Breaking the Color Barrier:

African American Firsts

Television 1956: Nat King Cole

Oprah Winfrey

Boxing 1908: Jack Johnson

Muhammad Ali

Acting Award 1940:

Hattie McDaniel

Sidney Poitier

Law 1967:

Thurgood Marshall

Clarence Thomas

International Award 1950:

Ralph Bunche

Martin Luther King, Jr.

First $$$ - 1910s: Madame C.J.Walker

Oprah Winfrey

Robert Johnson

Government 1966:

Edward Brooke

Barak Obama

Military 1940:

Gen. Benjamin Davis

Gen. Colin Powell

Literature 1773:Phillis Wheatley

Gwendolyn Brooks

Education 1823: Alexander Lucien Twilight

Edward Alexander Bouchet

Sports (Tennis) 1957:

Althea Gibson

Arthur Ashe

Government 2001:Colin Powell

Condaleezza Rice

Space 1967: Robert H. Lawrence, Jr.

Guion Bluford

Sports 1884:

Moses Fleetwood Walker

Jackie Robinson

National Poetry 1976:

Robert Hayden

Rita Dove

Acting Award 1954:

Dorothy Dandridge

Halle Berry

Literature 1853:

William Wells Brown

Toni Morrison

Congress 1969:

Shirley Chisholm

Carol Moseley Braun

Medicine 1921:

James McCune Smith

Charles Drew

Aviation 1921:

Bessie Coleman

Mae Jemison

Sports 1960/1984: Rafer Johnson

Jackie Joyner Kersee

“We all have barriers to break. We may not be the first but we’ll still break barriers someday. “