This actress recently won the Primetime Emmy for Best Actress in a Comedy Series, the first Black woman to do so in 43 years
Bonus 100 if you know the show!!
Who is Quinta Brunson? (for Abbot Elementary!) 
This woman's cancer cells were used without their consent to make the first immortalized human cell line after their passing in 1951, paving the way for modern cancer research
Who is Henrietta Lacks? (Or Loretta Pleasant?)![]()
Their time working for the United States Army was vastly underpaid. However, they are credited with being the first woman to lead an armed expedition
Who is Harriet Tubman?
He was the first Black man to play for the National Hockey League
Who is Willie O'Ree?
This Nobel Peace Prize winner in 2011 was the first female head of state elected in Africa during Liberia's 2005 election
Who is Ellen Johnson Sirleaf? ![]()
This musician is the first, and so far only rapper to be awarded a Pulitzer Prize for Music
Who is Kendrick Lamar? 
This mathematician devised a model of the Earth which led to the foundation of the Global Positioning System
Who is Gladys West?
Often uncredited for their work in the 1963 March on Washington, due to both being gay and having communist ties, this person organized and planned the logistics leading to the I Have a Dream speech
Who is Bayard Rustin?
She was the first Black American to win a Grand Slam tennis title at the 1956 French Open
Who is Althea Gibson? ![]()
Winning 3 World Cups for his nation in 1958, '62, and '70, he is often regarded as one of the best football players of all time
Who is Pelé? ![]()
One of the first winners of American Idol, this artist was born in West Germany in 1978
Who is Ruben Studdard?

She became the first African-American woman neurosurgeon in 1981
Who is Alexa Canady? 
Born in 1939, she refused to give up her seat and move to the back of the bus. Fun fact, this happened the same year as another famous refusal to move done by Rosa Parks
Who is Claudette Colvin?
They were the first Black driver to win a NASCAR Grand National series race in 1963
Who is Wendell Scott? 
He won the Chicago Marathon in 2023 in barely over 2 hours, keeping a 4:36 mile pace the entire time. Sadly he passed away in February 2024.
Who is Kelvin Kiptum? ![]()
Daily double!!
While the title "United States Poet Laureate" has existed since The Great Depression, this Harvard Alumna became the first "National Youth Poet Laureate" in 2017
Who is Amanda Gorman?
This doctor was responsible for development of the first blood bank
Who is Charles Drew? 
Despite being the first American track and field athlete to win 4 gold medals in a single olympics, they struggled to find a job upon returning to America
Who is Jesse Owens? 
This NBA champion was the first Black head coach of an NBA team, it likely didn't hurt that he had won the championship as a player a record 11 times.
Who is Bill Russell? ![]()
While Barack Obama was the first Black president of the United States, this war tactician was the first president of African dissent elected in the Americas in 1828. He would go on to lead efforts which successfully abolished slavery in his country during his brief term
Who is Vicente Guerrero? ![]()
This lesbian playwright of A Raisin in the Sun became the first Black playwright to win a New York Critics' Circle Award, and the youngest American at the time in 1959
Who is Lorraine Hansberry?
The first Black scientist to be published in Science, one of their many discoveries was that insects have the capacity to hear and learn through trial and error
Who is Charles Henry Turner? 
This Yale alumna was the first Black woman to attend Yale Law School and the first Black female Judge in the United States
Who is Jane Bolin? 
She became the first ever WNBA player to dunk in a regulation game during the LA Sparks' 2002 season
Who is Lisa Leslie? 
He is credited as being the first permanent non-native settler of the lands which would become Chicago, IL
Who is Jean Baptiste Point du Sable? 