College: Winston Salem State University
Date Graduated: 1991
Yancey Thigpen is a former pro football wide receiver who played for the San Diego Chargers, the Pittsburgh Steelers, and the Tennessee Oilers/Titans. Considered one of the best football players in Winston-Salem State history, he was inducted into the John B. McLendon CIAA Hall of Fame. He no longer plays football. https://hbculifestyle.com/famous-hbcu-graduates/
College: Lincoln University
Date Graduated: 1946
Major: Literature
Brown was an award-winning actor and director who was inducted into the Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame in 1977 and posthumously inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame. He died in 2007.
College: West Virginia State University
Date Graduated:
Major:
Clark was a librarian, lawyer and politician elected to the Philadelphia City Council in the 1970s, becoming the second African-American woman to serve on the city council. Clark died in 2013.
College: Texas Southern University
Date Graduated: 1956
Major: Political science and history
Jordan was a lawyer, educator, politician and leader of the Civil Rights Movement. She was the first African American elected to the Texas Senate after Reconstruction, the first Southern African-American woman elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, and the first woman to deliver a keynote address at a Democratic National Convention. She died in 1996.
College: Hampton University
Date Graduated: 1875
An educator, author, orator, and advisor to presidents, Booker T. Washington was considered the leader of the African-American community. He is Hampton University’s most notable alumnus. After walking 500 miles to Hampton from Malden, WV at age 16, he graduated with the class of 1875. Washington became the first head of Tuskegee University in 1881. Washington rose to national prominence for his Atlanta address of 1895. The Atlanta Compromise was an agreement in 1895 between Washington, other African-American leaders and Southern white leaders. They agreed that Southern blacks would submit to white political rule in exchange for guaranteed basic education and due process in law. Washington became a popular spokesperson for African Americans. Born into slavery, he never knew his date of birth. His headstone reads 1856. He died in 1915.
College: West Virginia State University
Sullivan was a Baptist minister, a civil rights leader and social activist focusing on the creation of job training for African Americans. He received a basketball and football scholarship in 1939 to attend West Virginia State College. A foot injury ended his athletic career and he had to pay for college by working in a steel mill. He served as pastor for 38 years at the Zion Baptist Church in Philadelphia, and became known as “the Lion of Zion.” He died in 2001. https://hbculifestyle.com/famous-hbcu-graduates/
College: West Virginia State University
Date Graduated: 1937
Major: Math and French
A mathematician and NASA employee, Katherine Johnson‘s calculations of orbital mechanics were critical to the success of the first and subsequent U.S. manned spaceflights. Today, Johnson works to help youth in the STEM field. She offers a scholarship at her alma mater for students pursuing careers in STEM. The blockbsuter film “Hidden Figures” showcased her legacy among other African-American women who contributed to science in the past.
College: Alabama A&M University
Date Graduated: 1976
Major: Business
Charles Scales had a long career at NASA starting in 1973. He became NASA’s associate deputy administrator in 2007 and held that position until retirement. Before that, he served as director of the Marshall Center Equal Opportunity Office. He was inducted into the Alabama A&M University Alumni Hall of Fame in 2005.
College: University of District of Columbia
Date Graduated: 1955
Holloway was a district court judge, District of Columbia, and the first African-American woman to serve as chief judge of a U.S. District Court. Holloway died in 2011.
College: Spelman College
Date Graduated: 1974
Actress and producer LaTanya Richardson Jackson started her career off-Broadway before playing supporting roles in TV and film. She met her husband Samuel L. Jackson while she was at Spellman Collee. They married in 1980. She stopped working after their daughter was born, because, she said, “We’d vowed to be an intact revolutionary black family. But it was very, very hard.” In 2014, Richardson was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Lead Actress in a Play for her 2013 performance in “A Raisin in the Sun.” She served on the Spelman board of trustees, and on the advisory board of the College’s Women Research and Resource Center.
College: Lincoln University
Date Graduated: 1929
Langston Jughes was a poet, social activist, novelist, playwright, and columnist considered one of the earliest innovators of the then-new literary art form called jazz poetry. Hughes is best known as a leader of the Harlem Renaissance in New York City, famously writing about the period “when Harlem was in vogue”. After his parents separated, Hughes was raised in Kansas by his maternal grandmother. It was not a happy time. “I was … very lonesome, living with my grandmother. Then it was that books began to happen to me, and I began to believe in nothing but books and the wonderful world in books — where if people suffered, they suffered in beautiful language, not in monosyllables, as we did in Kansas.” Hughes died in 1967.
College: North Carolina Central University
Date Graduated: 1958
An attorney, civil rights leader and educator, Julius L. Chambers decided on a career in law after his father’s auto repair business was a target of racial injustice in 1948. A white customer refused to pay and his father couldn’t afford a lawyer. Chambers resolved to help end segregation and racial discrimination. After graduating from NCCU summa cum laude, he went to law school at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He was the first African American editor-in-chief of the school’s law review and graduated first in his class of 100 students in 1962. He was also the first African American member of the university’s honor society, Order of the Golden Fleece.
College: Alabama State University
Date Graduated: 1950
Major: Math
Ralph David Abernathy Sr. was a Christian minister, leader of the Civil Rights Movement, and friend of Martin Luther King, Jr. He collaborated with King to create the Montgomery Improvement Association which led to the Montgomery Bus Boycott and co-founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. He became president of the SCLC following King’s assassination in 1968, where he led the Poor People’s Campaign in Washington, D.C. among other marches and demonstrations for disenfranchised Americans. He ran unsuccessfully in 1977 for the U.S. House of Representatives, 5th district of Georgia. He later founded the Foundation for Economic Enterprises Development. In 1989, Abernathy wrote “And the Walls Came Tumbling Down,” a controversial autobiography about his and King’s involvement in the Civil Rights Movement. He died in 1990. His tombstone is engraved with the words “I tried”.
College: Florida A&M University
Date Graduated: 1993
Major: Theatre arts
Emmy-nominated actor Meshach Taylor May was known for his role as Anthony Bouvier on the CBS sitcom “Designing Women” and for his portrayal of Hollywood Montrose, a flamboyant window dresser in “Mannequin.” He played Sheldon Baylor on the CBS sitcom “Dave’s World,” among others. Taylor appeared in feature films “Mannequin”, “Mannequin Two” and “Damien: Omen II”. In the ’60s, he studied dramamtic arts at Florida A&M University, but dropped out a few credits shy of graduation. Decades later in 1993, he received his bachelor’s degree in theatre arts from Florida A&M.
College: Alabama State University (formerly Alabama State College).
Date Graduated: 1952
Born Fred Lee Robinson, Frederick Lee “Fred” Shuttlesworth was a U.S. civil rights activist and minister in Birmingham, Alabama, who fought segregation and other forms of racism. He co-founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, initiated the 1963 Birmingham Campaign, and helped Martin Luther King Jr. during the Civil Rights Movement. The Birmingham-Shuttlesworth International Airport was named in his honor in 2008.
College: Winston-Salem State University
Date Graduated: 1991
Stephen Anthony Smith is a TV sports personality, radio host, journalist, and actor. A commentator on ESPN’s “First Take”, he also makes frequent appearances as an NBA analyst on SportsCenter. After attending the Fashion Institute of Technology for a year, Smith got a basketball scholarship to attend Winston-Salem State University. He played under Hall of Fame coach Clarence Gaines. His jurnalism career began with a column for the university newspaper, The News Argus. His radio show will be simulcast on ESPNNews beginning on Aug. 13, 2018, and his TV show, “First Take”, is moving from Bristol, Conn. to New York in September.
College: Florida A&M University
Date Graduated: Dropped Out
Major: Business Administration
Lonnie Rashid (Common), now works as an activist, using his social media to bring attention to minimized issues. The rapper most recently starred in a film, “The Tale” on HBO, and is working closely with Lena Waithe on an HBO TV series, “The Chi”.https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/28/honda-18-famous-historically_n_1929134.html?slideshow=true#gallery/253526/0
College: Morehouse College
Date Graduated: Dropped Out
Major: Marine Biology, switched to Performing Arts
Prolific actor and film producer Samuel Jackson rose to prominence in the ’90s, and he has starred in more than 100 films, including “Pulp Ficton” (1994.) His likeness was used for the Marvel Comics character Nick Fury, and he has starred in numerous superhero movies. His voice has been used in film, TV and video games including Frozone in the 2018 “Incredibles 2” film.He has also been cast as Nick Fury in an upcoming movie, “Captain Marvel” which is scheduled to premiere on March 8, 2019. https://www.buzzfeed.com/sydneyscott/40-awesome-celebrities-who-attended-hbcus?utm_term=.sq8AAAyG6#.dl7AAAw3R
College: Spelman College
Date Graduated: 2001
Major: Sociology
Keisha is best known for her childhood role as Rudy Huxtable in the NBC hit series, “The Cosby Show,” and as Miranda Lucas-Payne on the TBS comedy-drama “Tyler Perry’s House of Payne”. She’s taking a break from acting to focus on her family. https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/28/honda-18-famous-historically_n_1929134.html?slideshow=true#gallery/253526/17
College: Florida Memorial University
Date Graduated: 2009
Major: Flight education
In 2007, Jamaican-American Barrington Irving became the first black person to pilot a plane around the world solo. He grew up in Miami and turned down multiple football scholarship offers to study aviation. His airplane, a Columbia 400 (Cessna Corvalis 400) named the “Inspiration”, and was manufactured and assembled by the Columbia Aircraft Mfg. Co. in 2005. He is the founder of Experience Aviation, a nonprofit dedicated to empowering minority youth to pursue careers in aviation. He works closely to promote STEM for boys of color.
College: Clark Atlanta University
Date Graduated: 1996
Major: Mass Media Arts
Kenya Barris is the creator of Emmy-nominated, Golden Globe-winning TV series, “Black-ish.” Barris explores issues of classism and racism in creative and humorous ways, said Dr. Ronald A. Johnson, president of Clark Atlanta University, in a CAU News report. Barris has a three-year deal with ABC studios to write and develop future projects including “Grown-ish.”
