The People Who Paved the Way

Trailblazers

Pioneers, barrier-breakers, and history-makers who changed what's possible.

All A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Victor Glover

Victor Jerome Glover Jr. is a NASA astronaut and U.S. Navy test pilot who was the first Black crew member on a long-duration mission aboard the International Space Station, serving as pilot of SpaceX Crew-1 from November 2020 to May 2021. He spent 168 days in space and conducted four spacewalks, becoming only the third […]

Viola Davis

Arts & Culture

The first Black woman to achieve the Triple Crown of Acting — an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony — Viola Davis has brought a ferocious, unforgettable power to every role and shattered every ceiling in her path.

Viola Ford Fletcher

Civil Rights & Activism

Viola Ford Fletcher was the oldest living survivor of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre — a witness to the destruction of Black Wall Street who spent the last years of her life demanding justice for what was taken from her community. She was seven years old when a white mob attacked the Greenwood District, burning […]

Virgil Abloh

Arts & Culture

Virgil Abloh became the first Black American to serve as artistic director of a major French fashion house when Louis Vuitton appointed him to lead its menswear division in 2018. He was an architect, DJ, designer, and cultural polymath who dissolved the boundaries between streetwear and high fashion, proving that a Black kid from Rockford, […]

Vivien Thomas

Science & Technology

Vivien Thomas developed the surgical technique that saved thousands of “blue babies” — infants dying from a heart defect that starved their blood of oxygen. He did this without a medical degree, without a college degree, working as a lab technician at Johns Hopkins while being classified and paid as a janitor. Thomas partnered with […]

W.E.B. Du Bois

Education

The first African American to earn a doctorate from Harvard, W.E.B. Du Bois was a scholar, activist, and intellectual architect of the modern civil rights movement who co-founded the NAACP.

Wes Moore

Politics & Law

Westley Watende Omari Moore became the first Black governor in the history of Maryland when he was inaugurated on January 18, 2023 — and only the third Black person elected governor of any U.S. state, after Douglas Wilder of Virginia (1989) and Deval Patrick of Massachusetts (2006). He won by the largest margin of any […]

Whitney Houston

Music

Whitney Elizabeth Houston possessed the most extraordinary voice of her generation — a soprano instrument of such power, clarity, and emotional range that it redefined what popular music could sound like. Her rendition of “I Will Always Love You” remains one of the best-selling singles in history, and her self-titled debut album made her the […]

Whoopi Goldberg

Media & Entertainment

Caryn Elaine Johnson — Whoopi Goldberg — is one of only 19 people in history to achieve EGOT status (Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, Tony), and she is the first Black woman to do so. From her one-woman Broadway show to The Color Purple to Ghost to The View, Goldberg has remained one of the most recognizable […]

Willie Mays

Sports

Willie Howard Mays Jr. — the Say Hey Kid — played baseball with a joy and brilliance that transcended statistics, though his numbers were staggering: 660 home runs, 3,283 hits, 338 stolen bases, and a defensive prowess in center field that produced “The Catch” — the over-the-shoulder grab in the 1954 World Series that remains […]

Wilma Rudolph

Sports

Told she would never walk again after childhood polio, Wilma Rudolph became the fastest woman on Earth — winning three Olympic gold medals at the 1960 Rome Games.

Wilt Chamberlain

Sports

Wilton Norman Chamberlain scored 100 points in a single NBA game on March 2, 1962 — a record so absurd it has stood for over six decades and will likely never be broken. But that one game, legendary as it is, doesn’t capture the full scope of Chamberlain’s dominance. He averaged 50.4 points per game […]

Zora Neale Hurston

Literature

Zora Neale Hurston captured the beauty, humor, and complexity of Black Southern life in prose decades ahead of its time. Her masterpiece Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937) is now recognized as one of the great American novels. Raised in the all-Black town of Eatonville, Florida, she studied anthropology at Columbia and traveled the South […]

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Trailblazers

Victor Glover

Viola Davis

Viola Ford Fletcher

Virgil Abloh

Vivien Thomas

W.E.B. Du Bois

Wes Moore

Whitney Houston

Whoopi Goldberg

Willie Mays

Wilma Rudolph

Wilt Chamberlain

Zora Neale Hurston

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