Slavery & Abolition
Civil War / Renaissance
WWII & Unrest
Civil Rights & Beyond
A New Era
Recent History-Makers
1619: First African Slaves
In 1619, America's first slaves from Africa arrived by ship in Jamestown, Virginia. A Dutch trader, who had recently stolen the slaves from a Spanish ship, exchanged them in Jamestown for food. It is possible that these first slaves were actually indentured servants, although the records from the time are not clear. The earliest record of a clearly identified slave is a court order from 1640, stating that the African must "serve his said master or his assigns for the time of his natural life here or elsewhere."Learn more.1790s: Cotton Industry Boom
The mechanization of textile weaving in England increased the demand for American cotton. Traditionally, cotton harvesting had been a time-consuming task because of all the seeds that needed to be picked out. ButEli Whitney'sinvention of the cotton gin in 1793 made that task much simpler, and suddenly cotton became a much more cost-effective crop for farmers to grow—so long as they had plenty of slaves to harvest it for free.Learn more.1808: Ban on Importing Slaves
Although Congress outlawed the importation of slaves to the U.S. in 1808, the owning and selling of slaves remained legal. In the next 50 years, the existing slave population nearly tripled. By 1860, there were almost 4 million slaves living in America. More than half of them lived in the Southern states, where the booming cotton industry was dependent on slave labor.Learn more.1831: Nat Turner Revolt
In 1831, preacher Nat Turner led some 75 fellow slaves in killing about 60 whites, including Turner's owners, before being stopped by Virginia's state militia. Approximately 100 slaves were killed during the chaos, and Turner was hanged six weeks later. Virginia tightened its slave laws to prevent further revolts.Learn more.1831: The Liberator
In the early 1800s, abolitionists became increasingly vocal. In 1831, Massachusetts journalistWilliam Lloyd Garrisonfounded The Liberator, one of the most controversial abolitionist newspapers, which called for "the immediate and complete emancipation of all slaves."1839: Amistad Revolt
Joseph Cinqué led 37 other African slaves in a revolt aboard the slave ship Amistad in 1839. After killing the captain and hijacking the ship, Cinqué and his followers were captured and put on trial, with former president John Quincy Adams acting as Cinqué's defense lawyer. The U.S. Supreme Court eventually ruled that they be freed and returned to Africa.Learn more.1845: Frederick Douglass
A prominent abolitionist speaker, Frederick Douglass escaped slavery by posing as a freed sailor on a train heading north. In 1845, he published his autobiography, "Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass." In 1872, he became the first African American to be nominated for U.S. vice president.Learn more.1849: Harriet Tubman
In 1849, Harriet Tubman escaped from Maryland to Philadelphia to free herself from slavery. She went on to help hundreds of other slaves gain their freedom, guiding them on the same Underground Railroad journey she had used in her own escape north. She later served as a Union spy and scout during the Civil War.Learn more.1857 Dred Scott Decision
In the 1830s, slave Dred Scott was taken by his owner from Missouri, a slave state, to Wisconsin Territory and Illinois, both free lands. When Scott eventually returned to Missouri, he sued for his freedom, arguing that his previous residence in a free territory and state entitled him to this. In 1857, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that as a slave, Scott did not have the right to file a lawsuit, and, furthermore, slaveowners in territories could not be denied their property. Thus, "free territories" were no longer such, until they became states.Learn more.1859 John Brown's Raid
John Brown, a white abolitionist, led approximately 50 men to the federal arsenal at Harper's Ferry, Virginia, where they hoped to raid ammunition to use against Virginia slaveowners. Although the men were eventually overpowered by troops and Brown was hung, the raid demonstrated the increasing militancy and fervor of the abolitionists.Learn more.SLAVERY & ABOLITION
1861: Start of Civil War
For four decades, tensions grew between the Northern and Southern states, due to differing economic interests and sociopolitical views. Abraham Lincoln's election in 1860 as the first Republican president deepened the rift. And although it wasn't the overwhelming reason for the start of the Civil War a year later, the conflict between abolitionists and slave owners certainly played a part in the secession of 11 Southern states from the Union.Learn more.1863: Emancipation Proclamation
On January 1, 1863, President Lincoln issued an order freeing all slaves living in the Confederacy in order to economically cripple the South, which relied on slaves as its workforce. While the Emancipation Proclamation effectively freed 3 million slaves, it did not free those slaves living in the Southern border states that had remained part of the Union. (They were not legally freed until passage of the 13th Amendment two years later.) Among those free to do so, approximately 186,000 African-American men went on to join the Union Army.Learn more.1865: End of Civil War, Lincoln Assassination
By the end of the Civil War in 1865, more than 600,000 had been killed, making it the deadliest war Americans have ever fought in. That same year, passage of the 13th Amendment abolished American slavery completely, and made it a punishable crime. Less than three months after Congress passed the amendment, President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated by actor and Confederate spy John Wilkes Booth while watching a theater performance.Learn more.1866: Civil Rights Act
After the 13th Amendment outlawed slavery, it remained legally unclear what the rights were of the 4 million freed slaves. The passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1866 mandated that all those born on U.S. soil (except for Native Americans), regardless of color, were full citizens, and thus had the same rights as white citizens. Two years later, passage of the 14th Amendment guaranteed full citizenship and equal rights to former slaves. And two years after that, passage of the 15th Amendment made it illegal for states to deny citizens the right to vote based on race.Learn more.1896: Plessy v. Ferguson
After the Reconstruction, Southern states began to enact Jim Crow segregation laws. By the turn of the century, African Americans and other "persons of color" were required to be separated from whites in schools, restaurants, hotels, trains, and other public places in most Southern states. After these segregation laws were challenged, the 14th Amendment's definition of equal rights was put to the test in the case of Plessy v. Ferguson. In 1896, the Supreme Court ruled that as long as segregated facilities for nonwhites were comparable to those for whites, it was legal for them to be "separate but equal."Learn more.1901: Booker T. Washington's Autobiography
The proliferation of Jim Crow laws in the South spurred some African Americans to seek education as a means of transcending society's low placement of them. Those seeking inspiration and a role model may have found both in the 1901 autobiography of Booker T. Washington, "Up From Slavery." Born a slave, Washington spent his childhood working as a salt-mine worker and houseboy, attending school whenever he could. He eventually became the head of the Tuskegee Institute, where he aimed to make African-American students self-reliant through vocational training.Learn more.1909: Founding of NAACP
Job and housing shortages in urban areas led to increasing violencetoward African Americans, including lynching. In response, a group of high-profile African Americans, led by W.E.B. Du Bois, began meeting in 1905 to discuss the challenges they faced as a people. In 1909, this group and its supporters merged with the newly formed civil rights group, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), and the name stuck. The NAACP's agenda included outlawing segregation, crusading against lynching, upholding 14th and 15th Amendment rights, and providing equal educational opportunities to people of all colors.Learn more.1915: Premiere of "Birth of a Nation"
Premiering under the alternate title "The Clansman," D.W. Griffith's silent film "Birth of a Nation" proved to be historic in more ways than one. From a filmmaking perspective, it was revolutionary for its time. In 1915, cinema was still in its infancy, so the technical effects, filming techniques, and storytelling devices used in the movie were considered groundbreaking. But from a social perspective, "Birth of a Nation" was undeniably racist in its glorification of the Klu Klux Klan and its depictions of African Americans as rapists and a threat to white society. The movie's release in theaters sparked riots, protests, lawsuits, a denouncement from the NAACP…and more than $18 million in profits.Learn more.1916: Marcus Garvey Movement
The founder of the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) in Jamaica, Marcus Garvey brought his organization to the U.S. in 1916, where he gathered thousands of supporters for his mission to establish a colony for African Americans in Africa, far away from white prejudice and racism. Unable to get support from the League of Nations and failing to negotiate a deal with Liberia, Garvey named himself provisional president of the "Empire of Africa" in 1921. But two years later he was imprisoned for mail fraud, and later deported.Learn more.1920: Harlem Renaissance
In the 1920s, African Americans began leaving the South and heading north for more tolerant pastures. Many of those African Americans ended up in New York City’s Harlem neighborhood, where they began singing, writing, composing, dancing, and otherwise creating up a storm. This new movement of successful black entertainers and artists was dubbed the Harlem Renaissance. Some of the period’s most famous artists included Bessie Smith, Louis Armstrong, Josephine Baker, Langston Hughes, and Zora Neale Hurston.Learn more.CIVIL WAR & RENAISSANCE
Mid-1940s: African Americans in Military
Despite being largely excluded from early Army recruiting efforts, African-American servicemen and -women made a real impact during WWII. More than 2.5 million African-American men enlisted, and thousands of African-American women served in the Women’s Army Corps. Despite their numerous wartime contributions, though, these men and women were targets of on-the-job racism. The stigma associated with black military enrollment lessened after Harry S. Truman signed a groundbreaking executive order to integrate the armed forces in 1948.Learn more.1947: Jackie Robinson's Rookie Year
In 1947, Jackie Robinson broke the athletic world’s color barrier by becoming the first African-American player in major-league baseball. He joined the Brooklyn Dodgers after playing a stint with the Dodgers’ “farm team,” the all-white Montreal Royals. In his first year as a Dodger, Robinson hit 12 home runs, helping the Dodgers win the National League pennant. He was also named Rookie of the Year. He continued to impress both fans and critics throughout his 10-year baseball career, and he later enjoyed long stints in business and activism. He helped pave the way for future African-American baseball greats like Hank Aaron and Dick Allen.Learn more.1950: Ralph Bunche's Nobel Prize
Probably no one who knew him doubted that Ralph Bunche would go far. Growing up in Los Angeles, Bunche was a brilliant student, as well as his class valedictorian. He went on to earn a master’s degree and a doctorate in political science, both from Harvard. Later in his career, Bunche was closely involved with the formation of the United Nations, and he served as assistant to the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine in 1947. Bunche received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1950 for achieving the 1949 Armistice Agreements, which ended the official hostilities of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War.Learn more.1954: Brown v. Board of Education
The Supreme Court’s landmark ruling in Brown v. Board of Education was one of the most significant legal milestones in African American history. The Court combined five cases under the same heading (Brown v. Board of Education) because each case was pursuing the same legal outcome. The ruling, written by Chief Justice Earl Warren, stated that separate could never be equal, ended the legality of racial segregation in schools and other public spaces. The decision also declared that racial segregation “violates the 14th amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which guarantees all citizens equal protection of the laws.”Learn more.1955: Murder of Emmett Till
Emmett Till, a 14-year-old African American from Chicago, was murdered August 28, 1955, while staying with relatives in Mississippi. The “reason”? He had reportedly flirted with a 21-year-old white woman in a grocery store. A few days after the incident in the store, the woman’s husband and half-brother tracked Till down, brutally killed him, and dumped his body in the Tallahatchie River. Till’s mother, Mamie, displayed her son’s body in an open-casket funeral “so the world could see what they did to [her] baby.” Till’s murder has been cited as the unofficial birth of the civil rights movement because of the outrage it sparked among citizens and organizations like the NAACP.Learn more.1955: Montgomery Bus Boycott
In December 1955, 42,000 black residents of Montgomery, Alabama, began a year-long boycott of city buses. They were tired of being forced to sit at the back of buses (African Americans weren’t even permitted to sit in the same row as a white person). AfterRosa Parkswas arrested on December 1 for refusing to give up her seat to a white man, a boycott was organized to coincide with her trial, and was then extended when Parks lost her case. After 381 days of taking taxis, carpooling, and walking through Montgomery, African Americans finally triumphed: Seating was desegregated on public buses, and not just in Montgomery.Learn more.1957: The Little Rock Nine
After 1954’s Brown v. Board of Education ruling, which declared racial segregation in schools to be unconstitutional, there was no legal reason for nine African-American students to be prevented from entering their new high school, Little Rock Central High. But they were — angry mobs of protesters and the Arkansas National Guard physically blocked the students’ entrance. They finally entered the school on Wednesday, September 25, 1957, after President Eisenhower intervened by sending federal troops to protect the students.Learn more.1960: SNCC, Sit-Ins, and Freedom Rides
Students at Shaw University in Raleigh, North Carolina, formed SNCC (the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee) in 1960. SNCC became a proponent of a new form of nonviolent protest spreading across African-American communities countrywide: the sit-in. The sit-in had been popularized that same year, when four students from Greensboro, North Carolina, remained at a Woolworth’s food counter until closing time, despite never having been served. Their unique act sparked another kind of peaceful demonstration: the Freedom Rides. Freedom Riders traveled by bicycle through the South, seeking desegregation of bus, rail, and airport systems.Learn more.1962: Riots at Ole Miss
On September 30, 1962, African AmericanJames H. Meredithwas accompanied by U.S. marshals onto the all-white University of Mississippi campus to complete his registration. Meredith’s presence incited a deadly race riot, and two men were killed and dozens injured before the violence was quelled by more than 3,000 federal soldiers. The next day, Meredith successfully began to attend classes despite continuing disruption on campus.Learn more.1963: March on Washington
It was during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom on August 29, 1963, that Martin Luther King Jr. delivered one of the most famous speeches of all time: his oft-quoted, much-loved “I Have a Dream” speech. The number of participants at the huge march ranged from about 200,000 to more than 300,000. About 80% of the marchers were African American. It was a major milestone in the evolution of the civil rights movement.Learn more.WWII & UNREST
1964: Civil Rights Act
When President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in 1963, his civil-rights reform bill was in the process of being reviewed by Congress. Kennedy's successor, Lyndon Johnson, saw the bill through to its passage as the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The Act offered governmental protection against racial, ethnic, religious, and gender-based discrimination and founded the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. It also changed biased voting procedures and requirements, and called for the desegregation of public facilities and schools.Learn more.1965: Malcolm X Assassination
Malcolm X's "by any means necessary" approach to the fight for civil rights stood in sharp contrast to the nonviolent tactics employed by Martin Luther King Jr., as did his view that blacks were superior to whites. But in 1964, after falling out with the Nation of Islam and converting to Sunni Islam, Malcolm made a pilgrimage to Mecca and rejected his long-held separatist philosophy. The following year, while speaking at a meeting in Harlem, New York, he was shot dead by three members of the Nation of Islam.Learn more.1965: Voting Rights Act
In an effort to remove the remaining obstacles that prevented some African Americans from being able to exercise their right to vote, Congress passed the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The Act called for the elimination of literacy-test requirements for voter registration and the removal of poll taxes, both of which had made many African Americans unable to vote in the past.Learn more.1967: Appointment of Thurgood Marshall
The son of a railroad porter and a schoolteacher, Thurgood Marshall graduated from Howard University Law School (the University of Maryland rejected him due to his race) and went on to work as an NAACP attorney for 25 years. During his time there, he successfully represented the groundbreaking Brown v. Board of Education case. Court. In 1967, he became the first African American to be appointed to the Supreme Court, where he became known for his opposition to the death penalty and his defense of civil liberties.Learn more.1967: Loving v. Virginia
Married in Washington, D.C. in 1958, interracial couple Mildred and Richard Loving were arrested later that year after police stormed their home in Virginia and charged them with violating the state's anti-miscegenation law. In 1964, the ACLU took their case all the way to the Supreme Court, which ruled unanimously in 1967 that state anti-miscegenation laws were unconstitutional.Learn more.1968: Fair Housing Act
The last significant piece of legislation to emerge from the civil rights movement, the Fair Housing Act of 1968 served as an addendum to the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Calling for federal protection against racial discrimination in the rental and sale of housing, the bill wasn't necessarily expected to pass Congress, due to distrust among conservatives in reaction to the growing Black Power movement. But the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. on the day of the Senate's vote probably added pressure to support the bill, which ending up passing into law by a narrow margin.Learn more.1968: Martin Luther King Jr. Assassination
While in Memphis, Tennessee, to support a sanitation workers' strike, civil-rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. was shot and killed on a motel balcony by white gunman James Earl Ray. The violent death of the Nobel Peace Prize winner sparked a backlash among many disheartened African Americans, who rioted and looted in cities across the U.S. The Civil Rights Era had come to an abrupt and tragic end.Learn more.1972: Shirley Chisholm's Presidential Run
With the civil rights movement coinciding with the women's rights movement, it shouldn't have been too much of a surprise that the first African American candidate for president of the United States would also be the first female candidate. Although her race ended at the Democratic primaries, Rep. Shirley Chisholm had already earned her place in history four years earlier, when she became the first African-American woman elected to Congress.Learn more.1978: Affirmative Action
In the case ofof Regents of University of California v. Bakke, the Supreme Court ruled that the use of strict racial quotas in college admission processes was unconstitutional. However, the ruling went on to say that race could be used as a factor in deciding which college applicants to admit, in the interest of student diversity.Learn more.1984: Jesse Jackson's Presidential Run
In 1984, Jesse Jackson ran for the Democratic presidential nomination, placing third in the primaries. His strong showing in the polls was credited to the support he received fromThe National Rainbow Coalition and PUSH (People United to Serve Humanity),organizations that Jackson had founded to promote African-American self-reliance and equal opportunities.Learn more.CIVIL RIGHTS & BEYOND
1986: "Oprah" Premiere
A former TV news reporter, Oprah Winfrey got her start as a morning TV show host in 1984 on "AM Chicago." Two years later, she became the first African-American woman to host a nationally syndicated talk show, "The Oprah Winfrey Show." Since the show's premiere in 1986, it has become the cornerstone of Winfrey's multimillion-dollar media empire, which now also includes film, publishing, and radio.Learn more.1991: Appointment of Clarence Thomas
When Court of Appeals judge Clarence Thomas was appointed in 1991 to replace the retiring Thurgood Marshall, he became the second African American to serve on the Supreme Court. But while Marshall was known as "The Great Dissenter" due to his liberal views, Thomas was a conservative, like the majority of the court justices and the presiding Bush administration. Thomas' confirmation hit a snag, though, when his former employee Anita Hill accused him of sexual harassment. He was narrowly confirmed by a 52-48 vote in the Senate.Learn more.1992: Carol Moseley Braun's Senatorship
In 1992, attorney Carol Moseley Braun became the first African-American woman elected to the U.S. Senate, first beating incumbent Sen. Alan Dixon in the Democratic primaries, and then prevailing in the polls over Republican Richard Williamson. During her six years in office, Moseley served on the Senate Finance Committee and worked toward women's rights, civil rights, stricter gun laws, and educational reform.Learn more.1993: Toni Morrison's Nobel Prize
Twenty-three years after publishing her first novel, "The Bluest Eye," Toni Morrison was awarded the 1993 Nobel Prize in Literature, becoming the first African American to receive the honor. Her body of work, including the 1988 Pulitzer Prize winner "Beloved," features the stories of African-American protagonists set in diverse time periods, including an abused girl in the early 1940s, an upper-class businessman in the mid-20th century, a mother in 1873, a middle-aged couple in Harlem in the 1920s, and slaves in the 1680s.Learn more.1995: Million Man March
With the goal of creating a sense of solidarity, spiritual renewal, and personal responsibility among African-American men, Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan asked for "a million sober, disciplined, committed, dedicated, inspired black men to meet in Washington on a day of atonement.” Although it's debatable exactly how many men showed up for the Million Man March in October 1995 (estimates ranged from 400 thousand to over 1 million), the march was viewed as a success, with 1.5 million African-American men registering to vote in the months following the march. In 1997, a Million Woman March was held in Philadelphia.Learn more.2001: Appointment of Colin Powell
When Vietnam veteran and four-star general Colin Powell was made chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, he became the first African American to hold the position, the military's highest. Four years later, it was rumored that Powell was interested in running for president. While this never happened, he did become more active in the Republican Party, and in 2001, was appointed by George W. Bush as secretary of state, another first for an African American.Learn more.2002: Historic Oscar Wins
The74th Annual Academy Awardsin 2002 proved to be a momentous night for African Americans. Denzel Washington, nominated for his work in "Training Day," became the first African American to win an Oscar for Best Actor since Sidney Poitier's win nearly 40 years earlier. Adding to the excitement of the evening, Halle Berry became the first African American to win an Oscar for Best Actress for her performance in "Monster's Ball." In her acceptance speech, she paid tribute the African-American actresses who had paved the way for her, declaring, "This moment is so much bigger than me. This moment is for Dorothy Dandridge, Lena Horne, Diahann Carroll."Learn more.2005: Appointment of Condoleezza Rice
After George W. Bush's re-election, then Secretary of State Colin Powell resigned his post, amid reports that Iraq's "weapons of mass destruction" were based on faulty intelligence. In 2005, foreign-policy advisor Condoleezza Rice was appointed as Powell's replacement, thus becoming the first African-American woman to hold the position. Speaking at Rosa Parks' memorial later that year, Rice reflected, "I think I can quite honestly say that without Mrs. Parks, I would probably not be standing here today as secretary of state."Learn more.2007: Jena Six Protests
After months of building tensions between white and black students at a high school in Jena, Louisiana — including the hanging of nooses in trees by white students — six African-American students were charged with the beating of a white student, who was knocked unconscious but was able to attend a school function that night. Five of the arrested students were charged with attempted murder, sparking outcry from the African-American community that the severity of the charges did not fit the crime, and was racially discriminatory. On September 20, 2007, thousands of protesters marched on Jena, and similar demonstrations were held in other U.S. cities.Learn more.2009: Barack Obama's Inauguration
On January 20, 2009, Illinois Sen. Barack Obama was inaugurated as the 44th president of the United States — the first African American to take office. After a long, strategic campaign against Sen. Hillary Clinton and Sen. John McCain, Obama's focus on hope and change in his speeches brought out record numbers of young voters to the polls. For many African Americans, his ultimate victory added another layer of meaning to his campaign motto: "Yes we can."Learn more.A NEW ERA
Majora Carter
A lifelong resident of the South Bronx, Majora Carter's motto is "You shouldn’t have to move out of your neighborhood to live in a better one." In 2001, she founded the nonprofit Sustainable South Bronx, which builds parks, plants trees, creates gardens on roofs and walls, and develops open space for water runoff. As a result, Carter's home turf now has cleaner air, less urban heat in the summer, better-managed storm water — and more jobs for its poverty-stricken residents. Carter's organization, which also offers "green-collar" job training and placement, has become a model for other urban neighborhoods looking to improve the environment and the lives of the people who live there.Learn more.Don Cheadle
Respected actor, producer, and activist Don Cheadle got his humble start in the mid-'80s, landing minor roles in TV ("Fame") and film ("Hamburger Hill"). In 1995, he garnered critical praise for his performance in "Devil in a Blue Dress," the first of his many award-winning roles. His life-changing role in 2004's "Hotel Rwanda," which earned him an Oscar nomination for Best Actor, prompted Cheadle to travel to Sudan's refugee camps to meet with survivors of the Darfur genocide. His experience there led him to co-produce the 2007 documentary "Darfur Now" and to co-author the book "Not on Our Watch: The Mission to End Genocide in Darfur and Beyond" to show the public how they can help end the crisis in Darfur.Learn more.Kiri Davis
While a high-school student at the Urban Academy in New York City, Kiri Davis became interested in exploring standards of beauty held by African-American girls. At age 16, she made the short documentary "A Girl Like Me," in which she repeated Dr. Kenneth and Mamie Clark's famous "doll study" from the 1940s, with similar results: 15 of the 21 African-American girls chose a white doll over a black doll when asked to pick the "nice" doll. Since making the film, Davis has spoken about her film on national media outlets such as "The Oprah Winfrey Show" and National Public Radio's "Talk of the Nation." Currently a student at Howard University, Davis' goal is to "give a much-needed voice to issues that pertain to people of color."Learn more.Michael Eric Dyson
Dr. Michael Eric Dyson has come a long way since his days as a teen father on welfare. After becoming a Baptist minister at age 21 and going to college, Dyson worked as a freelance journalist for several years before landing a fellowship at Princeton University, where he eventually got his master's degree and PhD. Now a sociology professor at Georgetown University, Dyson is a regular commentator on American culture, particularly how it relates to African Americans, for media outlets such as National Public Radio and CNN. He has written 16 critically acclaimed books on topics such as Malcolm X, gangsta rap, Martin Luther King, Jr., African-American women, and Hurricane Katrina.Learn more.Lupe Fiasco
Hip-hop music artist Lupe Fiasco was born Wasalu Muhammad Jaco, into a large Muslim family in Chicago. Despite his initial distaste for hip-hop because of its frequent use of profanity, Fiasco found himself drawn to the genre in his early teens. In his early 20s, he landed some guest spots on singles, including Kanye West's "Touch the Sky." One of his guest vocals caught the ear of hip-hop mogul Jay-Z, who then helped Fiasco produce his first album, the Grammy-nominated "Lupe Fiasco's Food & Liquor." His second album, "The Cool," included the wildly popular single "Superstar." With his emphasis on lyricism rather than pop stylings, Fiasco has been hailed as a leader of hip-hop's next generation.Learn more.T.D. Jakes
Named "America's Best Preacher" by Time magazine in 2001, Bishop T.D. Jakes leads a congregation of over 30 thousand at his church, The Potter's House, in Dallas, Texas. His inspirational and self-help messages can be found in his 30-plus books, weekly TV show, and three annual conferences: ManPower, MegaFest, and Woman Thou Art Loosed (which inspired his self-help book and a feature film of the same name). Jakes' ministries and outreach programs focus on a variety of social issues, including domestic abuse, AIDS education, homelessness, prisoner ministry, and African relief effortsLearn more.Gina McCauley
Blogger Gina McCauley is on a mission: to stop sexist, racist, and degrading portrayals of African-American women in mainstream media. Her strategy? To sock it to 'em where it hurts: in the wallet. In a 2008 interview with Clutch magazine, McCauley begged the question, "When black women control more than 60% of the billions of black buying power, why do these companies [that sponsor hip-hop artists] feel free to align themselves with someone who is denigrating 60% of their consumer base?" Her site, What About Our Daughters?, highlights grassroots campaigns against these corporate sponsors.Learn more.Aaron McGruder
Cartoonist Aaron McGruder is the creator of "The Boondocks," a comic strip about two African-American brothers growing up in a middle-class suburb. During the comic strip's national run, from 1999–2006, McGruder used "The Boondocks" (particularly its character Huey, a 10-year-old black radical) to make statements about African-American culture and politics. While the Bush administration was a frequent target, McGruder's criticisms were also directed at some black celebrities. He and "The Boondocks" sparked controversy—but also political dialogue.Learn more.Vanessa and Angela Simmons
Vanessa and Angela Simmons may be the daughters of Run-DMC co-founder Joseph Simmons and the nieces of hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons. But the sisters have also made a name for themselves as young entrepreneurs, with a successful line of footwear, clothing, and handbags called Pastry. Named one of BET's "Top 25 Under 25," the Simmons also star in the reality show "Run's House" and its spinoff, "Daddy's Girls."Learn more.Dr. Ian Smith
Physician Ian Smith has issued a "50 Million Pound Challenge" in his fight against the obesity epidemic, a problem that affects many Americans, particularly African Americans. So far, 5 million pounds have been lost, thanks to his national initiative. Through his TV appearances, best-selling books, and "HealthWatch" radio show, Dr. Smith strives to educate and encourage African Americans to play a bigger role in their own health care.Learn more.Recent History-Makers