Encyclopedia Britannica
Encyclopedia Britannica: Hattie Mc Daniel
This entry from Encyclopedia Britannica features Hattie McDaniel, an American actress and singer who became the first African-American to be honored with an Academy Award.
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Encyclopedia Britannica: Henry Dumas
This entry from Encyclopedia Britannica features Henry Dumas, an African-American author of poetry and fiction who wrote about the clash between black and white cultures.
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Encyclopedia Britannica: Herbie Hancock
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...
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Encyclopedia Britannica: Herbie Nichols
This entry from Encyclopedia Britannica features Herbie Nichols, an African-American jazz pianist and composer whose advanced bop-era concepts of rhythm, harmony, and form predicted aspects of free jazz.
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Encyclopedia Britannica: Horace Pippin
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.
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Encyclopedia Britannica: Horace Silver
This entry from Encyclopedia Britannica features Horace Silver, an American jazz pianist, composer, and bandleader, exemplary performer of what came to be called the hard bop style of the 1950s and '60s. The style was an extension of...
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Encyclopedia Britannica: Howard Zinn
This entry from Encyclopedia Britannica features Howard Zinn, an American historian and social activist born Aug. 24, 1922, Brooklyn, N.Y. .
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Encyclopedia Britannica: Isaac Burns Murphy
This entry from Encyclopedia Britannica features Isaac Burns Murphy, an American jockey who was the first to be elected to the National Museum of Racing's Hall of Fame in Saratoga Springs, New York; he is one of only two African American...
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Encyclopedia Britannica: Isiah Thomas
This entry from Encyclopedia Britannica features Isiah Thomas, an American basketball player, considered one of the best point guards in the history of the game. He led the Detroit Pistons of the National Basketball Association (NBA) to...
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Encyclopedia Britannica: Jackie Joyner Kersee
This entry from Encyclopedia Britannica features Jackie Joyner-Kersee, an American athlete, considered by many to be the greatest female athlete ever, who became the first participant to score more than 7,000 points in the heptathlon.
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Encyclopedia Britannica: Jackie Wilson
This entry from Encyclopedia Britannica features Jackie Wilson, an American singer who was a pioneering exponent of the fusion of 1950s doo-wop, rock, and blues styles into the soul music of the 1960s.
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Encyclopedia Britannica: James Augustine Healy
This entry from Encyclopedia Britannica features James Augustine Healy, the first African American Roman Catholic bishop in the United States and an advocate for children and Native Americans.
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Encyclopedia Britannica: James Earl Jones
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...
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Encyclopedia Britannica: James Farmer
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...
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Encyclopedia Britannica: James Winkfield
This entry from Encyclopedia Britannica features James Winkfield, an American jockey, the last African-American to win the Kentucky Derby.
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Encyclopedia Britannica: Jamie Foxx
This entry from Encyclopedia Britannica features Jamie Foxx, an American comedian, musician, and actor, who became known for his impersonations on the television sketch-comedy show In Living Color and later proved himself a versatile...
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Encyclopedia Britannica: Janet Jackson
This entry from Encyclopedia Britannica features Janet Jackson, an American singer and actress whose increasingly mature version of dance-pop music made her one of the most popular recording artists of the 1980s and '90s.
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Encyclopedia Britannica: Jay Z
This entry from Encyclopedia Britannica features Jay Z, an American rapper and entrepreneur, one of the most influential figures in hip-hop in the 1990s and early 21st century.
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Encyclopedia Britannica: Jean Baptist Point Du Sable
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.
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Encyclopedia Britannica: Jennifer Hudson
This entry from Encyclopedia Britannica features Jennifer Hudson, an American actress and singer who won an Academy Award for best-supporting actress for her role in Dreamgirls (2006).
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Encyclopedia Britannica: Jerry Rice
This entry from Encyclopedia Britannica features Jerry Rice, an American professional gridiron football player whom many consider the greatest wide receiver in the history of the National Football League (NFL). Playing primarily for the...
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Encyclopedia Britannica: Jessye Norman
This entry from Encyclopedia Britannica features Jessye Norman, an American operatic soprano, one of the finest of her day, who also enjoyed a successful concert career.
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Encyclopedia Britannica: Jimmy Reed
This entry from Encyclopedia Britannica features Jimmy Reed, an American singer, harmonica player, and guitarist who was one of the most popular blues musicians of the post-World War II era.
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Encyclopedia Britannica: Jimmy Smith
This entry from Encyclopedia Britannica features Jimmy Smith, an American musician who integrated the electric organ into jazz, thereby inventing the soul-jazz idiom, which became popular in the 1950s and '60s.