African
Americans Contributors to Our World
Dr. Percy Julian – African American scientist and Oak Park favorite
son whose work in chemistry led to the development of drugs to treat glaucoma, cortisone,
and fire fighting foam.
Gwendolyn Brooks –Poet Laureate for the state of Illinois, Consultant
in Poetry to the Library of Congress. Recipient of many awards including the American Academy
of Arts and Letters award, National Endowment for the Arts award,
and fellowships from The Academy of American Poets and Guggenheim
Foundation.
Langston Hughes – Poet Laureate of Harlem during the Harlem
Renaissance.
Rosa Parks – Civil rights activist whose arrest led to
the Montgomery Bus Boycott.
Eubie Blake – African American "ragtime" composer
of over 1,000 songs.
Toni Morrison – African American author and winner of
the Nobel Prize for literature (Beloved; Sula)
W.E.B. DuBois – African American civil rights leader.
Henry (Hank) Louis Aaron –Baseball Hall of Fame outfielder and baseball executive.
William (Bill) Russell – African-American
Basketball Hall of Fame center and former coach.
Levar Burton – Actor, (“Roots”, “Star Trek: The
Next Generation”, host of “Reading Rainbow”.)
Michael Jeffrey Jordan –World renowned basketball player.
Sidney Poitier –Oscar Winning African-American actor.
Marian Anderson – First African-American
to perform with the New York Metropolitan Opera. Received 1963 recipient
of the Presidential Medal of Honor.
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. – African American civil rights leader and Nobel Peace
Prize winner.
Muhammad Ali – One of the greatest heavy weight boxing champions in
the world.
Zora Neale Hurston – One of the most important African American writers
in the 20th Century.
Alvin Ailey – Noted African American choreographer and founder
of the American Dance Theater.
Harold Washington – 1st African American mayor of Chicago
and the first to head a major city.
Booker T. Washington – born into slavery he became one of the spokespersons
for African American rights & education.
Muddy Waters - Key singer and guitarist in the development of the
Chicago Blues genre.
Ma Rainey – Known as “Mother of the Blues”.
Dr. Mary McCleod Bethune -
one of the most influential African-American women in United States
history; she established a school for young Black women which later
became a college. She also founded and served as president of the
National Council of Negro Women.
Dr. Mae Jemison - the
first African-American woman to enter space (Also speaks fluent Russian,
Japanese, and Swahili, as well as English.)
Dr. Mark Dean – African-American computer scientist who holds
more than 20 US Patents, including 3 out of 9 IBM personal computer
patents. He was inducted into the National Inventor’s Hall
of Fame in 1997.