Sheryl Swoopes born 1971 was the first player signed with the WNBA and the first woman basketball player to have a Nike shoe named after her, the “Air Swoopes.”

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David Kato, 1964 – 2011 was a teacher and LGBT rights activist. He was known as the father of Uganda’s gay rights movement. He was murdered by being beaten to death after a publication outed him as Uganda’s first openly gay man and called for him to be hanged.

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Sapphire born in 1950 and is an author and poet. She wrote Push and had a cameo in the movie version of the book renamed Precious.

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Alvin Ailey (1931-1989) was a choreographer and activist who founded the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and the Ailey School in New York City; 1958.

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Lori Lightfoot born 1962, first Black woman and first openly gay person elected mayor of Chicago on April 2nd 2019.

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Bayard Rustin (1912-1987) was a civil rights activist who helped organize the March on Washington in 1963.

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Moms Mabley (1894-1975) was billed “as the funniest woman in the world”. She was one of the first comics to come out as a lesbian in 1921.

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Bill T. Jones born 1952 is a choreographer, director, author and dancer. He is the co-founder of the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company in 1983.

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Wanda Sykes born in 1964 is a comic, writer, and actress She was the featured entertainer for the annual White House Correspondents’ Association dinner, becoming both the first Black woman and the first openly LGBT person to get the role in 2009.

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George Washington Carver (1860’s– 1943) was the first Black student at Iowa State Agricultural College in Ames, Iowa in 1891 and later was the first Black faculty member there as well. He was a scientist, inventor and professor.

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