This entry from Encyclopedia Britannica features Byllye Avery, an American health care activist whose efforts centred on bettering the welfare of low-income African American women through self-help groups and advocacy networks.

This entry from Encyclopedia Britannica features Celia Cruz, a Cuban singer who reigned for decades as the "Queen of Salsa Music," electrifying audiences with her wide-ranging, soulful voice and rhythmically compelling style.

This entry from Encyclopedia Britannica features Charles Spurgeon Johnson, a U.S. sociologist, authority on race relations, and the first black president (1946-56) of Fisk University, Nashville, Tenn. (established in 1867 and long...

This entry from Encyclopedia Britannica features Clyde McPhatter, an American rhythm-and-blues singer popular in the 1950s whose emotional style anticipated soul music.

This entry from Encyclopedia Britannica features Coleman Hawkins, an American jazz musician whose improvisational mastery of the tenor saxophone, which had previously been viewed as little more than a novelty, helped establish it as one...

This entry from Encyclopedia Britannica features David Robinson, an American basketball player who won two National Basketball Association (NBA) titles with the San Antonio Spurs (1999, 2003).

This entry from Encyclopedia Britannica features Dexter Gordon, an American bop tenor saxophonist.

This entry from Encyclopedia Britannica features Doc Rivers, an American basketball player and coach who, as the head coach of the Boston Celtics, led the team to a National Basketball Association (NBA) championship in 2008.

This entry from Encyclopedia Britannica features Don King, an American boxing promoter known for his flamboyant manner and outrageous hair styled to stand straight up. He first came to prominence with his promotion of the 1974 "Rumble in...

This entry from Encyclopedia Britannica features Elijah Muhammad, the leader of the black separatist religious movement known as the Nation of Islam (sometimes called Black Muslims) in the United States.

This entry from Encyclopedia Britannica features Etta Baker, an American folk musician who influenced the folk music revival of the 1950s and '60s with her mastery of East Coast Piedmont blues, a unique fingerpicking style of...

This entry from Encyclopedia Britannica features Evander Holyfield, an American boxer, the only professional fighter to win the heavyweight championship four separate times and thereby surpass the record of Muhammad Ali, who won it three...

This entry from Encyclopedia Britannica features Floyd Patterson, an American professional boxer, first to hold the world heavyweight championship twice.

This entry from Encyclopedia Britannica features Frank Yerby, an American author of popular historical fiction.

This entry from Encyclopedia Britannica features Gene Ammons, an American jazz tenor saxophonist, noted for his big sound and blues-inflected, "soulful" improvising.

This entry from Encyclopedia Britannica features George Allan Russell, an American jazz artist born June 23, 1923, Cincinnati, Ohio .

This entry from Encyclopedia Britannica features George Moses Horton, an African American poet who wrote sentimental love poems and antislavery protests. He was one of the first professional black writers in America.

This entry from Encyclopedia Britannica features Harriet Beecher Stowe, an American writer and philanthropist, the author of the novel Uncle Tom's Cabin, which contributed so much to popular feeling against slavery that it is cited among...

This entry from Encyclopedia Britannica features Harry Howell Carney, an American musician, featured soloist in Duke Ellington's band and the first baritone saxophone soloist in jazz.

This entry from Encyclopedia Britannica features Herbie Hancock, an American keyboard player, songwriter, and bandleader, a prolific recording artist who achieved success as an incisive, harmonically provocative jazz pianist and then...

This entry from Encyclopedia Britannica features Horace Pippin, an American folk painter known for his depictions of African American life and of the horrors of war.

This entry from Encyclopedia Britannica features James Earl Jones, an American actor who made his name in leading stage roles in Shakespeare's Othello and in The Great White Hope, a play about the tragic career of the first black...

This entry from Encyclopedia Britannica features James Farmer, an American civil rights activist who, as a leader of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), helped shape the civil rights movement through his nonviolent activism and...

This entry from Encyclopedia Britannica features Jean-Baptist-Point Du Sable, a black pioneer trader and founder of the settlement that later became the city of Chicago.