[Last Updated 2/19/2006]
Macon B. Allen (First Licensed Black Attorney)
Ella Baker (SNCC, Civil Rights Activist)
Mary McCleod Bethune (Educator; First Black Women to hold Federal Position)
Andrew Brimmer (First Black Governor of Federal Reserve Board)
Sen. Edward Brooke (U.S. Senator from Massachusetts, 1967-1979)
Blanche K. Bruce (Elected to U.S. Senate by Voters of Mississippi, Reconstruction)
Ralph Bunche (United Nations, U.S. Department of State Office)
Francis L. Cardoza (Treasurer of South Carolina)
Aime Cesaire (Philospher, Negritude Movement)
Dame Eugenia Charles (First Black Female President of Dominica)
William Coleman (Member of Presidential Cabinet)
John Conyers (U.S. House of Representatives - Michigan)
Shirley Chisholm (First Black Woman in U.S. Congress; First Black Presidential Candidate)
David Dinkins (Former Mayor, New York City)
Frederick Douglass (Ex-Slave, Abolitionist)
Marcus Garvey (United Negro Improvement Association, New York)
Jonathan Gibbs (Secretary of State in Florida)
William Gray (House Majority Whip, Chaired the House Budget Committee)
Patricia Harris (Former Congresswoman, Member of Presidential Cabinet)
Augustus F. Hawkins (Organized the Congressional Black Caucus)
George Hayes (Former Lawyer and Professor at Howard University)
Marion Berry (Former Mayor of Washington, D.C.)
Barbara Jordan (Congresswoman)
Nelson Mandela (Former President of South Africa)
Vernon Jordan (Lawyer; Civil Rights Leader)
Thurgood Marshall (NAACP Lawyer; Former U.S. Supreme Court Justice)
George Nabrit, Jr. (President of Howard, 1960-1969; Former Lawyer)
Constance Baker Motley (NAACP Lawyer; Former Federal Court Judge)
Kwame Nkrumah (President of Ghana, First Independent Black Nation from Colonialism)
Sen. Barack Obama (Current Black U.S. Senator-Illinois)
Carrie Saxon Perry (First Black Mayor of a U.S. City - Hartford, CT)
P.B.S. Pinchback (Former Black Temporary Governor of Louisiana, Reconstruction)
Colin Powell (Secretary of State; Chaired Joint Chief of Staffs)
A. Philip Randolph (Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters)
Condoleeza Rice (Former National Security Advisor; Current Secretary of State)
Hiram R. Revels (U.S. Senate-Mississippi, Reconstruction)
Robert S. Smalls (House of Representatives-South Carolina, Reconstruction)
Dr. Louis Sullivan (Member of Presidential Cabinet)
Harold Washington (First Black Mayor of Chicago)
Clarence Thomas (Current U.S. Supreme Court Justice)
Sojourner Truth (Abolitionist, Women's Rights Activist)
Robert Weaver (Member of Presidential Cabinet)
Douglass Wilder (First and Only Elected Black Governor-Virginia)
Jonathan J. Wright (South Carolina Supreme Court)
Malcolm X (Civil Rights Activist, Nation of Islam)
Andrew Young (First Black Ambassador to the United Nations)
Coleman A. Young (Tuskegee Airman; First Black Mayor of Detroit)