Yance Ford born in 1950 was the first openly transgender man to be nominated for an Academy Award in 2018 for directing Strong Island. Also the first openly transgender to receive an Emmy award for the same film.    

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Lena Waithe born 1984, first Black woman to win an Emmy for comedy writing in 2017.

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Kehinde Wiley born 1977 was the first Black male artist commissioned for a U.S. president portrait, displayed in the Smithsonian in 2018.

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Marsha P. Johnson, 1945 – 1992 was at the Stonewall uprising of 1969, a founding member of the Gay Liberation Front, co-founded the advocacy organization S.T.A.R. (Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries), was known as the “mayor of Christopher Street“ and an AIDS activist with ACT UP.

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Sampson McCormick, born 1986, is the first LGBT comedian to perform at the National Museum of African American History and Culture in 2018.

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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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