Wayne Brady, comedian, singer, actor, and television personality, was one of the first African Americans to host a daytime game show. Brady became host of Let’s Make a Deal in October 2009. Wayne Brady was born on June 2, 1972 in Orlando, Florida. As a … Read MoreWayne A. Brady (1972- )
Image Ownership: 5of7 (CC BY-SA 2.0) Danny Lebern Glover, actor, producer, and humanitarian was born in San Francisco, California on July 22, 1946 to Carrie (nee) Hunly and James Glover. His parents, United States postal workers, fought for equal rights as members of the National … Read MoreDanny Glover (1946- )
Forest Whitaker at the San Diego Comic-Con International, 2017 Image Ownership: Gage Skidmore (CC BY-SA 3.0) Forest Steven Whitaker, actor, producer, and director, was born in Longview, Texas, July 15, 1961, but was raised in South Central Los Angeles, where his parents moved when he … Read MoreForest Whitaker (1961 — )
Leslie Uggams, actress, singer, entertainer, and recording artist, was born in New York City, May 25, 1943 and grew up in a four-room house in the Washington Heights section of Manhattan. Her father, Harold C. Uggams, worked as a train porter, elevator operator, and professional … Read MoreLeslie Uggams (1943- )
Image Ownership: Public Domain Timmie Rogers was a popular black comedian and entertainer from the 1940s through the 1990s. He was one of the first African American entertainers who refused to wear blackface or to dress in dirty tattered clothing while performing. Rogers also was … Read MoreTimmie Rogers (1914-2006)
Dexter Gordon was a pioneering jazz saxophonist who made a career of expertly blending rhythm and romance on the bandstand and the silver screen. Nicknamed “Long Tall Dex” for his 6-foot 5-inch frame, the Los Angeles, California native was born on Feb. 27, 1923. Gordon’s … Read MoreDexter Gordon (1923-1990)
Gary Coleman, best known for his child star status from the hit television sitcom Diff’rent Strokes, was born on February 8, 1968, and raised in Zion, Illinois. A talent scout for TV producer Norman Lear spotted Coleman in a Chicago bank commercial, and at the … Read MoreGary Coleman (1968-2010)
Academy Award-winning actor Morgan Porterfield Freeman, Jr. was born June 1, 1937 in Memphis, Tennessee, the son of Morgan Porterfield Sr., a barber, and Mayme Edna Morgan. Throughout his childhood the Freeman family moved often, living in Mississippi, Indiana and Chicago. Freeman showed early promise … Read MoreMorgan Freeman (1937- )
Two-time Academy Award-winning actor Denzel Hayes Washington was born December 28, 1954 in Mount Vernon, New York. Growing up in a middle-class family, Washington was the second of three children, his father, Reverend Denzel Washington, Sr., was a Pentecostal minister and his mother, Lennis “Lynne” … Read MoreDenzel Hayes Washington, Jr. (1954- )
Juano G. “Juano” Hernández, Hollywood’s first Afro-Latino actor, was a polylingual self-educated Puerto Rican stage and film actor who was born Juan G. Hernández on July 19, 1896, in San Juan, Puerto Rico to a father from San Juan and a mother from Rio de … Read MoreJuano Hernandez (1896-1970)
