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THE "A" LIST
THE GREATEST AFRICANS OF THE 20TH CENTURY (LISTED IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER)
THE 'A' LIST is a showcase of the greatest men and women of African descent who made remarkable contributions to global African communities and all humanity in the past 100 years. this list is dynamic, and will continually evolve. you are invited to help us refine and develop the list of Africans who changed the world.
Ladies
and gentlemen, we appreciate your participation. If
you would like to submit your choice of a great
leader OF African DECENT that is not mentioned on this list,
please
email your selection to
mrrudysmusic@yahoo.com.
If
your selection makes the grade, we will add it to the
'a' list.
To participate, select your favorite person and write a short seven to twelve sentence biography on your selection. Also, we'd appreciate it if you could send us a photograph of your selection as an attachement to your email. Thank you for your participation. |
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Dr.
Nnamdi Azikiwe
(1904-96),
Nigerian politician, founder of modern Nigerian nationalism and first
president of Nigeria (1963-66). Born at Zungeru, the son of an Igbo
clerk, Azikiwe was educated in Nigeria and the U.S. In 1937 he founded a
newspaper chain, and in 1946 he became president of the National Council
of Nigeria and the Cameroons. He was premier in Igbo-dominated Eastern
Region (1954-59), then governor-general, and later president. Following
the military coups of 1966, Azikiwe was adviser to the Igbo secessionist
state of Biafra, but he later broke with the secessionist cause. He was
chancellor of Lagos University from 1972 to 1975 and ran unsuccessfully
for president in 1979 and 1983.
For more info logon to http://www.greatepicbooks.com/epics/november98.html |
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In 1997, Kofi Annan of Ghana became the second United Nations Secretary General from Africa. He began his first five-year term in January. (The former incumbent, Boutros Boutros Ghali of Egypt, had his bid for a second term vetoed by the United States.) On assuming office, Kofi Annan's first major initiative was his plan for UN renewal, which was presented to member states in July 1997. Africa became one of his priorities, and in April 1998 he submitted a report to the Security Council entitled The Causes of Conflict and the Promotion of Durable Peace and Sustainable Development in Africa. This was among several efforts to maintain the international community's commitment to the continent. Annan has used his good offices to mediate several sensitive political situations, including an attempt to gain Iraq's compliance with Security Council resolutions, and his missions to help promote the transition to civilian rule in Nigeria and to resolve a stalemate between Libya and the Security Council over the 1988 Lockerbie bombing. For more info logon to http://www.un.org/News/ossg/sg/pages/sg_biography.html |
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Rosa Parks, known as "the mother of the civil rights movement," walked into history on December 1, 1955 when she refused to give up her seat for a white man on a Montgomery, Alabama bus. Parks was arrested for her defiance, and she agreed to challenge the segregation order in court. After this tactic failed, Parks and others organized the Montgomery bus boycott: "For a little more than a year, we stayed off those busses. We did not return to using public transportation until the Supreme Court said there shouldn't be racial segregation." Parks and others lost their jobs, and she was harassed and threatened. The boycott held, and an important corner was turned in the movement. Parks and her family eventually moved to Detroit, where she worked for many years for Congressman John Conyers. She founded the Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute for Self-Development to offer guidance to young African-Americans in preparation for leadership and careers. For more info logon to http://www.grandtimes.com/rosa.html |
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Ahanyi, Ogbaja (Prohet) K.O.K. Onyioha (1923-2003), Eze Ewelu Ochie II, the king of Ukwa Ukwu, Nkporo, Nigeria was the Supreme Spiritual Teacher of Godianism, a neo-traditional movement in Nigeria. Known first as the National Church of Nigeria, the movement was formed in 1948-50 by a group of well educated Igbos. They were associated with the National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons which fought under Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe for independence in the 1940s and 50s. Under Onyioha's leadership they sought to rekindle interest in the traditional African forms of religion, rather than the ;foreign' religions of Christianity and Islam. The movement merged with the Edo National Church or Holy Arousa, founded by Oba Akenzua II, the king of Benin, to form Godianism. Onyioha transcended ethnic and even national boundries, drawing elements from various sources to expand the movement's appeal. In the mid-1970s he was instrumental in forming the Organization of Traditional Religions of Africa. He published several books including African Godianism: A Revolutionary Religion for Mankind through Direct Communication with God (1983) and has lectured all over the world, including an address to the United Nations in 1978.
For more info logon to http://www.godianism.org/THE AHANYI2.htm
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Dr. Martin Luther lived a very successful life as a civil right's activist serving as the leading force behind the withdrawal of segregation laws in the 60's. Martin was born in the southern city of Atlanta, Georgia to the parents of Alberta Williams King and Martin Luther King. His father was a pastor at the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta. Martin flew through school and by the time he was 15 he was enrolled in Morehouse College located in his home town. By 1948 he had graduated and choose to pursue the same career as his father as a minister. By 1955 he received his PHD from the Boston graduate school where he met his wife. Coretta Scott, who in 1953 he married. They had 4 children, and stayed together up until Martin's death. Between the time that Martin graduated from Boston Graduate school gaining his PHD he became a civil rights activist. Making many strides forward and eventually gaining the withdrawal of segregation laws. Martin was killed by an assassin on April 4, 1968. The assassin was an escaped convict named James Earl Ray, who admitted to the assassination in March of 1969. Martin was killed while he was in Memphis, Tennessee supporting a strike of African American garbage men. He was buried in the South View Cemetery in Atlanta. For more info logon to http://nobelprize.org/peace/laureates/1964/king-bio.html
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Nelson Mandela is one of the great moral and political leaders of our time: an international hero whose lifelong dedication to the fight against racial oppression in South Africa won him the Nobel Peace Prize and the presidency of his country. Since his triumphant release in 1990 from more than a quarter-century of imprisonment, Mandela has been at the center of the most compelling and inspiring political drama in the world. As president of the African National Congress and head of South Africa's antiapartheid movement, he was instrumental in moving the nation toward multiracial government and majority rule. He is revered everywhere as a vital force in the fight for human rights and racial equality by South Africans and people around the world.
For more info logon to http://www.anc.org.za/people/mandela.html
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By the time Marcus Garvey was twenty, he was a master printer and foreman of the P.A. Benjamin Co. Troubles for Garvey were on the way, though. On January 14, 1907, there was an earthquake and fire. This caused low wages and scarcity of commodities. The Printer's Union went on strike and made Garvey their leader. The strike eventually broke, and most of the workers got their jobs back except Garvey. This caused him to distrust the role unions could play in helping the black worker. Garvey went to work for the government and edited an unsuccessful newsletter called Garvey's Watchman. This was the first in a long line of unsuccessful attempts by Garvey before the UNIA. He left his job to go to Costa Rica. There, he worked for the United Fruit Co. He recognized the awful plight of the black field workers. He went to Limon to protest but was met with indifference and another failed paper, La Nationale. He traveled to Panama, Equador, Nicaragua, Honduras, Columbia, and Venezuela. At all places he found the inferior status of the Negro. In spite of the difficulties his movement had, Garvey became a symbol of black freedom. His powerful oratory gave pride and hope to thousands of working class blacks around the world.
For more info logon to http://www.swagga.com/marcus.htm |
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Muhammad Ali. He boasted he was "The Greatest," and in the prime of his charismatic career, many agreed. The sports world is filled with showmen and great athletes, but perhaps never were they better combined than in the young man who began life as Cassius Clay and became a worldwide phenomenon as Muhammad Ali. The man who bragged about his ability to "float like a butterfly and sting like a bee" went from being a curious oddity in the early 1960s to a national villain to an international hero. And now, his body limited by Parkinson's disease, he reigns as one of the most beloved men on the planet.
For more infor logon to http://www.ali.com
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Maya Angelou is a poet, historian, author, actress, playwright, civil-rights activist, producer and director. She lectures throughout the US and abroad and is Reynolds professor of American Studies at Wake Forest University in North Carolina. She has published ten best selling books and countless magazine articles. At the request of President Clinton, she wrote and delivered a poem at the 1993 presidential inauguration. Dr. Angelou began her career in drama and dance. She married a South African freedom fighter and lived in Cairo where she was editor of The Arab Observer, the only English-language news weekly in the Middle East. In Ghana, she was feature editor of The African Review and taught at the University of Ghana. In the 1960s, at the request of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Ms. Angelou became the northern coordinator for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. She was appointed by President Gerald Ford to the Bicentennial Commission and by President Jimmy Carter to the National Commission on the Observance of International Women's Year. For more information go to http://www.empirezine.com/spotlight/maya/ |
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In the fifties and sixties, Sidney Poitier embarked on a streak of cinematic firsts for black actors. He was the first black actor to be nominated for a Best Actor Academy Award, for The Defiant Ones, in 1958, and the first to win the Best Actor nod, for Lilies in the Field, in 1963. In 1968, Poitier became the first black No. 1 box-office star, shortly after he performed half of the first movie kiss between a white woman and a black man, in 1967's Guess Who's Coming to Dinner. Poitier's characters had a common thread: they were intelligent, rational men--non-threatening to whites but exhibiting a quiet dignity and controlled anger. In In the Heat of the Night, when Rod Steiger's redneck sheriff asks Poitier's Virgil Tibbs, "What do they call you, boy?" he responds, "They call me Mr. Tibbs." It became one of Poitier's most celebrated lines, a quiet demand for respect that reverberated throughout filmdom. Some have argued that Poitier was perfectly tailored to become the first major black film star because he seemed devoid of any menace--indeed, one critic called him a "chocolate-dipped Mary Poppins."
For more info go to http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/database/poitier_s.html |
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Alex Haley is the author of two books that have helped shape contemporary African American consciousness: The Autobiography of Malcolm X (1965) and the novel Roots: The Saga of an American Family (1976). The massive popularity of this historical novel and the success of the television mini-series it inspired made Haley a national figure. Roots won numerous awards, including special citations from both the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize committees in 1977. He later helped develop Roots: The Next Generation (1979), a sequel to the original television mini-series; another mini-series, Queen (1993), as well as the book Alex Haley’s Queen (1993; with David Stevens), were based on dictation Haley made about his paternal great-grandmother. He died of cardiac arrest on February 10, 1992, in Seattle, Washington, and is buried on the grounds of the Alex Haley Museum in Henning, Tennessee.
For more info logon to http://www.tnstate.edu/library/digital/Haley.htm |
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As the century draws to a close,
Michael Jordan
is recognized as an icon. Tall, dark
and bald, he is the first man of the planet. The Chicago Bulls guard has the
rarest of gifts, the ability to transcend his sport. His fame and skill are
intertwined, much as they were in earlier generations for a select few, such
as the Babe and Ali. Jordan made himself into a megastar. His burning desire
to win, his utter refusal to quit, his desire to carry his team to the
mountain top have made him a legend in his time.
For more info logon to http://jordan.sportsline.com/ |
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By
the 1890s,
Booker T. Washington
was the most prominent
African-American in the country, and a number of Presidents, as well as
business leaders, relied on Washington as an advisor. Other
African-American leaders and intellectuals, however, most notably W.E.B.
DuBois, resented Washington's message of political accommodation in favor
of economic progress and distrusted his reliance on wealthy white
Northerners for assistance. Leaders such as DuBois also resented
Washington's willingness to use his political and economic influence in
controlling ways that led them to refer to the "Tuskegee
Machine." Washington's autobiography, Up From Slavery, published in
1901, followed the American tradition of the self-made man's account of
his success. The work was internationally popular as well as a critical
success, and brought a large amounts of much-needed funds to Tuskegee.
Booker T. Washington died in 1915.
For more info logon to http://www.ushistory.net/toc/washington.html
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From Harlem to Hamburg, Ella Fitzgerald thrilled her audiences with a crystal clear voice, gliding effortlessly from low notes to high, from be-bop to ballads. Born in Virginia and raised in New York, Fitzgerald began her professional career at the age of 16. She intended to dance at amateur night at the Harlem Opera House, but she lost her nerve when she got on stage. Over the years, Fitzgerald won dozens of awards. She dominated the early Grammy ceremonies, winning best female vocal performance three years in a row. In all, she won 13 Grammy awards -- more than any other jazz musician. But she maintained always an aura of graciousness -- she was at a loss for words when the Society of Singers named an award after her. "I don't want to say the wrong thing, which I always do," she said. "I think I do better when I sing."
For more info logon to http://www.ellafitzgerald.com/
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For most athletes,
Jesse
Owens performance one spring afternoon in 1935 would
be the accomplishment of a lifetime. In 45 minutes, he established three world
records and tied another. Owens won four
gold medals in the 1936 Olympics. Four
years later, a street in Berlin was renamed in his honor. A decade after his
death, President Bush posthumously awarded Owens the Congressional Medal of
Honor. Bush called his victories in Berlin "an unrivaled athletic triumph,
but more than that, a triumph for all humanity.
For more info logon to http://www.jesseowens.com/
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Ms.
Oprah Winfrey
-- The Queen of Daytime TV.
She was the first black woman to have her own national show. She is the
first African-American and the third woman in history, behind Mary
Pickford and Lucille Ball, to own her own studio, HARPO Studios
("Oprah" spelled backwards). She is the world's highest paid
entertainer. |
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Julius
Nyerere, who
was former
Tanzanian president and elder statesman led
his country to independence in 1961 and served as president from 1962 to 1985,
when he became only the second post-colonial African leader to leave office
voluntarily (Leopold Senghor of Senegal was the first). Although his bold
experiment in building a socialist society did not fulfill its promise, Nyerere
stayed above the Cold War rivalry of the era, making his country an oasis of
peace. He also opened the way to multi-party democracy in Tanzania and in later
years allowed the emergence of free-market economics. One of Nyerere's greatest
legacies was his success in building a country where national identity was more
important than tribe. He continued with his efforts to bring peace to the region
right up until a few days before his admission to hospital, mediating talks
aimed at ending the civil war in neighboring Burundi. At his funeral sixteen
African heads of State and government, European royalty, senior officials from organizations
such as the World Bank and the United Nations came to pay their
respects.
For more info logon to http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/441768.stm |
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Malcolm
X
was an intransigent opponent of the
U.S. government and its imperialist policies. He fought the racist
oppression of Blacks and the profit-driven plunder of Africa, Asia, and
Latin America. He expressed this revolutionary political outlook in the
opening years of the 1960’s while a major spokesperson for the Nation of
Islam. Following his March 1964 break with the Nation, Malcolm’s views
continued to evolve—first in an anticapitalist, and then increasingly in
a prosocialist direction.
During the last year of his life, Malcolm organized the Muslim Mosque, Inc. Alongside it, in June 1964, he founded a secular political group, the Organization of Afro-American Unity (OAAU). He spent much of the last year of his life in Africa and the Middle East observing, speaking, and meeting with political leaders there. He visited and addressed audiences in France and Britain as well. For more info logon to http://www.cmgww.com/historic/malcolm/index.htm |
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Harriett
Tubman
was
born in 1821 in Dorchester County, Maryland. One of eleven children,
she escaped from slavery in 1849 and joined the abolitionist movement. She
became a conductor of the "underground railroad," and was
frequently referred to as "Moses" of ancient times. The
underground railroad was neither a railroad nor underground, but a system
for helping slaves to escape. Strong, brave as a lion, cunning as a fox
was Harriett Tubman, who made at least nineteen journeys into the deep
South and led over three hundred slaves to freedom. Although she could not
read or write, Harriett Tubman was one of the leading conductors of the
underground railroad. During the Civil War, Harriet Tubman served both as
a nurse and a spy for the Union Army. When she died on March 10, 1913 in
Auburn, New York, Harriett Tubman was buried with full military
honors.honors.
For more info logon to http://www.harriettubman.com/ |
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Emperor
Haile Selassie
I
(1892-1975), "King of Kings. In 1935 there was just one man who
rose out of murky obscurity and carried his country with him up & up
into brilliant focus before a pop-eyed world. But for the hidden
astuteness of this man, there would not now be the possibility of another
world war arising out of idealism generated around the League of Nations
in behalf of Ethiopia. But for His Majesty Haile Selassie, the year 1935
would have been a distinctly different year. If by some unhappy chance the
Italo-Ethiopian war should now spread into a world conflagration, Power of
Trinity I, the King of Kings, the Conquering Lion of Judah, will have a
place in history as secure as Woodrow Wilson's. If it ends in the fall of
Mussolini and the collapse of Fascism, his Majesty can plume himself on
one of the greatest feats ever credited to blackamoors.
January
6, 1936, Time Magazine Man Of The Year
For more info logon to http://www.angelfire.com/ny/ethiocrown/Haile.html |
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Eldrick
(Tiger) Woods
is considered the
greatest golfer of all time. Now 24 years of age, has had an unprecedented
start since becoming a professional golfer in the late summer of 1996. He
has won 29 tournaments, 23 of those on the PGA TOUR, including the 1997
Masters Tournament, 1999 and 2004 PGA Championships, 2004 U.S. Open
Championship, and 2004 British Open Championship. He is the career
victories leader among active players on the PGA TOUR.
Woods has won eight PGA TOUR events this year, earning $7,692,821 and breaking tbe record of $6,616,585, which he set in 1999. Tiger has increased his record total on the career money list to $19,007,950, and has won $21,938,114 worldwide. In his 86 PGA TOUR events as a professional, Tiger has had 37 top-three and 56 top-10 finishes. He has played 105 events worldwide as a professional, with 51 top-three and 74 top-ten finishes. He has missed the 36-hole cut one time. For more info logon to http://www.tigerwoods.com/splash/splash.sps |
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Miriam
Makeba
was born in Johannesburg, South Africa in 1932, and began her career as
the vocalist for The Manhattan Brothers. Her appearance in the late
50's in the documentary "Come Back Africa" led to invitations
for her to visit Europe and America, where she came to the attention of
Harry Belafonte and Steve Allen and was catapulted to stardom. In 1960,
Miriam was banned from returning to the country of her birth, and
she was forced to spend the next 30 years as a "citizen of the
world". But, despite the pain of isolation from her home, the United
States took her to its collective heart with performances at the country's
most prestigious venues, as well as constant television performances. Her
1967 release of "Pata
Pata"
became a hit worldwide and has since been re-recorded by numerous
international artists. Her recording career blossomed and she released
records for RCA, Reprise and many others. She was received by such world
leaders as Hailé Selassie, Fidel Castro, John F. Kennedy and François
Mitterrand. Miriam Makeba has been a Guinean delegate to the
United Nations where she twice addressed the General Assembly, speaking
out against the evils of apartheid. Although always regarding herself as a singer and not as a politician, Miriam's fearless humanitarianism has earned her many International awards, including the 1986 Dag Hammerskjold Peace Prize. For more info logon to http://www.leopardmannen.no/m/makeba.miriam.asp?lang=gb TO BE CONTINUED. |