Celebrities
Born in Brooklyn-this American Basketball player has been named an NBA All-Star ten times and an All-NBA Team member six times. He played college basketball for the Syracuse Orange and played 6 seasons with NY Knicks.
Carmelo Anthony
An American fashion designer and haberdasher from Harlem, New York.[1] His influential store, Dapper Dan's Boutique, operated from 1982–92 and is most associated with introducing high fashion to the hip hop world
Dapper Dan
Apollo
The first African-American governor of New York, was sworn into the office in 2008 after serving as former Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s lieutenant governor beginning in 2007.
David Paterson
This American actress, who passed away last week a the age of 96, had a career spanning more than seven decades, she became known for her portrayal of strong African-American women. She was the recipient of three Primetime Emmy Awards, four Black Reel Awards, one Screen Actors Guild Award, one Tony Award, an honorary Academy Award, and a Peabody Award.
Cicely Tyson
Jay-z
A culture and art movement that was created by African Americans, Latino Americans and Caribbean Americans in the Bronx, New York City.
Hip Hop
Founded in the 1840s, this community was one of the country's first communities of free African Americans. Many had fled from Manhattan during the draft riots of 1863 to escape lynching.
Weeksville Heritage Center in Brooklyn
In 2019, became the first woman and the first African American woman elected as NY's attorney general.
Letitia James
He was the first, and only, African American to become mayor of New York City.
David Dinkins
Born in Bedford-Stuyvesant and raised in Harlem, the actress and author made her film debut in Precious (2009) From 2015-2020, she starred in Fox's Empire.
Gabourey Sidibe
This dance theater began in 1958 in New York City, New York as a repertory company of seven African American dancers performing both Ailey’s work and also classic modern pieces. They were soon acknowledged as the preeminent dance company articulating African American themes.
Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater
This Harlem cultural institution focuses explicitly on the history and culture of people of African descent. It is part of the New York Public Library system and was named after Afro-Puerto Rican scholar Arturo Alfonso Schomburg. In January 2017, it was officially declared a National Historic Landmark.
Schomburg Center For Research In Black Culture
An American activist from The Bronx, New York who started the Me Too movement. In 2006, she began using #metoo to help other women with similar experiences to stand up for themselves
Tarana Burke
Activist, model, and prominent figure of gay liberation movement who was energized by a police raid on Stonewall Inn.
Marsha P. Johnson
From Mt. Vernon, NY this actor was ranked by The New York Times as the greatest actor of the 21st century. He has received seventeen NAACP Image Awards, three Golden Globe Awards, one Tony Award, and two Academy Awards: for films Glory (1989) and Training Day (2001).
Denzel Washington
An American artist of Haitian and Puerto Rican descent used social commentary in his paintings as a tool for introspection and for identifying with his experiences in the black community of his time
Jean-Michel Basquiat
Long before the building at 3940 Broadway in Washington Heights became a memorial to civil rights activists, he was also assassinated here, it functioned as a theater and dance hall known as the Audubon Ballroom. Today, the building is an educational and cultural center that focuses on the advancement of human rights and social justice.
Malcolm X & Dr. Betty Shabazz Memorial, Educational And Cultural Center
As a civil rights lawyer, she has worked in the department of education, for a federal judge, and throughout New York state and local government. Toady, she runs the Center for Law and Social Justice at Medgar Evers College in Brooklyn, which offers free legal services to people facing voter suppression, police brutality, discrimination, and other issues.
Esmeralda Simmons
Known as the "Father of Harlem" this real estate mogul created Afro-American Realty Company to counter the prejudices and discrimination that many Black Americans faced in NYC.
Philip A. Payton
Born in Manhattan, this comedian, author, and television personality is one of sixteen entertainers to have won an Emmy Award, a Grammy Award, an Academy Award, and a Tony Award.
Whoopi Goldberg
A musical comedy by composer Eubie Blake and lyricist Noble Sissle which featured an all-black cast, was the most significant achievement in black theatre of its time. Shuffle Along opened at the Howard Theatre in Washington, D.C., in late March, 1921 for two weeks.
Shuffle Along
In 1991, construction workers stumbled upon the graves of 424 African Americans while getting ready to lay the foundation for a new federal building. As it turned out, the site was once a swamp-like area where people of African descent—often enslaved—were buried
African Burial Ground National Monument
American astrophysicist, planetary scientist, author, and science communicator.
Neil deGrasse Tyson
A prolific writer who authored numerous influential books, co-founded Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press, and spoke at the 1979 National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights.
Audre Lorde