The Spingarn Medal is the highest honor of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Since 1915, it has been awarded annually for the highest achievement of a living African American in the preceding year or years. The twofold purpose of the … Read MoreThe Spingarn Medal (1915- )
Benny Nelson Napoleon was an attorney, law enforcement officer, and politician. Napoleon was born on September 10, 1955 to Reverend Harry and Betty Napoleon, in Detroit, Michigan. Napoleon played little league baseball in his youth and graduated from Cass Technical High School in 1973. He … Read MoreBenny Napoleon (1955-2020)
Ted Rasberry was a player and team owner in the Negro Baseball Leagues. Rasberry was born on October 8, 1913, in West Point, Mississippi, and in his youth, played basketball, baseball and football. He attended Mississippi Industrial College and graduated with a degree in teaching … Read MoreTed Rasberry (1913-2001)
Benjamin Harrison Hill was a legislator, teacher, and African Methodist Episcopal (AME) minister born in Sidney, Nova Scotia, Canada on November 1, 1903 to Joseph L. Hill, a laborer in the steel mill industry and Anna E. Hill, a servant for a private family. Hill … Read MoreBenjamin Harrison Hill (1903-1971)
John H. Murphy was the chairman and head publisher of the influential Afro-American Newspaper Company in Baltimore, Maryland. Murphy was born in Baltimore on March 2, 1916 to Daniel H. Murphy and Sara Murphy Neely. At the age of 12, John Murphy moved to Philadelphia … Read MoreJohn H. Murphy III (1916-2010)
Raphael Gamaliel Warnock is the senior pastor at the historic Ebenezer Baptist Church, once led by Reverends Martin Luther King Sr., and Martin Luther King Jr, in Atlanta, Georgia. On January 5, 2021 he made history by becoming the first African American elected to represent … Read MoreRaphael G. Warnock (1969- )
James H. Sills, Jr., the first African American mayor of Wilmington, Delaware, was born in North Carolina in 1931. We know little about his early life before he arrived in Wilmington. At various times he was a billiards hustler, farm laborer, and solider before he … Read MoreJames H. Sills Jr. (1931- )
Donald Dean Haley, was an attorney King County Superior Court judge, one of thirteen founders and past president of the Loren Miller Bar Association, formerly the Loren Miller Bar Club (a black legal association), and a lifelong member and former president of the Seattle-King County … Read MoreDonald Dean Haley (1932-2018)
Rufus Calvin Kuykendall was an attorney, politician, and one of the first African Americans to be elected judge in Indiana’s Marion County Superior Court. Kuykendall was born on September 24, 1903 in Indianapolis, Indiana to John, a former slave from Tennessee, and Belle (Jackson) Kuykendall. … Read MoreRufus Calvin Kuykendall (1903-1977)
John Warren Davis was the fifth and the longest president of West Virginia State University from 1919 to 1953. He is also known for founding one of the first chapters of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Davis was born in … Read MoreJohn Warren Davis (1888-1980)
