1900s 1901 • First African American invited to dine at the
White House:
Booker T. Washington 1902 • First African-American professional
basketball player:
Harry Lew (New England Professional Basketball League) (See also: 1950) • First African-American professional
American football player:
Charles Follis • First African-American boxing champion:
Joe Gans, a lightweight (See also: 1908) • First African-American artist whose work became a part of the
White House collection:
Lottie Wilson Jackson 1903 • First Broadway musical written by African Americans, and the first to star African Americans:
In Dahomey • First African-American woman to found and become president of a bank:
Maggie L. Walker, St. Luke Penny Savings Bank (since 1930 the Consolidated Bank & Trust Company), Richmond, Virginia • First African American to be appointed as an
Assistant United States Attorney:
William H. Lewis • First African American to earn a Ph.D. in
philosophy:
Thomas Nelson Baker Sr. 1904 • First Greek-letter fraternal organization founded by African Americans:
Sigma Pi Phi • First African American to participate in the Olympic Games, and first to win a medal:
George Poage (two bronze medals)
1905 • First African-American to earn a
doctorate degree in
educational psychology (
University of Chicago,
Chicago):
Charles Henry Thompson • First African American to head a public library (Western Branch Library of the
Louisville Free Public Library):
Thomas Fountain Blue 1906 • First intercollegiate Greek-letter organization founded by African Americans:
Alpha Phi Alpha (ΑΦΑ), at
Cornell University • First academically trained African-American forester:
Ralph E. Brock at the
Pennsylvania State Forest Academy 1907 • First African-American
Greek Orthodox priest and missionary in America: Very Rev. Fr.
Robert Josias Morgan • First African-American
Rhodes Scholar:
Alain LeRoy Locke 1908 • First African-American
heavyweight boxing champion:
Jack Johnson (See also: 1902) • First African-American Olympic gold medal winner:
John Taylor (
track and field medley relay team). (See also: DeHart Hubbard, 1924) • First intercollegiate Greek-letter sorority established by African Americans:
Alpha Kappa Alpha (ΑΚΑ) at Howard University
1909 • First African American to reach the north pole:
Matthew Henson 1910s 1910 • First African-American female millionaire:
Madam C. J. Walker • First African-American woman to be recorded commercially:
Daisy Tapley • First African American to be appointed as one of the five
United States Assistant Attorneys General:
William H. Lewis 1911 • First intercollegiate Greek-letter fraternity founded by African-Americans at a
historically black college:
Omega Psi Phi (ΩΨΦ), at
Howard University • First African-American
police officer in New York City:
Samuel J. Battle, following the 1898 incorporation of the five boroughs into the City of New York, and the hiring of three African-American officers in the Brooklyn Police Department. Battle was also the
NYPD's first African-American
sergeant (1926),
lieutenant (1935), and
parole commissioner (1941). • First African American elected to the
Pennsylvania General Assembly:
Harry W. Bass (1911). • Established first Black Parent-Teacher Association in the country (Yonge Street School,
Atlanta, Georgia):
Selena Sloan Butler 1913 • First African American inducted into the
American College of Surgeons:
Daniel Hale Williams 1914 • First African-American military pilot:
Eugene Jacques Bullard • First African American to attend the
University of Connecticut, earning his bachelor's degree with honors in 1918:
Alan Thacker Busby.
1915 • First African-American alderman of
Chicago:
Oscar Stanton De Priest • First African American and first woman to graduate from the
University of Hawaiʻi (master's degree in
chemistry):
Alice Ball • One of the first African Americans to graduate from
Suffolk Law School: Thomas Vreeland Jones (father of
Lois Mailou Jones) • First African American to earn a Ph.D. in
physiology (
University of Chicago):
Julian Herman Lewis • Possibly the first
U.S. Navy Master Diver:
John Henry Turpin (see also 1970 (
Carl Brashear) • First African American
municipal architect in the United States:
Clarence W. Wigington • First African-American actress to sign a film contract and be a featured performer:
Madame Sul-Te-Wan 1916 • First African American to play in a
Rose Bowl game:
Fritz Pollard,
Brown University • First African American to become a
colonel in the U.S. Army:
Charles Young • First African-American woman to become a licensed
pharmacist:
Ella P. Stewart • First African American to be named a fellow in the
Royal Society of London:
George Washington Carver • First African American to earn a Ph.D. in
chemistry in the United States (
University of Illinois):
St. Elmo Brady 1917 • First African-American woman to win a major sports title:
Lucy Diggs Slowe,
American Tennis Association • First African American to earn both a
Doctor of Medicine and a Ph.D. (
physiology):
Julian Herman Lewis • First African-American woman to receive a wartime medical commission when she joined the
Red Cross in 1918 during
World War I:
Mary Louise Brown • First African-American woman to earn a
master's degree in music (from the
Chicago Musical College):
Nora Holt 1919 • First African-American special agent for the
FBI:
James Wormley Jones • First African-American women appointed as police officers: Cora I. Parchment at the
New York Police Department (NYPD) and
Georgia Ann Robinson, by the
Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) • First African American to direct a
feature film:
Oscar Micheaux (
The Homesteader) • First African American on the surgical staff of Harlem Hospital:
Louis T. Wright 1920s 1920 • First African-American
NFL football players:
Fritz Pollard (
Akron Pros) and
Bobby Marshall (
Rock Island Independents) • First African-American bishops of the
Methodist Episcopal Church:
Robert Elijah Jones and
Matthew Wesley Clair. • First African American admitted into the
American Association of Pathologists and Bacteriologists:
William Samuel Quinland • First African American to earn an unlimited mariner's license:
Hugh Mulzac • First African American to earn a Ph.D. in
psychology:
Francis Sumner, from
Clark University 1921 • First African-American woman to become an aviation pilot, and first American to hold an international pilot license:
Bessie Coleman • First African-American
NFL football coach:
Fritz Pollard, co-head coach, Akron Pros, while continuing to play
running back • First African American to earn a Ph.D. in
botany in the
United States, and the first to earn a
doctorate in any field from
Cornell University:
Thomas Wyatt Turner • First African American to found a
record label:
Harry Pace (
Black Swan Records) • First African American to be licensed as a
certified public accountant (CPA):
John Wesley Cromwell Jr. • First African-American woman to earn a
Ph.D. (
economics at the
Wharton School of the
University of Pennsylvania):
Sadie T. M. Alexander • First African-American student to graduate with a
doctorate from
Radcliffe College and the first African-American woman in America to receive a PhD in
English Philology:
Eva Beatrice Dykes 1922 • First African-American sorority established on a predominantly white campus (
Butler University in
Indianapolis, Indiana):
Sigma Gamma Rho 1923 • First African-American woman to earn a degree in library science:
Virginia Proctor Powell Florence. She earned the degree (Bachelor of Library Science) from what is now part of the
University of Pittsburgh. • First African-American woman film producer for the silent crime drama
The Flames of Wrath:
Maria P. Williams 1924 • First African American to win individual
Olympic gold medal:
DeHart Hubbard (
long jump,
1924 Summer Olympics). (See also: John Taylor, 1908) • First African American to head a
U.S. Veterans Administration hospital (Tuskegee Veterans Hospital): Joseph H. Ward • First African American woman elected to the national board of the
Young Women's Christian Association (YWCA):
Elizabeth Ross Haynes • First African-American woman to publish in the
Science journal:
Roger Arliner Young • First woman from
Georgia and the first African-American woman in the nation to serve on the
National Republican Committee; later in the same year, first woman in U.S. history accorded the floor of the National Republican Convention:
Mamie George S. Williams • First person to graduate from the
Howard University art department:
Alma Thomas • First African-American woman to pass the
National Board of Medical Examiners:
Lillian Atkins Clark 1925 • First African-American
Foreign Service Officer:
Clifton R. Wharton Sr. • First African American to earn a Ph.D. in
civil engineering: George Maceo Jones, from the
University of Michigan • First African American to earn a Ph.D. in
mathematics:
Elbert Frank Cox, from
Cornell University • First African American to perform with a major European opera company:
Lillian Evanti 1926 • First African-American woman to practice law before the
United States Supreme Court:
Violette Neatley Anderson • First African American to become a member of the
American Institute of Architects:
Paul R. Williams 1927 • First African American to become an officer in the
New York Fire Department in New York City:
Wesley Augustus Williams. • First African-American woman to star in a foreign
motion picture:
Josephine Baker in
La Sirène des tropiques. • First African American certified by the
American Board of Otolaryngology: William Harry Barnes
1928 • First post-
Reconstruction African-American elected to
U.S. House of Representatives and first African American to be elected to Congress from a Northern state:
Oscar Stanton De Priest (
Republican;
Illinois) • First African-American woman to serve in a state legislature:
Minnie Buckingham Harper,
West Virginia 1929 • First African-American
sportscaster:
Sherman "Jocko" Maxwell (
WNJR,
Newark, New Jersey) • First
African-American woman in the United States to earn a
PhD in
education:
Jane Ellen McAllister • First African-American police surgeon with the
New York Police Department:
Louis T. Wright 1930s 1930 • First African American to win a state high school basketball championship:
David "Big Dave" DeJernett, star center on an integrated Washington, Indiana team. • First African-American woman to receive a
Guggenheim Fellowship:
Nella Larsen 1931 • First African-American composer to have their symphony performed by a leading orchestra:
William Grant Still,
Symphony No. 1, by Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra • First African-American woman to graduate from Yale Law School:
Jane Matilda Bolin • First African-American physician to become a certified Diplomate of the
American Board of Obstetrics and Gynecology:
Peter Marshall Murray • First African-American nurse to earn an
M.A. in
nursing education:
Estelle Massey Osborne • First African-American professor of
pharmacology in the United States (
Howard University College of Medicine): Arnold Hamilton Maloney Jr. • First African-American Ph.D. in anthropology:
William Montague Cobb • First African-American woman to receive a
law degree from
Fordham University in
New York City:
Eunice Carter • First African American to earn a Ph.D. in
pathology: Robert Stuart Jason • First African Americans to successfully complete a transcontinental flight: James Herman Banning and Thomas C. Allen
1933 • First African-American woman to earn a
doctorate in
psychology (
University of Cincinnati):
Inez Prosser • First African-American woman to earn a
Ph.D. in a
natural science (
bacteriology):
Ruth Ella Moore • First African-American woman to win the
USA Outdoor Track and Field Championships (
50-meter dash):
Louise Stokes 1934 • First African American elected to the U.S. House of Representatives as a
Democrat:
Arthur W. Mitchell (Illinois) • First
trade union set up for African-American
domestic workers by
Dora Lee Jones • First African American elected as a Fellow of the
American College of Surgeons (ACS):
Louis T. Wright • First African American elected to the
National Association of Women Painters and Sculptors:
Augusta Savage 1935 • First African American certified by the American Board of Dermatology and Syphilology (name changed in 1955 to
American Board of Dermatology):
Theodore K. Lawless • First African American certified by the
American Board of Obstetrics and Gynecology: Julian Waldo Ross • First African American certified in
roentgenology by the
American Board of Radiology: William E. Allen Jr. • First African-American woman to earn a
Ph.D. in
botany (
Iowa State University):
Jesse Jarue Mark • First African-American woman to earn a degree at the
University of Oxford (bachelor of literature degree (B.Litt.) in
international relations):
Merze Tate 1936 • First African American to conduct a major U.S.
orchestra:
William Grant Still (
Los Angeles Philharmonic) • First African-American women selected for the Olympic Games:
Tidye Pickett and Louise Stokes. Stokes did not compete; Picket competed in the
80-meter hurdles • First African-American woman to earn a Ph.D. in
Home Economics, and the first African-American woman to earn a Ph.D. from Cornell University:
Flemmie Pansy Kittrell • First African-American physician to be elected a diplomate of the American Board of Urology: Richard Francis Jones • First African-American woman
cartoonist and creator of the
Torchy Brown comic strip:
Jackie Ormes • First African American to be admitted to the level of diplomate by the
American Board of Pathology:
William Samuel Quinland • First African American to become a
thoracic surgeon:
Frederick Douglass Stubbs 1938 • First African-American woman federal agency head:
Mary McLeod Bethune (
National Youth Administration) • First African-American woman elected to a state legislature:
Crystal Bird Fauset (
Pennsylvania General Assembly) • First African-American woman to earn a pilot's license in the United States:
Willa Brown • First African-American pilot to fly
airmail in the United States:
Grover C. Nash 1939 • First African American to star in her own television program:
Ethel Waters,
The Ethel Waters Show, on
NBC 1940s 1940 • First African-American woman to win an
Oscar:
Hattie McDaniel (
Best Supporting Actress,
Gone with the Wind, 1939) • First African American to be portrayed on a U.S.
postage stamp:
Booker T. Washington • First African-American
flag officer:
BG Benjamin O. Davis Sr., U.S. Army • First African American to earn a doctorate in library science:
Eliza Atkins Gleason, from the
University of Chicago • First African-American woman to earn a
PhD in
Zoology (
University of Pennsylvania):
Roger Arliner Young • First African-American woman in the United States to earn a Ph.D. in
history:
Marion Thompson Wright • First African American selected to be a diplomate of the
American Board of Internal Medicine:
Henry Arthur Callis • First African American to set foot on the continent of
Antarctica (
Little America III):
George W. Gibbs Jr. • First African-American woman to earn a pilot’s license from the
Civil Aeronautics Authority:
Dorothy Layne McIntyre 1941 • First African American to give a White House Command Performance:
Josh White • First African-American woman to earn a Ph.D. in
anatomy:
Smith Lloyd, from
Western Reserve University • First medical research presentation by an African-American physician given at an
American Medical Association convention:
Leonidas Berry • First African American
air traffic controller for the
Civil Aeronautics Administration:
Oscar Holmes • First African American to serve as an Acting Field Director for the
Red Cross:
Bess Bolden Walcott 1942 christens the , the first large oceangoing ship named for an African American. • First African American to be awarded the
Navy Cross:
Doris Miller • First African-American member of the
U.S. Marine Corps:
Alfred Masters • First African-American inadvertently commissioned in the U.S. Navy as a
Limited duty Flight instructor:
Oscar Holmes • First African American to captain a
U.S. Merchant Marine ship, the :
Hugh Mulzac • First African American to become an officer in the
Civil Air Patrol:
Willa Brown • First African American to earn a
doctorate in
geology in the United States:
Marguerite Williams • First African American to become a commissioned officer in the U.S. Navy: Bernard W. Robinson • First African American woman to sign a long-term contract with a major film studio:
Lena Horne • First African-American
Women's Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC) assigned as a commanding officer of what was otherwise an all-white unit:
Anna Mac Clarke • First African-American woman licensed as an
architect (
Illinois):
Beverly Lorraine Greene • First African American promoted to colonel in the
Army Medical Corps:
Midian Othello Bousfield 1943 •
Martin A. Martin, first African American to become a member of the Trial Bureau of the
United States Department of Justice, was sworn in on May 31, 1943. • First African-American woman to earn a Ph.D. in mathematics:
Euphemia Haynes, from
Catholic University of America • First African-American woman to perform a successful open-heart surgery:
Myra Adele Logan • First African American to earn a Ph.D. in
chemical engineering in the United States: Harry James Green Jr., from
Ohio State University • First African-American combat fighter pilot to shoot down an enemy aircraft:
Charles B. Hall • First African-American man to have a US warship named after him:
Leonard Roy Harmon () • First African-American woman to be a
certified public accountant in the United States:
Mary T. Washington • First African-American woman to earn an unlimited commercial pilot's license:
Janet Bragg • First Black medical unit of the
United States Army Nurse Corps to deploy overseas (
Liberia) for
World War II service:
25th Station Hospital Unit 1944 • First African-American
commissioned Line officers in the U.S. Navy: The "
Golden Thirteen" • First African-American commissioned as a U.S. Navy officer from the
Naval Reserve Officer Training Corps:
Samuel Gravely • First female African-American commissioned Navy officers:
Harriet Ida Pickens and
Frances Wills • First African American to receive a contract with a major U.S. opera company:
Camilla Williams • First known African-American
comic book artist:
Matt Baker in
Jumbo Comics #69 for
Fiction House • First African-American reporter to attend a U.S. presidential news conference:
Harry McAlpin • First African American to be awarded the
Distinguished Flying Cross:
Charles B. Hall • First African American to win the
Walter Naumburg Award:
Carol Brice • First African-American woman to be certified as an overseas war correspondent in
World War II:
Elizabeth Murphy Moss • First African American to graduate from the
United States Merchant Marine Academy: Joseph Banks Williams
1945 • First African-American member of the
New York City Opera:
Todd Duncan • First African-American
U.S. Marine Corps officer:
Frederick C. Branch • First African American sworn in as a
U.S. Navy nurse:
Phyllis Mae Dailey • First African-American woman to enter the
U.S. Coast Guard:
Olivia Hooker • First African American to serve as a federal judge in the United States (
U.S. Customs Court now known as the U.S. Court of International Trade):
Irvin C. Mollison 1946 • First African American to sign a contract with an NFL team in the modern (post-World War II) era:
Kenny Washington • First African-American radiologist to be elected a member of the
Society for Pediatric Radiology: John E. Moseley • First African-American woman to earn a
civil engineering degree (
Howard University):
Hattie Scott Peterson 1947 • First African-American
Major League Baseball player
of the modern era:
Jackie Robinson (
Brooklyn Dodgers). (See also:
William Edward White, 1879;
Moses Fleetwood Walker, 1884) • First African-American
Major League Baseball player in the
American League:
Larry Doby (
Cleveland Indians) • First African-American consensus college All-American basketball player:
Don Barksdale • First African American to play in a major college football game at an all-white university south of the Mason-Dixon Line, at the
University of Virginia:
Chester Middlebrook Pierce • First
comic book produced entirely by African Americans:
All-Negro Comics • First African-American full-time faculty member at a predominantly white law school:
William Robert Ming (
University of Chicago Law School) (See also: 1948) • First African American faculty member of
Springfield College:
Harold Amos • First African American resident at
St. Luke's Hospital in Chicago:
James E. Bowman • First African-American woman to receive a Ph.D. in
chemistry in the United States:
Marie Maynard Daly • First African-American professor to win tenure at a top-ranked, predominantly white university in the country (at the
University of Chicago):
Allison Davis • First African American selected to become a member of the
American College of Chest Physicians (CHEST): J. Edmond Bryant • First African American certified by the
American Board of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation: Harvey F. Davis (See also:
Sidney Poitier, 1964) • First African American on an Olympic basketball team and first African-American Olympic gold medal basketball winner:
Don Barksdale, in the
1948 Summer Olympics • First African Americans to play in the
Cotton Bowl Classic:
Wallace Triplett and Dennis Hoggard • First African American to design and construct a professional
golf course:
Bill Powell • First African American knowingly trained and commissioned as a
U.S. Naval aviator:
Jesse L. Brown • First African-American composer to have an
opera performed by a major U.S. company:
William Grant Still (
Troubled Island,
New York City Opera) • First African-American woman to win an Olympic medal (bronze for third place in the 200-meter dash):
Audrey Patterson • First African-American woman to win an Olympic gold medal (high jump):
Alice Coachman • First African American since
Reconstruction to enroll at a traditionally white university of the
South: Silas Hunt (
University of Arkansas Law School) • First known African-American star of a regularly scheduled
network television series:
Bob Howard,
The Bob Howard Show (See also: 1956) • First African-American man to graduate from
Oregon State College:
William Tebeau • First African-American female reporter to travel with a U.S. president (
Harry S. Truman's
election campaign):
Alice Allison Dunnigan • First
clinician to investigate the treatment of humans with
Aureomycin:
Louis T. Wright • First African American to serve as a
Supreme Court law clerk:
William Thaddeus Coleman Jr. • First African-American nurse elected to the board of directors of a state nursing association (Florida):
Mary Elizabeth Carnegie • First African American to play with a major American orchestra (
double bassist with the
Los Angeles Philharmonic):
Henry Lewis • First African-American enlisted woman to be sworn into the regular Navy:
Edna Young • First African American member of the
American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE):
Howard P. Grant • First African American to chair a committee of the United States Congress: Representative
William Dawson (D-IL). • First African American to hold the rank of
Ambassador of the United States:
Edward R. Dudley, ambassador, and previously minister, to
Liberia (See also: 1869) • First African American to win an
MVP award in
Major League Baseball:
Jackie Robinson (
Brooklyn Dodgers,
National League) (See also: Elston Howard, 1963) • First African-American-owned and -operated radio station:
WERD, established October 3, 1949, in Atlanta, Georgia by Jesse B. Blayton Sr. • First African-American woman president of an
NAACP chapter nationwide:
Florence LeSueur of Boston's NAACP chapter. • First African-American women to earn a
doctor of veterinary medicine degree:
Jane Hinton and
Alfreda Johnson Webb • First African American to sing at a U.S. presidential inauguration (
Harry S. Truman):
Dorothy Maynor • First African-American woman to earn a Ph.D. in
entomology:
Margaret S. Collins • First African American to sit in the House of Delegates of the
American Medical Association, representing the Medical Society of the County of New York:
Peter Marshall Murray • First African American certified by the
American Board of Orthopaedic Surgery: J. Robert Gladden • First African American
United States circuit judge to serve on the
United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit:
William H. Hastie • First African American jet pilot instructor (
Williams Air Force Base in
Arizona):
John L. Whitehead Jr. 1950s 1950 • First African American to win a
Tony Award:
Juanita Hall (
Best Featured Actress in a Musical,
South Pacific) • First African American to win a
Pulitzer Prize:
Gwendolyn Brooks (book of poetry,
Annie Allen, 1949) • First African American to win the
Nobel Peace Prize:
Ralph Bunche • First African American to receive a "
lifetime" appointment as federal judge:
William H. Hastie, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit • First African-American woman to compete on the world tennis tour:
Althea Gibson • First African-American solo singer to have a #1 hit on the
Billboard charts:
Nat King Cole ("
Mona Lisa"), topped "Best Sellers in Stores" chart on July 15 (See also: Mills Brothers, 1943; Count Basie, 1947; Tommy Edwards, 1958; The Platters, 1959) • First African-American delegate to the
United Nations:
Edith S. Sampson (See also: 1961) • First African-American
NBA basketball players:
Nat "Sweetwater" Clifton (
New York Knicks),
Chuck Cooper (
Boston Celtics), and
Earl Lloyd (
Washington Capitols). Note:
Harold Hunter was the first to sign an NBA contract, signing with the
Washington Capitols on April 26, 1950. However, he was cut from the team during training camp and did not play professionally. (See also: 1902) • First African American elected a Fellow in the
American College of Physicians:
Edward E. Holloway • First African-American woman certified by the American Board of Dermatology and Syphilology (name changed in 1955 to
American Board of Dermatology): Hilda G. Straker • First African American to earn a
PhD in
metallurgical engineering:
Frank Crossley 1951 • First African-American named to the
College Football Hall of Fame:
Duke Slater,
University of Iowa (1918–1921) • First African-American
quarterback to become a regular starter for a
professional football team:
Bernie Custis (
Hamilton Tiger-Cats) • First African-American woman to earn a
Ph.D. in Art and the
History of Art (
Ohio State University):
Samella Lewis 1952 • First African-American woman elected to a U.S.
state senate:
Cora Brown (
Michigan) • First African-American U.S. Marine Corps aviator:
Frank E. Petersen • First African-American woman to be nominated for a national political office:
Charlotta Bass, Vice President (
Progressive Party) (See also: 2000, 2020) • First African-American baseball player to appear in or win a
College World Series:
Don Eaddy • First African American to earn a
doctoral degree from Harvard's Division of Medical Sciences:
Harold Amos • First African-American woman to receive a Ford Foundation science fellowship to study abroad:
Mary Logan Reddick • First African-American tenured professor in the University of California system and the first tenured African-American faculty member in a STEM field at a top-ranked, predominantly white institution in the United States: Joseph Thomas Gier • First African-American woman to earn a
Ph.D. in
cultural anthropology (
Cornell University): Manet Helen Fowler • First African-American woman to clerk for the
U.S. Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims: Janene D. Jackson
1953 • First African-American
basketball player to play in the
NBA All-Star Game: Don Barksdale in the
1953 NBA All-Star Game • First African American elected president of the
National Health Council: Albert Walker Dent • First African-American physician elected a diplomate of the American Board of Neurosurgery: Clarence Sumner Greene • One of the first two African-American women on the faculty at a
southern medical school and the first African American on the staff of the Louisville Children's Hospital and on the faculty at the
University of Louisville School of Medicine:
Grace Marilynn James • First African American to sing at
La Scala,
Milan, Italy:
Mattiwilda Dobbs • First African-American driver in NASCAR:
Wendell Scott (See also: 2015)
1954 • First African-American U.S. Navy Diver:
Carl Brashear • First individual African-American woman as subject on the cover of
Life magazine:
Dorothy Dandridge, November 1, 1954 • First African-American page for the
U.S. Supreme Court, and first to be enrolled in the
Capitol Page School:
Charles V. Bush • First African American enrolled in the
University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences,
Little Rock:
Samuel L. Kountz • First African-American woman to earn a Ph.D. in
political science:
Jewel Prestage • First African-American woman to join the
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers:
Hattie Scott Peterson • First African-American male dancer in a major
ballet company:
Arthur Mitchell (
New York City Ballet); also first African-American principal dancer of a major ballet company (NYCB), 1956. (See also: 1969) • First African-American female dancer in a major
ballet company (
Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo):
Raven Wilkinson • First African-American pilot of a scheduled U.S. airline: August Martin (cargo airline
Seaboard & Western Airlines) (See also: 1964) • First African American to serve as a presidential executive assistant:
E. Frederic Morrow, appointed by President Eisenhower as Administrative Officer for Special Projects. • First African-American woman to earn a Ph.D. in
mathematics education:
Angie Turner King, from the
University of Pittsburgh • First African American certified by the American Board of Cardiovascular Diseases:
Edward E. Holloway • First African American elected to the national board of the
American Institute of Chemists (AIC):
Lloyd Hall • First African American nominated for the
Academy Award for Best Actress:
Dorothy Dandridge • First African-American woman appointed as an assistant
United States attorney for the
United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois:
Jewel Lafontant • First African-American woman physician in the
U.S. Army:
Clotilde Dent Bowen 1956 • First African-American star of a nationwide network TV show:
Nat King Cole of The Nat King Cole Show,
NBC (See also: 1948) • First African American to break the color barrier in a
bowl game in the
Deep South:
Bobby Grier (
Pittsburgh Panthers in the
1956 Sugar Bowl) • First African-American
Wimbledon tennis champion:
Althea Gibson (doubles, with Englishwoman
Angela Buxton); also first African American to win a
Grand Slam event (
French Open). • First African-American
U.S. Secret Service agent:
Charles Gittens • First African American to win the
Cy Young Award as the top
pitcher in
Major League Baseball, in the award's inaugural year:
Don Newcombe (
Brooklyn Dodgers) • First African-American woman to become president of a four-year, fully accredited liberal arts college:
Willa Beatrice Player (
Bennett College) • First African American to earn a Ph.D. in dairy technology: Emmett Bassett, from the
Ohio State University • First African-American member of the
United States Army Chorus:
George Shirley • First African American be named head coach of the U.S. Olympic Women's Track and Field Team:
Nell Jackson • First African American to serve as assistant editor of
Poetry: A Magazine of Verse:
Margaret Danner • First African-American woman to play in a national championship conducted by the
United States Golf Association (USGA):
Ann Gregory • First African-American woman to earn a degree from
Louisiana State University (
master’s degree in
education): Pearl Payne
1957 • First African-American woman Wimbledon Tennis Champion and first African-American woman to be ranked number one in the world:
Althea Gibson • First African-American assistant coach in the
NFL:
Lowell W. Perry (See also: 1966) • First African American to win
Major League Baseball's
Gold Glove, in the award's inaugural year:
Willie Mays (
New York Giants) • First African American to work as a botanist at the
United States National Arboretum:
Roland Jefferson • First African-American woman to play professional
roller derby:
Darlene Anderson • First African American to be elected to the
American Institute of Architects College of Fellows (
FAIA):
Paul R. Williams • First African-American pilot of a regularly scheduled commercial airline in the United States (
New York Airways hired in 1956):
Perry H. Young Jr. 1958 • First African-American
flight attendant:
Ruth Carol Taylor (
Mohawk Airlines) • First African American to reach number-one on the
Billboard Hot 100:
Tommy Edwards ("
It's All in the Game") •
NASA’s first African-American woman engineer:
Mary Jackson • First African American to become a member of the
International Skeletal Society: Gadson Jack Tarlton, Jr. • First African American to graduate from the
U.S. Air Force Test Pilot School:
John L. Whitehead Jr. • First Black player in the
National Hockey League (NHL) (Made his debut with the
Boston Bruins on January 18):
Willie O'Ree 1959 • First African-American
Grammy Award winners, in the award's inaugural year:
Ella Fitzgerald and
Count Basie (two awards each) • First African-American television journalist:
Louis Lomax • First African American to win a major national player of the year award in college basketball:
Oscar Robertson,
USBWA Player of the Year (in that award's inaugural year) • First African-American woman to become a member of the
American Institute of Architects (AIA):
Norma Merrick Sklarek • First African-American woman surgeon to become a fellow of the
American College of Surgeons:
Dorothy Lavinia Brown • First African American named as an examiner for the
American Board of Ophthalmology: Howard Phillip Venable • First African American to appear on television with what is believed to be a natural African hair style (
CBS culture series
Camera Three):
Cicely Tyson • First African American elected president of the
American Association of Physical Anthropologists (AAPA):
William Montague Cobb • First African American to earn a Ph.D. in
meteorology:
Charles E. Anderson, from the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology • First African American to attend a
whites-only elementary school in the
Deep South:
Ruby Bridges (
William Frantz Elementary School during the
New Orleans school desegregation crisis)
1961 • First African American to win the
Heisman Trophy:
Ernie Davis • First African American to serve on a
U.S. district court:
James Benton Parsons, appointed by President
John F. Kennedy to the
U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois • First African American to serve on the
United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan:
Wade H. McCree • First African-American delegate to the
North Atlantic Treaty Organization:
Edith S. Sampson (See also: 1950) • First African American to go over Niagara Falls:
Nathan Boya a.k.a. William FitzGerald • First African American to join the
PGA Tour:
Charlie Sifford • First African-American singer to maintain a sustained relationship with the
Metropolitan Opera:
Leontyne Price • First African American to perform a kidney transplant and made medical history by performing the first kidney transplant using a non-twin donor:
Samuel L. Kountz • First African American to be appointed as the U.S. representative to the
International Atomic Energy Agency: George W. Reed • First African-American officer to command a U.S. Navy ship:
Samuel L. Gravely Jr. (
USS Theodore E. Chandler (DD-717)) • First African American United States circuit judge to serve on the
United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit:
Thurgood Marshall 1962 • First African American to be inducted into the
Baseball Hall of Fame:
Jackie Robinson (See also:
Satchel Paige, 1971) • First African-American coach in
Major League Baseball:
John Jordan "Buck" O'Neil (
Chicago Cubs) • First African-American
attorney general of a state:
Edward Brooke (
Massachusetts) (See also: 1966) • First African-American student admitted to the University of Mississippi:
James Meredith • First African-American
Navy Seal:
William Goines • First African-American woman certified by the
American Board of Radiology: Sarah Ewell Payton • First African American and youngest person appointed as commissioner of the
Federal Trade Commission:
A. Leon Higginbotham Jr. • First African American to work as a news correspondent for an American television network (
ABC) as a
United Nations reporter:
Malvin Russell Goode 1963 • First African-American bank examiner for the
United States Department of the Treasury:
Roland Burris • First African American to graduate from the University of Mississippi:
James Meredith • First African-American named as
Time magazine's Man of the Year:
Martin Luther King Jr. • First African American to win a
NASCAR Grand National event:
Wendell Scott • First African-American police officer of the NYPD to be named a precinct commander:
Lloyd Sealy, commander of the NYPD's 28th Precinct in Harlem. (See also: Jackie Robinson, 1949) • First African-American
chess master:
Walter Harris • First African American to appear as a series regular on a primetime dramatic television series:
Cicely Tyson,
East Side/West Side (
CBS). • First African American to be nominated for a
Primetime Emmy Award:
Diahann Carroll, for
Outstanding Single Performance by an Actress in a Lead Role, for the episode "A Horse Has a Big Head, Let Him Worry" of
Naked City (See also: 1968) • First African Americans inducted into the
Basketball Hall of Fame:
New York Renaissance, inducted as a team (See also: Bob Douglas, 1972; Bill Russell, 1975; Clarence Gaines, 1982) • First African American to graduate from the
U.S. Air Force Academy:
Charles V. Bush • First African-American man to obtain a Ph.D. in
geology:
Mack Gipson • First African-American woman chemist hired by the
National Bureau of Standards:
Reatha Clark King 1964 • First African American to join the
Ladies Professional Golf Association:
Althea Gibson • First African-American pilot for a major commercial airline:
David E. Harris,
American Airlines (See also: 1955 and
Marlon Green) • First African-American man to win an
Oscar:
Sidney Poitier (Best Actor,
Lilies of the Field, 1963) • First movie with African-American interracial marriage:
One Potato, Two Potato, actors
Bernie Hamilton and
Barbara Barrie, written by
Orville H. Hampton, Raphael Hayes, directed by
Larry Peerce • First African-American baseball player to be named the
Major League Baseball World Series MVP:
Bob Gibson, St. Louis Cardinals • First African-American woman to graduate from the
University of San Francisco: Dr. Mary Edna Davidson • First African American promoted to
lieutenant colonel in the Army Nurse Corps:
Margaret E. Bailey • First African-American woman to earn a contract with an American national symphony – with the
Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra as principal
keyboardist:
Patricia Prattis Jennings • First African-American woman to be awarded the
Presidential Medal of Freedom:
Lena Frances Edwards • First African-American president of the
Actors' Equity Association:
Frederick O'Neal • First African American to win a
PGA Tour event (
Waco Turner Open):
Pete Brown • First African American to serve on the
United States District Court for the District of Columbia:
Spottswood W. Robinson III • First African American to serve on the
United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania:
A. Leon Higginbotham Jr. • First African-American woman and first woman appointed to the
U.S. Commission on Civil Rights:
Frankie Muse Freeman • First African-American woman appointed to the National Advisory General Medical Services (NAGMS) Council, an advisory board for
NIGMS:
Geraldine Pittman Woods 1965 • First African-American nationally
syndicated cartoonist:
Morrie Turner (
Wee Pals) • First African-American title character of a
comic book series:
Lobo (
Dell Comics). (See also: The Falcon, 1969, and Luke Cage, 1972) • First African-American star of a
network television drama:
Bill Cosby,
I Spy (co-star with
Robert Culp) • First African-American cast member of a daytime
soap opera:
Micki Grant who played Peggy Nolan Harris on
Another World until 1972. • First African-American
Playboy Playmate centerfold:
Jennifer Jackson (March issue) • First African-American
U.S. Air Force General:
Benjamin Oliver Davis Jr. (Three-star General) • First African-American woman
Ambassador of the United States:
Patricia Roberts Harris, ambassador to
Luxembourg • First African-American
NFL official:
Burl Toler, field judge/head linesman • First African American to win a national
chess championship: Frank Street Jr. (U.S. Amateur Championship) • First African-American
United States Solicitor General:
Thurgood Marshall (See also: 1967) • First African-American woman to receive a
Doctor of Juridical Science degree from
Yale Law School:
Pauli Murray • First African American to broadcast from the
United Nations:
Bea Moten-Foster • First African-American actress to portray a lead role at the
American Shakespeare Festival:
Ruby Dee • First African American inducted into the
National Academy of Sciences:
David Blackwell • First director of Health Services for the
Head Start (program) was the African-American physician:
Gertrude Hunter • First African-American woman to receive a
PhD degree in
philosophy (
Yale University):
Joyce Mitchell Cook 1966 • First African-American man to be nominated for a
Primetime Emmy Award and first African American to win a Primetime Emmy Award:
Bill Cosby,
I Spy • First team with five African-American starters to win the
NCAA basketball tournament:
1965–66 Texas Western Miners basketball team • First African-American coach in the
National Basketball Association:
Bill Russell (
Boston Celtics) • First African-American (mixed-race) model on the cover of a
Vogue (British
Vogue) magazine:
Donyale Luna • First post-
Reconstruction African-American elected to the
U.S. Senate (and first African-American elected to the U.S. Senate by
popular vote):
Edward Brooke • First African-American NFL broadcaster:
Lowell W. Perry (
CBS, on
Pittsburgh Steelers games) (See also: 1957) • First African-American fire commissioner of a major U.S. city:
Robert O. Lowery of the
New York City Fire Department • First African-American mayor in Ohio:
Robert C. Henry of
Springfield, Ohio. • First African-American woman to earn a contract with an American national symphony – with the
Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra as principal
keyboardist, playing piano, harpsichord, organ and
celesta:
Patricia Prattis Jennings • First African American doctor in the
U.S. Submarine Service when commissioned and assigned to the
USS George C. Marshall: William A. Ross • First African American appointed as faculty member of the
United States Naval Academy (
chemistry department):
Samuel P. Massie • First African American
U-2 reconnaissance aircraft pilot: James T. Whitehead • First African-American woman to become a federal judge (
United States District Court for the Southern District of New York):
Constance Baker Motley • First African American to graduate from the
U.S. Coast Guard Academy: Merle Smith • First African American United States circuit judge to serve on the
United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit:
Wade H. McCree • First African American United States circuit judge to serve on the
United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit:
Spottswood W. Robinson III 1967 • First African-American elected mayor of a large U.S. city:
Carl B. Stokes (
Cleveland, Ohio) • First African American appointed to the
Supreme Court of the United States:
Thurgood Marshall (See also: 1965) • First African American selected for astronaut training:
Robert Henry Lawrence Jr. • First African-American woman, and first woman, to appear on the cover of
Rolling Stone magazine:
Tina Turner • First African American to be inducted into the
Pro Football Hall of Fame:
Emlen Tunnell • First African-American interracial kiss on network
television: entertainers
Nancy Sinatra (Italian-American) and
Sammy Davis Jr. (African-American) on Sinatra's variety special ''
Movin' With Nancy'', airing December 11 on
NBC (See also: 1968) • First tenured African-American professor in the
University of Chicago's Biological Sciences Division:
James E. Bowman • Two African Americans became
Duke University's first Ph.D. graduates:
Ida Stephens Owens and James Roland Law • First African-American woman to be head of a Catholic hospital:
Mary Antona Ebo • First African-American woman to serve as associate dean of a major medical school (
New York Medical College):
Jane C. Wright • First African American to earn a Ph.D. in
chemistry from
North Carolina State University: Steve B. Latimer • First African-American mayor of a major American city, and the first mayor in
Washington, D.C. since 1871 when President
Lyndon Johnson appointed him:
Walter Washington • First African-American officer in the U.S. Marine Corps to lead an
infantry company into combat while serving during the
Vietnam War:
J. Gary Cooper • First African-American woman to earn a
Ph.D. from
Louisiana State University:
Pinkie Gordon Lane 1968 • First African-American interracial kiss on a network television drama:
Uhura, played by
Nichelle Nichols (African American) and
Captain Kirk, played by
William Shatner (Jewish-Canadian):
Star Trek: "
Plato's Stepchildren" (See also: 1967) • First African-American man to win a Grand Slam tennis event:
Arthur Ashe (
US Open) (See also: Althea Gibson, 1956; Serena Williams, 2003) • First African-American coach to win an
NBA championship:
Bill Russell • First African American to serve as an executive of the
United Methodist Publishing House:
W. T. Handy Jr. • First African-American woman elected to
U.S. House of Representatives:
Shirley Chisholm (
New York) • First African American and first woman appointed as a
United States Assistant Secretary of State (
Assistant Secretary of State for Consular Affairs):
Barbara M. Watson • First African American to start at
quarterback in the modern era of professional
football:
Marlin Briscoe (
Denver Broncos,
AFL) • First African-American
commissioned officer awarded the
Medal of Honor:
Riley L. Pitts • First fine-arts museum devoted to African-American work:
Studio Museum in Harlem • First African-American actress to star in her own television series where she did not play a domestic worker:
Diahann Carroll in
Julia (see also: 1963) • First African-American woman as a presidential candidate:
Charlene Mitchell (See also: Shirley Chisholm, 1972) • First African-American woman reporter for
The New York Times:
Nancy Hicks Maynard • First African-American starring character of a comic strip: Danny Raven in
Dateline: Danger! by
Al McWilliams and John Saunders. • First African-American woman to win an Olympic
800m title:
Madeline Manning • First African-American woman to work as an
epidemiologist at the
Food and Drug Administration (FDA):
Theresa Greene Reed • First African-American woman to be promoted to the rank of full
colonel in the U.S. Air Force:
Ruth A. Lucas • First African American to chair a department at
Harvard Medical School (now called the Department of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics):
Harold Amos • First African American certified in
radiologic physics by the
American Board of Radiology: Louis B. Levy • First African-American woman to be certified by the
American Board of Surgery (ABS):
Hughenna L. Gauntlett • First African American certified by the
American Board of Plastic Surgery: Vincent Porter • First African American from the
southern United States to host a daily
prime time talk show:
Xernona Clayton • First African-American woman to serve with the
Connecticut State Police (from
Durham, Connecticut) (Also first in the United States):
Louise Smith • First African-American woman promoted to the rank of colonel in the
U.S. Army:
Clotilde Dent Bowen 1969 • First African-American
superhero: The
Falcon,
Marvel Comics'
Captain America #117 (September 1969). • First African-American director of a major
Hollywood motion picture:
Gordon Parks (
The Learning Tree) • First African-American founder of a classical training school and the company of
ballet:
Arthur Mitchell,
Dance Theatre of Harlem (See also: 1955) • First African-American woman to appear on the
Grand Ole Opry:
Linda Martell • First African American to own a commercial airliner: Warren Wheeler (
Wheeler Airlines) • First African American to become a member of the
San Diego City Council:
Leon Williams • First African American to earn a
PhD in
computer science:
Clarence Ellis • First African-American man to win the
Pulitzer Prize, and the first African American awarded the
Pulitzer Prize for Feature Photography:
Moneta Sleet Jr. • First African American
United States Postal Service Assistant Postmaster General:
Ronald B. Lee • First African-American woman and first woman Senior Staff Associate of the
American Political Science Association:
Mae C. King 1970s 1970 • First African American to head an
Episcopal diocese:
John Melville Burgess,
diocesan bishop of
Massachusetts • Possibly the first African-American U.S. Navy Master Diver:
Carl Brashear (See also: 1915 (John Henry Turpin), 1954; 1968) • First African-American member of the
New York Stock Exchange:
Joseph L. Searles III • First African-American
NCAA Division I basketball coach:
Will Robinson (
Illinois State University) • First African-American contestant in the
Miss America pageant:
Cheryl Browne (
Miss Iowa) • First African-American woman (and first woman) to become a
physician's assistant:
Joyce Nichols • First African-American actress to win an
Emmy Award:
Gail Fisher for
Mannix (see also: 1971) • First African-American basketball player to win the
NBA All-Star MVP, the
NBA Finals MVP, and the
NBA MVP all in the same season:
Willis Reed (
New York Knicks) • First African American (and first American of any race) to initiate the concept of free agency. He refused to accept a trade following the 1969 season, ultimately appealing his case to the U.S. Supreme Court. The trend of free agency expanded across the entire landscape of professional sports for all races and all cultures:
Curt Flood (
St. Louis Cardinals) • First African American to become director of a major library system in America:
Clara Stanton Jones, as director of the
Detroit Public Library • First African American to perform at a
Super Bowl halftime show:
Lionel Hampton (
Super Bowl IV) • First African-American woman to attain the rank of
colonel:
Margaret E. Bailey • First African American to become a member of the
American Academy of Dermatology (AAD):
John A. Kenney Jr. • First African American selected to be president of the
American Public Health Association:
Paul Cornely • First African-American woman to be a high fashion model and the first to appear in a television commercial:
Naomi Sims • First African American to have a weekly prime-time television show under his own name (
The Flip Wilson Show):
Flip Wilson • First person (
naval engineer) credited with creating a computer-generated rough draft of a U.S. naval ship:
Raye Montague • First African-American woman commentator to appear on a national network as a radio and television commentator:
Ethel L. Payne • First African-American president of the
American Psychological Association:
Kenneth Clark • First African-American president of any major predominately-white university in the United States (
Michigan State University):
Clifton R. Wharton Jr. 1971 • First African-American
pitcher to be inducted into the
Baseball Hall of Fame:
Satchel Paige (See also:
Jackie Robinson, 1962) • First African-American president of the
New York City Board of Education:
Isaiah Edward Robinson Jr. • First African-American woman to win a
Golden Globe Award:
Gail Fisher for
Mannix (see also: 1970) • First African-American female
jockey in the United States:
Cheryl White • First African American to appear by herself on the cover of
Playboy:
Darine Stern (October issue) • First African American to become president of the
Public Library Association:
Effie Lee Morris*1971 DAV Scholarship First African American to receive scholarship to Art Institute of Chicago Mary J. Weatherspoon[tribute 20 years Disable American Veterans Association] • First African-American president of the
American Psychological Association (APA):
Kenneth B. Clark • First African American governor of the
American Board of Internal Medicine: W. Lester Henry Jr. • First African-American physician to be certified in
colorectal surgery: Bobby J. Harris • First African American to become a board member of the
American Academy of Dermatology (AAD):
John A. Kenney Jr. • First African-American to become a member of the
Radio-Television News Directors Association:
Malvin Russell Goode • First African-American to play a
Bond Girl (Thumper in
Diamonds are Forever):
Trina Parks • First woman and first African-American woman program manager of ships in the
United States Navy:
Raye Montague 1972 • First African American to campaign for the U.S. presidency in a major political party:
Shirley Chisholm (
Democratic Party) (See also: 1968) • First African-American
superhero to star in own comic-book series:
Luke Cage,
Marvel Comics'
Luke Cage, Hero for Hire #1 (June 1972). • First African-American interracial romantic kiss in a mainstream comics magazine: "The Men Who Called Him Monster", by writer
Don McGregor (See also: 1975) and artist Luis Garcia, in
Warren Publishing's black-and-white
horror-comics magazine
Creepy #43 (Jan. 1972) (See also: 1975) • First African-American interracial male kiss on network television:
Sammy Davis Jr. (mixed-race) and
Carroll O'Connor (Caucasian) in
All in the Family • First African American inducted into the
Basketball Hall of Fame: Team-owner and coach
Bob Douglas, in the category of "contributor" (See also: New York Renaissance, 1963; player Bill Russell, 1975; coach Clarence Gaines, 1982) • First African-American female
Broadway director:
Vinnette Justine Carroll (''
Don't Bother Me, I Can't Cope'') • First African-American comic-book creator to receive a "created by" cover-credit:
Wayne Howard (
Midnight Tales #1) • First Black
valedictorian of the
National Cathedral School: Fath Davis Ruffins • First African American to be awarded the
Academy Award for Best Original Song for the "
Theme from Shaft" and third African American to be awarded an
Oscar in any category:
Isaac Hayes • First African-American woman to earn a
PhD in
physics:
Willie Hobbs Moore • First blind African-American
psychiatrist in the United States: Edwin Nii Adom • First U.S. naval ship, the
USS Jesse L. Brown, that was named for an African-American officer who was the first African American naval officer killed in action during the Korean War was launched:
Jesse L. Brown • First African American principal player in a major American orchestra (
timpanist for the
San Francisco Symphony):
Elayne Jones • First African-American member of the
Federal Communications Commission (FCC):
Benjamin Hooks • First African-American woman to earn a
PhD in
chemical engineering (
University of Iowa):
Lilia A. Abron • First African-American woman to be elected mayor of a United States municipality:
Ellen Walker Craig-Jones 1973 • First African-American
artistic director of a professional regional theater:
Harold Scott (
Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park) • First African-American
Bond villain in a
James Bond movie:
Yaphet Kotto, playing
Mr. Big/Dr. Kananga,
Live and Let Die • First African-American woman to become romantically involved with James Bond:
Gloria Hendry (playing
Rosie Carver),
Live and Let Die • First African-American elected mayor of
Los Angeles:
Tom Bradley • First African-American
psychologist in the U.S. Air Force:
John D. Robinson • First African-American woman mayor of a U.S. metropolitan city of more than 50,000 residents:
Doris A. Davis,
Compton, California • First African-American woman
adult film star, Desiree West. • First African-American woman to earn a
doctorate degree from
MIT:
Shirley Ann Jackson • First African American to join the
American Chemical Society:
Dorothy J. Phillips • First African-American
chemist inducted into the
National Academy of Sciences:
Percy Lavon Julian • First African American member of the National Task Force on Organ Procurement and Transplantation: Clive Orville Callender • First U.S. destroyer,
USS Miller (FF-1091), named after an African-American:
Doris Miller (honored for his naval service and particularly his courage and actions during the
Pearl Harbor attack) • First African-American woman to earn a Ph.D. in
biophysics:
Anna Coble, from the
University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign • First African-American woman to serve as probate judge in the United States:
Edith Jacqueline Ingram Grant 1974 • First African-American model on the cover of U.S.
Vogue magazine:
Beverly Johnson • First African-American
NBA Coach of the Year:
Ray Scott (
Detroit Pistons) • First African-American woman to serve as a
United States Secret Service agent:
Zandra Flemister • First African American to become a board member of the Society for Investigative Dermatology:
John A. Kenney Jr. • First African-American woman and first woman military judge in the history of the
Marine Corps Reserve:
Sara J. Harper • First African American to serve on the
United States District Court for the Southern District of Ohio:
Robert Morton Duncan • First African American to serve on the
United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York:
Henry Bramwell • First African-American woman crowned
homecoming queen in a predominately white college or university in the
South (
Arkansas State University): Marilyn Broadway
1975 • First African-American elected mayor, and first mayor, of Washington, D.C.:
Walter Washington • First African-American inducted into the
Basketball Hall of Fame as a player:
Bill Russell (See also: New York Renaissance, 1963; Bob Douglas, 1972; Clarence Gaines, 1982) • First African-American interracial couple in a TV-show cast:
The Jeffersons, actors
Franklin Cover (Caucasian) and
Roxie Roker (African American) as Tom and Helen Willis, respectively; the show's now-deceased creator:
Norman Lear • First African-American interracial romantic kiss in a full-color comic book:
Amazing Adventures #31 (July 1975), feature "
Killraven: Warrior of the Worlds", characters
M'Shulla Scott and
Carmilla Frost, by writer
Don McGregor and artist
P. Craig Russell (See also: 1972) • First African-American manager in
Major League Baseball:
Frank Robinson (
Cleveland Indians) • First African-American model on the cover of
Elle magazine:
Beverly Johnson • First African-American
psychologist in the U.S. Navy:
John D. Robinson • First African American to play in a
men's major golf championship:
Lee Elder (
The Masters) • First African American to be named
Super Bowl MVP in
NFL:
Franco Harris (
Pittsburgh Steelers). Of mixed ancestry, Harris was also the first Italian American to win the award. • First African-American women named as
Time magazine's
Person of the Year:
Barbara Jordan and
Addie L. Wyatt • First African-American woman to anchor a major United States network newscast:
Carole Simpson • First African-American woman to be appointed to the
District of Columbia Court of Appeals, which is the court of last resort for the District of Columbia, and first to serve on any court of last resort in the United States:
Julia Cooper Mack • First African American to serve as
United States Secretary of Transportation and the second African American to serve in the
United States Cabinet:
William Thaddeus Coleman Jr. • First African American to be certified in
pediatric surgery: Samuel Blanton Rosser • First African American to serve on the
House Committee on Ways and Means:
Charles Rangel • First African American to play in the
Masters Tournament:
Lee Elder • First African-American president of the
Girl Scouts of the USA:
Gloria Randle Scott 1976 • First African-American female elected officer of an international labor union:
Addie L. Wyatt • First African American to become president of the
American Library Association:
Clara Stanton Jones, who served as its acting president from April 11 to July 22, 1976, and then its president from July 22, 1976, to 1977 • First African American to win a major party nomination for statewide office in the
Southern United States since the
Reconstruction era:
Asa T. Spaulding Jr. • First
African-American lawyer from the
Deep South to be appointed to the federal judiciary – the United States Military Court of Appeals (now the
United States Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces) in Washington, D.C.:
Matthew J. Perry • First African-American artist to win
Best New Artist at the
Grammy Awards:
Natalie Cole • First African-American woman to deliver the keynote address at a
Democratic National Convention:
Barbara Jordan • First woman to graduate from the
United States Army Command and General Staff College with a degree in
military arts and sciences:
Clara Adams-Ender • First African-American to serve as
Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress, a role today known as U.S. Poet Laureate:
Robert Hayden • First African-American woman inducted into the
American Academy of Arts and Letters:
Gwendolyn Brooks • First African-American woman lawyer to serve in the
U.S. Coast Guard: Cheryl Avery • First African American drafted to play professional basketball, first woman to dunk in a professional women's game:
Cardte Hicks • First African-American woman in the
U.S. Cabinet:
Patricia Roberts Harris,
Secretary of Housing and Urban Development • First African-American woman to have her signature appear on U.S. currency:
Azie Taylor Morton, the 36th
Treasurer of the United States • First African-American publisher of mainstream gay publication: Alan Bell (
Gaysweek) • First African-American woman to join the
Daughters of the American Revolution:
Karen Batchelor • First African-American
Major League Baseball general manager:
Bill Lucas (
Atlanta Braves) • First African-American woman to be ordained as an Episcopal priest:
Pauli Murray. • First African-American (half-Latin) woman to work as a registrar for a major scientific museum:
Margaret Santiago. • First African American and the third woman to be appointed Assistant Secretary for Administration of the
United States Department of Agriculture:
Joan Scott Wallace • First African American elected president of the
American Chemical Society (ACS):
Henry Aaron Hill • First African American appointed director of the
National Earthquake Information Center:
Waverly Person • First African-American woman invited to train with the
Metropolitan Police (
Scotland Yard) Forensic Science Laboratory (at the age of 55) as a handwriting expert and went on to make a career as a forgery expert:
Bessie Blount Griffin • First African-American woman to become a
thoracic surgeon:
Rosalyn Scott 1978 • First African-American broadcast network news anchor:
Max Robinson • First African-American woman pilot for a major commercial airline:
Jill E. Brown,
Texas International Airlines • First African-American woman to advance to the rank of captain in the Navy:
Joan C. Bynum • First African American president of the
Special Libraries Association (SLA):
Vivian Davidson Hewitt • First African American to win the
Pulitzer Prize for Fiction (
Elbow Room):
James Alan McPherson • First African American
otolaryngologist: James Herman Mabrie III • First African American and first woman to be named Democratic whip-at-large in the
United States House of Representatives:
Cardiss Collins • First African-American woman and first woman to serve as president of the
American Lung Association:
Ethelene Crockett • First African-American woman president of the
Planned Parenthood Federation of America:
Faye Wattleton • First African American United States circuit judge to serve on the
United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit:
Theodore McMillian • First African American to serve on the
United States District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania:
Paul Allen Simmons • First African American to serve on the
United States District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana:
Robert Frederick Collins • First African American to serve on the
United States District Court for the Eastern District of Washington and the
United States District Court for the Western District of Washington:
Jack Edward Tanner 1979 • First African-American
U.S. Marine Corps general officer upon his promotion to
Brigadier General:
Frank E. Petersen • First African American to win a
Daytime Emmy Award for lead actor in a
soap opera:
Al Freeman Jr. (
Ed Hall in
One Life to Live) • First African-American woman ordained in the
Lutheran Church in America (LCA), the largest of three denominations that later combined to form the
Evangelical Lutheran Church in America: Earlean Miller • First African-American head coach of an NCAA Division I-A football program:
Willie Jeffries (
Wichita State). • First African American to play professional basketball behind the "Iron Curtain",
Kent Washington played for KS Start Lublin, Poland. • First African American to serve as the
United States Secretary of Health and Human Services:
Patricia Roberts Harris • First African-American woman to earn a Ph.D. in
chemical engineering:
Jennie Patrick, from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology • First African-American woman promoted to brigadier general in the U.S. Army and the first African-American chief of the U.S. Army Nurse Corps:
Hazel Johnson-Brown • First African-American woman judge for the
United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit:
Amalya Kearse • First African American United States circuit judge to serve on the
United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit:
Jerome Farris • First African-American woman to serve on the
United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan:
Anna Diggs Taylor • First African American and the first African-American woman to serve on the
United States District Court for the District of New Jersey:
Anne Elise Thompson • First African American to serve on the
United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia:
Horace Ward 1980s 1980 • First African-American woman to graduate from (and to attend) the
U.S. Naval Academy:
Janie L. Mines, graduated in 1980 • First African-American woman to join the cast of NBC's
Saturday Night Live:
Yvonne Hudson • First African-American-oriented cable television network:
BET (now owned by Paramount Skydance) • First woman to be elected to the
Fellow of the American Institute of Architects (FAIA):
Norma Merrick Sklarek • First African-American director of the
National Science Foundation (NSF):
John Brooks Slaughter • First African-American woman on the Board of Governors of the
Mathematical Association of America:
Gloria Ford Gilmer • First African American promoted to the rank of
brigadier general of the
United States Army Medical Corps: Guthrie Turner • First African-American physician elected as chancellor of the
American College of Radiology: Leslie L. Alexander • First African American to serve on the
United States District Court for the Western District of Tennessee since the
Reconstruction era:
Odell Horton • First African American to serve on the
United States District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri:
Clyde S. Cahill Jr. • First African American to serve on the
United States District Court for the Northern District of Ohio:
George Washington White 1981 • First African American to play in the
NHL:
Val James (
Buffalo Sabres) • First African-American woman
Curator of the
National Museum of American History: Fath Davis Ruffins • First African-American woman to become board-certified in
maternal-fetal medicine (MFM).
Yvonne Thornton • First African-American woman to earn a
PhD in
astronomy (
University of Maryland, College Park, 1981):
Barbara A. Williams • First African American United States circuit judge to serve on the
United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit:
Joseph W. Hatchett • First African-American woman pilot to serve in the
United States Air Force (USAF):
Theresa Claiborne 1982 • First African-American inducted into the
Basketball Hall of Fame as a coach:
Clarence Gaines (See also: New York Renaissance, 1963; Bob Douglas, 1972; Bill Russell, 1975) • First African-American U.S. Army
four-star General:
Roscoe Robinson Jr. • First African American elected to the
San Diego County Board of Supervisors: Leon Williams • First African-American Nurse Corps officer in the Army to graduate from the
U.S. Army War College:
Clara Adams-Ender • First African American and first woman to complete a neurosurgery residency at
Case Western University, and the second African-American woman certified by the American Board of Neurological Surgery:
M. Deborrah Hyde • First African American to win an
Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor:
Louis Gossett Jr. • First African-American woman to earn a Ph.D. in
computer science:
Marsha Rhea Williams • First African-American governor of the
American College of Surgeons, the first African-American president of the Association of Children's Prosthetic and Orthotic Clinics, and the first African-American member of the AMA House of Delegates representing the
American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons:
Charles H. Epps Jr. • First board-certified African-American woman
orthopaedic surgeon in the United States:
Claudia L. Thomas • First African-American anchor on a major network (
NBC Today show):
Bryant Gumbel 1983 • First African-American astronaut:
Guion Bluford (
Challenger mission
STS-8). • First African-American
mayor of
Chicago:
Harold Washington • First African-American (mixed-race)
Miss America:
Vanessa L. Williams (A few weeks before the end of her reign as Miss America, Williams learned that Penthouse magazine would be publishing unauthorized nude photographs of her in an upcoming issue. Amid growing media controversy and scrutiny, Williams resigned as Miss America in July 1984 (under pressure from the Miss America Organization) and was replaced by first runner-up Miss New Jersey
Suzette Charles, who was also African American.) • First African-American owners of a major metropolitan newspaper:
Robert C. and
Nancy Hicks Maynard (
Oakland Tribune) • First African American admitted on the national level as a member-at-large of the Daughters of the American Revolution:
Lena Santos Ferguson • First African-American artist to have a music video shown in heavy rotation on
MTV:
Michael Jackson • First African American to be elected president of the
National Association of Women Lawyers:
Mahala Ashley Dickerson • First African-American physician member of the governing body of the
American Board of Pediatrics: Melvin Earl Jenkins • First African American to command a U.S. submarine when assigned as the Commanding Officer of the
USS Houston (SSN-713): C. A. Tzomes • First African-American actress to replace a white actress on
Broadway in a leading role (replaced the vacationing
Elizabeth Ashley in
Agnes of God):
Diahann Carroll • First African-American women to graduate from the
U.S. Coast Guard Academy: Angela Dennis and Daphne Reese • First African-American woman to earn a
Ph.D. in
epidemiology in the United States:
Lucile Adams-Campbell 1984 • First African American to win a delegate-awarding U.S. presidential primary/caucus:
Jesse Jackson (Louisiana, the District of Columbia, South Carolina, Virginia, and one of two separate Mississippi contests). • First African-American
New York City Police Commissioner:
Benjamin Ward • First African-American coach to win the
NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Championship:
John Thompson (
Georgetown) • First African-American woman certified by the American Board of
Neurological Surgery:
Alexa Canady • First African-American woman elevated to the position of
bishop within the
United Methodist Church:
Leontine T. Kelly • First African-American player for the
United States men's national soccer team:
Eddie Hawkins 1985 • First African American to become a member of the
U.S. Navy's
Blue Angels precision flying team:
Donnie Cochran. Also, first African American to command the team (1994). • First African-American (mixed-race) female general:
Sherian Cadoria • First African-American woman to win an
MTV Video Music Award:
Tina Turner • First African-American winner of the
Academy Award for Best Original Song Score (Purple Rain):
Prince • First African American selected president of the American Orthopedic Association:
Charles H. Epps Jr. • First woman president of the
National Medical Association (NMA):
Edith Irby Jones 1986 • First African-American
Formula One racecar driver:
Willy T. Ribbs (See also: Ribbs, 1991) • First African-American musicians inducted into the
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, in the inaugural class:
Chuck Berry,
James Brown,
Ray Charles,
Sam Cooke,
Fats Domino, and
Little Richard • First African-American woman to be regularly featured in
heavy rotation on
MTV with multiple videos:
Whitney Houston • First African-American woman certified by the
American Board of Thoracic Surgery: Rosalyn Sterling • First director and first African-American director for the
Office of Minority Health: Herbert W. Nickens
1987 • First African-American woman, and first woman of any race, inducted into the
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame:
Aretha Franklin • First African-American
Radio City Music Hall Rockette:
Jennifer Jones • First African-American man to sail around the world solo:
Teddy Seymour • First African-American CEO of a Fortune 500 company:
Clifton R. Wharton Jr. • First African-American woman, and first woman of any race, to have an album debut at number one on the
Billboard 200:
Whitney Houston • First
African-American woman president of
Spelman College:
Johnnetta Cole • First African-American winner of the
Academy Award for Best Original Score:
Herbie Hancock • First African-American woman promoted to the rank of major general in the
US National Guard:
Irene Trowell-Harris 1988 • First African-American woman, and first woman of any race, to set a
Guinness World Record for the then-largest paying audience for a concert (180,000 fans):
Tina Turner • First African American to win a medal at the Winter Olympics (a bronze in figure skating):
Debi Thomas • First African-American woman elected to a U.S.
judgeship, and first appointed to a
state supreme court:
Juanita Kidd Stout • First African-American candidate for President of the United States to obtain ballot access in all 50 states:
Lenora Fulani • First African-American
NFL referee:
Johnny Grier • First African-American
quarterback to start (and to win) a Super Bowl:
Doug Williams (
Super Bowl XXII) • First African-American Olympic gold medalist in wrestling:
Kenny Monday • First African-American man to manage a financial institution:
Richard Parsons • First African-American woman to earn a
Doctor of Sacred Theology (
Catholic University of Louvain Belgium):
Diana L. Hayes • First African-American woman judge for the U.S. bankruptcy court:
Bernice B. Donald 1989 • First African-American
NFL coach of the modern era:
Art Shell,
Los Angeles Raiders • First African-American
mayor of New York City:
David Dinkins • First African-American woman (and first woman), ordained bishop in the
Episcopal Church:
Barbara Clementine Harris • First African-American
Chairman of the Democratic National Committee:
Ron Brown • First African-American woman transplant surgeon:
Velma Scantlebury • First African-American president of the Society for Adolescent Medicine:
Renee Jenkins • First African-American winner of the
Academy Award for Best Sound:
Willie D. Burton • First woman officer to command a
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) ship and the first African-American woman to command a ship for an extended period within the nation's uniformed services:
Evelyn J. Fields • First African-American president of the Society of Adolescent Medicine:
Renee Jenkins • First African-American president of the
Society of Nuclear Medicine: Richard A. Holmes • First African American to be elected President of the
National League (baseball):
Bill White (first baseman) • First African American to command a spaceflight when he led the
STS-33 mission of
Space Shuttle Discovery:
Frederick D. Gregory • First African American woman to earn a
Ph.D. in
Old Testament Studies (
Princeton Theological Seminary):
Renita J. Weems 1990s 1990 • First elected African-American
governor:
Douglas Wilder (
Virginia) (See also: Oscar Dunn, 1871) • First African-American elected president of the
Harvard Law Review:
Barack Obama (See also: 2008, 2009) • First African-American
Miss USA:
Carole Gist • First African-American
Playboy Playmate of the Year:
Renee Tenison • First African-American president of the
American Medical Women's Association:
Roselyn Payne Epps • First African-American physician elected president of the
American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists: Ezra C. Davidson Jr. • First African American commissioned in the U.S. Navy's music program: George N. Thompson Jr. • First African American inducted into the
NAB Broadcasting Hall of Fame:
Hal Jackson • First African-American woman appointed director of the Bureau of Primary Health Care in the U.S.
Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA):
Marilyn Hughes Gaston 1991 • First African American to qualify for the
Indianapolis 500 auto race:
Willy T. Ribbs (See also: Ribbs, 1986) • First African-American female
mayor of Washington, D.C.:
Sharon Pratt Kelly • First African-American woman to perform a back flip on the ice while figure skating:
Rory Flack • First African-American woman to dive to the ocean floor in the deep submersible
ALVIN:
Dawn Wright • First African-American woman to earn a
PhD in
theoretical astrophysics:
Reva Williams • First African-American physician elected chair of the
American Board of Internal Medicine: Gerald E. Thomson • First African-American woman general officer of the U.S. Air Force (
brigadier general):
Marcelite J. Harris • First African American appointed to the
National Cancer Advisory Board:
Zora Kramer Brown • First African-American woman to earn a
Ph.D. from the
Yale University School of Forestry and Environmental Studies:
Dorceta Taylor • First African-American woman member of the
American Cinema Editors:
Lillian Benson 1992 • First African-American female astronaut: Dr.
Mae Jemison (
Space Shuttle Endeavour) • First African-American woman elected to
U.S. Senate:
Carol Moseley Braun (
Illinois) • First African-American woman to moderate a
Presidential debate:
Carole Simpson (second debate of 1992 campaign) • First African American to sail solo around the world following the
Age of Sail route around the southern tips of South America (
Cape Horn) and Africa (
Cape of Good Hope), avoiding the
Panama and
Suez Canals:
Bill Pinkney • First African-American
Major League Baseball manager to reach (and win) the
World Series:
Cito Gaston (
Toronto Blue Jays)
1992 World Series • First African American to direct an
animated film:
Bruce W. Smith (''
Bebe's Kids'') • First African-American physician appointed to the Board of Trustees of the
American College of Cardiology: Charles L. Curry • First African-American president of the
American Heart Association: Edward Sawyer Cooper • First African-American and deaf woman to earn a
doctoral degree:
Shirley J. Allen • First African-American woman District Judge in the
United States District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri • First African American to serve as the
U.S. secretary of agriculture:
Mike Espy • First African American to serve as the
U.S. secretary of veteran affairs:
Jesse Brown • First African American and first woman to serve as the
U.S. secretary of energy:
Hazel R. O'Leary • First African American to win the
Nobel Prize for Literature:
Toni Morrison • First African-American woman named
Poet Laureate of the United States since the position was created by an act of Congress in 1986 from the previous "consultant in poetry" position (1937–86):
Rita Dove; also the youngest person named to that position • First African-American Director of the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention:
David Satcher • First African-American appointed
Surgeon General of the United States:
Joycelyn Elders • First African American to serve as home plate umpire for World Series game:
Charlie Williams for Game 4 of the
1993 World Series • First African American to be inducted as a
member of the
Grand Ole Opry:
Charley Pride • First African-American woman dean of a United States medical school (
College of Osteopathic Medicine of Ohio University):
Barbara Ross-Lee • First African-American woman appointed to the Board of Directors of the
Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC):
Lottie Shackelford • First African-American Director of the
Federal Highway Administration:
Rodney E. Slater • First African-American physician appointed national medical director of the
United States Postal Service: David H. Reid III • First African American elected president of the
American Meteorological Society (AMS):
Warren M. Washington • Only artist commissioned to do the inaugural artwork for two U.S. presidents; first, in 1989, for the inauguration of
President George H. W. Bush; and, in 1993, for the inauguration of
President Bill Clinton:
Phoebe Beasley • First African-American woman and first woman to serve as the
United States Attorney for the Western District of Oklahoma:
Vicki Miles-LaGrange • First woman (and African-American woman) to serve as
United States Attorney for the Southern District of Texas:
Gaynelle Griffin Jones • First African-American woman elected state attorney general and served from 1993 to 1997 (
Indiana Attorney General):
Pamela Carter • First African-American woman and first woman President of the American College of Dentists:
Juliann Bluitt Foster • First African-American woman and first woman President and Director-Counsel of the
NAACP Legal Defense Fund:
Elaine Jones • First African-American woman to become editor in chief for a magazine with a non-predominantly Black consumer audience (
Ms. magazine):
Marcia Ann Gillespie 1994 • First African-American female director of a major-studio movie:
Darnell Martin (
Columbia Pictures'
I Like It Like That) • First African-American (mixed-race) to win the
United States Amateur Championship:
Tiger Woods • First African-American president of the
American Osteopathic Association (AOA):
William G. Anderson • First African American woman chair of a university department of
ophthalmology (
University of Maryland School of Medicine):
Eve Higginbotham • First African-American woman to be a police chief of any major city in the United States (
Atlanta, Georgia):
Beverly Harvard • First African American appointed to the federal bench in the six-state
United States District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma:
Vicki Miles-LaGrange • First African-American woman to host the
Academy Awards (which she hosted again in 1996, 1999, and 2002:
Whoopi Goldberg 1995 • First African-American inductee to the
National Radio Hall of Fame:
Hal Jackson • First African-American
Sergeant Major of the Army:
Gene C. McKinney • First African-American
Miss Universe:
Chelsi Smith • First African-American personal diarist to a U.S. president (Bill Clinton):
Janis F. Kearney • First African American and first woman to serve as chairman of the US
Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC):
Shirley Ann Jackson • First African-American woman to be elected to the
American Medical Association Board of Trustees:
Regina Benjamin • First African American and first woman to be assistant director of the
Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)):
Carolyn G. Morris • First African American elected president of the
American Medical Association (AMA):
Lonnie R. Bristow • First African American to perform an
extra-vehicular activity (spacewalk), during the second of his two
Space Shuttle flights:
Bernard A. Harris Jr. • First woman chairperson of the
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP):
Myrlie Evers-Williams • First African-American president of the
Associated Press Managing Editors: Robert G. McGruder • First African-American dean of the
University of Illinois College of Education:
Mildred Barnes Griggs. • First African-American woman to chair a math department in the United States (
University of Montana):
Gloria Conyers Hewitt • First African-American woman to earn a
Doctor of Ministry degree at
Princeton Theological Seminary:
Angelique Walker-Smith • First African-American woman to head a cancer center when she became the director of the
Howard University Cancer Center in
Washington D.C.:
Lucile Adams-Campbell 1996 • First African-American U.S. Navy
four-star admiral:
J. Paul Reason • First African-American
MLB general manager to win the
World Series:
Bob Watson (
New York Yankees),
1996 World Series • First African American elected president of the
Society of Automotive Engineers: Claude A. Verbal • First African American to win the
Pulitzer Prize for Music:
George Walker • First African American appointed the
chief of engineers for the
United States Army Corps of Engineers:
Joe N. Ballard • First woman and first African-American woman to be named director of a
Department of Energy laboratory (
New Brunswick Laboratory):
Margaret E. M. Tolbert 1997 • First African American (mixed-race) to win a
men's major golf championship:
Tiger Woods (
The Masters) • First African American to be elected a Fellow of the
Association for Computing Machinery (ACM):
Clarence Ellis • First African American to serve as the
U.S. secretary of labor:
Alexis Herman • First African-American woman and first woman to serve as
chief judge of the
United States District Court for the District of Columbia:
Norma Holloway Johnson • First African-American physician elected president of the
American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine: Robert Shaw Rhodes • First African-American woman tomb guard for the
Tomb of the Unknown Soldier (Arlington):
Danyell E. Wilson • First African-American and first African-American woman to win an Emmy Award for casting (
The Tuskegee Airmen):
Robi Reed 1998 • First African-American female
rear admiral in the U.S. Navy:
Lillian Fishburne • First African American promoted to
flag rank in the Coast Guard:
Erroll M. Brown • First African-American
Master Chief Petty Officer of the Coast Guard:
Vincent W. Patton III • First African American (mixed-race) to play in the
Presidents Cup:
Tiger Woods • First African American to
lie in honor at the
U.S. Capitol:
Jacob Chestnut (See also: 2005, 2019) • First African-American to earn a Ph.D. in
paper science:
Chavonda Jacobs-Young • First African-American woman to serve as a director of an institute of the NIH, acting in that capacity for the National Institute of Neorological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS):
Audrey S. Penn • First African-American man appointed to the position of
Surgeon General of the United States:
David Satcher • First African American to be inducted into the
National Radio Hall of Fame in
Chicago, Illinois:
Tom Joyner • First African-American woman awarded the Henry Johnson Fisher award by the
Magazine Publishers of America:
Susan L. Taylor • First African-American woman elected to serve as a State Treasurer in the United States and the first African-American woman elected to a statewide office in
Connecticut:
Denise Nappier • First African-American woman judge on the
United States District Court for the District of Nevada:
Johnnie B. Rawlinson • First African American president of the
National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL):
Dan Blue • First African-American woman to serve as Chief Judge on the
United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan:
Anna Diggs Taylor 1999 • First African American to be awarded the
Grandmaster title in
chess:
Maurice Ashley • First African-American
Sergeant Major of the Marine Corps:
Alford L. McMichael • First African-American woman to lead a top-ranked research university when named the 18th president of
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute:
Shirley Ann Jackson • First African-American woman to serve on the
United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit:
Ann Claire Williams • First African-American woman to head a publicly traded corporation when media company Radio One (
Urban One), which she founded, went public:
Cathy Hughes • First African American and first woman to be promoted to Director of
White House Photography:
Sharon Farmer • First African-American president of the
Society of Women Engineers (SWE):
Sherita Ceasar • First African American to become an instructor at the U.S. Coast Guard's Chief Petty Officers’ Academy:
Angela McShan • First African American to become director of the
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Corps and NOAA's
Office of Marine and Aviation Operations as well as the first woman to become a NOAA Corps rear admiral:
Evelyn J. Fields == 21st century ==