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100 Greatest African Americans

 

 
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100 Greatest African Americans
 
 
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100 Greatest African Americans is a biographical dictionary
Biographical dictionary

Biographical dictionaries — a type of encyclopedic dictionary limited to biographical information — have been written in many languages....
 of the one hundred historically greatest
Greatness

Greatness or pre-eminence is a concept heavily dependent on a person's world view and biases. The term can be used to emphasise perceived superiority of a person or thing....
 African American
African American

African Americans or Black Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have origins in any of the Black people populations of Africa....
s, as assessed by Molefi Kete Asante
Molefi Kete Asante

Molefi Kete Asante is a contemporary American Academia in the field of African studies and African American Studies. He is currently Professor in the Department of African American Studies at Temple University, where he founded the first PhD program in African American Studies....
 in 2002.








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100 Greatest African Americans is a biographical dictionary
Biographical dictionary

Biographical dictionaries — a type of encyclopedic dictionary limited to biographical information — have been written in many languages....
 of the one hundred historically greatest
Greatness

Greatness or pre-eminence is a concept heavily dependent on a person's world view and biases. The term can be used to emphasise perceived superiority of a person or thing....
 African American
African American

African Americans or Black Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have origins in any of the Black people populations of Africa....
s, as assessed by Molefi Kete Asante
Molefi Kete Asante

Molefi Kete Asante is a contemporary American Academia in the field of African studies and African American Studies. He is currently Professor in the Department of African American Studies at Temple University, where he founded the first PhD program in African American Studies....
 in 2002.

Criteria

Asante used five factors in establishing the list:

  • "significance in the general progress of African Americans toward full equality in the American social and political system"
  • "self-sacrifice and a willingness to take great risks for the collective good"
  • "unusual will and determination in the face of great danger and against the most stubborn odds"
  • "a consistent posture toward raising the social, cultural and economic status of African Americans"
  • "personal achievement that reveals the best qualities of the African American people"


Asante consciously omits some contemporary celebrities
Celebrity

A celebrity is a widely-recognized or notable person who commands a high degree of public and media attention. The word stems from the Latin verb "celebrare" but one may not become a celebrity unless public and mass media interest is piqued....
, whom he did not consider notable enough for a historical list.

Asante does not rank the historical figures.

Critique

A reviewer of this dictionary noted the brevity of some entries, then stated: "More serious perhaps is the lack of more critical information on the people’s [sic] whose biographies are presented."