Char Jeré The Periodic Table of Black Revolutionaries, 2021
A poem of appreciation to Black women and queer people for leading the way. The table disrupts the eurocentric system by replacing, for instance, rare earth metals with astronomical Black people. It's not only a guide of our extraordinary Black history but a meditation of the Universe.
Expanded now into short biographies that include areas of achievement and important life events of these extraordinary individuals!
Char Jeré is an Afro-fractalist whose work focuses on non-linear time created within the African diaspora. Their work is centered on the relationship between race and technology in antiquity and throughout modernity. ‘The Periodic Table of Black Revolutionaries' was started while working at the Brooklyn Public Library as a method of teaching youth about the elemental Black, mostly women-identified, figures throughout history.
Writing & Research by Mary Rynasko & Toni Williams | Edited by Lewis Diuguid | Published by Du-Good Press, 2023
Atomic Numbers 1-54 / Name (Birthplace) - Location Indicator - (Lifespan)
1.Harriet Tubman (Dorchester, Maryland) KBWI - (1821-1913)
Harriet Tubman was born on a plantation in Dorchester County, Maryland, in or around 1821. After escaping from slavery in 1850, she would go on to rescue approximately 70 enslaved people as an Underground Railroad “conductor” until the start of the Civil War. Tubman used her skills of understanding the tides, knowing how to find food and fresh water, and following the North Star to safely guide those in her care to freedom. Through her numerous journeys, she was never caught nor lost any of her "passengers.” A strong advocate for women’s suffrage, Tubman also frequently traveled to give speeches in Washington D.C., and New York City.
2. Queen Nzingha Mbande (Angola) FNLU - (1583-1663)
Nzinga Mbande was Queen of the Ambundu Kingdoms of Ndongo (1624–1663) and Matamba (1631–1663) (present day Angola). Nzinga ruled over Ndongo after the death of her father and brother and would go on to conquer Matamba. During her reign, the Portuguese Empire was rapidly expanding the African slave trade into South West Africa. Nzinga fought for independence and protection of her kingdoms against the Portuguese throughout her thirty-seven-year reign.
3. Sojourner Truth (Rifton, New York) KJFK (1797-1883)
Sojourner Truth was born into enslavement in Ulster County, New York, in 1797. Truth was purchased and sold four times in her life. She was subjected to harsh physical labor and violent punishments before obtaining her freedom in 1827. As a formerly enslaved person, Truth became an outspoken advocate for abolition, temperance, and civil and women’s rights in the nineteenth century. In the 1850s, Truth returned to Michigan, where she continued speaking and aiding in freeing those still held in bondage.
4. Ida B. Wells (Holy Springs, Mississippi) KJAN - (1862-1931)
Ida B. Wells was a journalist born into slavery. In 1892, after three of her friends were lynched by a mob, Wells began an editorial campaign against lynching. Wells would later actively promote justice for African Americans. In 1910, Wells founded and became the first president of the Negro Fellowship League, which aided newly arrived migrants from the South. Wells' public stance against lynching often led to ridicule from (largely white) women’s suffrage organizations in the United States. In 1913, Wells founded what some historians acknowledge as the first Black women’s suffrage group, Chicago’s Alpha Suffrage Club.
5. Queen Ngalifourou (Mbé, Congo) FCOB - (1864-1956)
Ngalifourou was a queen of the Mbé region (modern day Republic of Congo) and spiritual leader. She was the first ruler in the region to sign a treaty with the French colonial authorities.
6. Dahomey Warriors (Benin, West Africa) *HKJK -
The Dahomey Warriors were an all-female military regiment that existed in the 18th century to late 19th century in the present-day Republic of Benin. Referred to as the Mino (our Mothers) or Ahosi (king’s wives), the number of women soldiers of Dahomey was estimated at several thousand (approximately 30 - 40 percent of the army).
7. Winnie Mandela (Binzana, South Africa) FABZ - (1936-2018)
Winnie Mandela was an anti-apartheid activist and politician. She was the second wife of South African President Nelson Mandela. Mandela was known to her supporters as the "Mother of the Nation." She served as a Member of Parliament from 1994 to 2003, and from 2009 until her death. She was a deputy minister of arts and culture from 1994 to 1996. As a member of the African National Congress (ANC) political party, Mandela served on the ANC's National Executive Committee and headed its Women's League.
8. Rebecca Lolosoli (Wamba, Kenya) FZCW - (1962- )
Rebecca Lolosoli is the founder and matriarch of the Umoja village in the Samburu County of Kenya. Founded in 1991, the village is a refuge for women and girls fleeing domestic violence, sexual violence, forced marriage, or female genital mutilation (FGM). Men are banned from the village.
9. Sarraounia Mangou (Niger) DRRN *HKJK - (late 1800s-early 1900s)
Sarraounia Mangou was a chief and priestess of the animist Azna subgroup of the Hausa. In 1899, they fought against French colonial troops of the Voulet–Chanoine Mission at the Battle of Lougou (present-day Niger). This was notable because most chiefs in the region had been submissive to French aggression.
10. Patricia Hill Collins (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) KPHL - (1948- )
Patricia Hill Collins is an academic and educator. Her work focuses on race, class, and gender within the African American community. Collins is a Distinguished University Professor of Sociology Emerita at the University of Maryland, College Park. Collins was the first African American woman president of the American Sociological Association. Published in 1990, her book Black Feminist Thought introduced her ideas to a wider audience.
11. Hattie McDaniel (Wichita, Kansas) KMCI - (1854-1952)
Hattie McDaniel's entertainment career began when she was one of the first Black women to be broadcast over American radio. McDaniel is best known as an actress and singer. She was the first African American to win an Academy Award. McDaniel received this honor for her performance as Mammy in the 1939 film “Gone with the Wind.” Unfairly, McDaniel was not allowed to attend the premiere of “Gone with the Wind” held in Atlanta, Georgia. The premier was hosted at a theater that only permitted white guests. In the 1930s, McDaniel was a controversial figure among the liberal Black community. They took issue with McDaniel's playing the role of a maid or a cook in nearly forty films as they sought to end Hollywood’s stereotyping of Black performers.
12. Rosa Parks (Tuskegee, Alabama) KBHM - (1913-2005)
On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks boarded a bus in Montgomery, Alabama, and was subsequently jailed for refusing to give up her seat to a white passenger. By the time Parks boarded the bus, she was an established organizer and leader in the Civil Rights Movement in Alabama. Parks' act of active resistance was a predecessor to her helping organize and plan the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Both efforts eventually led to the integration of public transportation in Montgomery. She is widely remembered for her rich legacy of resistance against racial discrimination and injustice.
13. Alexa Canady (Lansing, Michigan) KLAN - (1950- )
Dr. Alexa Irene Canady is a retired medical doctor. She specialized in pediatric neurosurgery. Canady earned her bachelor’s and medical degrees from the University of Michigan. In 1981, after completing her residency at the University of Minnesota, she became the first Black, woman neurosurgeon.
14. Claudette Colvin (Montgomery, Alabama) KMGM - (1939- )
Claudette Colvin is a civil rights advocate and retired nurse’s aide. On March 2, 1955, when Colvin was fifteen years old, she was arrested in Montgomery, Alabama, for refusing to vacate her seat for a white woman on a segregated bus. This event occurred nine months prior to the more widely known incident involving Rosa Parks and helped spark the 1955 Montgomery bus boycott.
15. Gwendolyn Brooks (Topeka, Kansas) KFOE - (1917-2000)
Gwendolyn Brooks was a poet, author, and educator. Her work focused on the lives of everyday people in her community. In 1950, Brooks won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry making her the first African American to receive a Pulitzer Prize. A lifelong Chicago resident, Brooks was appointed Poet Laureate of Illinois in 1968.
16. Cedella Booker (Saint Ann Parish, Jamaica) MKJP - (1926-2008)
Cedella Booker was a singer and author. Booker was the mother of reggae musician Bob Marley and wrote two books about her son and their relationship, Bob Marley: An Intimate Portrait by His Mother and Bob Marley, My Son.
17. Dr. Mae Jemison (Decatur, Alabama) KDCU - (1956- )
Dr. Mae Jemison is an engineer, physician, and former NASA astronaut. Jemison served as a mission specialist aboard the Space Shuttle Endeavour making her the first Black woman to travel into space. She joined NASA's astronaut corps in 1987 and was selected to serve for the STS-47 mission. During the STS-47 mission she orbited the Earth for nearly eight days.
18. Zora Neale Hurston (Notasulga, Alabama) KCSG - (1891-1960)
Zora Neale Hurston was an author, anthropologist, and filmmaker. Her writings portrayed racial struggles in the early 1900s American South, and her anthropological work focused on Black folklore. Hurston's most popular novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, was published in 1937 and is considered a major work of the Harlem Renaissance era.
19. Bette Tate-Beaver (Berkeley, California) KCOU - (1958-2021)
Born into a family of social justice and civil rights activists, Bette Tate-Beaver dedicated her life to uniting all races, supporting the LGBTQIA+ community, and fighting for the rights of the disabled. Known as an anti-racist, peace-building activist, Tate-Beaver would go on to become the executive director of the National Association for Multicultural Education and later receive the Charles E. Bebb Peace Merit Award. Before her passing in 2021 and as the Black Lives Matter movement gained national attention, Tate-Beaver was on the ground, organizing and uplifting in Ferguson, Missouri, through protests in the aftermath of the continuous murders of unarmed Black men.
20. Shirley Chisholm (Brooklyn, New York) KJFK - (1924-2005)
In 1968, Shirley Chisholm became the first African American woman in Congress. Shortly after, in 1972, Chisholm became the first woman and African American to seek the nomination for president of the United States from one of the two major political parties. Five years after that, Chisholm became the first African American woman, and the second woman ever to serve on the House Rules Committee. While in Congress, Chisholm introduced more than 50 pieces of legislation and championed racial and gender equality, economic justice for those living in poverty, and ending the Vietnam War. Reflecting on her career, Chisholm said, “I want to be remembered as a woman... who dared to be a catalyst of change.”
21. Coretta Scott King (Heiberger, Alabama) KBHM - (1927-2006)
Coretta Scott King was an author and civil rights activist. Although best known for being the wife of famed civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Coretta Scott King created her own legacy in the movement to end injustice. Throughout her marriage, King appeared alongside her husband while also openly criticizing the movement’s exclusion of women. After the assassination of her husband, King continued to participate in public demonstrations — notably marching in a labor strike only days after his death in 1968. King also supported several women’s right causes. She traveled internationally, delivering speeches about racism and economic issues. In the 1980s, King joined the movement against South Africa's apartheid policy.
22. Erykah Badu ( Dallas, Texas) KDFW - (1971- )
Erica Abi Wright, better known as Erykah Badu, is a singer-songwriter, record producer, actress, and fashion icon. Influenced by R&B, 1970s soul, and 1980s hip hop, Badu became associated with the neo soul subgenre in the 1990s and 2000s. Badu has been called the “Queen of Neo Soul” and has won numerous awards. The majority of Badu's music is greatly influenced by her beliefs in the Nation of Gods and Earths and her exploration of her African heritage. Badu's philosophy is influenced by African ideology, African-centered and Five Percent theologies, and Southern African-American folk traditions.
23. Angela Davis (Birmingham, Alabama) KBHM - (1944- )
Angela Davis is a political activist, academic, scholar, philosopher, and author. Davis is a professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz. A feminist and a Marxist, Davis was a longtime member of the Communist Party USA and is a founding member of the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism. Davis is the author of more than ten books on class, gender, race, and the United States' prison system. Her teaching and activism is always centered around the importance of building community and striving for racial, economic, and gender justice.
24. bell hooks (Hopskinville, KY) KHVC *KCVG - (1952-2021)
Gloria Watkins, better known by her pen name bell hooks, was an author, social activist, and feminist who was a Distinguished Professor in Residence at Berea College. Her writing explores the intersectionality of race, capitalism, and gender. hooks was particularly interested in how these identities are able to produce and perpetuate systems of oppression and class domination. Ranging from essays and poetry to children's books, hooks published more than 40 books. She also published numerous scholarly articles, appeared in documentary films, and participated in public lectures.
25. Audre Lorde (Harlem, New York) KLGA - (1934-1992)
Audre Lorde was a writer, radical feminist, womanist, librarian, professor, and civil rights activist. Lorde was a self-described "black, lesbian, mother, warrior, poet" who was committed to confronting and addressing injustices of racism, sexism, classism, and homophobia both personally and in her work. Her writings largely focus on civil rights, feminism, lesbianism, illness and disability, and the exploration of black female identity. In 1980, Lorde, Barbara Smith, and Cherríe Moraga co-founded Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press, the first U.S. publisher for women of color.
26. Kimberlé Crenshaw (Canton, Ohio) KCAK - (1959- )
Kimberlé Crenshaw is a civil rights advocate and scholar of critical race theory. Crenshaw is a professor at Columbia Law School and the UCLA School of Law. She is known for the introduction and development of intersectional theory, the study of how overlapping social identities, particularly minority identities, relate to systems and structures of oppression, prejudice, or discrimination.
27. Moya Bailey (unknown) KORD - (1972- )
Moya Bailey is a feminist scholar, writer, and activist. She is credited with coining the term "misogynoir", which describes a specific form of discrimination experienced by Black women. Bailey is an Associate Professor at Northwestern University where she researches marginalized groups’ use of digital media to promote social justice. Bailey is the digital alchemist for the Octavia E. Butler Legacy Network and the Board President of Allied Media Projects.
28. Ava DuVernay (Long Beach, California) KLGB - (1972- )
Ava DuVernay is a filmmaker and television producer. DuVernay became the first Black woman to win the directing award in the U.S. dramatic competition at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival. In 2014, DuVernay became the first Black woman to be nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Director and the first Black female director to have her film nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture, both for her film Selma. In 2019, she created, directed, and co-wrote the miniseries When They See Us about the Central Park Five.
29. Ntozake Shange (Trenton, New Jersey) KTTN - (1948-2018)
Ntozake Shange was a playwright and poet. Identifying as a Black feminist, Shange's work addressed issues of race and Black power. She is best known for her Obie Award-winning play, For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow Is Enuf. Shange received numerous honors and awards, including fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and Lila Wallace Reader's Digest Fund, a Shelley Memorial Award from the Poetry Society of America, and a Pushcart Prize.
30. Roxane Gay (Omaha, Nebraska) KOMA - (1974- )
Roxane Gay is a writer, educator, editor, and social commentator. Gay is the author of The New York Times best-selling essay collection Bad Feminist (2014), as well as numerous other books and publications. Gay's writings often pull from her personal experiences to explore themes of race, gender identity, sexuality, beauty, and feminism.
31. Toni Cade Bambara (Harlem, New York) KJFK - (1939-1995)
Toni Cade Bambara was an author, filmmaker, activist, and educator. Bambara worked to raise consciousness around ideas of feminism and Black awareness within Black communities. Influenced by the Civil Rights and Black Nationalist movements, she participated in several community and activist organizations. Bambara was also an active member of the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s and 70s.
32. Octavia E. Butler (Pasenda, California) KBUR - (1947-2006)
Octavia Butler was the first science-fiction writer to receive a MacArthur Fellowship. The New York Times described her novels as "evocative" and "often troubling" explorations of "far-reaching issues of race, sex, power". Her Afro-Futuristic novels often centered Black women, a protagonist rarely seen in the science fiction genre.
33. Maya Angelou (St. Louis, Missouri) KSTL - (1928-2014)
Maya Angelou was a memoirist, poet, dancer, scholar, and activist. She published seven autobiographies, three books of essays, several books of poetry, and contributed to numerous plays, films, and television shows. Published in 1969, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. The book was an autobiography of her early life and included frank descriptions of childhood trauma and abuse.
34. Charlene Carruthers (Chicago, Illinois) KORD - (1985- )
Charlene Carruthers is a Black, lesbian, feminist activist and author. Much of her work focuses on leadership development. Carruthers has collaborated with several organizations, including Color of Change and Women's Media Center. She is a founding member of Black Youth Project 100 and has served as BYP100's National Director or National Coordinator since 2013.
35. Flo Kennedy (Kansas City, Missouri) KCOU - (1916-2000)
Florynce Kennedy was a lawyer, feminist, orator, and activist. She co-founded the National Black Feminist Organization with Margaret Sloan-Hunter in 1973. Focusing on race and gender issues, the Organization advocated for reproductive rights and fought against racialized sterilization campaigns. In 1977, Kennedy became an associate of the Women's Institute for Freedom of the Press, an American nonprofit publishing organization advocating for freedom of the press and diverse journalistic voices.
36. Janet Mock (Honolulu, Hawaii) PHNL - (1983- )
Janet Mock is a writer, television host, director, producer, and transgender rights activist. Her two memoirs, Redefining Realness (2014) and Surpassing Certainty (2017) describe her experiences as a Black trans woman. Mock signed a production agreement with Netflix in 2019. She is the first openly trans person to sign a production pact with a major studio. Mock is committed to producing stories for film and television that showcase the experiences of trans and queer characters.
37. Andrea Jenkins (Chicago, Illinois) KORD - (1961- )
Andrea Jenkins is best known for her accomplishments as a politician, poet, activist, and community historian. Assigned male at birth, Jenkins was raised in the North Lawndale neighborhood on Chicago’s West Side. In her mid-20s, Jenkins married a woman, had a daughter, and worked as a vocational counselor before divorcing her wife and coming out as a trans woman at the age of 30. Jenkins won the Bush Fellowship “dedicated to transgender issues,” helped establish the Transgender Issues Work Group, and organized a City Council summit on transgender equality in Minnesota. Jenkins made history in 2017 when she became the first African American, openly transgender, woman elected to public office in the United States.
38. Raquel Willis (Augusta, Georgia) KTAL - (1991- )
Raquel Willis is a writer, editor, and transgender rights activist. Willis is a former national organizer for the Transgender Law Center and the former executive editor of Out magazine. In 2020, Willis won the GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding Magazine Article. Willis is an outspoken supporter for the rights of her fellow transgender and gender non-conforming people of color.
39. Toni Morrison (Lorain, Ohio) KCLE - (1931-2019)
Toni Morrison was a widely renowned novelist. In addition to writing plays and children’s books, her novels earned her numerous awards, including the Pulitzer Prize and the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Barack Obama. She was the first African American woman to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. Morrison’s work continues to influence writers and artists through her focus on the African American experience.
40. Nikki Giovanni (Knoxville, Tennessee) KTYS - (1943- )
Nikki Giovanni is a poet, writer, commentator, activist, and educator. One of the world's most well-known poets, Giovanni's work includes poetry anthologies, poetry recordings, and nonfiction essays. Her work covers topics ranging from race and social issues to children's literature. Giovanni has won numerous awards, including the Langston Hughes Medal and the NAACP Image Award. Giovanni's poetry album, The Nikki Giovanni Poetry Collection, was nominated for a Grammy Award. Giovanni is also an outspoken voting rights advocate.
41. Lena Horne (Bedstuy, Brooklyn) KJFK - (1917-2010)
Lena Horne was a dancer, actress, singer, and civil rights activist. Horne's seventy-plus year career spanned film, television, and theater. She joined the chorus of the Cotton Club when she was sixteen and became a nightclub performer before moving to Hollywood. Horne advocated for human rights and took part in the March on Washington in August 1963. She later returned to her roots as a nightclub performer and continued to work in television and releasing albums.
42. Mary Ann Shadd (Wilmington, Delaware) KILG - (1823-1893)
Mary Ann Shadd was an anti-slavery activist, journalist, publisher, teacher, and lawyer. Shadd was the first Black woman publisher in North America and the first woman publisher in Canada. Shadd became the first black, female newspaper editor in North America when she began publishing Canada’s first antislavery newspaper, The Provincial Freeman. Shadd was also heavily involved in the women's suffrage movement fighting alongside Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton.
43. Lorraine Hansberry (Chicago, Illinois) KORD - (1930-1965)
Lorraine Hansberry was a playwright, writer, and the first African-American female author to have a play performed on Broadway. Hansberry's best known work, A Raisin in the Sun, centers on the lives of Black Americans living in racially segregated Chicago. At the age of 29, Hansberry won the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award. She was the first African American dramatist, the fifth woman, and the youngest playwright ever to do so. Hansberry's writings sometimes discussed her lesbianism and her complicated relationship with her own homosexuality. Hansberry died of pancreatic cancer at the age of 34.
44. Mary Church Terrell (Memphis, Tennessee) KMEM - (1863-1954)
Mary Church Terrell was an activist who advocated for racial equality and women’s suffrage in the late 19th and early 20th century. Terrell's passion for activism was rooted in tragedy. In 1892, her friend, Thomas Moss, was lynched in Memphis, Tennessee. Even in her older age, she challenged segregation, including the 1950 protest of the John R. Thompson Restaurant in Washington, DC. In 1953, the Supreme Court ruled that segregated eating facilities were unconstitutional.
45. Lucy Parsons (Virginia) KCHO - (1851-1942)
Lucy Parsons was a labor organizer and radical socialist. Parsons became a public activist after marrying the newspaper editor Albert Parsons. She often contributed to the newspaper he edited, The Alarm. Albert Parsons was executed in 1887 in conjunction with the Haymarket affair. Lucy Parsons remained a leading African American activist and founded the Industrial Workers of the World, a labor union for all workers.
46. June Jordan (Harlem, New York) KJFK - (1936-2002)
June Jordan was a poet, essayist, educator, and activist. Her writings explored issues of gender, race, immigration, and representation. In her writing and poetry, Jordan was passionate about using Black English, and she advocated for Black English as its own language and an important outlet for expressing Black culture. Jordan, a bisexual woman, was added to the National LGBTQ Wall of Honor at the Stonewall National Monument in 2019.
47. Nina Simone (Tryon, North Carolina) KCLT - (1933-2003)
Nina Simone was a singer, songwriter, pianist, and civil rights activist. Simone's music spanned styles, including classical, folk, gospel, blues, jazz, R&B, and pop. Initially aiming to become a concert pianist, she enrolled in the Juilliard School of Music in New York City. Her style developed into a mix of gospel, pop, and classical, and she recorded more than forty albums. An activist in her own right, Simone also wrote activism anthems, including the joyful song "To Be Young, Gifted and Black."
48. Michelle Alexander (Stelle, Illinois) KIKK - (1967- )
Michelle Alexander is a writer, scholar, educator, and civil rights lawyer. In 2010, Alexander wrote The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. In The New Jim Crow, she presents an argument that the American prison system is a caste-like system that works to deny the hard-won rights of the Civil Rights Movement. Since 2018, Alexander has been an opinion columnist for The New York Times.
49. Assata Shakur (New York, New York) KJFK (1947- )
Assata Shakur is an activist and former member of the Black Liberation Army. The BLA was an off-shoot of the Black Panther Party and professed the need to take up arms to liberate Black people from government oppression and police control. In 1973, she was convicted of first-degree murder of State Trooper Werner Foerster during a shootout on the New Jersey Turnpike. Sentenced to life in prison, Shakur escaped the Clinton Correctional Facility for Women with assistance from the BLA and members of the May 19 Communist Organization. In 1984, she was located in Cuba, where she was granted political asylum. Shakur is wanted by the FBI with a $2 million reward for her apprehension.
50. Elaine Brown (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) KPHL - (1943- )
Elaine Brown is a prison activist, writer, singer, and former Black Panther Party chairwoman. In 2003, Brown co-founded the National Alliance for Radical Prison Reform. The organization helps prisoners find housing after release, facilitates transportation for family visits to prisons, helps former prisoners find employment, and fundraises for prisoner phone calls and gifts. In 2008, Brown briefly ran for the Green Party presidential nomination.
51. Kathleen Cleaver (Dallas, Texas) KDFW - (1945- )
Kathleen Cleaver is a law professor, activist, and former member of the Black Panther Party. Cleaver was one of only a few women to hold senior positions within the Party, despite the fact that more than two-thirds of Black Panthers members were women. As Communications Secretary, Cleaver was the first female member of the Party's decision-making body.
52. Bessie Coleman (Atlanta, Texas) KATA - (1892-1926)
Bessie Coleman was a civil aviator and the first African American woman and first Native American to earn a pilot's license. Coleman earned her license from the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale on June 15, 1921. She was the first Black person to earn an international pilot's license.
53. Daisy Bates (Huttig, Arizona) KTUS - (1914-1999)
Daisy Bates was an activist, publisher, journalist, and lecturer. She played a significant role in the Little Rock Integration Crisis of 1957. Bates became president of The Arkansas Conference of Branches for the NAACP in 1952. Following the 1954 Supreme Court ruling that made segregated schools unconstitutional, Bates recruited Black students to desegregate and enroll in previously white schools. She personally drove numerous students to school to help them avoid angry, often violent, crowds.
54. Phillis Wheatley (West Africa) GLRB - (1753-1784)
Phillis Wheatley was a writer and is considered the first Black author of a published book of poetry. Born in West Africa, Wheatley was sold into slavery when she was approximately seven years old and brought to North America. She was purchased by the Wheatley family of Boston. Wheatley was permitted to read and write and eventually encouraged to publish her poetry. She wrote several poems about liberty and freedom; her poems were often cited by abolitionists.
55. Margaret Busby (Accra, Ghana) DGAA - (1944- )
Busby is best known for becoming Britain’s youngest and first Black woman book publisher. In 1967, she co-founded Allison & Busby (A&B) with Clive Allison. Busby went on to become A&B’s editorial director for 20 years and later became the editorial director of Earthscan before pursuing a freelance career as an editor and writer. Although A&B does not exclusively publish Black authors, it is a major catalyst for bringing public attention and exposure to the work of several writers from the African Diaspora. Busby is a publisher, editor, writer, and broadcaster whose work is always pushing for increased diversity within the publishing industry.
56. Safiya Umoja Noble (Fresno, California) KSFO - (1970- )
Safiya Umoja Noble is an internet studies scholar and Professor at UCLA. She is also the Co-Founder and Co-Director of the UCLA Center for Critical Internet Inquiry. Noble is the author of Algorithms of Oppression and co-editor of two edited volumes: The Intersectional Internet: Race, Sex, Class and Culture and Emotions, Technology & Design. Noble is a Research Associate at the Oxford Internet Institute at the University of Oxford and was appointed a Commissioner to the University of Oxford Commission on AI and Good Governance in 2020. Noble's research focuses on gender, technology, and culture, and how these forces influence the design and use of the internet. In 2021, Noble was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship.
57. Noname (Chicago, Illinois) KORD - (1991- )
Noname is a rapper, poet, and record producer. Noname is a member of the group Ghetto Sage. She began rapping and performing slam poetry in 2010 and gained wider recognition in 2013 for her appearance on Chance the Rapper's track "Lost.” Both her debut mixtape, Telefone (2016), and her debut album, Room 25 (2018), received critical acclaim. Noname's most recent work revolves around themes of social injustice inspired by anti-capitalist theories. Outside of the music world, Noname runs a book club focused on radical texts from authors of color.
57. Madam C. J. Walker (Delta, Louisianna) KBTR - (1867-1919)
Entrepreneur, philanthropist, and activist, Madam C.J. Walker rose from poverty in the South to become the first female self-made millionaire in America. In 1905, Walker moved to Colorado, and with $1.25 she launched her own line of hair products and straighteners for African American women, “Madam Walker’s Wonderful Hair Grower.” Walker’s business grew rapidly, with sales exceeding $500,000 in the final year of her life. As her wealth increased, so did her philanthropic and political outreach. Walker contributed to the Black YMCA and covered the tuition for six African American students at Tuskegee Institute. She was also active in the anti-lynching movement, donating to the NAACP’s efforts.
58. Serena Williams (Saginaw, Michigan) KDTW *KFNT - (1981- )
Serena Williams is a professional tennis player. Williams has won 23 Grand Slam singles titles, the most by any player in the Open Era, and the second-most of all time. Williams and her older sister, Venus, are the only tennis players in history with four Olympic gold medals and to win Olympic gold in the same event on three occasions. The "Williams Sisters" are the only Open Era women tennis players to win Olympic Gold in both the singles and doubles categories. Williams is the highest-earning woman athlete of all time. In addition to her athletic success, Williams is an active support of numerous charity efforts.
59. Morgan Parker (Southern, California) KSNA - (1987- )
Morgan Parker is a novelist, essayist, and poet. Parker is the author of the young adult novel Who Put This Song On? and the poetry collections Other People’s Comfort Keeps Me Up At Night, There Are More Beautiful Things Than Beyoncé, and Magical Negro. Magical Negro was awarded the 2019 National Book Critics Circle Award. Parker was awarded a fellowship by the National Endowment for the Arts Literature, won a Pushcart Prize, and has been described by The New York Times as “a dynamic craftsperson” of “considerable consequence to American poetry.”
60. Alicia Garza (Los Angeles, California ) KLAX - (1981- )
Alicia Garza is a civil rights activist and writer known for co-founding the international Black Lives Matter movement. Garza organizes around issues of health, student services and rights, rights for domestic workers, ending police brutality, anti-racism, and violence against transgender and gender non-conforming people of color. Garza's editorial writing has been published by The Guardian, The Nation, Rolling Stone, and Truthout. She is the Senior Advisor on Strategy at the National Domestic Workers Alliance and is the principal at the Black Futures Lab.
61. Brittney Cooper (Ruston, Louisiana) KRSN - (1980- )
Brittney Cooper is a professor of Women and Gender Studies at Rutgers University, author, activist, and Black Feminist. Cooper's reseach focuses on black women organizations, black women intellectuals, and hip-hop feminism. Her writings often express her frustrations, desires, and expectations of society. Cooper is also the co-founder of the Crunk Feminist Collective, a group that aims to create space for intellectual exchange among feminists of color who grew up as part of the hip hop generation.
62. Stacey Abrams (Madison, Wisconsin) KMSN - (1973 - )
Stacey Abrams is a politician, author, voting rights activist, and lawyer. She served in the Georgia House of Representatives from 2007 to 2017, serving as minority leader from 2011 to 2017. In 2018, Abrams founded Fair Fight Action, an organization to address voter suppression. During the 2020 presidental election, Joe Biden narrowly won Georgia. Abrams's efforts as a voting rights activist, have been widely credited with boosting voter turnout in the state.
63. Pat Parker ( Houston, Texas) KIAH - (1944-1989)
Pat Parker was a poet and activist. Parker's poetry and activism drew from her experiences as an African-American lesbian feminist. Her poetry is often inspired by her difficult childhood growing up in poverty, dealing with sexual assault, and the murder of a sister. After two divorces Parker came out as a lesbian "embracing her sexuality" and said she was liberated and "knew no limits when it came to expressing the innermost parts of herself". She participated in political activism and had early involvement with the Black Panther Party, the Black Women's Revolutionary Council, and the Oakland Feminist Women’s Health Center. Parker also formed the Women's Press Collective. She was an active advocate for several causes especially those focused on gay and lesbian communities, domestic violence, and the rights of people of color.
64. Jerdine Johnson (Yazoo City, Mississippi) KJAN - (DOB - )
Jerdine Johnson is a community organizer and activist. She works as a member of the city government in Rochester, NY, and advocates for workers' rights, environmental issues, educational programing, etc. Johnson has served in numerous volunteer leadership positions including as President of the Negro Business & Professional Women’s Club.
65. Lupita Nyong'o (Mexico City, Mexico) MMAA - (1983- )
Lupita Nyong'o is an actress. The daughter of Kenyan politician Peter Anyang' Nyong'o, she was born in Mexico City, where her father was teaching, and was raised in Kenya from the age of one. Nyong'o is the recipient of several awards, including an Academy Award, a Daytime Emmy Award, four NAACP Image Awards, and two Screen Actors Guild Awards. She has also been nominated for two Primetime Emmy Awards and a Tony Award. Nyong'o has also been an outspoken supporter of the MeToo and Time's Up movements.
66. Tracy Chapman (Cleveland, Ohio) KCLE - (1964- )
Tracy Chapman is a singer-songwriter. Chapman is best known for her hit singles "Fast Car", "Talkin' 'bout a Revolution", "Baby Can I Hold You", "Crossroads", and "Give Me One Reason". Chapman is politically and socially active and publically identifies as a feminist. In an interview with National Public Radio in 2009, Chapman said, "I'm approached by lots of organizations and lots of people who want me to support their various charitable efforts in some way. And I look at those requests and I basically try to do what I can. And I have certain interests of my own, generally an interest in human rights."
67. Zulia Mena (Quibdó, Chocó, Colombia) SKUI - (1965- )
Zulia Mena was the first Afro-Colombian Congresswoman of Colombia and served as part of the delegation to Washington D.C. She is the leader of the Organization of Popular Neighborhoods of the Chocó. Attending conferences in Europe, the U.S., and throughout South America, Mena raises the issues facing Afro-Colombians, human rights of ethnic minorities, women in Colombia, land rights, and democratic participation.
68. Rihanna (Saint Michaels, Barbados) TBPO - (1988- )
Robyn Rihanna Fenty is a singer, actress, fashion icon, and entrepreneur. Rihanna gained recognition for her first two studio albums, Music of the Sun (2005) and A Girl Like Me (2006), both influenced by Caribbean music. In 2012, she founded Clara Lionel Foundation to fund climate justice work and aid in climate emergency preparedness in the Caribbean and United States. Rihanna's success has been financially lucrative, and as of 2022, she is the wealthiest female musician, with an estimated net worth of $1.4 billion.
69. Saidiya Hartman (New York, New York) KLGA - (1960- )
Saidiya Hartman is a writer and academic. Hartman is a Professor at Columbia University. Her first book, Scenes of Subjection: Terror, Slavery, and Self-Making in Nineteenth-Century America, is an examination of how slavery, gender, and the development of U.S. progressivism intersect. Using historical materials in her work, Hartman engages in the practice she calls "critical fabulation". "Critical fabulation" is a writing method allowing gaps in historical materials to be filled with critcal theory and fictional narrative. This writing style highlights the lives and stories lost to the trauma of the trans-Atlantic slave trade.
70. Issa Rae (Los Angeles, California) KLAX - (1985- )
Jo-Issa Rae Diop, credited professionally as Issa Rae, is a writer, producer, and comedian. Rae was first noticed for her YouTube web series Awkward Black Girl. She has continued to develop her YouTube channel, featuring various short films, web series, and content created by Black people. Rae has achieved broader recognition as the co-creator, co-writer, and star of the HBO television series Insecure. Insecure, set in Los Angeles, centers on a group of Black women and tenderly pokes fun at the nuances of their friendships, romances, and professional steps and missteps.
71. Lena Waithe (Chicago, Illinois) KORD - (1984- )
Lena Waithe is an actress, screenwriter, and producer. Among numerous projects, Waithe is the creator of the Showtime drama series The Chi, she wrote and produced the crime film Queen & Slim, and is the executive producer of the horror anthology series Them. Waithe gained recognition for her role in the Netflix comedy-drama series Master of None and became the first African American woman to win the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series in 2017 for writing the show's "Thanksgiving" episode. The episode was loosely based on her personal experience of coming out to her mother.
72. Malorie Blackman (London, United Kingdom) EGLL - (1962- )
Malorie Blackman is a writer and former Children's Laureate (2013 - 2015). Blackman primarily writes literature and television drama for children and young adults. She uses science fiction to explore social and ethical issues. Blackman's highly acclaimed Noughts and Crosses series explores topics of racism while set in a fictional dystopia. Blackman has received many honors for her work including the 2022 PEN Pinter Prize.
73. Toyin (Tallahassee, Florida) KTLH - (2000-2020)
In 2019, Toyin enrolled at Tallahassee Community College, intending to later study law at Florida A&M University. She was an active participant in the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests and described as an "emerging leader" and "prominent voice" in the movement. Toyin advocated on behalf of Tony McDade in particular. McDade was a black transgender man who was shot and killed by Tallahassee police officers. Toyin disappeared on June 6, 2020, shortly after tweeting about being sexually assaulted. On June 13, 2020, Toyin was found murdered in Tallahassee, Florida. Following the news that her body was found, ''RIP Toyin'' and ''Toyin'' and #JusticeForToyin trended on social media.
74. Breonna Taylor (Grand Rapids, Michigan) KGRR - (1993-2020)
Breonna Taylor was an EMT in Louisville, Kentucky. On March 13, 2020, the police forcefully entered Taylor's apartment while she was sleeping and shot her, resulting in her death. In response to this incident, the use of no-knock warrants was prohibited by city officials, and a law was passed by Gov. Andy Beshear to restrict their usage. The Justice Department charged four police officers with civil rights violations, including lying to obtain a search warrant for Taylor's home. One of the officers admitted guilt to a federal conspiracy charge for falsifying the warrant.
75. Mary Fields (Hickman County, Tennessee) KGHM - (1832–1914)
Mary Fields, better known as Stagecoach Mary and Black Mary, was the first African American female star route mail carrier in the United States. Born into slavery, little is known about her life prior to the end of the Civil War. By 1895, Fields, then sixty years old, secured a job as a Star Route Carrier delivering mail in and across Montana. Her new role made Fields the first African-American woman employed by the U.S. Postal Service.
76. Lucy Ann Stanton (Cleveland, Ohio) KCLE - (1831-1910)
Lucy Stanton was an abolitionist, educator, and feminist. In 1850, Stanton completed a Ladies Literary Course from Oberlin College making her the first African American woman to complete a four-year degree at a college or university. Stanton continued a life of service after graduation, connecting her Christian faith to her abolitionist and feminist ideologies.
77. Frances E. W. Harper (Baltimore, Maryland) KBWI - (1825-1911)
Frances E. W. Harper was a poet, author, lecturer, abolitionist, and suffragist. She co-founded the National Association of Colored Women's Clubs. Harper was also the first African American woman to publish a short story. She spent her career working for equal rights, job opportunities, and education for African American women.
78. Fannie L. Hamer (Montgomery County, Mississippi) KJAN - (1917-1977)
Fannie Hamer was an influential activist as a member of the civil and voting rights movements. She was also a strong advocate for greater economic opportunities for African Americans. Seeing little progress through political processes, Hamer looked to economics as a strategy for greater racial equality. In 1968, she began a “pig bank” to supply free pigs for Black farmers to breed, raise, and slaughter. The next year, she launched the Freedom Farm Cooperative (FFC), a program that purchased land that Black people could own and farm collectively. With the assistance of donors, she purchased 640 acres. Hamer was also the co-founder of the National Women's Political Caucus, an organization that recruits and supports women running for political office.
79. Marsha P. Johnson (Elizabeth, New Jersey) KEWR - (1945-1992)
Marsha P. Johnson was a gay liberation activist and self-identified drag queen. Johnson was one of the prominent gay-rights activists in the Stonewall uprising of 1969. She was a founding member of the Gay Liberation Front. Johnson and her close friend, Sylvia Rivera, co-founded the radical activist group Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (S.T.A.R.). She was a popular figure in the New York City art scene, modeling for Andy Warhol and performing with the drag performance troupe Hot Peaches. From 1987 until her death in 1992, Johnson was an outspoken AIDS activist with ACT UP.
80. Ruby Bridges (Tylertown Mississippi) KGPT - (1954- )
Ruby Bridges is a civil rights activist and was the first African American student to integrate an elementary school in the American South. She was the first African American child to desegregate the all-white William Frantz Elementary School in Louisiana in 1960. Her experience is captured in the 1964 Norman Rockwell painting, The Problem We All Live With.
81. Ella Baker (Norfolk, Virginia) KCHO - (1903-1986)
Ella Baker was an activist. She worked with several of the most well-known civil rights leaders of the 20th century, including W.E.B. Du Bois, Thurgood Marshall, A. Philip Randolph, and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. Baker mentored other emerging activists such as Diane Nash, Stokely Carmichael, and Bob Moses as leaders in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). She was also a key member of the NAACP and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Baker promoted group-oriented leadership rather than activism centered around a single, charismatic figure.
82. Dorothy Height (Richmond, Virginia) KRIC - (1912-2010)
Dorothy Height was a civil rights and women's rights activist and social worker. Her work focused on issues impacting African American women, including unemployment, illiteracy, and voter education. She was one of the lead organizers of the 1963 March on Washington and represented the only women’s organization recognized in the March. Height served as the President of the National Council of Negro Women for 40 years.
83. Mary M. Bethune (Mayesville, South Carolina) KSMS (1875-1955)
Mary M. Bethune was a educator, philanthropist, womanist, and activist. In 1935, she founded the National Council of Negro Women and established the organization's flagship journal Aframerican Women's Journal. She served as President or leader for a number of African American women's organizations including the National Association for Colored Women and the National Youth Administration's Negro Division. In 1936, President Franklin Roosevelt named Bethune director of Negro Affairs of the National Youth Administration, and she became the highest ranking African American woman in government. She also founded a private school for African American students, now known as Bethune-Cookman University.
84. Althea Gibson (Clarendon County, South Carolina) KMNI - (1927-2003)
Althea Gibson was a professional tennis player and golfer. In 1956, she became the first African American to win a Grand Slam title. In both 1957 and 1958, Gibson won both Wimbledon and the US Nationals and was voted Female Athlete of the Year by The Associated Press. She succeeded in the sport during a time when Black players faced frequent discrimination. Later players, including Venus Williams, credit their ability to succeed in professional tennis to Gibson's groundbreaking accomplishments.
85. Jane Bolin (Poughkeepsie, New York) KPOU - (1908-2007)
Jane Bolin was an attorney and the first African American female judge in the United States. She served on New York's Family Court for four decades. Earning her J.D. in 1931, Bolin was the first Black woman to graduate from Yale Law School. In the 1930s, she became the first African American woman to serve as assistant corporate counsel for New York City.
86. Miriam Makeba (Johannesburg, South Africa) FAOR - (1932-2008)
Miriam Makeba was a singer, songwriter, actress, and activist. She introduced African music to a Western audience. An anti-apartheid activist, Makeba wrote and performed songs critical of the white-minority government in South Africa. In 1968, she married Stokely Carmichael, a leader of the Black Panther Party. In 1999, the United Nations named Makeba a Goodwill Ambassador of the Food and Agriculture Organization.
87. Sonia Pierre (Dominican, Republic) MDPC - (1963-2011)
Sonia Pierre is best known as a human rights advocate in the Dominican Republic, where she worked to end anti-Haitianism, discrimination against individuals of Haitian origin. Pierre's introduction to activism began at age fourteen when she was arrested for organizing a five-day protest and being the spokesperson of a group of Haitian sugar-cane cutters. She has received numerous honors for her work, including the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award (2006), the Giuseppe Motta Medal for the protection of human rights (2008), and the United States Department of State's International Women of Courage Award (2010).
88. Yvonne Sylvain (Port au Prince, Haiti) MTPP - (1907-1989)
Yvonne Sylvain was the first female medical doctor from Haiti. Sylvain was also the first woman accepted into the University of Haiti Medical School, earning her medical degree in 1940. After graduation, Sylvain worked as a specialist in obstetrics and gynecology in the Port-au-Prince General Hospital. As Haiti's first female practitioner, Sylvain played an important role in providing improved medical access and tools to Haitian citizens. Dr. Sylvain inspired other Haitian women to pursue medical degrees. By 1953, eight other Haitian women had earned their doctor of medicine degree from the University of Haiti. Sylvain was also a champion for physical, economic, social, and political equality of Haitian women.
89. Dr. Joy DeGruy (South Central, California) KLAX - (1957- )
Dr. Joy DeGruy is an author, academic, and researcher, who previously served as an assistant professor at the Portland State University School of Social Work. DeGruy is currently the president and CEO of DeGruy Publications, Inc. DeGruy is most known for her book Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome about the generational trauma faced by the descendants of enslaved people. Dr. Degruy received a 2021 grant from the MacArthur Foundation to further her healing work.
89. Janelle Monáe (Kansas City, Kansas) KICT - (1985- )
Janelle Monáe is a singer, songwriter, rapper, science-fiction author, actress, and futurist. Monáe's musical career began in 2003 upon releasing a demo album titled The Audition. In 2016, Monáe made her theatrical film debut in two high-profile productions: Hidden Figures, in which she played NASA mathematician and aerospace engineer Mary Jackson, and Moonlight. Hidden Figures was a box office success and Moonlight went on to win the Academy Award for Best Picture. In her music career, she has received eight nominations for Grammy awards and founded her own label, Wondaland Arts Society. A member of the LGBTQIA+ community, Monáe is openly pansexual and does not subscribe to the gender binary.
90. Ola Ronke Akinmowo (Bedstuy, Brooklyn) KJFK
Ola Ronke Akinmowo is an interdisciplinary and ritual based artist who makes collages, handmade paper sculptures, monotype prints, stop motion projections, and interactive installations. Through her practice Akinmowo centers the experience of Blackness and specifically Black womanhood. In 2015, Akinmowo created The Free Black Women’s Library, a social art project that used to be a traveling library visiting cities like Boston, Philadelphia and Baltimore but has recently found a home in Bedford Stuyvesant. The library features a collection of over 5,000 books written by Black women and Black non-binary authors. Akinmowo also hosts workshops, screenings, performances, and holds space for conversation.
91. Alice Coltrane (Detroit Michigan) KDTW - (1937-2007)
Alice Coltrane, also known by her adopted Sanskrit name Turiyasangitananda, was a jazz musician and composer. Coltrane was an accomplished pianist and harpists. She recorded numerous albums as a bandleader, beginning in the late 1960s and early 1970s, for Impulse! and other record labels. Coltrane was married to jazz saxophonist and composer John Coltrane. The two performed together from 1966 to 1967. Later in life, Coltrane became a spiritual leader and founded an ashram in southern California.
92. Mo'Nique (Woodlawn, Maryland) KBWI - (1967-
Monique Angela Hicks, known professionally as Mo'Nique, is a stand-up comedian and actress. In 2002, Mo'Nique received a Grammy Award nomination for Best Comedy Album. She received critical acclaim for her 2009 performance in the film Precious, winning several awards, including the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. Mo'Nique was only the fourth African American woman to win the award. In 2019, she sued Netflix for what she considered an insultingly low offer for her comedy special. Mo'Nique cited the signficantly higher payments offered to other accomplished comedians, most of whom were male and / or white. Netflix settled the lawsuit, and in 2022, it was announced that Mo'Nique's special would be released on the platform.
93. adrienne maree brown (El Paso, Texas) KELP - (1978- )
adrienne maree brown is a writer, activist, doula, and movement facilitator. From 2006 to 2010, adrienne maree brown was the Executive Director of the Ruckus Society, a group dedicated to training activists in movement building techniques. She also co-founded and directed the United States League of Young Voters. brown describes her school of thought as postnationalism, and others have described it as Black feminism or womanism. adrienne maree brown is a strong supporter of the Black Lives Matter and prison abolition movements.
94. Beyoncé (Houston, Texas) KIAH - (1981- )
Beyoncé is a singer, songwriter, producer, and actress. After performing in various singing and dancing competitions as a child, Beyoncé rose to fame in the late 1990s as the lead singer of Destiny's Child. Destiny's Child was one of the best-selling girl groups of all time. Beyoncé is one of the world's best-selling recording artists, having sold over 120 million records worldwide as a solo artist by 2010. In 2014, Billboard named her the highest-earning black musician of all time. Beyoncé also publicly identifies as a feminist, and her song "Flawless" samples excerpts of Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's speech "We should all be feminists".
95. Simone Browne (Toronto, Ontario) CYYZ - (1973- )
Simone Browne is an author and educator. Browne is on the faculty at the University of Texas at Austin, and the author of Dark Matters: On the Surveillance of Blackness. Dark Matters presents a framework to understand race and blackness as central to the field of surveillance studies and investigates the roots of present-day surveillance in practices originating in slavery and the Jim Crow era. Browne is also a founding member of Deep Lab, a feminist arts and research collective.
96. Cruz Caridad Bueno (Newburyport, Massachusetts) KPSM (DOB )
Cruz Caridad Bueno is a professor of Black Studies and Economics, writer, and political economist. In 2013, she earned a Ph. D. from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Bueno's research and teachings examine the intersections of race, gender, and economic inequality often with particular focus on the Dominican Republic and other Latin American and Caribbean countries.
97. Solange Knowles (Houston, Texas) KIAH - (1986- )
Solange Knowles is a singer, songwriter, performance artist, and actress. Prior to gaining her own fame, Knowles performed as a backup dancer for Destiny's Child, the girl-group that launched the career of her older sister, Beyoncé. At age 16, Knowles released her first studio album Solo Star (2002). Her 2016 album, A Seat at the Table, was her first number-one album in the United States and focused largely on experiences of Southern, black, womanhood and freedom.
98. Kimberly Bryant (Memphis, Tennessee) KMEM - (1967- )
Kimberly Bryant is an electrical engineer and technologist. In 2011, Bryant founded Black Girls CODE, a nonprofit organization that focuses on providing technology and computer programming education to young girls of color. The technology industry has been historically dominated by men, and Bryant aims to diversify the field making it a more welcoming path for women and girls.
99. Tarana Burke (Bronx, New York) KJFK - (1973- )
Tarana Burke is an activist from The Bronx, New York, and originator of the MeToo movement. In 2006, Burke began using "me too" to help in the healing journeys of surviors of sexual violence. Over a decade later, in 2017, #MeToo became a viral hashtag when women began using it to tweet about the sexual abuse experiences. The phrase and hashtag quickly developed into a broad-based, international movement. Burke's advocacy is lead by her belief in "empowerment through empathy."
100. Joy Buolamwini (Edmonton, Canada) CYEG - (1989- )
Joy Buolamwini is a computer scientist and digital activist based at the MIT Media Lab. Buolamwini describes herself as a "poet of code, daughter of art and science". Buolamwini founded the Algorithmic Justice League, an organization that works to challenge bias in decision-making software and uses art, advocacy, and research to highlight the social implications and potential harms of artificial intelligence (AI).
101. Dr. Hadiya-Nicole Green (St. Louis, Missouri) KSTL - (1981- )
Dr. Hadiyah-Nicole Green is a medical physicist, humanitarian, and entrepreneur. She is known for the developing laser-activated nanoparticles as a potential cancer treatment. Green is one of 66 black women to earn a Ph.D. in physics in the United States between 1973 and 2012. She is the second black woman, and the fourth black person ever, to earn a doctoral degree in physics from The University of Alabama at Birmingham. Green is dedicated to ensuring that her grounbreaking treatment will be available to all who need it regardless of financial circumstances.
102. Dr. Nathie Marbury (Grenada, Mississippi) KJAN - (1944-2013)
Dr. Nathie Marbury was the first Black deaf woman to enter the National Leadership Training Program for the Deaf at California State University, Northridge. Marbury was also the first Black deaf female instructor at the Kendall Demonstration Elementary School for the Deaf. Marbury conducted numerous workshops and seminars throughout the United States and Canada. She taught deaf and hearing students across the United States at schools for the deaf, universities, and community colleges.
103. Aaron Philip (Antigua) TAPA - (2001- )
Aaron Philip is a model and activist. Philip became the first black, transgender, and physically disabled model to be represented by a major modeling agency and has since modeled in several major high fashion photo shoots and campaigns. In 2021, she became the first model using a wheelchair to walk for a major luxury fashion brand when she debuted as an exclusive for Moschino’s spring/summer 2022 fashion show. Philip is also an outspoken advocate for LGBTQIA+ and disability rights.
104. Mariame Kaba (New York, New York) KJFK - (1971- )
Mariame Kaba is an activist, organizer, educator, and curator who advocates for the abolition police and prisons. Kaba founded the Chicago Freedom School, the Rogers Park Young Women's Action Team, Chicago Taskforce on Violence against Girls and Young Women, Chicago Alliance to Free Marissa Alexander, and We Charge Genocide. In 2009, Kaba founded the organization Project NIA, which advocates to end youth incarceration. Her work has created the framework for current abolitionist organizations including Black Youth Project 100, Black Lives Matter Chicago, and Assata's Daughters.
105. Gwen Ifill (New York, New York) KJFK (1955-2016)
Gwen Ifill was a journalist, television newscaster, and author. In 1999, Ifill became the first African American woman to host a nationally televised U.S. public affairs program with "Washington Week in Review.” She was the moderator and managing editor of "Washington Week" and co-anchor and co-managing editor, with Judy Woodruff, of the "PBS NewsHour." Ifill was a political analyst and moderated the 2004 and 2008 US Vice Presidential debates. Ifill authored the best-selling book The Breakthrough: Politics and Race in the Age of Obama.
106. Sarah Keys Evans (Washington, North Carolina ) KRDU - (1929- )
Sarah Keys Evans is a figure in the U.S. Civil Rights Movement whose personal experience led her into the larger national movement. Evans enlisted in the Women's Army Corps in 1951. In 1952, while traveling from Fort Dix to her family's home in North Carolina the bus she was on stopped to change drivers. The new bus driver demanded that Evans relinquish her seat to a white Marine. Evans declined and was arrested. The case was resolved in Evans' favor in 1955 by the Interstate Commerce Commission. Later that same year, Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to give up her seat to a white passenger.
107. Juanita Westmoreland Traoré (Montreal, Canada) CYUL - (1942- )
Juanita Westmoreland Traoré is the first Black judge in Quebec, Canada, and the first Black dean of a law school (the University of Windsor Faculty of Law) in Canada's history. Born to Guyanese immigrants, she studied at Marianopolis College. Traoré earned a law degree from the Université de Montréal and a doctorate from the University of Paris. In her law practice, Traoré specializes in immigration and citizenship law, human rights, family law and non-profit organization law. In 2008, Traoré was awarded the Quebec Human Rights Commission's Rights and Liberties Prize for her career-long fight against discrimination.
108. Michelle Obama (Chicago, Illinois) KORD - (1964- )
Michelle Obama is an attorney and author. She served as First Lady of the United States from 2009 to 2017. Obama and her husband, former President Barack Obama, were the first Black Americans to reside in the White House. As First Lady, Obama advocated for poverty awareness, education, nutrition, physical activity, and healthy eating. In her public appearances, she frequently showcases American, lesser-known, fashion designers.
109. Ilhan Omar (Mogadishu, Somalia) HCMM - (1982- )
Ilhan Omar is a politician who has served as the U.S. representative for Minnesota's 5th congressional district since 2019. Omar is a member of the Democratic Farmer Labor Party. She is the first Somali American and the first naturalized citizen of African birth to serve in the United States Congress. She is also the first woman of color to represent Minnesota. Omar is one of the first two Muslim women, along with Rashida Tlaib, to serve in the U.S. Congress.
110. Katherine Johnson (White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia) KLWB - (1918-2020)
Katherine Johnson was a mathematician. Employed by NASA, her calculations of orbital mechanics were critical to the success of the first and subsequent U.S.-crewed spaceflights. While a master at manual calculation, Johnson helped pioneer the use of computers to perform complex calculations.
111. Lauryn Hill (East Orange, New Jersey) KEWR - (1975- )
Lauryn Hill is a rapper, singer, songwriter, and actress. She is credited with opening pathways for female rappers, popularizing melodic rapping, and for bringing hip hop and neo soul to mainstream music. Hill is a member of Fugees and also creates music as a solo-artist. Her solo album, The Miseducation Of Lauryn Hill (1998), is one of the best-selling albums of all-time.
112. Naomi Wadler (Ethiopia) HAAB - (2006- )
Naomi Wadler is a student and anti-gun violence activist. She advocates for victims of gun violence in the United States with a particular focus on black female victims. At age eleven, Wadler delivered an impassioned speech at the pro-gun control rally, March For Our Lives (2018).
113. Whitney Houston (Newark, New Jersey) KEWR - (1963-2012)
Whitney Houston was a singer, actress, and philanthropist. Having sold over 200 million records worldwide, she is one of the best-selling music artists of all time. She is the only artist to have had seven consecutive number-one singles on the Billboard Hot 100. Established in 1989, the Whitney Houston Foundation for Children funded numerous causes to help and protect children including children suffering from HIV/AIDS.
114. Mary Eliza Mahoney (Dorchester, Massachusetts) KBOS - (1845-1926)
Mary Eliza Mahoney was the first African American to work as a professionally trained nurse in the United States. She graduated from the New England Hospital for Women and Children (now the Dimock Community Health Center) in 1879, making her the first Black woman in the United States to become a registered nurse. She was also a civil rights activist with particular focus on women's equality and suffrage. In 1920, with women's suffrage newly won, Mahoney was one of the first women in Boston to register to vote.
115. Monica Carillo Zegarra (Lima, Peru) SPJC - (1978- )
Monica Carrillo Zegarra is a writer, performer, and activist. She is the founder and former director of LUNDU Center for Afro Peruvian Studies and Advancement. As an artist, Zegarra goes by the name “Oru". Her poetry mixes afro-beat, hip-hop, and Afro Peruvian music with the aim to bring attention to the ongoing effects of racism and sexism.
116. Brigitte McQueen (Detroit, Michigan) KDTW - (1970- )
Brigitte McQueen earned a Journalism degree from St. John's University in New York City. She has worked in advertising and as a pastry chef. For 10 years, she was a Production Manager at Teen People magazine. In 2006, she made Omaha, Nebraska her home and opened a gallery called PULP, where she showcased local and international contemporary artists. Wanting to support Omaha's arts community through non-profit work, she became the Manager of the Underground at The Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts in 2010. In this role, she helped develop exhibitions and programs to support talented artists in Omaha. Recognizing the need for arts programming in North Omaha, Brigitte founded The Union for Contemporary Art in 2011. She saw the potential for the arts to bridge divides and promote social justice and civic engagement. The Union's presence in North Omaha honors the community's history and represents hope for a thriving arts scene.
117. Sandra Bland (Naperville, Illinois) KBLV - (1987-2015)
Sandra Bland was a civil rights activist and victim of police violence. On July 13, 2015, she was found hanged in a jail cell in Waller County, Texas. Three days prior, she had been arrested during a traffic stop. Bland's death was ruled a suicide. Protests erupted and disputed the cause of death, alleging racial violence. Texas Senate Bill 1849, also known as the "Sandra Bland Act," went into effect on September 1, 2017. The bill mandates changes to corrections and police policy when engaging with people with substance abuse or mental health concerns.
118. Ruha Benjamin (Wais, India) PAIW - (1978- )
Ruha Benjamin is a sociologist, scholar, and Professor of African American Studies at Princeton University. She is also the founding director of the Ida B. Wells JUST Data Lab. Benjamin's work largely focuses on the relationship between innovation and equity with an emphasis on the intersection of race, justice, and technology. She is the author of several books and publications, including Viral Justice (2022), Race After Technology (2019), and People’s Science (2013).