| Name
|
Class year
|
Notability
|
Reference(s)
|
| Lil Hardin Armstrong
|
1915
|
jazz pianist/composer, second wife of Louis Armstrong
|
|
| Marion Barry
|
1960
|
former mayor of Washington, D.C.
|
|
| Mary Frances Berry
|
|
former Chair, United States Commission on Civil Rights; former Chancellor University of Colorado at Boulder
|
|
| John Betsch
|
1967
|
jazz percussionist
|
|
| Otis Boykin
|
1942
|
inventor, control device for the heart pacemaker
|
|
| St. Elmo Brady
|
|
first African American to earn a doctorate in Chemistry
|
|
| Virginia E. Walker Broughton
|
1875, 1878
|
author and Baptist missionary
|
[1][2][3]
|
| Cora Brown
|
|
first African-American woman elected to a state senate
|
|
| James Dallas Burrus
|
1875
|
educator
|
|
| John Houston Burrus
|
1875
|
educator
|
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|
| Henry Alvin Cameron
|
1896
|
educator, decorated World War I veteran
|
|
| Elizabeth Hortense (Golden) Canady
|
|
past national president of Delta Sigma Theta sorority
|
|
| Alfred O. Coffin
|
|
first African American to earn a doctorate in zoology
|
|
| Malia Cohen
|
2001
|
San Francisco District 10 Supervisor 2010 – Present
|
|
| Johnnetta B. Cole
|
|
anthropologist, former President of Spelman College and Bennett College
|
|
| Neal Craig
|
1971
|
NFL Cornerback for Cincinnati Bengals, Buffalo Bills, and Cleveland Browns
|
|
| Minnie Lee Crosthwaite
|
|
community organizer, women's activist, and social worker
|
|
| Minnie Lou Crosthwaite
|
|
teacher, college administrator, activist
|
|
| Arthur Cunningham
|
1951
|
musical composer, studied at Juilliard and Columbia University
|
|
| William L. Dawson (politician)
|
1909
|
U.S. Congressman (1943–1970)
|
|
| Charles Diggs
|
|
United States House of Representatives Michigan (1955–1980)
|
|
| Mahala Ashley Dickerson
|
1935
|
first black female attorney in the state of Alabama and first black president of the National Association of Women Lawyers
|
|
| Rel Dowdell
|
1993
|
filmmaker
|
|
| W. E. B. Du Bois
|
1888
|
sociologist, scholar, first African-American to earn a PhD from Harvard
|
|
| James J. Durham
|
1880, 1885
|
Founder of Morris College
|
|
| Althea Brown Edmiston
|
1901
|
Presbyterian missionary in Belgian Congo
|
|
| Venida Evans
|
1969
|
actress, best known for IKEA commercials
|
|
| Etta Zuber Falconer
|
1953
|
first African-American woman to receive a PhD in mathematics; former Chair, mathematics department at Spelman College
|
|
| John Hope Franklin
|
1935
|
historian, professor, scholar, author of landmark text From Slavery to Freedom
|
|
| Victor O. Frazer
|
|
United States House of Representatives (1995–1997)
|
|
| Alonzo Fulgham
|
|
former acting chief and operating officer of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID)
|
|
| Vivian Gadsden
|
1978
|
psychologist at University of Pennsylvania
|
[4]
|
| Nikki Giovanni
|
1967
|
poet, author, professor, scholar
|
|
| Louis George Gregory
|
|
posthumously, a Hand of the Cause in Bahá'í Faith
|
|
| Eliza Ann Grier
|
1891
|
first African-American female physician in Georgia
|
|
| Alcee Hastings
|
|
U.S. Congressman and former U.S. district court judge
|
|
| Roland Hayes
|
|
concert singer
|
|
| Perry Wilbon Howard
|
|
Assistant U.S. Attorney General under President Herbert Hoover
|
|
| Elmer Imes
|
1903
|
physicist and second African-American to earn a PhD in Physics
|
|
| Esther Cooper Jackson
|
1940
|
Founding editor of Freedomways Journal
|
|
| Lena Terrell Jackson
|
1885
|
educator in Nashville for over 50 years
|
|
| Leonard Jackson
|
1952
|
Actor, Five on the Black Hand Side; The Color Purple
|
|
| Robert James
|
|
former NFL all-pro cornerback
|
|
| Judith Jamison
|
|
dancer and choreographer; former artistic Director, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater
|
|
| Ben Jobe
|
1956
|
legendary basketball coach, Southern University
|
|
| Joyce Johnson
|
1953
|
Organist and Professor Emerita of music at Spelman College in Atlanta
|
|
| Lewis Wade Jones
|
1931
|
sociologist; Julius Rosenwald Foundation Fellow at Columbia University
|
|
| Ella Mae Johnson
|
1921
|
at age 105 years old, Ella Mae Johnson traveled to Washington, DC to attend the inauguration of Barack Obama
|
|
| Mame Stewart Josenberger
|
1888
|
businesswoman and club woman in Arkansas
|
|
| Anne Gamble Kennedy
|
1941
|
Pianist, professor, and piano accompanist for the Fisk Jubilee Singers
|
|
| Matthew Kennedy
|
1947
|
Pianist, professor, and former director of the Fisk Jubilee Singers
|
|
| Mathew Knowles
|
1974
|
father and former manager of Beyoncé, founder and owner of Music World Entertainment, and adjunct professor at Texas Southern University
|
|
| John Angelo Lester
|
1895
|
Professor Emeritus of Physiology, Meharry Medical College
|
|
| Nella Larsen
|
1908
|
novelist, Harlem Renaissance era
|
|
| Julius Lester
|
1960
|
author of children's books and former professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst
|
|
| David Levering Lewis
|
1956
|
two-time Pulitzer Prize Winner
|
|
| John Lewis
|
1967
|
Congressman, civil rights activist, former President of Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)
|
|
| Hettie Simmons Love
|
1943
|
first African-American to earn an MBA at the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania
|
|
| Jimmie Lunceford
|
1925
|
bandleader in the swing era
|
|
| Aubrey Lyles
|
1903
|
vaudeville performer
|
|
| Hugh Ellwood Macbeth Sr.
|
1905
|
civil rights attorney who fought against the incarceration of Japanese Americans
|
|
| Ariana Austin Makonnen
|
|
philanthropist and member of the Ethiopian Imperial Family
|
|
| Patti J. Malone
|
1880
|
Fisk Jubilee Singer
|
|
| Mandisa
|
2001
|
Grammy Award-winning and Dove Award-nominated Christian contemporary singer/songwriter, ninth-place finalist in the fifth season (2006) of American Idol
|
|
| Louis E. Martin
|
1933
|
Godfather of Black Politics
|
|
| Fatima Massaquoi
|
1936
|
Liberian educator
|
[5]
|
| Jedidah Isler
|
2007
|
Isler became the first African-American woman to receive a PhD in Astrophysics from Yale University in 2014
|
[6]
|
| Wade H. McCree
|
1941
|
second African-American United States Solicitor General; Justice, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit
|
|
| Samuel A. McElwee
|
1883
|
State Senator during the Reconstruction Era and the first African American elected three times to the Tennessee General Assembly
|
|
| Robert McFerrin
|
|
first African American male to sing at the Metropolitan Opera and father of Bobby McFerrin
|
|
| Leslie Meek
|
1987
|
Administrative Law Judge, wife of Congressman Kendrick Meek
|
|
| Theo Mitchell
|
1960
|
Senator, South Carolina General Assembly
|
|
| Undine Smith Moore
|
|
first Fisk graduate to receive a scholarship to Juilliard, Pulitzer Prize Nominee
|
|
| Constance Baker Motley
|
1941–1942
|
first African-American woman elected to the New York State Senate
|
|
| Diane Nash
|
|
founding member of SNCC
|
|
| Rachel B. Noel
|
|
politician; first African-American to serve on the Denver Public Schools Board of Education
|
|
| Hon. Hazel O'Leary
|
|
former U.S. Secretary of Energy
|
|
| J. O. Patterson Jr.
|
1958
|
first African American to occupy the office of Mayor of Memphis. Tennessee State Representative, State Senator, Memphis Councilman, Jurisdictional Bishop in the Church of God in Christ
|
|
| Helen Phillips
|
1928
|
first African-American to perform with the Metropolitan Opera Chorus
|
|
| Annette Lewis Phinazee
|
1939
|
first black woman to earn a doctorate in library sciences from Columbia University
|
|
| Alma Powell
|
|
wife of Gen. Colin Powell
|
|
| Louis W. Roberts
|
1913
|
microwave physicist, chief of the Microwave Laboratory at NASA's Electronics Research Center and director of the United States Department of Transportation's John A. Volpe National Transportation Systems Center
|
[7]
|
| Cecelia Cabaniss Saunders
|
1903
|
director of Harlem YWCA, 1914-1947
|
|
| Lorenzo Dow Turner
|
1910
|
linguist and Chair, African Studies at Roosevelt University
|
|
| A. Maceo Walker
|
1930
|
businessman, Universal Life Insurance, Tri-State Bank
|
|
| Ron Walters
|
1963
|
scholar of African-American politics, Chair, Afro-American Studies Brandeis University
|
|
| Margaret Murray Washington
|
1890
|
Lady Principal of Tuskegee Institute and third wife of Booker T. Washington
|
|
| Teresa N. Washington
|
1993
|
academic, author, activist
|
|
| Ida B. Wells
|
|
American civil rights activist and women's suffrage advocate
|
|
| Charles H. Wesley
|
1911
|
President of Wilberforce University from 1942 to 1947, and President of Central State College from 1947–1965; third African-American to receive a PhD from Harvard
|
|
| Kym Whitley
|
|
actress, comedian
|
|
| Frederica Wilson
|
1963
|
U.S. Representative for Florida's 17th congressional district
|
|
| Tom Wilson (producer)
|
1953
|
music producer, best known for his work with Bob Dylan and Frank Zappa
|
|
| Frank Yerby
|
1938
|
first African-American to publish a best-selling novel
|
|
