played an important role in the struggle. From 1846 to 1849 the abolitionist
weekly the North Star, published in Rochester, N.Y., benefited from the combined talents of two of
the mid-19th century’s most gifted African American writers and activists, Martin Delany and
Frederick Douglass.
Activism thrived in the black community then, as it would for the generations to come. Foremost
among the many African American activists who have worked to address civil rights issues was the
Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., who came to prominence as the leader of the Southern Christian
Leadership Conference. Following the successful Montgomery Bus Boycott, which was sparked by
Rosa Parks’s famous refusal to give up her bus seat for a white man, King and the SCLC sought
change through non-violent protest. Throughout the 1960s he travelled the country to lead
demonstrations and deliver speeches, railing against segregation and injustice, the most famous of his
orations being his “I Have a Dream” speech, delivered as part of the 1963 March on Washington. Five
years later, while in Memphis supporting a sanitation workers’ strike, he was assassinated.
Among the host of groundbreaking activists who preceded King was Booker T. Washington. Born
shortly before the outbreak of the American Civil War, Washington was convinced that the way for
African Americans to improve their lives was through the mastery of manual trades and agricultural
skills along with the acquisition of economic power. As president of the Tuskegee Normal and
Industrial Institute from 1881 to 1915, Washington took two small converted buildings and grew them
into the thriving learning community with a $2 million endowment at the time of his death. W.E.B. Du
Bois and Ida Wells-Barnett, who were among the founders of the National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1909, considered Washington’s pragmatic approach of
acquiring vocational skills “accommodation.” Instead, they called for an end to segregation and
worked to ensure African Americans the rights guaranteed them by the Constitution. Winning
workers’ rights was the goal of African American trade unionist A. Philip Randolph, who was
founding president of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters.