Blanche Bruce was the 1st black person elected to the U.S Senate by the Mississippi State Legislature, he was a Republican; 1875 to 1881.

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Merlie Evers born in 1933 is a journalist and civil rights activist. In 2013 she was the first woman and first layperson to deliver the invocation at a presidential inauguration. She is the widow of Medgar Evers.

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Lonnie C. King Jr. was co-founder of the Atlanta Student Movement and planned sit-ins for desegregation in the early 1960s.

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Betty Shabazz born 1934 died in 1997, aka Betty X was a nurse, educator, civil rights activist and advocate. She joined the Nation of Islam in 1956, married Malcolm X in 1958 and they both left the Nation in 1964.

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Wally “Famous” Amos founded the Famous Amos cookie brand and became the 1st black talent agent for the William Morris Agency, 1962.

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Autherine Lucy was the first black student admitted to a white public school or university in the state of Alabama in 1956.

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Coleman Young was the first black mayor of Detroit, Michigan from 1974 to 1984.

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Vivian Malone born in 1942 and died in 2005 was in 1963 along with James Hood the first two black students to enroll in the University of Alabama. She was the first black student to graduate in 1965.

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Derek Jeter was the first black CEO of a Major League Baseball team in 2017.

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Brenda Davis in 2017 became the first black of any gender to be elected mayor of Stamps, Arkansas.

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