Kanya King: Founder of the MOBO Awards
“Thirty years ago, the MOBO Organisation was born out of a desire to create space where there was none — to recognise, celebrate and elevate...
Tag : Pioneer
Bill “Bojangles” Robinson: Godfather of Tap Dance
Bill “Bojangles” Robinson (1878–1949) was a pioneering African American tap dancer, actor, and singer who rose to become the most renowned and highest-paid Black entertainer...
Lorraine Hansberry: A Radiant Black Radical Imagination
Lorraine Vivian Hansberry lived only 34 years, yet she reshaped American theater, sharpened the intellectual edge of the Civil Rights Movement, and left behind a...
Joseph Emidy: The Afro‑Portuguese Virtuoso Britain Tried to Forget
Joseph Antonio Emidy (c. 1775–23 April 1835) was an Afro‑Portuguese violinist, composer, and teacher who became one of the most prominent musical figures in early...
Jacques Stephen Alexis: Healer, Novelist, Revolutionary
Jacques Stephen Alexis (1922–1961) was a Haitian novelist, neurologist, and Marxist political activist whose life and work came to embody the intertwined struggles for culture,...
Ottobah Cugoano: The Pioneer of the Black Radical Tradition
Ottobah Cugoano was a pioneer of the Black radical tradition, becoming a prominent leader in the British abolitionist movement in 1787 with the publication of...
Paul Belloni Du Chaillu: The “African” Zoologist who became known as the first modern European to confirm the existence of gorillas
“In such a wild country as Africa one does not go far without adventures. The traveler necessarily sees what is strange and wonderful, for every...
William DeHart Hubbard: The first African American to win an Olympic gold medal in an individual event
[dropcap size=small]W[/dropcap]illiam DeHart Hubbard was the first African American in Olympic history to win an individual gold medal, when he won the long (broad) jump...
Jackie Ormes: The first professional African American woman cartoonist
Jackie Ormes (August 1, 1911 – December 26, 1985) was born Zelda Jackson in a small town outside Pittsburgh. She was a self-taught artist who...
Anna Mac Clarke: A Military Pioneer
Anna Mac Clarke was the first African American woman in the U.S. Army to command an otherwise all‑white unit while the military was still formally...