Trailblazers

Sojourner Truth

Civil Rights & Activism

Born into slavery and freed in 1826, Sojourner Truth became one of the most powerful voices for abolition and women's rights — her "Ain't I a Woman?" speech remains one of the most quoted in American history.

Spike Lee

Media & Entertainment

Shelton Jackson “Spike” Lee has spent four decades forcing American cinema to reckon with race, class, and identity — on his own terms, with his own money when necessary. His 1989 masterpiece Do the Right Thing remains one of the most important American films ever made, a searing portrait of racial tension in Brooklyn that […]

Stacey Abrams

Politics & Law

The architect of one of the most significant voter registration campaigns in American history — Stacey Abrams helped flip Georgia blue in 2020 by registering 800,000 new voters and fighting voter suppression with data, strategy, and relentless organizing.

Stephen Curry

Sports

Wardell Stephen Curry II changed basketball forever. Before Curry, the three-point shot was a complementary weapon; after Curry, it became the foundation of modern basketball strategy. His shooting range — accurate from well beyond 30 feet — forced every team in the NBA to reimagine how the game is played. He is the greatest shooter […]

Stevie Wonder

Music

Stevie Wonder signed with Motown at 11 and created some of the most innovative, joyful, and socially conscious music of the twentieth century. Blind from shortly after birth, he mastered piano, harmonica, and drums before adolescence. The albums between 1972-1976 — Talking Book, Innervisions, Fulfillingness First Finale, and Songs in the Key of Life — […]

Surya Bonaly

Sports

Surya Bonaly is a French figure skater of Guadeloupean descent who became one of the most technically gifted and electrifying athletes in the history of the sport — and one of the most unfairly treated. A five-time European champion and nine-time French national champion, Bonaly was the only figure skater in Olympic history to land […]

Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone

Sports

Sydney Michelle McLaughlin-Levrone doesn’t just break world records — she shatters her own, again and again, in a sport where hundredths of a second separate greatness from immortality. She is the world record holder in the 400-meter hurdles, a race she has redefined with a combination of speed, technique, and composure that makes the impossible […]

Ta-Nehisi Coates

Literature

Ta-Nehisi Coates emerged as one of the most influential American writers on race. His 2014 Atlantic essay The Case for Reparations drew a direct line from slavery through Jim Crow to modern inequality, forcing mainstream engagement with a long-dismissed idea. Between the World and Me (2015), written as a letter to his teenage son, won […]

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Tabitha Brown

Media & Entertainment

Tabitha Bonita Brown became the most beloved figure on the internet during the pandemic — a warm, joyful, vegan-cooking content creator whose catchphrase “That’s your business” and maternal energy resonated with millions of people who were isolated, anxious, and hungry for genuine human connection. She went from a struggling actress to a multimedia empire seemingly […]

Tamron Hall

Media & Entertainment

A trailblazing journalist and daytime television host who turned personal tragedy into advocacy — Tamron Hall has used her platform to spotlight domestic violence, true crime, and the stories that mainstream media overlooks.

Tarana Burke

Civil Rights & Activism

Tarana Burke created the “Me Too” movement in 2006 — a full eleven years before it became a global phenomenon. As a community organizer in Selma, Alabama, Burke began using the phrase “Me Too” to help survivors of sexual violence, particularly young women of color, know that they were not alone. When actress Alyssa Milano […]

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The Buffalo Soldiers

Military & Service

The Buffalo Soldiers were members of the all-Black 9th and 10th Cavalry and 24th and 25th Infantry regiments of the U.S. Army, formed in 1866 — just one year after the end of the Civil War. They served on the American frontier, in the Spanish-American War, in the Philippines, in both World Wars, and in […]

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The Harlem Hellfighters

Military & Service

The Harlem Hellfighters — the 369th Infantry Regiment — were the most decorated American unit in World War I and the regiment that spent the most consecutive days in combat: 191 days on the front lines without losing a foot of ground or having a single man captured. The German army called them the “Höllenkämpfer” […]

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The Tuskegee Airmen

Military & Service

The Tuskegee Airmen were the first Black military aviators in the US Armed Forces, serving with extraordinary distinction in WWII while facing relentless racism from their own military. The 332nd Fighter Group, the Red Tails, compiled one of the most impressive combat records of any fighter group in the war. They flew over 15,000 sorties, […]

Thelonious Monk

Music

Thelonious Sphere Monk played the piano like no one before or since — angular, dissonant, percussive, and profoundly beautiful. Along with Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie, he was one of the architects of bebop, but his compositions went further, creating a harmonic language so distinctive that his songs — “‘Round Midnight,” “Straight, No Chaser,” “Blue […]

Thurgood Marshall

Politics & Law

The first African American Supreme Court Justice, Thurgood Marshall dismantled legal segregation case by case, culminating in the landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision that changed America forever.

Tiger Woods

Sports

Eldrick Tont “Tiger” Woods transformed golf from a country club sport into a global phenomenon and became arguably the most famous athlete on Earth. With 15 major championships and 82 PGA Tour victories, he is statistically one of the two greatest golfers in history. His dominance was so complete that the term “Tiger-proofing” entered the […]

Tommie Smith

Sports

Tommie Smith won the 200-meter gold medal at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics and then raised his black-gloved fist on the medal podium alongside bronze medalist John Carlos in one of the most iconic images of the twentieth century. The gesture was a silent protest against racial injustice in America. The response was swift and […]

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Toni Cade Bambara

Literature

Toni Cade Bambara was a storyteller, activist, filmmaker, and teacher who believed that art was not separate from revolution but was revolution’s most powerful tool. Her short story collections — Gorilla, My Love (1972) and The Sea Birds Are Still Alive (1977) — captured Black community life with a musicality and authenticity that influenced a […]

Toni Morrison

Literature

The first African American woman to win the Nobel Prize in Literature, Toni Morrison gave the Black experience a language so beautiful it changed what American literature could be.

Tope Awotona

Science & Technology

Tope Awotona is the founder and CEO of Calendly, the scheduling software platform used by over 20 million people worldwide and valued at $3 billion. He is the wealthiest Black tech founder in America and built his company without the network, pedigree, or initial funding that most successful tech founders rely on — investing his […]

Tyler Perry

Media & Entertainment

From homelessness to Hollywood mogul — Tyler Perry built the largest movie studio in America, owned by a single person, on a former Confederate army base in Atlanta.

Ursula Burns

Business & Entrepreneurship

Ursula M. Burns was the first Black woman to serve as CEO of a Fortune 500 company when she became chief executive of Xerox Corporation in 2009. She was also the first woman to succeed another woman as CEO of a Fortune 500 company, taking over from Anne Mulcahy. In an era when Fortune 500 […]

Valerie Thomas

Science & Technology

Valerie LaVerne Thomas invented the illusion transmitter in 1980 — a device that uses concave mirrors to create three-dimensional optical illusions of remote objects. The technology, patented by NASA, laid groundwork for advancements in 3D imaging, holographic television, and surgical visualization. Thomas spent over three decades at NASA as a data analyst and project manager, […]