Black Music
This singer is widely known as "The Queen of Soul."
Aretha Franklin
This actor, known for his distinctive voice, won an Academy Award for his role in "Million Dollar Baby" and portrayed God in "Bruce Almighty."
Morgan Freeman
This American writer, poet, and civil rights activist penned the groundbreaking 1969 autobiography "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings."
Maya Angelou
This civil rights activist refused to give up her seat on a segregated bus in 1955, sparking the Montgomery Bus Boycott.
Rosa Parks
This Edmonton-born right wing—nicknamed ‘Iggy’—became the first Black captain in NHL history with the Calgary Flames, led the league in goals and points in 2001–02, won the Art Ross, Maurice Richard, and Lester B. Pearson awards that same season, and was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 2020.
Jarome Iginla
This 1982 album is the best selling album of all time, selling over 70 million copies.
Thriller (Michael Jackson)
Whoopi Goldberg stars as a lounge singer that is placed in a convent for witness protection in this movie.
Sister Act
This document containing the names and descriptions of 3000 Black refugees was the title of a 2007 novel by Lawrence Hill.
Book of Negroes
This organization’s legal team, led by Thurgood Marshall, argued the landmark 1954 Supreme Court case Brown v. Board of Education.
NAACP
Born Aubrey Graham in 1986, he grew up between working‑class Weston Road and the affluent Forest Hill neighborhood in Toronto, raised by his Jewish-Canadian mother and musically inclined father—a drummer from Memphis—before landing his breakout role as Jimmy Brooks on Degrassi.
Drake
She was the first woman to land three number-one songs on Billboard’s streaming charts in a single year.
Megan Thee Stallion
This tough, comedic grandmother created by Tyler Perry has appeared in numerous stage plays and films, often delivering life lessons with humor and sass.
Madea
In 1993, she became the first Black woman to win the Nobel Prize in Literature.
Toni Morrison
Before becoming a conductor on the Underground Railroad, Harriet Tubman was born Araminta Ross in this U.S. state.
Maryland
In 1946, this Black Nova Scotian businesswoman challenged racial segregation by refusing to leave a whites-only section of a movie theatre in New Glasgow.
This Marvin Gaye album, released in 1971, explores issues like war and poverty.
What's Goin On
Jordan Peele was the first Black director to win Best Original Screenplay for this horror film.
Get Out
This autobiography was an Oprah's Book Club 2.0 selection, sold over 14 million copies, and won the 2020 Grammy for Best Spoken Word Album. (Title and author)
Becoming by Michelle Obama
Elected in 1968, she was the first Black woman to serve in the U.S. Congress and later became the first Black major-party candidate to run for President.
Shirley Chisholm.
This man made history as the first Black Canadian elected to the House of Commons, the first Black federal Cabinet minister, and later became the 24th Lieutenant Governor of Ontario.
Lincoln Alexander
This city is widely acknowledged as the birthplace of Hip Hop.
New York City (The Bronx)
In 1940, she won Best Supporting Actress for her role in Gone with the Wind. She was also the first Black person to win an Academy Award.
Hattie McDaniel
This author of "Go Tell It on the Mountain" and "The Fire Next Time" explored themes of race, identity, and sexuality in mid-20th-century America.
James Baldwin
The last speech given by Martin Luther King Jr, delivered the night before his assassination, is famously known by this prophetic title.
“I’ve Been to the Mountaintop?"
Born in Edmonton in 1919, she became known as 'Canada’s First Lady of Jazz,' the first woman—and the first Black entertainer—to star in her own national CBC TV series in 1955, and was later made a Member of the Order of Canada.
Eleanor Collins