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

Nannie Helen Burroughs

Nannie Helen Burroughs founded the National Training School for Women and Girls in Washington, D.C., in 1909 — an institution that provided vocational, liberal arts, and religious education to Black women at a time when most doors were closed to them. She was a fierce advocate for economic independence, arguing that Black women needed practical […]

Naomi Campbell

Arts & Culture

Naomi Elaine Campbell is one of the most recognizable women on Earth — a supermodel who broke racial barriers in fashion with an elegance and ferocity that left no room for denial. She was one of the original “Big Six” supermodels of the late 1980s and ’90s (alongside Cindy Crawford, Linda Evangelista, Christy Turlington, Claudia […]

Naomi Osaka

Sports

Naomi Osaka became the first Asian-born player to hold the number-one singles ranking in tennis and won four Grand Slam titles before the age of 24. But her most courageous moment came not on the court but off it — when she withdrew from the 2021 French Open citing mental health struggles, sparking a global […]

Nat King Cole

Music

Nathaniel Adams Coles — Nat King Cole — possessed a voice so warm and intimate it felt like a personal conversation. He was one of the best-selling artists of the 1950s and 60s, with hits like “Unforgettable,” “Mona Lisa,” and “Nature Boy” defining an era of American popular music. But before he was a vocalist, […]

Nat Turner

Civil Rights & Activism

Nathaniel Turner led the most significant slave rebellion in American history on August 21, 1831, in Southampton County, Virginia. Over two days, Turner and a group of enslaved people killed approximately 55 to 65 white people — the largest number of white fatalities caused by a slave revolt in the antebellum South. The rebellion terrified […]

Neil deGrasse Tyson

Science & Technology

Neil deGrasse Tyson became the most famous astrophysicist in the world by making the universe feel accessible. As director of the Hayden Planetarium and host of “Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey,” he brought science to millions who had never seen themselves reflected in the field. Growing up in the Bronx, Tyson fell in love with the […]

Nelson Mandela

Civil Rights & Activism

Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela spent twenty-seven years in prison — eighteen of them on Robben Island breaking rocks in a limestone quarry — and emerged not with vengeance but with a vision of reconciliation that transformed South Africa and inspired the world. Elected as South Africa’s first Black president in 1994, Mandela dismantled apartheid through negotiation […]

Nichelle Nichols

Media & Entertainment

Nichelle Nichols played Lieutenant Uhura on Star Trek — a role that changed American television and American culture. In 1966, the sight of a Black woman on the bridge of a starship, serving as a senior officer alongside white colleagues, was revolutionary. When Nichols considered leaving the show after the first season, Martin Luther King […]

Nikki Giovanni

Literature

Yolande Cornelia “Nikki” Giovanni was the poet of the people — a literary force who moved as comfortably in Black barbershops and church basements as she did in university lecture halls and literary salons. From her earliest Black Arts Movement poems to her later meditative works, she spoke with a directness and warmth that made […]

Nikole Hannah-Jones

Literature

The journalist who created the 1619 Project — Nikole Hannah-Jones reframed American history by placing slavery and the contributions of Black Americans at the very center of the national story.

Nina Simone

Music

The High Priestess of Soul — Nina Simone fused classical training with jazz, blues, and fury to create music that was both breathtakingly beautiful and unapologetically political.

Noah Lyles