Show:
Books
Movies
Events
Sports
Inventions
100
Native Son
This novel tells the story of 20-year-old Bigger Thomas, a Black American youth living in utter poverty. Bigger lived in a poor area on Chicago’s Southside in the 1930s
100
Coming to America
This 1988 American comedy is about an African prince who goes to New York in hopes to find a woman he can marry
100
Rumble in the Jungle
This historic boxing event in 1974 in Kinshasa, Zaire on the morning of October 30, 1974, it pitted the undefeated world heavyweight champion George Forman against challenger Muhammad Ali, a former heavyweight champion
100
Doug Williams
He was the first African American quarterback to win an NFL Super Bowl
100
Elijah McCoy
This person is best known for inventing a cup that fed lubricating oil to machine bearings through a small bore tube
200
Invisible Man
This novel by Ralph Ellison addresses many of the social and intellectual issues facing African Americans early in the twentieth century, including Black Nationalism, the relationship between black identity and Marxism, and the reformist racial policies of Booker T. Washington, as well as issues of individuality and personal identity.
200
Waiting to Exhale
This 1995 romantic drama centers on four female friends living in the Phoenix, AZ area and their relationships with men and one another. All of them are “holding their breath” until the day they can feel comfortable in a committed relationship with a man
200
Back-to-Africa Movement
Black leaders such as Paul Cuffe, Martin Delaney, and Marcus Garvey inspired men and women of African descent to participate in this movement
200
Black Power Salute or Raised Gloved Fists
African American athletes Tommie Smith and John Carlos made this act of protest during their medal ceremony at the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City, Mexico
200
Miriam Benjamin
This person received a patent for an invention called a Gong and Signal Chair for Hotels. The invention allowed hotel customers to summon a waiter from the comfort of their chair.
300
Kindred
This 1979 novel by Octavia Butler tells the story of Edana (Dana) Franklin, an African American woman living in 1976 Altadena, CA who, on her twenty-sixth birthday, begins the first of six involuntary journeys back in time to Maryland’s Eastern Shore in the antebellum South
300
Higher Learning
3. This American drama film, directed by John Singleton, and starring an ensemble, follows the changing lives of three incoming freshmen at the fictional Columbus University: Malik Williams, a black track star who struggles with academics; Kristen Connor, a shy and naive girl; and Remy, a lonely and confused man seemingly out of place in his new environment.
300
Tulsa Race Riots
This event was a large-scale, racially motivated conflict on May 31 and June 1, 1921, in which whites attacked the black community, known as the Greenwood District, where the wealthiest black metropolis in the United States was burned to the ground.
300
Roy Jones, Jr.
As a professional, he has captured numerous world titles in the middleweight, super middleweight, light heavyweight, and heavyweight divisions. He is the only boxer in history to start his career as a light middleweight (154 lbs) and go on to win a heavyweight title
300
Jan Matzeliger
This person helped revolutionize the shoe industry by developing a shoe lasting machine that would attach the sole to the shoe in one minute
400
Beloved
This novel by Toni Morrison, set after the American Civil War (1861–1865), is inspired by the story of an African American slave, Margaret Garner, who temporarily escaped slavery during 1856 in Kentucky by fleeing to Ohio, a free state.
400
Lean on Me
This biographical film tells the story of a real life inner city high school principal in Patterson, NJ whose school is at risk of being taken over by the New Jersey state government unless students improve their test scores.
400
Baton Rouge Bus Boycott
This event was considered the first successful bus boycott in the United States
400
Florence Griffith-Joyner
She was an American track and field athlete, considered the “fastest woman of all time” based on the fact that the world records she set in 1988 for both the 100 meters and 200 meters still stand and have yet to be seriously challenged
400
Granville T. Woods
Known as the Black Edison, this person invented a system for letting the engineer of a train know how close his train was to others. This device helped cut down accidents and collisions between trains
500
Before the Mayflower
This book traces Black history from its origins in western Africa, through the transatlantic journey that ended in slavery, the Reconstruction period, the Jim Crow era, and the civil rights upheavals of the 1960s and 1970s, culminating in an exploration of the complex realities of African American life in the 1990s.
500
The Wiz
This 1975 Broadway production starring Diana Ross and Michael Jackson won seven Tony Awards, including Best Musical. The musical was an early example of Broadway's mainstream acceptance of works with an all-black cast
500
Niagara Movement
This movement was formed in part as a protest to Booker T. Washington’s policy of accommodation to white society and embraced a more radical approach, calling for immediate equality in all areas of American life.
500
Lusia Harris
She scored the first ever points in women’s Olympic basketball tournament history during the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal, Canada
500
Valerie Thomas
This person received a patent in 1980 for inventing an illusion transmitter. This futuristic invention extends the idea of television, with its images located flatly behind a screen, to having three dimensional projections appear as though they were right in your living room