Move on up! Click to listen while you read. Curtis Mayfield
Black Success
Black men and women who inspire us. This is a small sampling. There are tens of thousands! Follow them. How did they do it?
How did they overcome whatever racism they encountered? What's their secret?
Click on picture for full life details
Barrack Obama
From a single parent home. Community Organizer, President Harvard Law Review, Senator, President of the United States.
Clarence Thomas
Born 1948 in Pin Point Georgia. Mastered English after being raised speaking Gullah, language of his original slave forefathers. Yale law school, Assistant Attorney General, Supreme Court Justice.
Shirley Ann Jackson.
Dr. Jackson is a theoretical physicist and the first black woman to receive a doctorate from MIT. She's also the president of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.
Mark E. Dean
Born March 2, 1957. Inventor and computer engineer. Co-creator of the IBM personal computer.
Agnes Day
Youngest of 13 Children. Ph.D. degree in microbiology. Teacher, researcher, volunteer, lecturer.
Richard Clark
Lt. General Richard M. Clark. Born 1964. Command Pilot. Distinguished flying cross. Commander Air Force Academy.
Mahammad Ali
"The Greatest", American professional boxer, activist, and philanthropist. Lost his boxing career due the courage of his convictions.
Benjamin O. Davis Junior
December 18, 1912 – July 4, 2002. United States Air Force general and commander of the World War II Tuskegee Airmen.
Kenneth Frazier
Father died when he was 12. Worked his way through college. Kenneth Frazier is the chairman and CEO of the pharmaceutical company Merck & Co.
Marvin Ellison
Marvin Ellison, CEO of at home-improvement retailer Lowe's. One of seven children, he grew up poor even as his father worked several jobs. Worked his way through college.
Condoleezza Rice
Born November 14, 1954, in Birmingham, Alabama, and grew up while the South was racially segregated. She is an American political scientist, diplomat, civil servant, and professor who served as the 66th United States Secretary of State.
Herman Cain
Degrees in mathematics and computer science. Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank. President and CEO of the National Restaurant Association. CEO and President of Godfather's Pizza. Presidential Candidate. Early family was poor but happy where "Success was not a function of what you start out with materially, but what you start out with spiritually."
Kamala Harris
Senator. Vice Presidential Candidate on the 2020 Democratic ticket. Eastern Indian mother, Jamaican father. She was bused as a kindergartener to a formerly 90% white school. Attorney General California. Senator.
Charles Barclay
Sports Analyst, NBA player. His father left the family, his stepfather died when he was 11. Among the first black children to integrate into a white high school. Of an incident on the court he said "It taught me a valuable lesson. I wanted to win at all costs. Instead of playing the game the right way and respecting the game, I only thought about winning."
Dr. Leon McDougle
President of the National Medical Association (NMA). National Collegiate Athletic Association Coronavirus Advisory Panel.
Tim Scott
Parents divorced when he was 7, Mr. Scott grew up in working class poverty with his mother working 16-hour days to support her family, including Tim's brothers. Scott was first a Representative and is now Senator of South Carolina. His mother encouraged him to "Shoot for the moon, even if you miss you will land in the stars."
Oprah Winfrey
Winfrey was born into poverty in rural Mississippi to a teenage single mother. She was molested during her early teens and became pregnant at 14; her son died in infancy. Oprah went on to launch her own production company and became internationally syndicated. Writer, publisher, activist, actor, she has won multiple awards and is today one of the richest persons in America.
Donna Wilson
Donna Wilson is an award-winning reporter and anchor for Bloomberg Radio. She anchors national daily affiliate business reports that focus on financial stories.
Coach John Thomson
Thompson was a guidance counselor and head coach at St. Anthony High School in Washington, D.C. from 1966 to 1972, compiling a 122–28 record. He left St. Anthony for Georgetown University. Under Thompson, a highly regarded coach and mentor, 26 players were chosen in the NBA draft.
Amanda Gorman
Joe Biden's inaugural poet. Gorman suffered from an auditory disorder and speech impediment during childhood. "I always saw it as a strength... experiencing these obstacles... I became really good at reading and writing. I realized that at a young age when I was reciting the Marianne Deborah Williamson quote that 'Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate, our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure'.
Charley Pride
Charley Pride. Country Western star. Hall of Fame. "This country is so race-conscious, so ate-up with colors and pigments. I call it 'skin hangups'. It's a disease." Pride was born on March 18, 1934, in Sledge, Mississippi, the fourth of eleven children of poor sharecroppers.
His greatest musical success came in the early to mid 1970s, when he was the best-selling performer for RCA Records since Elvis Presley.
