Trailblazers

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Jack Johnson

Sports

John Arthur “Jack” Johnson became the first Black heavyweight boxing champion of the world on December 26, 1908, when he destroyed Tommy Burns in Sydney, Australia — and in doing so, set off a firestorm of racial terror and fascination that revealed the depths of white America’s investment in supremacy. His victory prompted a frantic […]

Jackie Joyner-Kersee

Sports

Jacqueline Joyner-Kersee is widely regarded as the greatest female athlete in history. She won three gold medals, one silver, and two bronze across four Olympic Games, and set the heptathlon world record of 7,291 points in 1988 — a mark so dominant it has stood for over 35 years. Sports Illustrated for Women named her […]

Jackie Robinson

Sports

The man who broke baseball's color barrier in 1947, Jackie Robinson changed not just a sport but the soul of a nation — proving that courage and excellence could overcome hatred.

Jacob Lawrence

Arts & Culture

Jacob Lawrence was twenty-three years old when he completed The Migration Series — sixty tempera paintings telling the story of the Great Migration of African Americans from the rural South to the industrial North. It remains one of the most important works of American art, a visual epic that did for painting what Langston Hughes […]

James Baldwin

Literature

One of the greatest writers America has ever produced — James Baldwin wrote with a searing brilliance that illuminated the intersections of race, identity, sexuality, and what it means to be human.

James Brown

Music

James Joseph Brown — the Godfather of Soul, the Hardest Working Man in Show Business — didn’t just perform music; he invented it. His rhythmic innovations in the mid-1960s created funk as a genre, and the percussive, groove-driven foundation he laid became the most sampled sound in hip-hop history. When you hear a breakbeat, you’re […]

James Weldon Johnson

Literature

James Weldon Johnson wrote the words to “Lift Every Voice and Sing” in 1900, a hymn so powerful it became known as the Black National Anthem. But Johnson was far more than the author of one song — he was a poet, novelist, diplomat, lawyer, and one of the most important civil rights leaders of […]

Janelle Monáe

Arts & Culture

Janelle Monáe Robinson is a genre-defying artist whose music, acting, and public persona have pushed the boundaries of what Black creativity can look like. Through concept albums built around an android alter ego named Cindi Mayweather — a metaphor for otherness, liberation, and the fight against oppression — Monáe created one of the most ambitious […]

Janet Jackson

Music

Janet Damita Jo Jackson stepped out of her famous family’s shadow and into her own spotlight with Control in 1986 — an album that was exactly what its title promised: a declaration of independence from her father’s management, her family’s expectations, and the industry’s assumptions about who she was supposed to be. She went on […]

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Janice Bryant Howroyd

Business & Entrepreneurship

Janice Bryant Howroyd is the founder and CEO of ActOne Group, the largest privately held, minority-woman-owned staffing company in the United States. Starting with 1,500 dollars, a fax machine, and a borrowed phone in 1978, she built a global enterprise generating over 3 billion in annual revenue. Growing up in Tarboro, North Carolina during segregation, […]

Jean-Michel Basquiat

Arts & Culture

A graffiti artist turned art world sensation — Jean-Michel Basquiat created raw, powerful paintings that challenged race, class, and power structures and made him one of the most important artists of the 20th century.

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Jerry Lawson

Science & Technology

Jerry Lawson is the father of modern video gaming. As lead engineer at Fairchild Semiconductor, he designed the Fairchild Channel F — the first home console to use interchangeable cartridges. Before his innovation, games were built permanently into hardware. Growing up in Queens, Lawson was a self-taught tinkerer who built his own radio station as […]

Jesse Owens

Sports

Jesse Owens won four gold medals at the 1936 Berlin Olympics — right in front of Adolf Hitler, demolishing the Nazi myth of Aryan racial superiority on the world stage. It remains one of the most significant athletic achievements in history. Owens set three world records and tied a fourth in a single afternoon at […]

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Jessica Nabongo

Arts & Culture

Jessica Nabongo became the first documented Black woman to visit every country in the world — all 195 UN-recognized nations — completing her journey on October 6, 2019, in the Seychelles. Her travels, documented on social media and in her book The Catch Me If You Can, challenged the narrative that world travel is a […]

Jim Brown

Sports

Jim Brown is widely considered the greatest football player who ever lived. In nine seasons with the Cleveland Browns, he led the league in rushing eight times, never missed a game, and retired at 29 as the NFL’s all-time leading rusher — a record that stood for decades. But Brown walked away from football at […]

John Coltrane

Music

A spiritual seeker who played the saxophone like a prayer — John Coltrane pushed jazz into uncharted territory with an intensity and beauty that transformed American music forever.

John H. Johnson

Business & Entrepreneurship

John Harold Johnson built the most influential Black media empire in American history with a $500 loan secured by his mother’s furniture. In 1942, he founded Negro Digest, followed by Ebony in 1945 and Jet in 1951 — magazines that became the mirror in which Black America saw itself reflected with dignity, beauty, and aspiration. […]

John Lewis

Politics & Law

The conscience of the Congress — John Lewis was beaten on the Edmund Pettus Bridge, arrested over 40 times, and spent 60 years in "good trouble" fighting for justice and voting rights.

Jordan Chiles

Sports

Jordan Chiles has become one of the most beloved gymnasts in the world — not just for her athletic excellence but for the genuine joy, sisterhood, and grace she brings to competition. As a member of the gold medal-winning U.S. women’s gymnastics team at the 2024 Paris Olympics, she captivated audiences with her powerful tumbling, […]

Jordan Peele

Media & Entertainment

Jordan Haworth Peele transformed the horror genre and proved that Black stories could dominate the box office when he wrote and directed Get Out (2017) — a social thriller about anti-Black racism disguised as liberal hospitality that grossed $255 million on a $4.5 million budget. He won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay, becoming […]

Josephine Baker

Arts & Culture

Josephine Baker left America because America couldn’t contain her — and then she spent the rest of her life fighting to change the country that had rejected her. Born in St. Louis in 1906, she arrived in Paris in 1925 and became the most famous entertainer in Europe almost overnight. Her performances at the Folies […]

Josh Gibson

Sports

Josh Gibson was the greatest power hitter in baseball history — a statement that is not hyperbole but mathematical fact. Playing in the Negro Leagues from 1930 to 1946, Gibson hit nearly 800 home runs and batted over .350 for his career, numbers that dwarf anything achieved in the major leagues. He was called “the […]

Joy Buolamwini

Science & Technology

Joy Adowaa Buolamwini is the computer scientist who proved that artificial intelligence is racist — and forced the tech industry to reckon with it. As a graduate student at MIT, she discovered that facial recognition systems from major tech companies like IBM, Microsoft, and Amazon failed to accurately identify darker-skinned faces, particularly those of Black […]

Judith Jamison

Arts & Culture

Judith Jamison is a dancer, choreographer, and artistic director who became the most celebrated figure in American modern dance and carried the legacy of Alvin Ailey into the 21st century. Her iconic performance of Ailey’s solo Cry — a 16-minute tour de force dedicated “to all Black women everywhere, especially our mothers” — is one […]