Now we can add Barak to this list!
GOVERNMENT
Local elected official: John Mercer Langston, 1855, town clerk of Brownhelm Township, Ohio
State elected official: Alexander Lucius Twilight, 1836, Vermont Legislature
Mayor of major city: Male: Carl Stokes, Cleveland, Ohio, 1967. Female: Sharon Pratt Dixon Kelly, Washington, D.C., 1991
Governor: L. Douglas Wilder, Virginia, 1990
U.S. representative: Male: Joseph Rainey, South Carolina, 1870. Female: Shirley Chisholm, New York, 1969
U.S. senator: Hiram Revels, Mississippi, 1870. Post-Reconstruction: Edward Brooke, Massachusetts, 1966. Carol Mosely Braun, Illinois, 1992
U.S. Cabinet member: Male: Robert Weaver, 1966-68, secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Female: Patricia Harris, 1977, secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development
U.S. secretary of state: Male: Gen. Colin Powell, 2001-04. Female: Condoleezza Rice, 2005-present
U.S. Supreme Court justice: Thurgood Marshall, 1967
ARTS, ENTERTAINMENT AND SPORTS
Pulitzer Prize: Charles Gordone, 1970, for his play "No Place to Be Somebody"
Nobel Prize for Literature: Toni Morrison, 1993
Poet laureate: Male: Robert Hayden, 1976-78. Female: Rita Dove, 1993-95
Grammy Award: Male: Count Basie, 1958. Female: Ella Fitzgerald, 1958
Oscar: Hattie McDaniel, 1940, supporting actress, "Gone with the Wind"
Oscar, best actor/actress: Sidney Poitier, 1963, "Lilies of the Field"; Halle Berry, 2001, "Monster's Ball"
Network television show host: Nat King Cole, 1956, Oprah Winfrey, 1986, "The Oprah Winfrey Show"
Star of a network television show: Bill Cosby, 1965, "I Spy"
Major League Baseball player (modern era): Jackie Robinson, 1947, Brooklyn Dodgers
Olympic gold medalist (Summer Games; individual): Male: DeHart Hubbard, 1924, for the long jump. Female: Alice Coachman, 1948, for the high jump
MILITARY
Combat pilot: Georgia-born Eugene Jacques Bullard, denied entry into the U.S. Army Air Corps in 1917 because of his race, served throughout World War I in the French Flying Corps. He received the Legion of Honor, France's highest honor, among many other decorations.
Congressional Medal of Honor winner: Sgt. William Carney for bravery during the Civil War. He received his congressional Medal of Honor in 1900.
General: Benjamin Davis Sr., 1940-48
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff: Colin Powell, right, 1989-93
Source: San Francisco Chronicle
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