Meharry Medical College is a private historically black medical school affiliated with the United Methodist Church and located in Nashville, Tennessee. Founded in 1876 as the Medical Department of Central Tennessee College, it was the first medical school for African Americans in the South. While the majority of African Americans lived in the South, they were excluded from many public and private racially segregated institutions of higher education, particularly after the end of Reconstruction.
Edward William Brooke III was an American lawyer and politician who represented Massachusetts in the United States Senate from 1967 to 1979. A member of the Republican Party, he was the first African American elected to the United States Senate by popular vote. Prior to serving in the Senate, he served as the Attorney General of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts from 1963 until 1967. Edward Brooke was the first African-American since Reconstruction in 1874 to have been elected to the United States Senate and he was the first African-American United States senator since 1881 to have held a United States Senate seat. Edward Brooke was also the first African-American United States senator ever to have been re-elected to the United States Senate.
Lincoln MacCauley Alexander was a Canadian lawyer and politician who became the first Black Canadian to be a member of Parliament in the House of Commons, a federal Cabinet Minister, a Chair of the Worker's Compensation Board of Ontario, and the 24th Lieutenant Governor of Ontario from 1985 to 1991. Alexander was also a governor of the Canadian Unity Council.
Ladies' Home Journal was an American magazine that ran until 2016 and was last published by the Meredith Corporation. It was first published on February 16, 1883, and eventually became one of the leading women's magazines of the 20th century in the United States. In 1891, it was published in Philadelphia by the Curtis Publishing Company. In 1903, it was the first American magazine to reach one million subscribers.
Emmett Louis Till was an African American teenager who was abducted and lynched in Mississippi in 1955 after being accused of offending a white woman, Carolyn Bryant, in her family's grocery store. The brutality of his murder and the acquittal of his killers drew attention to the long history of violent persecution of African Americans in the United States. Till posthumously became an icon of the civil rights movement.
Margaret Walker was an American poet and writer. She was part of the African-American literary movement in Chicago, known as the Chicago Black Renaissance. Her notable works include For My People (1942) which won the Yale Series of Younger Poets Competition, and the novel Jubilee (1966), set in the South during the American Civil War.
Catherine Anna Yronwode is an American writer, editor, graphic designer, typesetter, and publisher with an extensive career in the comic book industry. She is also a practitioner of folk magic.
Andrea Desiree Lewis is a Canadian actress and singer, known for her role as Hazel Aden in the long-running TV series Degrassi: The Next Generation.
Essence is an American monthly lifestyle magazine covering fashion, beauty, entertainment, and culture. First published in 1970, the magazine is written for African-American women.
Edward William Bok was a Dutch-born American editor and Pulitzer Prize-winning author. He was editor of the Ladies' Home Journal for 30 years (1889–1919). He also distributed popular homebuilding plans and created Bok Tower Gardens in central Florida.
Let 'Em Eat Cake is a 1933 Broadway musical with music by George Gershwin, lyrics by Ira Gershwin, and book by George S. Kaufman and Morrie Ryskind. A political satire, it tells the story of a fictional American president who fails to get reelected. Inspired by fascism in Europe, he and the former vice president decide to overthrow the government.
Time, Inc. was an American worldwide mass media corporation founded on November 28, 1922, by Henry Luce and Briton Hadden and based in New York City. It owned and published over 100 magazine brands, including its namesake Time, Sports Illustrated, Travel + Leisure, Food & Wine, Fortune, People, InStyle, Life, Golf Magazine, Southern Living, Essence, Real Simple, and Entertainment Weekly. It also had subsidiaries which it co-operated with the UK magazine house Time Inc. UK, whose major titles include What's on TV, NME, Country Life, and Wallpaper. Time Inc. also co-operated over 60 websites and digital-only titles including MyRecipes, Extra Crispy, TheSnug, HelloGiggles, and MIMI.
Mellody Louise Hobson Lucas is an American businesswoman who is president and co-CEO of Ariel Investments, and current chair of Starbucks. She is the former chairman of DreamWorks Animation, having stepped down after negotiating the acquisition of DreamWorks Animation SKG, Inc., by NBCUniversal in August 2016. In 2017, she became the first African-American woman to head The Economic Club of Chicago. On December 26, 2020 it was announced she would become chair of Starbucks in 2021, thus becoming the first black woman to chair an S&P 500 company, making her one of the highest profile corporate directors in the United States. She would serve in the role of chair until August 2024.
Valorie Burton is a life coach, author, motivational speaker and entrepreneur. She is the founder of the Coaching and Positive Psychology Institute (CaPP).
Camille Olivia Cosby is an American television producer, philanthropist, and the wife of comedian Bill Cosby. The character of Clair Huxtable from The Cosby Show was based on her. Cosby has avoided public life, but has been active in her husband's businesses as a manager, as well as involving herself in academia and writing. In 1990, Cosby earned a master's degree from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, followed by a Doctorate of Education (Ed.D.) in 1992.
Barbara Brandon-Croft is an American cartoonist, best known for creating the comic strip Where I'm Coming From, and for being the first nationally syndicated African-American female cartoonist.
The Black Economic Alliance (BEA) is an American nonpartisan coalition of Black business leaders and allies established in 2018. Through the BEA Political Action Committee (PAC), it supports candidates advancing Black economic progress and prosperity. While not formally aligned with either the Democratic or Republican political party, it has endorsed many Democratic candidates since it was first launched. Through the nonprofit BEA Foundation, it sponsors research and programs that advance the BEA's economic policy agenda focused on work, wages, and wealth for the Black community.
Carolyn Glover Utz was an American musician, conductor and educator. She was a bass player for the Columbus Symphony Orchestra for 30 years and was the first black member of the orchestra's predecessor, the Columbus Philharmonic Orchestra.
BlackBoard: African American Bestsellers is an organization that promotes bestselling titles written by and about African Americans. The BlackBoard Bestsellers List was started in August 1991 by Faye Childs and Debbie Wade. The list appears monthly and is syndicated in newspapers. BlackBoard gathers bestseller information from African American bookstores. Each year, the organization announces a list of "Books of The Year," which features both fiction and nonfiction titles.
Bernadette Carey Smith, also known by the byline Bernadette Carey, was an American journalist. In the 1960s, she was one of the first African-American women to work as a reporter at The New York Times and at The Washington Post.
