Spingarn Medal
Encyclopedia
The Spingarn Medal is awarded annually by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, usually abbreviated as NAACP, is an African-American civil rights organization in the United States, formed in 1909. Its mission is "to ensure the political, educational, social, and economic equality of rights of all persons and to...

 (NAACP) for outstanding achievement by an African American
African American
African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...

.

The award, which consists of a gold medal, was created by Joel Elias Spingarn
Joel Elias Spingarn
Joel Elias Spingarn was an American educator, literary critic, and civil rights activist.-Biography:Spingarn was born in New York City to a well-to-do family. He graduated from Columbia College in 1895...

, Chairman of the Board of the NAACP in 1914. It was first awarded to biologist Ernest E. Just in 1915, and has been given each year thereafter, with the exception of 1938.

Well-known recipients of the award include: W. E. B. Du Bois, Colonel Charles Young, George Washington Carver
George Washington Carver
George Washington Carver , was an American scientist, botanist, educator, and inventor. The exact day and year of his birth are unknown; he is believed to have been born into slavery in Missouri in January 1864....

, Marian Anderson
Marian Anderson
Marian Anderson was an African-American contralto and one of the most celebrated singers of the twentieth century...

, Paul Robeson
Paul Robeson
Paul Leroy Robeson was an American concert singer , recording artist, actor, athlete, scholar who was an advocate for the Civil Rights Movement in the first half of the twentieth century...

, Thurgood Marshall
Thurgood Marshall
Thurgood Marshall was an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court, serving from October 1967 until October 1991...

, Jackie Robinson
Jackie Robinson
Jack Roosevelt "Jackie" Robinson was the first black Major League Baseball player of the modern era. Robinson broke the baseball color line when he debuted with the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947...

, Martin Luther King, Jr.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Martin Luther King, Jr. was an American clergyman, activist, and prominent leader in the African-American Civil Rights Movement. He is best known for being an iconic figure in the advancement of civil rights in the United States and around the world, using nonviolent methods following the...

, Langston Hughes
Langston Hughes
James Mercer Langston Hughes was an American poet, social activist, novelist, playwright, and columnist. He was one of the earliest innovators of the then-new literary art form jazz poetry. Hughes is best known for his work during the Harlem Renaissance...

, Sammy Davis, Jr.
Sammy Davis, Jr.
Samuel George "Sammy" Davis Jr. was an American entertainer and was also known for his impersonations of actors and other celebrities....

, Alex Haley
Alex Haley
Alexander Murray Palmer Haley was an African-American writer. He is best known as the author of Roots: The Saga of an American Family and the coauthor of The Autobiography of Malcolm X.-Early life:...

, Andrew Young
Andrew Young
Andrew Jackson Young is an American politician, diplomat, activist and pastor from Georgia. He has served as Mayor of Atlanta, a Congressman from the 5th district, and United States Ambassador to the United Nations...

, Rosa Parks
Rosa Parks
Rosa Louise McCauley Parks was an African-American civil rights activist, whom the U.S. Congress called "the first lady of civil rights", and "the mother of the freedom movement"....

, Coleman Young
Coleman Young
Coleman Alexander Young served as mayor of Detroit in the U.S. state of Michigan from 1974 to 1993. Young became the first African-American mayor of Detroit in the same week that Maynard Jackson became the first African-American mayor of Atlanta.-Pre-Mayoral career:Young was born in Tuscaloosa,...

, Lena Horne
Lena Horne
Lena Mary Calhoun Horne was an American singer, actress, civil rights activist and dancer.Horne joined the chorus of the Cotton Club at the age of sixteen and became a nightclub performer before moving to Hollywood, where she had small parts in numerous movies, and more substantial parts in the...

, Bill Cosby, Jr.
Bill Cosby
William Henry "Bill" Cosby, Jr. is an American comedian, actor, author, television producer, educator, musician and activist. A veteran stand-up performer, he got his start at various clubs, then landed a starring role in the 1960s action show, I Spy. He later starred in his own series, the...

, Jesse Jackson
Jesse Jackson
Jesse Louis Jackson, Sr. is an African-American civil rights activist and Baptist minister. He was a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1984 and 1988 and served as shadow senator for the District of Columbia from 1991 to 1997. He was the founder of both entities that merged to...

, Colin Powell
Colin Powell
Colin Luther Powell is an American statesman and a retired four-star general in the United States Army. He was the 65th United States Secretary of State, serving under President George W. Bush from 2001 to 2005. He was the first African American to serve in that position. During his military...

, Earl Graves & Maya Angelou
Maya Angelou
Maya Angelou is an American author and poet who has been called "America's most visible black female autobiographer" by scholar Joanne M. Braxton. She is best known for her series of six autobiographical volumes, which focus on her childhood and early adult experiences. The first and most highly...

.

Complete List of Winners of the Medal

1914
  • 1915 Ernest E. Just (biologist)
  • 1916 Colonel Charles Young (U.S. Army)
  • 1917 Harry T. Burleigh (composer, pianist, singer)
  • 1918 William Stanley Braithwaite
    William Stanley Braithwaite
    William Stanley Beaumont Braithwaite was an American writer, poet and literary critic.Braithwaite was born in Boston, Massachusetts. At the age of 12, upon the death of his father, Braithwaite was forced to quit school to support his family...

     (poet, editor, literary critic).
  • 1919 Archibald H. Grimke (U.S. Consul, president of the American Negro Academy, president of the D. C. Branch of the NAACP)
  • 1920 William E. B. Du Bois (author, founder of NAACP)
  • 1921 Charles S. Gilpin (actor)
  • 1922 Mary B. Talbert (president, National Association of Colored Women)
  • 1923 George Washington Carver
    George Washington Carver
    George Washington Carver , was an American scientist, botanist, educator, and inventor. The exact day and year of his birth are unknown; he is believed to have been born into slavery in Missouri in January 1864....

     (botanist)
  • 1924 Roland Hayes
    Roland Hayes
    Roland Hayes was a lyric tenor and is considered the first African American male concert artist to receive wide international acclaim as well as at home...

     (singer, soloist with the Boston Symphony Orchestra)
  • 1925 James Weldon Johnson
    James Weldon Johnson
    James Weldon Johnson was an American author, politician, diplomat, critic, journalist, poet, anthologist, educator, lawyer, songwriter, and early civil rights activist. Johnson is remembered best for his leadership within the NAACP, as well as for his writing, which includes novels, poems, and...

     (poet, Executive Secretary of the NAACP)
  • 1926 Carter G. Woodson
    Carter G. Woodson
    Carter Godwin Woodson was an African-American historian, author, journalist and the founder of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History. Woodson was one of the first scholars to study African American history. A founder of Journal of Negro History , Dr...

     (historian and founder of the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History, editor of Negro Orators and Their Orations)
  • 1927 Anthony Overton
    Anthony Overton
    Anthony Overton , a banker and manufacturer, was the first African-American to lead a major business conglomerate. In 1898 he established Hygienic Manufacturing Company and produced a number of goods, including the nationally-known High Brown Face Powder, which was "the first market success in the...

     (businessman, president of the Victory Life Insurance Company)
  • 1928 Charles W. Chesnutt
    Charles W. Chesnutt
    Charles Waddell Chesnutt was an American author, essayist, political activist and lawyer, best known for his novels and short stories exploring complex issues of racial and social identity in the post-Civil War South, where the legacy of slavery and interracial relations had resulted in many free...

     (author)
  • 1929 Mordecai W. Johnson (educator)
  • 1930 Henry A. Hunt
    Henry A. Hunt
    Henry Alexander Hunt was an African-American educator who led efforts to reach blacks in rural areas of Georgia. He was awarded the Spingarn Medal by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People , as well as the Harmon Prize. In addition, he was recruited in the 1930s by...

     (high school principal)
  • 1931 Richard B. Harrison
    Richard B. Harrison
    Richard Berry Harrison was a renowned actor, teacher, dramatic reader and lecturer. He was featured on the cover of TIME magazine on March 4, 1935. The son of fugitive slaves, Harrison was born in London, Ontario, Canada, on September 28, 1864, the eldest of five siblings.Harrison's parents had...

     (actor)
  • 1932 Robert Russa Moton
    Robert Russa Moton
    Robert Russa Moton was an African American educator and author. He served as an administrator at Hampton Institute and was named principal of Tuskegee Institute in 1915 after the death of Dr. Booker T. Washington, a position he held for 20 years until retirement in 1935.-Youth, education,...

     (principal of Tuskegee Institute)
  • 1933 Max Yergan
    Max Yergan
    Max Yergan was an African American activist notable for being a Baptist missionary for the YMCA, then a Communist working with Paul Robeson, and finally a staunch anti-Communist who complimented the government of apartheid-era South Africa for that part of their program...

     (missionary)
  • 1934 William T. B. Williams
    William T. B. Williams
    William Taylor Burwell Williams was Dean of Tuskegee Institute, taught at Hampton Institute, and was two-time president of the National Association of Teachers in Colored Schools...

     (dean of Tuskegee Institute)
  • 1935 Mary McLeod Bethune
    Mary McLeod Bethune
    Mary Jane McLeod Bethune was an American educator and civil rights leader best known for starting a school for African American students in Daytona Beach, Florida, that eventually became Bethune-Cookman University and for being an advisor to President Franklin D...

     (educator and activist)
  • 1936 John Hope
    John Hope (educator)
    John Hope , born in Augusta, Georgia, was an African-American educator and political activist. He was the son of James Hope, a white Scottish merchant, born in Langholm, Scotland in 1805. Arriving in New York City in 1817, he was a successful grocer in Manhattan before moving south to Augusta in...

     (educator)
  • 1937 Walter F. White (executive secretary of the NAACP)
  • 1938 No award given
  • 1939 Marian Anderson
    Marian Anderson
    Marian Anderson was an African-American contralto and one of the most celebrated singers of the twentieth century...

     (opera singer)
  • 1940 Louis T. Wright
    Louis T. Wright
    Louis Tompkins Wright was an American surgeon noted for his work in Harlem. The Spingarn Medallist played a major role in investigating the use of Aureomycin as a treatment on humans....

     (surgeon)
  • 1941 Richard N. Wright
    Richard Wright (author)
    Richard Nathaniel Wright was an African-American author of sometimes controversial novels, short stories, poems, and non-fiction. Much of his literature concerns racial themes, especially those involving the plight of African-Americans during the late 19th to mid 20th centuries...

     (author)
  • 1942 A. Philip Randolph
    A. Philip Randolph
    Asa Philip Randolph was a leader in the African American civil-rights movement and the American labor movement. He organized and led the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, the first predominantly Negro labor union. In the early civil-rights movement, Randolph led the March on Washington...

     (labor leader)
  • 1943 William H. Hastie
    William H. Hastie
    William Henry Hastie, Jr. was an American, lawyer, judge, educator, public official, and advocate for the civil rights of African Americans...

     (jurist and educator)
  • 1944 Charles R. Drew
    Charles R. Drew
    Charles Richard Drew was an American physician, surgeon and medical researcher. He researched in the field of blood transfusions, developing improved techniques for blood storage, and applied his expert knowledge to developing large-scale blood banks early in World War II. This allowed medics to...

     (physician)
  • 1945 Paul Robeson
    Paul Robeson
    Paul Leroy Robeson was an American concert singer , recording artist, actor, athlete, scholar who was an advocate for the Civil Rights Movement in the first half of the twentieth century...

     (singer, actor)
  • 1946 Thurgood Marshall
    Thurgood Marshall
    Thurgood Marshall was an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court, serving from October 1967 until October 1991...

     (lawyer and later Solicitor General and Supreme Court justice)
  • 1947 Percy L. Julian (research chemist)
  • 1948 Channing Heggie Tobias
    Channing Heggie Tobias
    Channing Heggie Tobias was a civil rights activist and Spingarn Medalist. In 1946 he was appointed to the President's Committee on Civil Rights....

     (participant on the President's Committee on Civil Rights
    President's Committee on Civil Rights
    The President's Committee on Civil Rights was established by Executive Order 9808, which Harry Truman, who was then President of the United States, issued on December 5, 1946. The committee was instructed to investigate the status of civil rights in the country and propose measures to strengthen...

    )
  • 1949 Ralph J. Bunche (diplomat and Nobel laureate, 1950)
  • 1950 Charles Hamilton Houston
    Charles Hamilton Houston
    Charles Hamilton Houston was an African American lawyer, Dean of Howard University Law School and NAACP Litigation Director who played a significant role in dismantling the Jim Crow laws and trained future Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall.Houston was born in Washington, D.C. His father...

     (Chairman, NAACP Legal Committee)
  • 1951 Mabel Keaton Staupers
    Mabel Keaton Staupers
    Mabel Keaton Staupers was a pioneer in the American nursing profession. Faced with racial discrimination after graduating from nursing school, Staupers became an advocate for racial equality in the nursing profession....

     (leader of the National Association of Colored Graduate Nurses)
  • 1952 Harry T. Moore
    Harry T. Moore
    Harry Tyson Moore was an African-American teacher, and founder of the first branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in Brevard County, Florida....

     (NAACP leader, martyr in the "crusade for freedom")
  • 1953 Paul R. Williams (architect)
  • 1954 Theodore K. Lawless
    Theodore K. Lawless
    Theodore K. Lawless was an American dermatologist, medical researcher, and philanthropist. He is known for work related to leprosy and syphilis. He also was involved in various charitable causes including Jewish causes. Related to the latter he created the Lawless Department of Dermatology in...

     (physician, educator, philanthropist)
  • 1955 Carl J. Murphy (editor, publisher, civic leader)
  • 1956 Jack R. Robinson (athlete)
  • 1957 Martin Luther King, Jr.
    Martin Luther King, Jr.
    Martin Luther King, Jr. was an American clergyman, activist, and prominent leader in the African-American Civil Rights Movement. He is best known for being an iconic figure in the advancement of civil rights in the United States and around the world, using nonviolent methods following the...

     (activist and minister)
  • 1958 Daisy Bates
    Daisy Bates (civil rights activist)
    Daisy Lee Gatson Bates was an American civil rights activist, publisher and writer who played a leading role in the Little Rock integration crisis of 1957....

     and the Little Rock Nine
    Little Rock Nine
    The Little Rock Nine was a group of African-American students who were enrolled in Little Rock Central High School in 1957. The ensuing Little Rock Crisis, in which the students were initially prevented from entering the racially segregated school by Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus, and then...

     (desegregation activists)
  • 1959 Edward "Duke" Ellington
    Duke Ellington
    Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington was an American composer, pianist, and big band leader. Ellington wrote over 1,000 compositions...

     (composer and pianist)
  • 1960 J. Langston Hughes (poet and playwright)
  • 1961 Kenneth B. Clark (professor of Psychology at CCNY)
  • 1962 Robert C. Weaver
    Robert C. Weaver
    Robert Clifton Weaver served as the first United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development from 1966 to 1968. He was the first African American to hold a cabinet-level position in the United States.As a young man, Weaver had been one of 45 prominent African Americans appointed by...

     (Administrator of Housing and Home Finance Agency)
  • 1963 Medgar W. Evers
    Medgar Evers
    Medgar Wiley Evers was an African American civil rights activist from Mississippi involved in efforts to overturn segregation at the University of Mississippi...

     (martyr in the civil rights movement in Mississippi)
  • 1964 Roy Wilkins
    Roy Wilkins
    Roy Wilkins was a prominent civil rights activist in the United States from the 1930s to the 1970s. Wilkins' most notable role was in his leadership of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People ....

     (Executive Director of the NAACP)
  • 1965 Leontyne Price
    Leontyne Price
    Mary Violet Leontyne Price is an American soprano. Born and raised in the Deep South, she rose to international acclaim in the 1950s and 1960s, and was one of the first African Americans to become a leading artist at the Metropolitan Opera.One critic characterized Price's voice as "vibrant",...

     (Metropolitan Opera star)
  • 1966 John Harold Johnson (founder and president of Johnson Publishing Co.)
  • 1967 Edward W. Brooke III
    Edward Brooke
    Edward William Brooke, III is an American politician and was elected to the United States Senate as a Republican from Massachusetts in 1966, defeating his Democratic opponent, Endicott Peabody, 60.7%–38.7%...

     (first Negro to win popular election to the U.S. Senate)
  • 1968 Sammy Davis, Jr.
    Sammy Davis, Jr.
    Samuel George "Sammy" Davis Jr. was an American entertainer and was also known for his impersonations of actors and other celebrities....

     (entertainer)
  • 1969 Clarence M. Mitchell, Jr.
    Clarence M. Mitchell, Jr.
    Clarence M. Mitchell, Jr. was a civil rights activist and was the chief lobbyist for the NAACP for nearly 30 years. He also served as a regional director for the organization. Mitchell, nicknamed "the 101st U.S...

     (NAACP regional director, civil rights lobbyist)
  • 1970 Jacob Lawrence
    Jacob Lawrence
    Jacob Lawrence was an American painter; he was married to fellow artist Gwendolyn Knight. Lawrence referred to his style as "dynamic cubism", though by his own account the primary influence was not so much French art as the shapes and colors of Harlem.Lawrence is among the best-known twentieth...

     (painter)
  • 1971 Leon Howard Sullivan (clergyman, activist)
  • 1972 Gordon Parks
    Gordon Parks
    Gordon Roger Alexander Buchanan Parks was a groundbreaking American photographer, musician, poet, novelist, journalist, activist and film director...

     (photographer, writer, filmmaker, composer)
  • 1973 Wilson C. Riles (educator)
  • 1974 Damon J. Keith (jurist)
  • 1975 Henry L. Aaron (athlete)
  • 1976 Alvin Ailey, Jr.
    Alvin Ailey
    Alvin Ailey, Jr. was an American choreographer and activist who founded the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater in New York. Ailey is credited with popularizing modern dance and revolutionizing African-American participation in 20th century concert dance...

     (choreographer and dancer)
  • 1977 Alexander P. Haley (author)
  • 1978 Andrew Young
    Andrew Young
    Andrew Jackson Young is an American politician, diplomat, activist and pastor from Georgia. He has served as Mayor of Atlanta, a Congressman from the 5th district, and United States Ambassador to the United Nations...

     (diplomat, civil rights activist, minister)
  • 1979 Rosa L. Parks
    Rosa Parks
    Rosa Louise McCauley Parks was an African-American civil rights activist, whom the U.S. Congress called "the first lady of civil rights", and "the mother of the freedom movement"....

     (activist)
  • 1980 Rayford W. Logan (educator, historian, author)
  • 1981 Coleman A. Young (politician)
  • 1982 Benjamin Mays
    Benjamin Mays
    Benjamin Elijah Mays was an American minister, educator, scholar, social activist and the president of Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia from 1940 to 1967. Mays was also a significant mentor to civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr...

     (educator, civil rights activist, president of Morehouse College
    Morehouse College
    Morehouse College is a private, all-male, liberal arts, historically black college located in Atlanta, Georgia. Along with Hampden-Sydney College and Wabash College, Morehouse is one of three remaining traditional men's colleges in the United States....

    )
  • 1983 Lena Horne
    Lena Horne
    Lena Mary Calhoun Horne was an American singer, actress, civil rights activist and dancer.Horne joined the chorus of the Cotton Club at the age of sixteen and became a nightclub performer before moving to Hollywood, where she had small parts in numerous movies, and more substantial parts in the...

     (singer)
  • 1984 Thomas Bradley
    Tom Bradley (politician)
    Thomas J. "Tom" Bradley was the 38th Mayor of Los Angeles, California, serving in that office from 1973 to 1993. He was the first and to date only African American mayor of Los Angeles...

     (mayor of Los Angeles)
  • 1985 William H. Cosby, Jr.
    Bill Cosby
    William Henry "Bill" Cosby, Jr. is an American comedian, actor, author, television producer, educator, musician and activist. A veteran stand-up performer, he got his start at various clubs, then landed a starring role in the 1960s action show, I Spy. He later starred in his own series, the...

     (entertainer, author and educator)
  • 1986 Benjamin Hooks
    Benjamin Hooks
    Benjamin Lawson Hooks was an American civil rights leader. A Baptist minister and practicing attorney, he served as executive director of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People from 1977 to 1992, and throughout his career was a vocal campaigner for civil rights in the...

     (Executive Director of the NAACP)
  • 1987 Percy Sutton
    Percy Sutton
    Percy Ellis Sutton was a prominent black American political and business leader. A civil-rights activist and lawyer, he was also a Freedom Rider and the legal representative for Malcolm X...

     (public servant, businessman, community leader)
  • 1988 Frederick Douglass Patterson (educator, veterinarian, visionary, humanitarian)
  • 1989 Jesse L. Jackson (civil rights activist and Presidential candidate)
  • 1990 L. Douglas Wilder (public servant)
  • 1991 General Colin L. Powell (public servant)
  • 1992 Barbara C. Jordan (public servant)
  • 1993 Dorothy I. Height (president of the National Council of Negro Women)
  • 1994 Maya Angelou
    Maya Angelou
    Maya Angelou is an American author and poet who has been called "America's most visible black female autobiographer" by scholar Joanne M. Braxton. She is best known for her series of six autobiographical volumes, which focus on her childhood and early adult experiences. The first and most highly...

     (author)
  • 1995 John Hope Franklin
    John Hope Franklin
    John Hope Franklin was a United States historian and past president of Phi Beta Kappa, the Organization of American Historians, the American Historical Association, and the Southern Historical Association. Franklin is best known for his work From Slavery to Freedom, first published in 1947, and...

     (historian, educator)
  • 1996 Aloyisus Leon Higginbotham, Jr.
    Aloyisus Leon Higginbotham, Jr.
    Aloyisus Leon Higginbotham, Jr. was a prominent African American civil rights advocate, author, and federal appeals court judge. Higginbotham was the seventh African American Article III judge appointed in the United States, and the first African American judge on the United States District Court...

     (jurist, public servant)
  • 1997 Carl T. Rowan (journalist)
  • 1998 Myrlie Evers-Williams
    Myrlie Evers-Williams
    SynopsisEarly LifeLife with MedgarMedgar Evers MurderLife After Medgar'NAACP/ HonorsAccomplishmentsWhoopi Goldberg played her in Ghosts of Mississippi...

     (civil rights activist, Chairman of the NAACP)
  • 1999 Earl G. Graves
    Earl G. Graves
    Earl Gilbert Graves, Sr. is an American entrepreneur, publisher, businessman, and philanthropist. A graduate of Morgan State University, he is the founder of Black Enterprise magazine and chairman of the media company Earl G. Graves, Ltd. He is the current director for Aetna and Executive Board...

     (chairman of Black Enterprise Magazine)
  • 2000 Oprah Winfrey
    Oprah Winfrey
    Oprah Winfrey is an American media proprietor, talk show host, actress, producer and philanthropist. Winfrey is best known for her self-titled, multi-award-winning talk show, which has become the highest-rated program of its kind in history and was nationally syndicated from 1986 to 2011...

     (actress and philanthropist)
  • 2001 Vernon E. Jordan, Jr. (public servant)
  • 2002 John Lewis
    John Lewis (politician)
    John Robert Lewis is the U.S. Representative for , serving since 1987. He was a leader in the American Civil Rights Movement and chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee , playing a key role in the struggle to end segregation...

     (civil rights activist and member of Congress)
  • 2003 Constance Baker Motley
    Constance Baker Motley
    Constance Baker Motley was an African American civil rights activist, lawyer, judge, state senator, and President of Manhattan, New York City.-Early Life and Academics:...

     (federal court judge, Senator)
  • 2004 Robert L. Carter
    Robert L. Carter
    Robert Lee Carter is a U.S. civil rights activist and judge.-Personal history and early life:Robert Lee Carter was born on March 11, 1917, in Careyville, Florida. While still very young, his mother moved north to Newark, New Jersey, where he was raised...

     (federal court judge, cofounder of National Conference of Black Lawyers
    National Conference of Black Lawyers
    The National Conference of Black Lawyers , is an American association, formed in 1968, to serve as the Black Liberation movement’s legal arm and aid other black activists, it is made up of judges, law students, lawyers, legal activists, legal workers, and scholars.Noted clients included, Angela...

    )
  • 2005 Oliver W. Hill (civil rights lawyer)
  • 2006 Benjamin Carson (neurosurgeon)
  • 2007 John Conyers
    John Conyers
    John Conyers, Jr. is the U.S. Representative for , serving since 1965 . He is a member of the Democratic Party...

     (congressman)
  • 2008 Ruby Dee
    Ruby Dee
    Ruby Dee is an American actress, poet, playwright, screenwriter, journalist, and activist, perhaps best known for co-starring in the film A Raisin in the Sun and the film American Gangster for which she was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.-Early years:Dee was born Ruby...

     (actress)
  • 2009 Julian Bond
    Julian Bond
    Horace Julian Bond , known as Julian Bond, is an American social activist and leader in the American civil rights movement, politician, professor, and writer. While a student at Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia, during the early 1960s, he helped found the Student Nonviolent Coordinating...

     (activist)
  • 2010 Cicely Tyson
    Cicely Tyson
    Cicely Tyson is an American actress. A successful stage actress, Tyson is also known for her Oscar-nominated role in the film Sounder and the television movies The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman and Roots....

     (actress)
  • 2011 Frankie Muse Freeman (attorney and civil rights activist)
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