Business leader Richard Parsons (born 1948) has been chairman of Citigroup since early 2009. Parsons never graduated from college (he left the University of Hawaii a few credits short of a degree) but went to Albany Law School on the basis of competitive exam results. He finished law school at the top of his class. Early in his career, he developed connections with New York's Rockefeller family and made other important contacts while working in private law practice.

After being named to the board of Time Warner, he subsequently became the company's president and later, its first black CEO. He oversaw Time Warner's merger with AOL in 2000, which created one of the world's biggest media conglomerates.

Faye Wattleton (born 1943) is a women's-rights activist who pays particular attention to issues of concern to African American women. She earned a degree in nursing from Ohio State University and subsequently enrolled in graduate school at Columbia University, where she received a master of science and certification as a nurse/midwife.

Wattleton was the youngest president of Planned Parenthood—she was appointed in 1978 and served until 1992—and was also the first African American to hold that post. After serving as president of the Center for the Advancement of Women, she now works at Alvarez and Marsal and remains active as a writer and speaker on issues of gender, sexuality, and civil rights.

Russell Simmons (born 1957) is a major power in the entertainment world. USA Today recently named him one of the top twenty-five most influential people of the last twenty-five years. With Rick Rubin he cofounded Def Jam Records, a pioneer in the hip-hop world, which produced albums by the Beastie Boys, LL Cool J, Public Enemy, and Run-D.M.C., among others.

After leaving Def Jam in 1999, Simmons put his energies into an urban streetwear company and other enterprises, including a partnership with HBO. Simmons has also written two New York Times best-selling books that promote inner strength in tandem with successful business practices. He is co-chairman of the Foundation for Ethnic Understanding, whose mission is dedicated to promoting racial harmony and strengthening intergroup relations.

Chris Rock (born 1965) parlayed a successful career in stand-up comedy into a multidimensional career as an actor, writer, producer, and director.

Rock's breakthrough came when he joined Saturday Night Live in 1990. He left the show in 1993, producing and starring in his own televised specials, including the Emmy-winning Bring the Pain (1996). He then branched into films, performing in both comedies and action/adventure movies. Rock carries on the tradition of observational and narrative humor, as opposed to telling jokes and one-liners.

While his observations on race in America can be biting, much of his work conveys an air of sentimentalism that is reflected in the TV series Everybody Hates Chris, his affectionate view of growing up in Brooklyn. In 2010 Rock made his Broadway acting debut in the Tony-nominated play The Mother with the Hat.

Known originally as Lew Alcindor, Harlem native Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (born 1947) was a sensation as a high-school basketball player and went on to a stellar career at UCLA, where he led his team to three national titles. Alcindor converted to Islam and adopted his Arabic name in 1968.

Drafted as the Milwaukee Bucks' number-one pick in 1969, he went on to win an NBA championship in 1971, followed by five more championships after being traded to the Los Angeles Lakers in 1975. He was named the league's Most Valuable Player six times. Supremely gifted, Abdul-Jabbar owned one of the signature moves in basketball history: his unstoppable "sky hook."

After a twenty-year career in professional basketball, he has had a successful career as a writer, publishing seven books, including Black Profiles in Courage (1996) and On the Shoulders of Giants (2007), which he recently turned into a documentary film.

Lou Gossett Jr. (born 1936) has worked as an actor for more than half a century, a career that began with a Broadway debut when he was only seventeen. His first film role was in an adaptation of Lorraine Hansberry's novel A Raisin in the Sun (1961), which starred Sidney Poitier. Gossett has now fashioned a formidable body of work for film, television, and the stage that places him in the top rank of American actors.

He is perhaps best known for his Academy Award–winning role playing opposite Richard Gere in An Officer and a Gentleman (1982), but he also won an Emmy for his work in the pioneering miniseries Roots (1977), as well as two Golden Globes, for An Officer and a Gentleman and The Josephine Baker Story (1992).

In 2006, Gossett founded the Erascism Foundation, which provides programs promoting cultural diversity and historical enrichment, as well as antiviolence initiatives.

Internationally acclaimed dancer, choreographer, and artistic director Bill T. Jones (born 1952) began to dance as an undergraduate at Binghamton University. In 1982 he founded the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company with his partner. Jones has choreographed more than one hundred works for his own company and innumerable commissions for such other groups as the Boston Ballet and the Berlin Opera.

He has worked in television and other media and is known for his collaborative work with other artists, including visual artist Keith Haring. In 1994 he received a MacArthur Foundation "genius grant," and in 2010 he was a Kennedy Center honoree. He has also won two Tony Awards for Best Choreography, for Spring Awakening (2007) and Fela! (2010). Among his dance compositions is "Still/Here," a moving meditation on surmounting HIV/AIDS. Zane died of AIDS in 1988.

Politician and civic leader Marc Morial (born 1958) is the son of Ernest "Dutch" Morial, the first African American mayor of New Orleans. After earning a law degree from Georgetown University, the younger Morial worked in private practice before entering politics, first serving in the Louisiana State Senate and then as mayor of New Orleans (1994–2002).

During his two terms as mayor, crime was reduced by almost 60 percent, and Morial oversaw the pre-Katrina tourist and convention boom in the city. Morial has been president of the National Urban League since 2003 and is frequently mentioned as again becoming a possible political candidate in his home state.

Steve Stoute (born 1970) is an advertising executive and entrepreneur whose career originated in the music industry but then grew into other ancillary enterprises. Working first as a road manager for bands in 1990, Stoute rose rapidly in the recording business where, as an executive with major labels such as Sony Music, he was instrumental in launching the careers of Mariah Carey, Will Smith, and Nas.

Moving next into advertising, Stoute founded Translation Consulting + Brand Imaging—a firm known for iconic, high-profile campaigns pairing superstar entertainers and sports figures, such as Beyoncé and LeBron James, with specific products. After his firm was acquired by the Interpublic Group, a worldwide advertising concern, Stoute partnered with Jay-Z (Shawn Carter) in 2008 to create Translation Advertising—a stand-alone enterprise within Interpublic dedicated to reaching the multicultural consumer. Translation's clients now include such national brands as McDonald's and Target.

One of the more interesting developments in publishing in recent years has been the creation of products that serve niche audiences. Moreover, the mature content of traditional genres such as the romance novel has increased. The anonymous author Zane (born 1967), who lives in North Carolina, has made a success of targeting erotic, romantic fiction to African Americans, especially African American women.

She self-published her first erotic work on the Internet, itself an interesting use of changes in culture and the economy, and she received a contract to produce a series of traditional books for Simon and Schuster. Her series Zane's Sex Chronicles has become a program on Cinemax.

Artist Lorna Simpson (born 1960) does innovative work combining texts and images to illuminate the experience of African Americans in general and African American women in particular. She started out as a documentary filmmaker, and her work reflects an openness to the use of multiple media. Her intellectual and ideological interest is in exploring the persistence of racism and racial stereotyping even in an age of multiculturalism and supposed tolerance.

Her series Necklines uses word and image to play off the multiple meanings of that word, but ends with a subtle, yet devastating, evocation of lynching. She was the first African American woman to exhibit at the Venice Biennale. In 2007, the Whitney Museum of American Art presented a twenty-year retrospective of her work.

Pentecostal minister, community organizer, and politician, the Reverend Al Sharpton (born 1954) is a controversial figure in American politics. Starting with Jesse Jackson's Operation Breadbasket, Sharpton gained national attention by leading a series of actions around instances of perceived and actual racial injustice in New York City, including protests against instances of violence against blacks both in the communities and by the police.

He achieved notoriety for inflaming relations between African Americans and the Jewish community in the Crown Heights Riot (1991). African American sociologist Orlando Patterson has called him a "racial arsonist," but to his admirers Sharpton is a champion for the disenfranchised. Moderating his rhetoric, Sharpton has become a more mainstream figure of late, seeking the Democratic Party's nomination for president (2004) as a way of keeping racial issues on the party's agenda.

Slash (born 1965) is the stage name of the London-born Saul Hudson, the fiery and flamboyant lead guitarist for the heavy metal supergroup Guns N' Roses. Fronted by singer Axl Rose, Guns N' Roses had a stream of hits between 1987 and 1993 but broke up under the weight of its own success and the combustibility of its volatile personalities.

Known for his trademark top hat, Slash is the very model of a lead guitarist; supremely gifted, he has won many awards for his playing. He now is with a band called Velvet Revolver, and has recently released a self-titled debut solo album.

Suzan-Lori Parks (born 1963) is a playwright and writer whose 2001 play Topdog/Underdog won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. She is also the recipient of a coveted MacArthur Foundation "genius grant."

Parks's unusual first name comes from the misprinting of "Susan" in a theatrical advertisement; a friend convinced her that it made her distinctive. Parks, the child of a military officer, was raised mostly in Germany, and this expatriate upbringing created a feeling of "foreign-ness" or marginality that is frequently key to a writer's growth. Parks graduated from Mount Holyoke College and credits being a student of James Baldwin as the origin of her playwriting career.

In addition to the theater, Parks has also written for film and television productions. Her current projects include a musical about Ray Charles and a reimagination of Porgy and Bess, which opened at the American Repertory Theater in fall 2011.

A member of the talented and successful Wayans family—five of his siblings have show-business careers—Keenen Ivory Wayans (born 1958) is an actor, comedian, writer, and director. He dropped out of Tuskegee University as a senior to become a comedian.

He transitioned to acting, appearing in bit parts on television shows such as Cheers, but had his breakthrough when he became the leading actor and creator of the Fox series In Living Color (1990–94). This comedy was a showpiece not only for Wayans but for other up-and-coming comedians such as Jim Carrey and Jamie Foxx. Wayans directed and acted in Scary Movie (2000), a spoof of the horror/slasher genre; it is the highest-grossing film directed by an African American.

Dawn Staley (born 1970) was one of the finest women's basketball players of all time. She led the University of Virginia's highly successful women's basketball team deep into four NCAA tournaments, including a championship game that Virginia lost. She was national player of the year in 1991 and 1992.

Drafted into the fledgling WNBA in 1999, Staley played professionally for six years before retiring to become a college coach, first at Temple University and now at the University of South Carolina. As a player, Staley won gold medals as a member of the U.S. national team at three straight Olympiads (1996, 2000, and 2004).

A native of Philadelphia, Mahlon Duckett (born 1922) was a Negro League baseball star whose career began in 1940, when he joined the Philadelphia Stars at the age of seventeen; he was named the league's rookie of the year. Duckett played throughout the 1940s, ending his career in 1950 with the famous Homestead Grays, who operated as a barnstorming independent team.

Duckett was an excellent fielder who primarily played shortstop and second base, but he had trouble hitting. His best average was .277 in 1945, but it usually was much lower, sometimes dipping under .200. His value came from his fielding and his speed on the bases. He was also a good bunter who was occasionally moved up to second in the batting order.

William Rice (born 1924?) was one of the Tuskegee Airmen, the now-famous nickname for the 332nd Fighter Group of the United States Army Air Corps; the name comes from the unit having trained at Tuskegee Institute. (Later a bomber wing was added to the original fighter squadron.)

Formed in 1941, the airmen were the first group of African American aviators. The squadron's performance over Europe helped dispel the idea that African American flyers were unsuited for combat roles and paved the way for a totally integrated armed forces. Operating in an atmosphere of Jim Crow segregation and commanded by white officers, most of whom believed in the basic incompatibility of the races, the airmen led by example, forcing the army to recognize their commitment and service to the Allied war effort.

A foreign policy intellectual and diplomat, Susan Rice (born 1964) was named U.S. ambassador to the United Nations in 2009 by President Obama. Previously she had served in the State Department during the Clinton administration. A graduate of Stanford, Rice was a Rhodes Scholar, and received her PhD from Oxford University in 1990 with a dissertation on postcolonial Zimbabwe.

Catching the eye of many influential figures in both government and the private sectors—including Madeleine Albright, who has been something of a mentor—Rice has become an important figure in Washington's foreign policy bureaucracy. She has described how she has fought against the tendency toward inertia and timidity that can result from overly cautious bureaucratic thinking and has drawn fire from critics who have found her too willing to buck the system.

Colin Powell (born 1937) was a career army officer who served in Vietnam and subsequently rose to become the first African American chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (1989–93). Powell was one of the group of younger officers who led the reform and reorganization of the American army in the aftermath of its searing experience in the Vietnam War. He was particularly concerned that the nation's political leaders clearly articulate military strategy and not place the armed forces in untenable—and unwinnable—situations.

Powell served as Ronald Reagan's national security advisor from 1987 to 1989. Retiring from the army in 1993, after his tenure with the Joint Chiefs, Powell served as George W. Bush's secretary of state from 2001 to 2005 and has been considered a possible presidential candidate several times, although he has declined to run.

Vernon Jordan (born 1935) was part of the second wave of civil rights leaders who followed the generation of Martin Luther King Jr. From a modest background in Atlanta, Jordan went on to college at DePauw University and later earned his law degree from Howard University. Jordan became the director of the United Negro College Fund (1970) and served as president of the National Urban League from 1971 to 1981.

In 1980 he was shot by a white supremacist but survived the attack. Subsequently, Jordan took a less public role in politics and civil rights. Politically adroit and well-connected, Jordan has become a major power broker in Washington, one whose influence transcends the lines of race and party.

Sean Combs (born 1969), also known as Puff Daddy (or just Puffy) and P. Diddy, is a musician, record producer, actor, and entrepreneur. After dropping out of Howard University to go into show business, he founded Bad Boy Records in 1993, where he assembled a major list of hip hop and other artists, including The Notorious B.I.G., Faith Evans, and L'il Kim.

He started performing and recording himself in 1997; his debut album, No Way Out, won a Grammy for best rap album. He has diversified and expanded his commercial pursuits into film, television, and the stage as both an actor and producer/director. His clothing line, Sean John, has been commercially successful and has won awards from the fashion industry.

Serena Williams (born 1981), along with her older sister Venus, was trained on the public tennis courts of Compton, California, by their father, Richard. Both sisters have more than fulfilled his expectations, becoming two of the greatest players of all time.

Serena has won thirteen Grand Slam singles titles, including four Wimbledon championships, the fourth-highest total in women's tennis history. She has also won numerous doubles championships playing with her sister, including two Olympic gold medals.

Serena Williams has a serve that is only rivaled by her sister's, which is marginally faster, and relies on her power, strategy, and court coverage to aggressively pressure her opponents. She is also known for designing her own tennis outfits and has created her own clothing label, Aneres.

Kara Walker (born 1969) is best known for her life-sized tableaux of black cut-paper silhouettes through which she meditates on themes of race, gender, identity, and history. The child of an artist, Walker studied at the Rhode Island School of Design. Her work came to public attention very early; she received a MacArthur Foundation "genius grant" in 1997, at age twenty-eight.

Walker is especially interested in presenting a modern take on race through what seems to be the unlikely medium of figure cutouts. The result is subversive, as one gradually becomes aware that in Walker's hands this folk-art medium chronicles the crimes made in the name of race and gender.

Her work pays particular attention to the myths of American history, exploring the world of the antebellum South and its "moonlight and magnolias." Walker has also taken such contemporary events as Hurricane Katrina as a subject, creating a piece called After the Deluge, which links the devastation of black New Orleans to other tragedies in African American history.

With her uncanny ability to spot talent and the skill to develop and market it successfully, Suzanne de Passe (born 1948) has long been a dynamic force in the entertainment industry. Just twenty years old when Motown Records founder Berry Gordy hired her as his creative assistant, de Passe was instrumental in signing the Jackson 5 to a Motown contract and grooming them for stardom.

Tapped by Gordy to direct creative operations for Motown's West Coast enterprise, de Passe co-wrote the Oscar-nominated screenplay for the record label's first feature film, Lady Sings the Blues (1972).

As president of Motown's film division, de Passe wrote and produced the Emmy Award–winning retrospective Motown 25: Yesterday, Today, Forever (1983) and later scored a huge hit with her production of the critically acclaimed television miniseries Lonesome Dove (1988). De Passe now heads her own company, De Passe Entertainment, Inc.

LaTanya Richardson Jackson (born 1949) fell in love with acting at the age of fourteen, when she was cast in a children's theater production at Spelman College in her hometown of Atlanta. Later, while majoring in theater at Spelman, she met her future husband, Samuel L. Jackson (then a student at nearby Morehouse College), and was also introduced to the legendary theatrical producer and director Joseph Papp, who encouraged her to pursue an acting career in New York.

She followed his advice and won roles in a number of off-Broadway productions, including those staged by Papp's Public Theatre, before turning to work in film and television in the 1980s. Jackson returned to the New York stage in 2009 when she made her Broadway debut as Bertha Holly in the critically acclaimed revival of August Wilson's Joe Turner's Come and Gone.

One of the most acclaimed actors of his generation, Samuel L. Jackson (born 1948) began his career as a civil rights activist at Atlanta's Morehouse College in the mid-1960s. Jackson credits this work—he was an usher at Martin Luther King Jr.'s funeral—with molding his character and convincing him of his strength of personality. He studied drama as an undergraduate, and his first work was on the stage.

But early on, Jackson's career was threatened by his drug addiction. Spike Lee cast him in several films while he struggled with his demons, and Jackson eventually kicked his cocaine habit, ironically just as he prepared to play a crack dealer in Lee's Jungle Fever (1991). Jackson has gone on to appear in more than one hundred films, ranging from such art-house favorites as Pulp Fiction (1994) to the outlandish yet entertaining Snakes on a Plane (2006). He has a recurring role in the Iron Man movies.

RZA (born 1969; real name Robert F. Diggs) is a Grammy-winning music producer, rapper, and occasional actor. He is the musical and spiritual leader of the influential hip hop group Wu-Tang Clan, which is named after the kung fu movie Shaolin and Wu Tang.

Kung fu films are a major source of inspiration to RZA. After trying out several different monikers, Diggs settled on RZA, which stands for Ruler Zig-Zag-Zig Allah. In 1992, the group released Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers), which went platinum and helped wrest rap back to an East Coast sound after having been dominated by the West Coast beats of Dr. Dre and others.

From his base in the group, RZA has spun off a number of projects, both as a musician and actor, scoring Jim Jarmusch's film Ghost Dog (1999), for instance. He has also worked on a book of philosophy and aphorisms called The Wu-Tang Manual, which has contributed to its devotees' idea that the Wu-Tang Clan is not just a band but a way of life.

In 1996 Vogue magazine named fashion designer Patrick Robinson (born 1966) as one of the fashion industry's 100 rising stars. A graduate of the Parsons School of Design, Robinson worked for several American sportswear designers before joining Giorgio Armani in 1990, where he was credited with designs for power suits that became a wardrobe staple for female executives.

Just twenty-eight when he returned to the States to work for the Anne Klein Collection, Robinson founded his own high-end clothing line in 1997. After serving as creative director of Perry Ellis International (2003–4), he became artistic director for Paris-based Paco Rabanne, where he remained for several seasons.

In 2007 Robinson designed a limited-edition collection for Target's GO International line of affordable fashion before joining the Gap, Inc., as executive vice president of design—a post he held until May of 2011.

Majora Carter (born 1966) is an environmental activist whose career exemplifies a widening of the concerns of African American leaders following decades of concentration on legal or strictly socioeconomic issues. She has made "green" black.

Born in the South Bronx and a graduate of Wesleyan University, Carter returned to her home ground to work as a community and development consultant. Through an accident—her dog pulled her through a vacant lot to the Bronx River—Carter started working on environmental and access-to-nature issues for city dwellers.

After a five-year fundraising and restoration project, she oversaw the opening of Hunts Point Riverside Park in 2007. She has gone on to other environmental projects in the Bronx and has now also hosted both web-based and television programs on urban sustainability.

With a host of successful productions to his credit, playwright, actor, producer, and director Tyler Perry (born 1969) has become a one-man powerhouse in the entertainment industry. After his first play flopped in 1992, Perry spent years retooling and performing it on the southern black theater circuit before opening I Know I've Been Changed to sellout crowds in Atlanta in 1998.

Performing in drag two years later in I Can Do Bad All by Myself, Perry introduced Madea—a feisty, outrageous grandma who has become a reoccurring character in a string of hits, including Diary of a Mad Black Woman, which Perry brought to the screen in 2005.

On television, his work includes the highly rated cable sitcom Tyler Perry's House of Payne, which debuted in 2006. Laced with slapstick and ribald humor, Perry's productions typically deliver faith-inspired tales of sin and redemption that resonate with audiences.

Melvin Van Peebles (born 1932) is a pioneering African American film director as well as an actor, playwright, and novelist. He started shooting short documentaries in the 1950s; combining that career with writing, he eventually produced a feature film in France called La Permission (The Story of a Three-Day Pass; 1968).

In an ironic instance of national/racial misidentification, Hollywood producers assumed he was French (and white) and offered him a contract. His first film, Watermelon Man (1970), was also an exploration of confused identities, showing a racist white man who suddenly becomes black.

Van Peebles's experience with studio executives was fractious, and he was determined to have total control over his next project, the pathbreaking Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song (1971). The movie heralded a new era of African American–focused films and was the highest-grossing independent film at the time. Melvin Van Peebles is the father of actor and director Mario Van Peebles.

In a musical genre known for its roots in the southern white working-class, Charley Pride (born 1938) stands out not just as an African American but for his success and acceptance as a singer. Born in Mississippi, Pride's dream was to play professional baseball, but after failing to make it out of the minors, he gave up sports for country music.

Possessed of a smooth baritone, handsome, and with an appealing stage presence, Pride found mainstream success in country music, becoming a regular at the Grand Ole Opry. His biggest year was probably 1971, when he sang the million-seller single "Kiss an Angel Good Mornin'" and won the Country Music Association's Entertainer of the Year Award. Pride was the association's Top Male Vocalist in that year and in 1972. He was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2000. Pride continues his love of baseball and is part-owner of the Texas Rangers.

Civil rights leader and religious figure Barbara Clementine Harris (born 1930) was the first woman ordained a bishop in the Anglican Communion. Harris has long been active in civil rights issues, participating in freedom rides and marches in the 1960s, including the march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, led by Martin Luther King Jr. She also spent a summer registering black voters in Mississippi.

Educated at Villanova, in her hometown of Philadelphia, Harris decided to enter the priesthood later in life, and she was ordained in 1980. She became a bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts in 1989 and has been an outspoken advocate both on civil rights issues in society as well as within the Episcopal church. She retired as bishop in 2003.

Born in Chicago and educated at Harvard, where he also earned a law degree, Deval Patrick (born 1956) is governor of Massachusetts. He started his career working for the NAACP's legal defense fund and in 1994 was tapped by then-President Clinton to become assistant attorney general for civil rights.

Patrick later returned to private practice in Boston for several years before running for governor in 2006. Despite being a long shot, Patrick won the election, becoming the state's first African American governor, and he was subsequently reelected to a second term in 2010.

Patrick has admitted making missteps in the Bay State's notoriously fractious politics, but his tenure has counted many achievements, such as implementing initiatives in education.

Angela Davis (born 1944) was one of the most visible radicals during the Vietnam and civil rights eras, a polarizing figure whose intellect and activism was a lightning rod in a time of turmoil.

A philosophy scholar, Davis was drawn into an increasingly radicalized civil rights movement, centering around the Black Panther Party and a younger generation of activists. She was fired from a teaching position at UCLA for her radical politics, and in 1970 she was charged with murder and kidnapping in the aftermath of a courtroom shooting and became a fugitive. In 1972, after a controversial trial, she was found not guilty of any role in the shooting.

In the 1980s Davis was twice the Communist Party's candidate for vice president of the United States. Still an active speaker around the world, Davis is also a distinguished visiting professor of women's and gender studies and African American studies at Syracuse University.

Laurence Fishburne (born 1961) is an award-winning screen and stage actor, as well as a playwright, director, and producer. Born in Augusta, Georgia, Fishburne made his stage debut at age twelve on an ABC soap opera. At age fourteen he was cast in Apocalypse Now; he lied about his age to get the part.

He worked steadily in the 1980s, in roles ranging from cameos on the television show M*A*S*H to working with Spike Lee in School Daze (1988). On stage, he won a Tony Award after appearing in August Wilson's Two Trains Running (1992).

His most well-known role is as Morpheus in the science fiction film series The Matrix and as Dr. Raymond Langston on CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (2008–11). In 2008 he was nominated for another Tony for his performance in Thurgood, a one-man show about the first black Supreme Court justice, Thurgood Marshall.

The daughter of the late singer/songwriter Minnie Riperton, Maya Rudolph (born 1972) is an actress and comedienne. Raised in California, she graduated from the University of California, Santa Cruz, in 1995 with a degree in photography.

Rudolph joined Saturday Night Live in 2000, where she impersonated public figures ranging from Paris Hilton to Beyoncé. She left the show in 2007 and has since pursued a career as an actress in both films and television projects. In 2011 she appeared in the summer comedy Bridesmaids, a movie that is a feature-film showcase for contemporary female comedians. She has also had a career as a singer and musician.

Since first opening a storefront church in his home state of West Virginia in 1979, Bishop T. D. Jakes (born 1957) has built a dynamic ministry that now extends far beyond the walls of The Potter's House—the multicultural, nondenominational Christian megachurch he founded in Dallas, Texas, in 1996.

Committed to the belief that his role is "to open the door of the Church for hurting people and refocus what the Church was meant to be in our society," Jakes has developed popular religious-themed conferences and successfully utilized the mediums of radio, television, film, theater, recording, and publishing to deliver his message.

A Grammy Award winner and prolific author whose books have reached the New York Times best-seller list, Jakes is also responsible for multiple initiatives to assist those in need—from the homeless and jobless to substance abusers and ex-offenders.

A leader in the field of women's reproductive health, Valerie Montgomery-Rice (born 1961) is widely recognized for her work as an endocrinologist and infertility specialist. After earning her medical degree at Harvard University, Rice completed her residency in obstetrics and gynecology at Emory University School of Medicine, followed by a fellowship in reproductive endocrinology and infertility at Detroit's Hutzel Hospital.

While serving as chair of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Meharry Medical College in Nashville, Tennessee, Rice established the Center for Women's Health Research (2005), a facility dedicated to the study of diseases that disproportionately affect women of color.

The recipient of numerous honors, including the prestigious American Medical Women's Association's Elizabeth Blackwell Award (2011) for contributions to women's health, Rice now serves as dean and executive vice president of the Morehouse School of Medicine in Atlanta.

Atlanta native Raven-Symoné (born 1985) is an actress, singer-songwriter, fashion designer, voiceover artist, and television producer. She started her career as an infant model, and at age three she got the role of Olivia on The Cosby Show, appearing from 1989 to 1992.

She was subsequently cast as the lead in That's So Raven, the Disney Channel production that proved enormously popular with its target audience of so-called "tweens." Her other work for Disney has included roles in the made-for-television movies The Cheetah Girls (2003) and The Cheetah Girls 2 (2006).

In addition to pursuing a career as a singer, Raven-Symoné has voiced characters in several animated features.

Whoopi Goldberg (born Caryn Elaine Johnson, 1955) is one of the most important and bankable stars in Hollywood. Beginning her career as a standup comedian, Goldberg announced herself as a serious actress by appearing as Celie in The Color Purple (1985), a role for which she received an Oscar nomination.

She won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar in 1990 for her role in Ghost—it was the first Academy Award presented to a black actress since Hattie McDaniel had won fifty years earlier. Goldberg has gone on to win Emmy, Grammy, Tony, and Golden Globe awards and become a one-woman entertainment conglomerate.

She is an outspoken host of The View and is no stranger to politically provocative remarks and humor. In 2001 she won the Kennedy Center's Mark Twain Prize for American Humor. Goldberg has made more than 150 films, and at one point in the 1990s she was the highest-paid actress in Hollywood. Her distinctive stage name comes from the gag joke "whoopee cushion," and her last name is a bow to the tradition of Jewish comedians.

Dr. Michael Lomax (born 1947) was an English professor at the historically black Morehouse and Spelman Colleges before being named president of Dillard University in New Orleans in 1997. His career at Dillard was outstanding, and in an era in which the future of black colleges was increasingly precarious, he oversaw a rise in enrollment and a dramatic increase in Dillard's endowment.

In 2004 he was named the president and CEO of the United Negro College Fund; he also serves on many charitable and civic boards, including those of the United Way and the Studio Museum of Harlem. Lomax was an unsuccessful candidate for mayor of Atlanta in 1989.

John Legend (born 1978) is the stage name for the hugely successful recording artist and record producer John Stephens. He started singing as a youth in his church choir in Ohio and came to public attention when he sang as an undergraduate at the University of Pennsylvania.

While he was still a student, his keyboard skills earned him the opportunity to record with Lauryn Hill. After graduation, he worked as a management consultant while simultaneously pursing a career as a nightclub performer.

He released two independent albums under his own name before an introduction to singer Kanye West in 2000 led to a recording contract and to his new name, which he took because he was told he sounded "old school."

In addition to winning six Grammy Awards, Legend has been involved in multiple collaborations with other performing artists and has made several appearances in films, usually playing himself.

Model Beverly Johnson (born 1952) became the first black model to appear on the cover of Vogue, in 1974; a year later she also broke the color barrier in the French edition of Elle.

Born in Buffalo, Johnson became a model while studying at Northeastern University in Boston. An instant success, she went on to appear on more than 500 magazine covers, an accomplishment in its own right but especially so in the fashion industry, which is still color-conscious despite its ostensible liberalism.

Johnson has also appeared as an actor in television and films and has written a book of beauty and styling tips. Her "Beverly Johnson Hair Collection" line of products targets African American women. In 2010 she signed a contract to provide a line of grooming products for Target.

Originally from South Carolina, Debra L. Lee (born 1955) graduated from Brown University and later earned degrees in public policy and law from Harvard. She worked as a law clerk in Washington and in 1986 joined BET, the parent company of the Black Entertainment Television Corporation, as vice president of the legal affairs department.

She later took on other responsibilities at the company, and in 1996 she was named president and chief operating officer, replacing the company's founder, Robert L. Johnson. Lee's mandate as president has been to create original programming for the network instead of relying on syndicated products. She serves on the boards of several major corporations and public bodies.

Actor and director Lee Louis Daniels (born 1959) is best known for producing the critically acclaimed and popular film Monster's Ball (2001), the searing story of the collision between a prison guard and a death-row inmate's widow. (Halle Berry won the Best Actress Oscar for the role of the widow).

Daniels followed up this success with a series of more low-key projects, including his directorial debut, Shadowboxer (2006). In 2009 he was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Director for Precious, an emotionally charged character study about overcoming abuse and poverty. Daniels is now working on a film about Martin Luther King Jr.

Hill Harper (born 1966) is an actor and four time New York Times bestselling author with a BA from Brown University, an MPA from Harvard's Kennedy School of Government and a law degree from Harvard. He adopted his first name as a tribute to his ancestors. While a student at Harvard he started acting professionally. He never practiced law, deciding instead to move to Los Angeles to pursue an acting career.

Harper has appeared in several Spike Lee films, including his first major role—as a film student in Get on the Bus (1996), about the Million Man March. Best known for his role as an investigator on CSI: NY, he has also written a series of inspirational books for African Americans, including Letters to a Young Brother (2006), which was named a Best Book for Young Adults by the American Library Association in 2007.