Tommie Smith Gaining recognition for his multiple records in the 1960s for the San Jose State University track-and-field team, Thomas “Tommie” C. Smith won the 200-meter gold medal at the...

  Born to a single mother in Harlem, New York, James Baldwin developed a passion for reading and writing during his school years. When at DeWitt Clinton High School, Baldwin worked for the...

“A bird doesn’t sing because it has an answer, it sings because it has a song.” A woman of many talents and best known for her 1969 memoir I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Maya Angelou is...

Hattie McDaniel was affluent in the rising media world. She was awarded two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and was the first African American to win an Oscar and perform on the radio. McDaniel...

A fixture in New York's Harlem Renaissance, Zora Neale Hurston would be revered as an outstanding folklorist of the powerful female-based novel "Their Eyes Were Watching God" (1937) as well as shorter...

  A child of former slaves, Mary McLeod Bethune was the only child out of 17 to pursue schooling. Adamant that education was the key to racial advancement, she graduated from the Scotia Seminary...