Black History Month!
by horne_jeffrey | created - 28 Feb 2013 | updated - 28 Feb 2013 | PublicThis list is dedicated to African Americans who changed the world forever!
1. Halle Berry
Actress | Catwoman
Halle Maria Berry was born Maria Halle Berry on August 14, 1966 in Cleveland, Ohio and raised in Oakwood, Ohio to Judith Ann Berry (née Hawkins), a psychiatric nurse & Jerome Jesse Berry, a hospital attendant. Her father was African-American and her mother is of mostly English and German descent. ...
First African American actress to win Oscar for best actress in a leading role. This happened in 2002.
2. Sidney Poitier
Actor | In the Heat of the Night
Sidney Poitier was a native of Cat Island, Bahamas, although born, two months prematurely, in Miami during a visit by his parents, Evelyn (Outten) and Reginald James Poitier. He grew up in poverty as the son of farmers, with his father also driving a cab in Nassau. Sidney had little formal ...
First African American actor to win Oscar for best actor in 1964.
3. Three 6 Mafia
Soundtrack | Rocky Balboa
Perhaps the most famous group of rappers to come from Memphis, Tennessee, rap group Three Six Mafia was formed in 1991. While the members of the group have changed over time as members have left and unfortunately passed, the most famous members of the group include DJ Paul, Juicy J, Gangsta Boo, ...
First African American hip hop group to win Oscar for best song in 2006.
4. Whoopi Goldberg
Actress | Ghost
Whoopi Goldberg was born Caryn Elaine Johnson in the Chelsea section of Manhattan on November 13, 1955. Her mother, Emma (Harris), was a teacher and a nurse, and her father, Robert James Johnson, Jr., was a clergyman. Whoopi's recent ancestors were from Georgia, Florida, and Virginia. She worked in...
First African American to win all 4 major awards, which consist of an Oscar, Emmy, Tony, and Grammy.
5. Barack Obama
Producer | Leave the World Behind
U.S. President Barack Hussein Obama II was born in Honolulu, Hawaii. His mother, Stanley Ann Dunham, was a white American from Wichita, Kansas. His father, Barack Obama Sr., who was black, was from Alego, Kenya. They were both young college students at the University of Hawaii. When his father left...
First African American president of the United States on January 20, 2009!
6. Denzel Washington
Actor | Fences
Denzel Hayes Washington, Jr. was born on December 28, 1954 in Mount Vernon, New York. He is the middle of three children of a beautician mother, Lennis, from Georgia, and a Pentecostal minister father, Denzel Washington, Sr., from Virginia. After graduating from high school, Denzel enrolled at ...
First African American actor to take home two Oscars. He won the Academy Award award in 1990 and 2013.
7. Jackie Robinson
Self | The Jackie Robinson Story
Jackie Robinson is an American professional baseball player who became the first African American to play in Major League Baseball (MLB) in the modern era. Robinson broke the baseball color line when he started at first base for the The Brooklyn Dodgers on April 15, 1947. When the Dodgers signed ...
First African American to play professional baseball.
8. Dwayne Johnson
Actor | Black Adam
Dwayne Douglas Johnson, also known as The Rock, was born on May 2, 1972 in Hayward, California. He is the son of Ata Johnson (born Feagaimaleata Fitisemanu) and professional wrestler Rocky Johnson (born Wayde Douglas Bowles). His father, from Amherst, Nova Scotia, Canada, is black (of Black Nova ...
First wrestler, of any race, to win 7 WWE Championship belt, which he did in 2002. First African American to win the WWE championship title in 1998. First African American to win the Royal Rumble in 2000.
9. Hattie McDaniel
Actress | Gone with the Wind
After working as early as the 1910s as a band vocalist, Hattie McDaniel debuted as a maid in The Golden West (1932). Her maid-mammy characters became steadily more assertive, showing up first in Judge Priest (1934) and becoming pronounced in Alice Adams (1935). In this one, directed by George ...
First African American to be nominated and win an Oscar in 1940.
10. Oprah Winfrey
Producer | The Oprah Winfrey Show
Oprah Gail Winfrey , often known simply as Oprah, is an American talk show host, television producer, actress, author, and philanthropist. She is best known for her talk show, The Oprah Winfrey Show, broadcast from Chicago, which was the highest-rated television program of its kind in history and ...
First African American billionaire.
11. Michael Jackson
Soundtrack | Michael Jackson: Thriller
Michael Joseph Jackson was born on August 29, 1958 in Gary, Indiana, and entertained audiences nearly his entire life. His father, Joe Jackson (no relation to Joe Jackson, also a musician), had been a guitarist, but was forced to give up his musical ambitions following his marriage to Michael's ...
Michael Jackson's Billie Jean video was the first one to debut number one on MTV in the 1980s. If that is not enough, Michael Jackson Thriller album is the best selling album of all time, which sold between 51-65 million albums worldwide.
12. Robert Townsend
Producer | Hollywood Shuffle
Robert Townsend transcends any medium he touches whether he's performing stand up, acting, writing, directing, producing, or running a television network. A Chicago native, Townsend is often referred to as one of the "Godfathers" of the Independent Film World." With over 30 years in the business, ...
First African American actor/director/ producer to create a black superhero known as Meteor Man in 1993.
13. Damon Wayans
Writer | My Wife and Kids
A tall (6'2"), sly, cueball-domed comedian of film and television satire, Damon Wayans hit outrageous 90's TV stardom playing various wise guys and streetwise slick characters on older brother Keenen Ivory Wayans' landmark, black-oriented TV sketch comedy In Living Color (1990). The show was pretty...
Second African American actor and producer to create a black superhero known as Blinkman in 1996.
14. Jamie Foxx
Actor | Collateral
Jamie Foxx is an American actor, singer and comedian. He won an Academy Award for Best Actor, BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role, and Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Musical or Comedy, for his work in the biographical film Ray (2004). The same year, he was nominated for the Academy...
Became the first African American to be nominated for an Oscar in best Leading and Supporting actor category in the same year (2005.) He ended up winning the award.
15. Tiger Woods
Actor | Gentlemen Only Ladies Forbidden: Puddy McFadden License to Golf
At age 21, Tiger Woods became the youngest Masters champ and the first golfer since Jerry Pate in 1976 to win in the first major he played. In 1997, Woods took the lead at the Augusta golf classic and then put on a golf clinic never seen before. He fired a 3-under-par 69 and broke the tournament 72...
African American golfer who broke all racial barriers and numerous records in golf, which would take me all day to explain all of his accolades.
16. Arthur Ashe
Self | Wimbledon Official Film 1975
Arthur Ashe grew up in segregated Richmond, Virgina where he decided to make a career out of tennis where he won his first U.S. Open in 1968, the first ever won by a black player. Ashe firmly established his stardom in 1975 after beating Jimmy Connors to take the Wimbledon title. As a tennis ...
The first successful African American tennis player who changed the sport in the 1980s.
17. Alex Haley
Writer | Malcolm X
Alex Haley served in the United States Coast Guard during the Second World War, Korean Conflict, and Cold War, and was the first African-American Coast Guardsman in the modern era to reach the rank of Chief Petty Officer. This paved the way for many other black men and women to rise into the senior...
African American author who wrote Roots and Queen, which were adapted into highly successful movie about the history of African Americans.
Tell Your Friends