Black People who changed the world
Artists Athletes and Authors
Ibn Battuta (1304-1368)
Born in Tangier, Morocco, Battuta was an extensive traveller. His journals, written in a variety of locations in the world- spanning from the Mandé empire in present-day Mali and Guinea to Yuan dynasty China- greatly expanded geographical knowledge of the world, and his records of the cultures he encountered, particularly in the Sahara, mark him as one of the most major ethnographers in modern history.
Ignatius Sancho (1729-1780)
Born on a slave ship, and brought at the age of 2 to Britain as a domestic slave, Sancho covertly taught himself to read and write at an early age. Running away from his owner, Sancho found work as a butler to the progressive Duke and Duchess of Montagu who financed his further academic study: while working for them, he wrote poetry, two stage plays and a Theory of Music, albeit none of them published. He was also active as a composer, in total writing three collections of music for violin, flute, mandolin and harpsichord, all of which were published anonymously. Leaving service in 1773, he bought and ran a successful grocery shop until his death. In 1782, his Letters became the first piece of literature by a Black person to be published, receiving over 1,200 subscribers, aimed in his words to prove that 'an untutored African may possess [intellectual] abilities equal to a European' .
Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861)
Born in Northumberland to part-Creole Jamaican parents, writer and translator Barrett Browning ranks as one of Britain’s foremost Romantic poets. Her first collection, An Essay on Mind and Other Poems was published in 1826, and in 1833 she also became famous as one of Britain’s few women translators of classical languages with her transcription from Greek of Aeschylus’ Prometheus Bound. Estranged from her plantation-owner father due to her opposition of slavery, Barrett married the great poet Robert Browning in 1846, their marriage resulting in some of the greatest poetic works of Victorian times, including Barrett Browning’s zenith point, Sonnets from the Portuguese, a set of poems to her husband published in 1850. Barrett Browning’s later work criticised the Austrian oppression of 19 th century Italy, child labour and slavery. She was perhaps the first Black fiction writer in British history.
Lord Leary Constantine (1902-1971)
Born in Trinidad in 1902, Constantine’s prowess as a cricketer soon became noticeable, causing him to immigrate to Britain in 1923, and enjoyed a distinguished decade-long career. While working as a solicitor’s assistant in 1942, Constantine was asked by the Ministry Of Labour to become a temporary civil servant responsible for the growing number of West Indian migrant workers employed in Merseyside factories. Given four days’ leave in 1943 to captain the West Indies cricket team, Constantine and his family were barred by the Imperial Hotel in London from staying due to colour, despite prior booking: Constantine took them to court, and became the first person ever to successfully challenge colour discrimination by a service industry. Constantine was made an MBE in 1945, knighted in 1962, and elected a life peer- Britain’s first Black peer- in 1969.
James Langston Hughes (1902-67)
Renowned Harlem poet, playwright and gay icon, Hughes was only the second Black American to make a living as a writer. His poetic work incorporated elements of the Afro-American spirituals and blues music that were a key memory of his early childhood. Sometimes travelling and resident in Mexico City, Paris, several African port cities and Russia, Hughes was also- during an era in which the USA tried to secede itself from global politics- one of only a handful of active writers bringing literary ideas from non-American cultures to an American audience. In 1991, his remains were created and interred by Maya Angelou beneath the Schomburg Research centre for Black Culture in Harlem, in gratitude for his pioneering work in Black literature.
Jesse Owens (1913-1980)
Owens broke four world records for running and long jump when he was 22 years old. His four gold medals at the 1936 Olympic Games (held in Nazi Germany and intended to glorify Aryan physiology) helped dispel white supremacism across the world- Adolf Hitler refused to shake hands with him. After retiring from athletics, he devoted himself to community work, especially with young people.
Aime Cesaire (born 1913)
Became Mayor of Fort de France in Martinique, the Caribbean country where he was born. He is also famous as a poet. Part of his long poem, Return to My Native Land, says that, 'No race has all the beauty, intelligence and strength/ there is room for all the meeting-places of victory/ we know now/ that the sun moves round our earth lighting the piece of land that we alone have chosen'.
Maya Angelou (born 1928)
Novelist and poet, the first volume Angelou’s autobiography, I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings became in 1970 the first non-fiction work by a Black woman to top national bestseller lists. Her distinctive, highly politically charged style has influenced a generation of authors; her work has furthermore encouraged many Black women into professional writing. One of her poems, Still I Rise, begins: 'You may write me down in history/ With your bitter, twisted lies, / You may tread me in the very dirt/ But still, like dust, I'll rise'.
Miriam Makeba (born 1932)
Born in South Africa and resident during her life in Guinea and the USA, jazz diva Makeba has irrevocably changed the landscape of both modern music and politics. Leaving South Africa for New York in 1959, Makeba became the first African artist to gain recognition by Western audiences; her work with Harry Belafonte, suffused with both American jazz and South African mbube, effectively kick-started the ‘world music’ genre. Makeba’s testimony before the United Nations in 1963 was the first exposure of the abject oppression of apartheid to the West; in response the South African government formally exiled her for over two decades. Nonetheless, she inspired many South Africans to speak out against apartheid.
Nina Simone (1933-2003)
Born Eunice Kathleen Waymon in Tryon, North Carolina, Simone showed prodigious ability as a pianist from an early age. Her experiences with racism, however, dissuaded her from following a purely classical path: at her first solo recital, at the age of 10, her parents were removed from the front row of the audience to allow a white couple to sit down; at the age of 18, she was rejected by the prestigious Curtis Institute of Music at Philadelphia due to her colour. Simone financed her further education by working as a bar singer-pianist; it was at one that she was noticed by a record label, recording her first album in 1957. Her music, fusing classical piano, jazz and protest song in Simone’s unique rough-edged voice, became a signature of the Civil Rights movement; several of her works, particularly ‘Mississippi Goddam’, ‘To Be Young, Gifted And Black’ and ‘Four Women’ played pivotal roles in motivating people to follow King’s ideals, and rank as some of the most powerfully political songs ever written.
Audre Lorde (1934-1992)
Poet and educator, Lorde was also a prominent activist for Black, women’s and gay rights. Her work- often strongly, even painfully confrontational- dealt frequently with her experiences of being a member of all three oppressed groups; professionally she helped establish links between African émigrés and descendants across Europe, the USA and South Africa, and founded the Women Of Colour Press. Her 1973 collection, From a Land Where Other People Live, was nominated for the US National Book Award For Poetry, and her final autobiographical work The Cancer Journals gained (overdue) wide acclaim. One often repeated quote regarding Civil Rights states "liberation is not the private province of any one particular group".
Muhammad Ali (born Cassius Clay in 1942)
Within 6 years of taking up boxing, Clay had become the 1960 Olympic Light Heavyweight champion, but threw his medal away in disgust at the way he was, even as an acclaimed sportsman, treated by segregated America. Four years later he became heavyweight champion of the world and converted to Islam, dropping his 'slave-name'. Ali continually stressed the importance of upholding principles, refusing on political grounds to fight in the Vietnam War, even when his medals were stripped from him. Ali thereafter won his championship status back and has been world champion three times. He is often acknowledged as the greatest boxer ever.
Mumia Abu-Jamal (born 1954)
A highly respected, multi-award winning political journalist, known as 'The Voice of the Voiceless'. Whilst working as a taxi driver, in 1981, Mumia saw a policeman beating up a Black man. Mumia intervened to try to stop it happening, then realised that the victim was his brother. During the incident the policeman was shot dead. Although witnesses claim that it was not Mumia who fired the shot, he is now a prisoner on death row, in Pennsylvania, USA, after a notoriously unfair trial. He continues to write and broadcast from his prison cell.
Oumou Sangare (born 1968)
Singer, songwriter and campaigner from the Wassoulou region of Mali, Sangare has for the past fifteen years occupied a pivotal role in African feminism. She has used her songs to give social commentary to the masses, being especially critical of polygamy (in Mali, under sharia’h law, a man is allowed to have up to four wives: Sangare’s own mother was abandoned by her father for his second wife, causing Sangare to grow up in poverty). Her work- both the messages of her songs and also her position as an intelligent, independent woman in a male-dominated society- has caused a complete change in attitude across Mali: polygamous marriages are now in decline and may well die out in the near future. Other recent works have criticised domestic violence, inter-ethnic tension, racism towards migrant groups and the widening wealth gap between different social classes in West Africa.
