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African American Almanac
ISBN: 9781578593231
$29.95

African American Hero of the Day:

What supermodel has become a successful businesswoman and starred in her own reality show about models?

  • She was born to a low-income family in Los Angeles, California, in 1973.
  • She has written a popular book about beauty that also is about the beauty within.
  • She is a talk show host.
  • She was voted Supermodel of the Year in 1997.

Show answer

From the African American Hero of the Day archive...

Who served as governor of Louisiana for just five weeks?
What comedian is the oldest brother of a famous family of comedians and entertainers who made a splash in the early 1990s with a popular television comedy show
Which poet could number President George Washington among her admirers?
What physician is credited with developing the life-saving techniques of separating blood plasma so that it might be better preserved for later use?
What nineteenth-century scientist is well-known for his work in agriculture, especially with peanuts?
Which author and scholar has written important works on sexism, class conflict, and racism, in such books as Ain't I a Woman? Black Women and Feminism.
What baseball player broke Babe Ruth's homerun record in 1974?
What actor who was well known in the 1920s for his roles in Eugene O'Neal plays was also active in civil rights and was accused of being a Communist?
Who worked for the NAACP, SCLC, SNCC, and the YWCA, and also helped establish the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party as an alternative to what was then an all-white Democratic Party in her state?
Who was the founder of Chicago, Illinois?
Who is the author known for her 1970 novel, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings?
What comedic actor and movie producer got his first big break with the 1982 movie 48 Hours?
Who is credited with sparking the Civil Rights Movement in 1955?
Who was the track and field star who won three gold medals at the 2000 Olympics, as well as two bronze medals?
What radio personality is also known as "The Fly Jock"?
Which actress has won four of the most prestigious entertainment honors in film, television, stage, and music?
Which poet received the Frost Medal from the Poetry Society of America in 1990?
What well-known broadcast journalist for a popular television news magazine started his career as a disc jockey?
Who became a famous defendant in an 1857 U.S. Supreme Court case involving the Fugitive Slave Act?
Who was the athlete whose success was an insult to Nazi Germany's Adolf Hitler?
Who was the music producer who founded Def Jam Recordings?
Who founded two schools, a college, and a hospital and later served under President Franklin D. Roosevelt's administration?
Which African American tennis player has a stadium named after him at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Queens, New York?
Whose idea for a Negro History Week eventually evolved into today's Black History Month?
Who is the first woman to become a bishop in the AME Church?
What famous jazz trumpet player once knocked The Beatles off the top of the music charts?
Who was a noted scholar, sociologist, editor, and critic who had a Ph.D. from Harvard University, was a cofounder of the NAACP, and is today still considered a monumental figure in African American history?
Which actor won a best-supporting actor role for 1990's Glory?
Who was the founder of the American Moral Reform Society?
Which artist was considered to be a leading talent of the post-Civil War "journeyman period" of African American art?
What acclaimed actress is famous for her role in 1974's The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman?
Which twentieth-century painter gained acclaim for creating biographical panel series commemorating chapters of African American history?
What singer was one of the first recipients of the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1963?
What science fiction author is also a poet who was nominated for the Lambda Literary Award for a work he wrote about black gay poets?
What famous basketball star briefly retired from his team and played minor league baseball before a triumphant return?
What popular actor became a star with his television series The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air?
Who led the rebellion on the slave ship Amistad in 1839?
What notoriously bohemian artist was known for his portraits of such musicians as Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington?
What musician and singer was portrayed by Jamie Foxx in a 2004 biopic?
Whose book Know What I Mean?: Reflections on Hip Hop contradicted some of the views of comedian Bill Cosby about black youth?
What virtuoso trumpet player is highly respected for his command of everything from classical to jazz and for his insistence on keeping jazz in its pure form and not introducing other elements, such as rock stylizations, into it?
Who was the woman who was not only a fierce abolitionist but also worked as a spy for the North during the Civil War?
What famous author died in France not long after being named a commander of that nation's Legion of Honor?
Who was the first African American to go into space?
Who was a teacher at UCLA who became involved with the Black Panthers and was one of the most wanted women in America by the FBI?
Which author gained acclaim with her first novel, The Bluest Eye?
What inventor was noted for his advances in making shoes?
Who was chosen by President Jimmy Carter to be secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development?
What boxer liked to say, "Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee"?
What successful photographer became an author and composer, notably writing the score to the 1971 movie Shaft?
What popular singer from the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s was later portrayed by Diana Ross in a movie?
Who was the PGA champion who was unable to straighten his left arm?
Who was the famous nineteenth-century AME bishop who wrote History of the African Methodist Episcopal Church (1891)?
Who, at the age of 93 years old, led and won a fight to desegregated public facilities in Washington, D.C.?
What ragtime pianist also wrote a ballet and operas?
Who was the first African American woman to be elected to the U.S. House of Representatives?
Who was the army general who became President George W. Bush's first secretary of state?
Who organized the Universal Negro Improvement Association in 1914?
Who was the first African-American to pitch in a World Series game?
Who was President George W. Bush's second secretary of state?
Which U.S. Congresswoman was also the first African American to chair the important Labor and Management Relations Committee.?
Who was the first African American to become a U.S. Supreme Court justice?
Who was the first African American to serve a full term in the U.S. Senate?
What supermodel has become a successful businesswoman and starred in her own reality show about models?

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Black Firsts 2nd ed. Black Firsts: 4,000 Ground-Breaking and Pioneering Events, 2nd Edition
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