Richard Theodore Greener
(1844-1922) Richard Theodore Greener was an eminent statesman and orator of his time. The first African American to graduate from Harvard University he became a professor of metaphysics at the University of South Carolina, where he also earned a law degree. From there he served on the South Carolina Supreme Court and as consul to several foreign countries. Throughout his career Greener was noted as a gifted speaker and writer particularly concerning Black issues. He led the way for others today who carry on the work of making the American legal system more accessible to people of color

Dorie Miller (1919-1943) Dorie Miller was one of the first heroes of the war in the Pacific Region during World War II. Miller was on board the battleship West Virginia on December 7, 1941, when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. Although he was a messman and had not been trained to fire a machine gun, Miller took over a gun and performed heroically downing at least two Japanese planes. Some witnesses later claimed he destroyed as many as six enemy warplanes. His efforts earned him the Navy Cross. In 1943 Miller was one of nearly 700 men who lost their lives aboard the carrier Liscombe Bay.

Ulysses Grant Dailey (1885-1961) Ulysses Grant Dailey was named after the Civil War victor, and graduated from Northwestern University Medical School in 1906. Never once sitting idle in his career, he worked as a surgical assistant to the renowned Dr. Daniel Hale Williams, studied abroad in London, Paris and Vienna, and set up his own hospital/sanitarium in 1926. For more than two decades he was Chief Attending Surgeon at Chicago's Provident Hospital. His exceptional work in anatomy and surgery also carried him to foreign countries as the U.S. State Department's health advisor.

NATHAN HARE, author of "The Black Anglo-Saxon", and president/founder of The Black World Foundation and publisher of "The Black Scholar". He has taught at Howard University and San Francisco College where he was the country's first coordinator of an African American studies program.

M. CARL HOLMAN, former deputy director of the United States Commission on Civil Rights, and later took over the responsibilities formerly exercised by A. Phillip Randolph and the late Whitney M. Young, Jr.

DAVID DINKINS became the first African American mayor of New York City on November 7, 1989.