100 Greatest African Americans
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100 Greatest African Americans
''100 Greatest African Americans'' is a biographical dictionary of one hundred historically great Black Americans (in alphabetical order; that is, they are not ranked), as assessed by Temple University professor Molefi Kete Asante in 2002. A similar book was written by Columbus Salley. First published in 1992, Salley's book is titled ''The Black 100: A Ranking of the Most Influential African-Americans, Past and Present''. Criteria Asante used five factors in establishing the list: * "significance in the general progress of African-Americans toward full equality in the American social and political system" * "self-sacrifice and a willingness to take great risks for the collective good" * "unusual will and determination in the face of great danger and against the most stubborn odds" * "a consistent posture toward raising the social, cultural and economic status of African Americans" * "personal achievement that reveals the best qualities of the African American people" ''Refer ...
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Molefi Kete Asante
Molefi Kete Asante ( ; born Arthur Lee Smith Jr.; August 14, 1942) is an American professor and philosopher. He is a leading figure in the fields of African-American studies, African studies, and communication studies. He is currently professor in the Department of Africology at Temple University, where he founded the PhD program in African-American Studies. He is president of the Molefi Kete Asante Institute for Afrocentric Studies.Official site Biography
http://www.asante.net/biography/ December 17, 2012
Asante is known for his writings on , a school of thought that has influenced the fields of sociology,

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James Baldwin
James Arthur Baldwin (August 2, 1924 – December 1, 1987) was an American writer. He garnered acclaim across various media, including essays, novels, plays, and poems. His first novel, '' Go Tell It on the Mountain'', was published in 1953; decades later, ''Time'' magazine included the novel on its list of the 100 best English-language novels released from 1923 to 2005. His first essay collection, ''Notes of a Native Son'', was published in 1955. Baldwin's work fictionalizes fundamental personal questions and dilemmas amid complex social and psychological pressures. Themes of masculinity, sexuality, race, and class intertwine to create intricate narratives that run parallel with some of the major political movements toward social change in mid-twentieth century America, such as the civil rights movement and the gay liberation movement. Baldwin's protagonists are often but not exclusively African American, and gay and bisexual men frequently feature prominently in his liter ...
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Kenneth B
Kenneth is an English given name and surname. The name is an Anglicised form of two entirely different Gaelic personal names: ''Cainnech'' and '' Cináed''. The modern Gaelic form of ''Cainnech'' is ''Coinneach''; the name was derived from a byname meaning "handsome", "comely". A short form of ''Kenneth'' is '' Ken''. Etymology The second part of the name ''Cinaed'' is derived either from the Celtic ''*aidhu'', meaning "fire", or else Brittonic ''jʉ:ð'' meaning "lord". People :''(see also Ken (name) and Kenny)'' Places In the United States: * Kenneth, Indiana * Kenneth, Minnesota * Kenneth City, Florida In Scotland: * Inch Kenneth, an island off the west coast of the Isle of Mull Other * "What's the Frequency, Kenneth?", a song by R.E.M. * Hurricane Kenneth * Cyclone Kenneth Intense Tropical Cyclone Kenneth was the strongest tropical cyclone to make landfall in Mozambique since modern records began. The cyclone also caused significant damage in the Comoro Islands a ...
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Shirley Chisholm
Shirley Anita Chisholm ( ; ; November 30, 1924 – January 1, 2005) was an American politician who, in 1968, became the first black woman to be elected to the United States Congress. Chisholm represented New York's 12th congressional district, a district centered on Bedford–Stuyvesant, for seven terms from 1969 to 1983. In 1972, she became the first black candidate for a major-party nomination for President of the United States, and the first woman to run for the Democratic Party's nomination. Born in Brooklyn, New York, she spent ages five through nine in Barbados, and always considered herself a Barbadian American. She excelled at school and earned her college degree in the United States. She started working in early childhood education and became involved in local Democratic Party politics in the 1950s. In 1964, overcoming some resistance because she was a woman, she was elected to the New York State Assembly. Four years later, she was elected to Congress, where she ...
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George Washington Carver
George Washington Carver ( 1864 – January 5, 1943) was an American agricultural scientist and inventor who promoted alternative crops to cotton and methods to prevent soil depletion. He was one of the most prominent black scientists of the early 20th century. While a professor at Tuskegee Institute, Carver developed techniques to improve types of soils depleted by repeated plantings of cotton. He wanted poor farmers to grow other crops, such as peanuts and sweet potatoes, as a source of their own food and to improve their quality of life. The most popular of his 44 practical bulletins for farmers contained 105 food recipes using peanuts. Although he spent years developing and promoting numerous products made from peanuts, none became commercially successful. Apart from his work to improve the lives of farmers, Carver was also a leader in promoting environmentalism. He received numerous honors for his work, including the Spingarn Medal of the NAACP. In an era of high racial ...
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Ralph Bunche
Ralph Johnson Bunche (; August 7, 1904 – December 9, 1971) was an American political scientist, diplomat, and leading actor in the mid-20th-century decolonization process and US civil rights movement, who received the 1950 Nobel Peace Prize for his late 1940s mediation in Israel. Among black Nobel laureates he is the first African American and first person of African descent to be awarded a Nobel Prize. He was involved in the formation and early administration of the United Nations, and played a major role in both the decolonization process and numerous UN peacekeeping operations. Bunche served on the US delegation to both the Dumbarton Oaks Conference in 1944 and United Nations Conference on International Organization in 1945 that drafted the UN charter. He then served on the American delegation to the first session of the United Nations General Assembly in 1946 and joined the UN as head of the Trusteeship Department, beginning a long series of troubleshooting roles and resp ...
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Blanche K
Blanche may refer to: People *Blanche (singer), stage name of Belgian singer and songwriter Ellie Delvaux *Blanche (given name) * Blanche (surname) Places Australia *Blanche Harbor (South Australia), a bay on the east coast of Eyre Peninsula ** Blanche Harbor, South Australia, a locality on the east coast of Eyre Peninsula * Blanche Rock, Tasmania Haiti * Rivière Blanche (Artibonite), a river in Haiti * Rivière Blanche (Ouest), a river in Haiti United States * Blanch, North Carolina, formerly called Blanche * Blanche, Tennessee, census-designated place * Lake Blanche (Minnesota) Elsewhere * Rivière Blanche (Martinique), a river * Aiguille Blanche de Peuterey, a mountain near Mont Blanc * Blanche (Guinea), an island in the Îles de Los * Blanche Harbor, in the Solomon Islands * Blanche River (Lake Timiskaming), in Canada Other uses * , various Royal Navy ships * , an iron steamship * Blanche (Paris Métro) * Blanche (band), an alternative-country band * ''Blanche'', a 197 ...
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Gwendolyn Brooks
Gwendolyn Elizabeth Brooks (June 7, 1917 – December 3, 2000) was an American poet, author, and teacher. Her work often dealt with the personal celebrations and struggles of ordinary people in her community. She won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry on May 1, 1950, for '' Annie Allen'', making her the first African American to receive a Pulitzer Prize. Throughout her prolific writing career, Brooks received many more honors. A lifelong resident of Chicago, she was appointed Poet Laureate of Illinois in 1968, a position she held until her death 32 years later. She was also named the U.S. Poet Laureate for the 1985–86 term. In 1976, she became the first African American woman inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Early life Gwendolyn Elizabeth Brooks was born on June 7, 1917, in Topeka, Kansas and raised on the South Side of Chicago. She was the first child of David Anderson Brooks and Keziah (Wims) Brooks. Her father, a janitor for a music company, had hoped ...
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Edward W
Edward is an English given name. It is derived from the Anglo-Saxon name ''Ēadweard'', composed of the elements '' ēad'' "wealth, fortune; prosperous" and '' weard'' "guardian, protector”. History The name Edward was very popular in Anglo-Saxon England, but the rule of the Norman and Plantagenet dynasties had effectively ended its use amongst the upper classes. The popularity of the name was revived when Henry III named his firstborn son, the future Edward I, as part of his efforts to promote a cult around Edward the Confessor, for whom Henry had a deep admiration. Variant forms The name has been adopted in the Iberian peninsula since the 15th century, due to Edward, King of Portugal, whose mother was English. The Spanish/Portuguese forms of the name are Eduardo and Duarte. Other variant forms include French Édouard, Italian Edoardo and Odoardo, German, Dutch, Czech and Romanian Eduard and Scandinavian Edvard. Short forms include Ed, Eddy, Eddie, Ted, Teddy and Ned. Pe ...
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Arna Bontemps
Arna Wendell Bontemps ( ) (October 13, 1902 – June 4, 1973) was an American poet, novelist and librarian, and a noted member of the Harlem Renaissance. Early life Bontemps was born in Alexandria, Louisiana, into a Louisiana Creole family. His ancestors included free people of color and French colonists. His father was a contractor and sometimes would take his son to construction sites. As the boy got older, his father would take him along to speak-easies at night that featured jazz. His mother, Maria Carolina Pembroke, was a schoolteacher. Robert E. Fleming"Bontemps, Arna Wendell" ''American National Biography Online'', February 2000. Retrieved June 3, 2007. The family was Catholic, and Bontemps was baptized at St. Francis Xavier Cathedral. They would later become Seventh-day Adventists. When Bontemps was three years old, his family moved to Los Angeles, California, in the Great Migration of blacks out of the South and into cities of the North, Midwest and West. They settled i ...
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Guion Bluford
Guion Stewart Bluford Jr. (born November 22, 1942) is an American aerospace engineer, retired United States Air Force (USAF) officer and fighter pilot, and former NASA astronaut in which capacity he became the second person of African descent to go to space. While assigned to NASA, he remained a USAF officer rising to the rank of colonel. He participated in four Space Shuttle flights between 1983 and 1992. In 1983, as a member of the crew of the Orbiter ''Challenger'' on the mission STS-8, he became the first African American in space as well as the second person of African descent in space, after Cuban cosmonaut Arnaldo Tamayo Méndez. Personal life Born in Philadelphia, Bluford graduated from Overbrook High School in 1960. He received a Bachelor of Science degree in aerospace engineering from Pennsylvania State University in 1964, a Master of Science degree in Aerospace Engineering from the Air Force Institute of Technology (AFIT) in 1974, a Doctor of Philosophy degree in A ...
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Mary McLeod Bethune
Mary Jane McLeod Bethune ( McLeod; July 10, 1875 – May 18, 1955) was an American educator, philanthropist, humanitarian, Womanism, womanist, and civil rights activist. Bethune founded the National Council of Negro Women in 1935, established the organization's flagship journal ''Aframerican Women's Journal'', and presided as president or leader for a myriad of African American women's organizations including the National Association for Colored Women and the National Youth Administration's Negro Division. She also was appointed as a national adviser to president Franklin D. Roosevelt, whom she worked with to create the Federal Council on Colored Affairs, also known as the Black Cabinet. She is well-known for starting a private school for African-American students in Daytona Beach, Florida. It later continued to develop as Bethune-Cookman University. She was the sole African American woman officially a part of the US delegation that created the United Nations charter, and she he ...
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