Hank Aaron

1934–
U.S. baseball player

A durable outfielder noted for his powerful wrists, Aaron was among the first blacks to play a full career in the major leagues. In 1974 “Hammerin' Hank” broke Babe Ruth's legendary lifetime mark of 714 home runs, eventually setting a record of 755 homers, which held until Barry Bonds hit his 756th in 2007. Elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1982, Aaron is baseball's career leader in runs batted in (2,297) and extra-base hits (1,477) and was an All Star a record 24 times. He also was the National League's most valuable player in 1957 and won three Gold Gloves. In 1976 he became one of the first black executives in the game, beginning a long tenure in the Atlanta Braves front office. He also is a successful Atlanta businessman.

George Washington Carver

1864?–1943
American Agricultural Chemist

Born a slave, he later, as a free man, earned his college degree. In 1896 he joined the staff of Tuskegee Institute as director of the department of agricultural research, retaining that post the rest of his life. His work won him international repute. Carver's efforts to improve the economy of the South included the teaching of soil improvement and of diversification of crops. He discovered hundreds of uses for the peanut, the sweet potato, and the soybean and thus stimulated the culture of these crops. He devised many products from cotton waste and extracted blue, purple, and red pigments from local clay. From 1935 he was a collaborator of the Bureau of Plant Industry. Carver contributed his life savings to a foundation for research at Tuskegee. In 1953 his birthplace was made a national monument.

Duke Ellington

1899–1974
American Jazz Musician and Composer

Ellington made his first professional appearance as a jazz pianist in 1916. By 1918 he had formed a band, and after appearances in nightclubs in Harlem he became one of the most famous figures in American jazz. Ellington's orchestra, playing his own and Billy Strayhorn's compositions and arrangements, achieved a fine unity of style and made many innovations in the jazz idiom. Many instrumental virtuosos worked closely with Ellington for long periods of time. Among his best-known short works are “Mood Indigo,” “Solitude,” and “Sophisticated Lady.” Ellington made many tours of Europe, appeared in numerous jazz festivals and several films, and made hundreds of recordings. In 1969 he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Morgan Freeman

1937 –
Actor

A movie industry veteran who has evolved from sturdy character actor to engaging leading man, he received Academy Award nominations for his roles in Street Smart, The Shawshank Redemption, and, most famously, Driving Miss Daisy, for which he won the Golden Globe for Best Actor. Freeman is one of the few African-American actors who has been given wide-ranging Hollywood roles portraying people of power, such as that of the President of the United States in Deep Impac and the commanding general in Outbreak. More recent films include Amistad, as detective Alex Cross in both Kiss the Girls and Along Came a Spider , Nurse Betty, and as God in Bruce Almighty). He was also the narrator in the U.S. version of the surprise 2005 hit documentary March of the Penguins.

Alex Haley

1921 – 1992
Author

Pulitzer Prize-winning author best known for Roots, his ancestral saga encompassing the entire African-American experience, and The Autobiography of Malcolm X.

Jimi Hendrix

1942 – 1970
Musician

Rock musician and guitarist best known for his masterful maneuvering of the electric rock guitar. A gifted singer and songwriter, Hendrix was not just a rock musician. His roots were in the blues, R&B, and soul, and he spent many years prior to his superstardom as a backup guitarist in various blues and R&B groups. His debut album Are You Experienced was a product of his group the Jimi Hendrix Experience, formed in 1967. Hendrix died of drug related problems only four years after he became an international sensation. Other albums include Axis: Bold as Love and Electric Ladyland.

Thurgood Marshall

1908–1993
U.S. Lawyer and Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court (1967–91)

He received his law degree from Howard Univ. in 1933. In 1936 he joined the legal staff of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. As its chief counsel, he argued more than 30 cases before the U.S. Supreme Court, successfully challenging racial segregation, most notably in higher education. His presentation of the argument against the “separate but equal” doctrine achieved its greatest impact with the landmark decision handed down in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (1954). His appointment to the U.S. Court of Appeals in 1961 was opposed by some Southern senators and was not confirmed until 1962. President Lyndon B. Johnson appointed him to the Supreme Court two years later; he was the first black to sit on the high court, where he consistently supported the position taken by those challenging discrimination based on race or sex, opposed the death penalty, and supported the rights of criminal defendants.

James Earl Jones

1931–
American Actor

Jones achieved Broadway stardom with his powerful portrayal of the fighter Jack Johnson in The Great White Hope. He made his stage debut at the University of Michigan and appeared thereafter for seven years with the New York Shakespeare Festival in Macbeth, Othello, and King Lear, among many others. On Broadway, he appeared in The Iceman Cometh, Of Mice and Men, and Athol Fugard's A Lesson from Aloes. He returned triumphantly to the stage in August Wilson's Pulitzer Prize–winning Fences. Jones has had supporting roles in numerous films, most notably as the voice of the villain Darth Vader in Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi.

Spike Lee

1967 -
Filmmaker / Actor

Spike Lee made a name for himself in 1986 with the hit independent film She's Gotta Have It, a frank comedy about the many lovers of an independent Brooklyn woman. The film established Lee as a rising black filmmaker (a rarity at the time) and his skills and independence, along with his outspoken African-American perspective and feisty public persona, kept him in the public eye into the next century. In later films he continued to tell stories with racial themes and New York settings, including the Brooklyn drama Do the Right Thing, the jazz-tinged Mo' Better Blues, the bi-racial romance Jungle Fever, the biopic Malcolm X), Summer of Sam, and the controversial racial satire Bamboozled. Lee has often appeared in his own films, and his own She's Gotta Have It character Mars Blackmon, a sports-loving New York nebbish, has appeared in Nike athletic gear commercials.

James Farmer

1920 – 1999
Civil Rights Leader

The son of a preacher, Farmer attended Howard University's School of Divinity. In 1942 he founded the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), a civil rights organization that was the first in the United States to use nonviolent tactics to protest racial discrimination. In 1961, under the leadership of Farmer, the group organized "Freedom Rides" throughout the South. Volunteers traveled on interstate buses, with the blacks using the restaurants, restrooms, and waiting areas reserved for whites, and the whites using colored facilities. Attacked by mobs on several occasions, the Freedom Riders challenged the federal government to enforce the anti-segregation legislation that had recently been passed. Farmer was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Clinton in 1998.