One thing we love and will always treasure is having a Black president. But when we hear “Black president,” the convo usually starts and ends at the White House. And yet, some of the most transformative leadership in American history didn’t happen at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. It happened in boardrooms, on college campuses, and inside the organizations that fought for our freedom. Here are a few presidents of various institutions who actually changed America.

Mary McLeod Bethune

In 1904, Mary McLeod Bethune opened a school for Black girls in Daytona Beach, Florida, with $1.50, five students, pencils made from charred wood, and ink made from elderberries. She was the daughter of formerly enslaved parents and the first in her family born free.

That school became Bethune-Cookman College, now a thriving university and the only HBCU founded by a woman. But she didn’t stop there. She founded the National Council of Negro Women, became the highest-ranking Black woman in government under FDR, served as the only woman in his “Black Cabinet,” helped integrate the Women’s Army Corps during World War II, and was a charter member of the United Nations.

Dr. Ruth Simmons

In 2001, Ruth Simmons became president of Brown University, the first Black person to lead any Ivy League institution. Before Brown, she launched the first engineering program at a women’s college while president of Smith. At Brown, she raised $1.4 billion and was named the best college president in America by Time.

She also did something no Ivy League president had done: she commissioned a formal investigation into the university’s ties to slavery. The backlash was so intense that she needed police protection at her home. She did it anyway. After Brown, she came home to become president of Prairie View A&M, an HBCU in Texas. Because the Ivy League was never the point. Education was.

Clifton Wharton Jr.

Before Clifton Wharton Jr., no Black person had ever been CEO of a Fortune 500 company. Before that, no Black person had been president of a major predominantly white university. Wharton accomplished both.

He entered Harvard at 16, earned the first economics PhD awarded to a Black student by the University of Chicago, and spoke multiple languages. In 1970, he became president of Michigan State. In 1987, he became CEO of TIAA-CREF, one of the world’s largest pension funds. He later became the first Black Deputy Secretary of State under President Clinton.

Kenneth Chenault

Kenneth Chenault became CEO of American Express in 2001, one of the first Black leaders of any Fortune 500 company. Four days into his tenure, the September 11 attacks killed 11 American Express employees and damaged the company’s headquarters.

His response defined his leadership. He guided the company through the crisis with compassion and strategic clarity, pivoting toward small-business services and new markets, ensuring American Express not only survived but also grew. He served as CEO for 17 years, and he earned it every single day.

Ursula Burns

Ursula Burns started at Xerox as a summer intern in 1980. She never left. Over 29 years, she worked her way from intern to engineer to CEO, becoming the first Black woman to lead a Fortune 500 company in 2009. She was also the first woman to succeed another woman at the helm of a Fortune 500 company.

She led Xerox’s $6.4 billion acquisition of Affiliated Computer Services and later split the company in two. President Obama tapped her to lead the White House STEM education program. Her memoir is called Where You Are Is Not Who You Are.

Marvin Ellison

Marvin Ellison started at Target making $4.35 an hour, but he went on to become the CEO of J.C. Penney. Then CEO and Chairman of Lowe’s, a Fortune 50 company with 1,700 stores, 300,000 employees, and $84 billion in revenue. He is the only Black person in history to ever lead two Fortune 500 companies.

When asked about being one of fewer than 10 Black CEOs on a list of 500, he kept it real: “I have mixed emotions. On one hand, I feel incredibly privileged. On the other, I’m really disappointed that we still have such a significant gap.”

Thasunda Brown Duckett

When Thasunda Brown Duckett became CEO of TIAA in 2021, she made it the first Fortune 500 company to have two Black CEOs in succession, following Clifton Wharton Jr. decades earlier.

Before TIAA, she was CEO of Chase Consumer Banking at JPMorgan Chase, overseeing $600 billion in deposits across 5,300 branches. She founded the Otis and Rosie Brown Foundation in honor of her parents. Her philosophy: “I rent my title. I own my character.”

Whitney Young

Before Whitney Young took over the National Urban League in 1961, it was a respectable but cautious organization. Young turned it into one of the most powerful forces in the civil rights movement.

Under his leadership, the Urban League hosted the planning meetings for the 1963 March on Washington alongside King, Randolph, and the other giants. He pushed the organization far beyond its comfort zone, launching alternative education programs for dropouts and community empowerment initiatives. He lobbied aggressively for federal aid to cities and pressured corporations to hire Black workers at every level.

While King led from the pulpit and the streets, Young led from the boardroom and the halls of government. He understood something that still holds true today: movements need money, and policy needs people on the inside. Young was that person. He joined the ancestors in 1971 at just 49, but the institution he transformed continues his work today.

The presidency has never been just one house or one person, and these trailblazing leaders proved that.