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The Spingarn Medal is awarded annually by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) for outstanding achievement by a black 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....
. The same organization also bestows the Image Awards
NAACP Image Award

The NAACP Image Awards is an award presented annually by the American National Association for the Advancement of Colored People to honor outstanding people of color in film, television, music, and literature....
 on deserving black Americans
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....
 in the arts and entertainment.

The award, which consists of a gold medal, was created by and is named for Joel Elias Spingarn
Joel Elias Spingarn

Joel Elias Spingarn was an United States educator, literary critic and civic activist....
, who was the Chairman of the Board of the NAACP in 1914. It was first awarded to biologist Ernest E.






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The Spingarn Medal is awarded annually by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) for outstanding achievement by a black 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....
. The same organization also bestows the Image Awards
NAACP Image Award

The NAACP Image Awards is an award presented annually by the American National Association for the Advancement of Colored People to honor outstanding people of color in film, television, music, and literature....
 on deserving black Americans
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....
 in the arts and entertainment.

The award, which consists of a gold medal, was created by and is named for Joel Elias Spingarn
Joel Elias Spingarn

Joel Elias Spingarn was an United States educator, literary critic and civic activist....
, who was the 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
W.E.B. Du Bois

'William Edward Burghardt Du Bois' was an American civil rights activist, Pan-Africanism, sociologist, historian, author, and editor. At the age of 95, in 1963, he became a naturalized citizen of Ghana....
, Colonel Charles Young, George Washington Carver
George Washington Carver

George Washington Carver , was an United States scientist, botanist, educator, and inventor whose studies and teaching revolutionized agriculture in the Southern United States....
, Marian Anderson
Marian Anderson

Marian Anderson was an United States Contralto and one of the most celebrated singers of the twentieth century. She possessed a rich and vibrant voice with an intrinsic quality of beauty....
, Paul Robeson
Paul Robeson

Paul LeRoy Bustill Robeson was an American actor of film and stage, All-American and professional sportsperson, writer, multi-lingual orator, lawyer, and basso profondo concert singer who was also noted for his wide-ranging social justice activism....
, Thurgood Marshall
Thurgood Marshall

'Thurgood Marshall' was an United States jurist and the first African American to serve on the Supreme Court of the United States. Before becoming a judge, he was a lawyer who was best remembered for his high success rate in arguing before the Supreme Court and for the victory in Brown v....
, Jackie Robinson
Jackie Robinson

Jack Roosevelt "Jackie" Robinson was the first African-American Major League Baseball player of the modern era. Although not the first African-American professional baseball player in United States history, Robinson's 1947 Major League debut with the Brooklyn Dodgers ended approximately 60 years of baseball Racial_segregation#United_States_...
, Martin Luther King, Jr.
Martin Luther King, Jr.

Martin Luther King, Jr. was an United States pastor, activist and prominent leader in the African-American African-American Civil Rights Movement ....
, Langston Hughes
Langston Hughes

James Mercer Langston Hughes, was an American poet, novelist, playwright, short story writer, and columnist. Hughes is best-known for his work during the Harlem Renaissance....
, Sammy Davis, Jr.
Sammy Davis, Jr.

Samuel George ?Sammy? Davis, Jr. was an United States entertainer. He was a dancer, singer, multi-instrumentalist , Impressionist , comedian, convert to Judaism, and Emmy and Golden Globe-winning actor....
, Alex Haley
Alex Haley

Alexander Murray Palmer Haley was an United States writer. He is best known as the author of Roots: The Saga of an American Family and The Autobiography of Malcolm X ....
, Andrew Young
Andrew Young

Andrew Jackson Young is an United States politician, diplomat and pastor from Georgia who has served as Mayor of Atlanta, Georgia, a Congressman from the Georgia's 5th congressional district, and United States Ambassador to the United Nations....
, Rosa Parks
Rosa Parks

Rosa Louise McCauley Parks was an African American civil rights activism whom the Congress of the United States later called the "Mother of the Modern-Day African-American Civil Rights Movement ."...
, Coleman Young
Coleman Young

Coleman Alexander Young served as mayor of Detroit, Michigan in the U.S. state of Michigan from 1974 to 1993. Young was Detroit's first black mayor....
, Lena Horne
Lena Horne

Lena Mary Calhoun Horne is an American singer and actress. She has recorded and performed extensively, independently and with other jazz notables, including Artie Shaw, Teddy Wilson, Billy Strayhorn, Duke Ellington, Charlie Barnet, Benny Carter, and Billy Eckstine....
, Bill Cosby, Jr.
Bill Cosby

William Henry "Bill" Cosby Jr. is an American comedian, actor, author, television producer and activist. A veteran stand-up performer, he got his start at various clubs, then landed a vanguard role in the 1960s action show I Spy....
, Jesse Jackson
Jesse Jackson

Jesse Louis Jackson, Sr. is an American civil rights activism and Baptist Minister of religion. He was a candidate for the Democratic Party presidential nomination in 1984 and 1988 and served as "shadow senator" for the District of Columbia from 1991 to 1997....
, Colin Powell
Colin Powell

Colin Luther Powell, Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath, Meritorious Service Decoration, is an American statesman and a former four-star General in the United States Army....
, Earl Graves, Maya Angelou, and Oprah Winfrey
Oprah Winfrey

Oprah Gail Winfrey is an United Statesn television presenter, Media proprietor and philanthropist. Her television syndication talk show, The Oprah Winfrey Show, has earned her multiple Emmy Awards and is the highest-rated talk show in the history of television....
.

Complete List of Winners of the Medal


  • 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 a writer, poet and literary critic, born on Dec. 6, 1878 in Boston, Mass.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 United States scientist, botanist, educator, and inventor whose studies and teaching revolutionized agriculture in the Southern United States....
     (botanist)
  • 1924 Roland Hayes
    Roland Hayes

    Roland Hayes , a lyric tenor, 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 United States author, politician, diplomat, critic, journalist, poet, anthologist, educator, lawyer, songwriter, early civil rights activist, and prominent figure in the Harlem Renaissance....
     (poet, Executive Secretary of the NAACP)
  • 1926 Carter G. Woodson
    Carter G. Woodson

    Carter Godwin Woodson was an African-American-United States historian, author, journalist and the founder of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History....
     (historian and founder of the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History, editor of Negro Orators and Their Orations)
  • 1927 Anthony Overton (businessman, president of the Victory Life Insurance Company)
  • 1928 Charles W. Chesnutt
    Charles W. Chesnutt

    Charles Waddell Chesnutt was an African-American author, essayist and political activist, best known for his novels and short stories exploring complex issues of racial and social identity....
     (author)
  • 1929 Mordecai W. Johnson (educator)
  • 1930 Henry A. Hunt (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....
     (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....
     (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 Communism working with Paul Robeson, and finally a staunch Anti-Communism who complimented the government of History of South Africa in the apartheid era....
     (missionary)
  • 1934 William T. B. Williams (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 black students in Daytona Beach, Florida that eventually became Bethune-Cookman University and for being an adviser 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 a white father, who was a farmer, and a black mother....
     (educator)
  • 1937 Walter F. White (executive secretary of the NAACP)
  • 1938 No award given
  • 1939 Marian Anderson
    Marian Anderson

    Marian Anderson was an United States Contralto and one of the most celebrated singers of the twentieth century. She possessed a rich and vibrant voice with an intrinsic quality of beauty....
     (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 Chlortetracycline as a treatment on humans....
     (surgeon)
  • 1941 Richard N. Wright
    Richard Wright (author)

    Richard Nathaniel Wright was an African-American author of powerful, sometimes controversialnovels, short stories and non-fiction.Much of his literature concerned racial themes....
     (author)
  • 1942 A. Philip Randolph
    A. Philip Randolph

    Asa Philip Randolph was a prominent twentieth-century African American US civil rights movement and the founder of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, a landmark for labor and particularly for African-American labor organizing....
     (labor leader)
  • 1943 William H. Hastie
    William H. Hastie

    Dr. William H. Hastie was both the first African American List of United States Virgin Islands Governors and the first African American judge on a United States court of appeals....
     (jurist and educator)
  • 1944 Charles R. Drew
    Charles R. Drew

    Charles Richard Drew was an American physician and medical researcher. He researched in the field of blood transfusions, developing improved techniques for blood storage, and applied his expert knowledge in developing large-scale blood banks early in World War II, saving thousands of Allies of World War II lives....
     (physician)
  • 1945 Paul Robeson
    Paul Robeson

    Paul LeRoy Bustill Robeson was an American actor of film and stage, All-American and professional sportsperson, writer, multi-lingual orator, lawyer, and basso profondo concert singer who was also noted for his wide-ranging social justice activism....
     (singer, actor)
  • 1946 Thurgood Marshall
    Thurgood Marshall

    'Thurgood Marshall' was an United States jurist and the first African American to serve on the Supreme Court of the United States. Before becoming a judge, he was a lawyer who was best remembered for his high success rate in arguing before the Supreme Court and for the victory in Brown v....
     (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 President of the United States Harry Truman Executive Order 9808 on December 5, 1946....
    )
  • 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 helped play a role in dismantling the Jim Crow laws and helped train future Supreme Court justice Thurgood Marshall....
     (Chairman, NAACP Legal Committee)
  • 1951 Mabel Keaton Staupers
    Mabel Keaton Staupers

    Keaton George Pullenjuly 22 1994 - 2100 Is widely regarded as the greatest football player who ever ;lived. his goals have made him a hero in england....
     (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 NAACP, in Brevard County, Florida.Moore became state secretary for the Florida chapter of the NAACP....
     (NAACP leader, martyr in the "crusade for freedom")
  • 1953 Paul R. Williams (architect)
  • 1954 Theodore K. Lawless
    Theodore K. Lawless

    Theodore K. Lawless was a noted 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....
     (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 United States pastor, activist and prominent leader in the African-American African-American Civil Rights Movement ....
     (activist and minister)
  • 1958 Daisy Bates
    Daisy Bates (civil rights activist)

    Daisy Lee Gatson Bates was an United States civil rights leader, journalist, publisher, and author 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, Arkansas Little Rock Central High School in 1957....
     (desegregation activists)
  • 1959 Edward "Duke" Ellington
    Duke Ellington

    Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington was an American composer, pianist, and bandleader.Duke Ellington was recognized during his life as one of the most influential Jazz royalty, if not in all American music and he is of only four jazz musicians ever to have been featured on the cover of Time magazine ....
     (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. Weaver was born in Washington, D.C., on December 29, 1907, and received a Ph.D from Harvard University in 1934....
     (Administrator of Housing and Home Finance Agency)
  • 1963 Medgar W. Evers (martyr in the civil rights movement in Mississippi)
  • 1964 Roy Wilkins
    Roy Wilkins

    File:Roy Wilkins at the White House, 30 April, 1968.jpgRoy Wilkin was a prominent African-American Civil Rights Movement activist in the United States from the 1930s to the 1970s....
     (Executive Director of the NAACP)
  • 1965 Leontyne Price
    Leontyne Price

    Mary Violet Leontyne Price in Laurel, Mississippi in the United States is one of America's most beloved and widely recorded operatic sopranos....
     (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 United States politician and was the first African American to be elected by popular vote to the United States Senate when he was elected as a United States Republican Party from Massachusetts in 1966, defeating his United States Democratic Party opponent, Endicott Peabody, 58%?42%....
     (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 United States entertainer. He was a dancer, singer, multi-instrumentalist , Impressionist , comedian, convert to Judaism, and Emmy and Golden Globe-winning actor....
     (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....
     (NAACP regional director, civil rights lobbyist)
  • 1970 Jacob Lawrence
    Jacob Lawrence

    Jacob Lawrence was an African American Painting; 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....
     (painter)
  • 1971 Leon Howard Sullivan (clergyman, activist)
  • 1972 Gordon Parks
    Gordon Parks

    Gordon Roger Alexander Buchanan Parks was a groundbreaking United States photography, musician, poet, novelist, journalism, activism 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 African-American choreographer and activist who founded the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater in New York Theater. Ailey is largely 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 United States politician, diplomat and pastor from Georgia who has served as Mayor of Atlanta, Georgia, a Congressman from the Georgia's 5th congressional 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 activism whom the Congress of the United States later called the "Mother of the Modern-Day African-American Civil Rights Movement ."...
     (activist)
  • 1980 Rayford W. Logan (educator, historian, author)
  • 1981 Coleman A. Young (politician)
  • 1982 Benjamin Mays (educator, civil rights activist, president of Morehouse College
    Morehouse College

    Morehouse College is a Private university, Men's colleges in the United States, Historically Black colleges and universities college located in Atlanta, Georgia, Georgia ....
    )
  • 1983 Lena Horne
    Lena Horne

    Lena Mary Calhoun Horne is an American singer and actress. She has recorded and performed extensively, independently and with other jazz notables, including Artie Shaw, Teddy Wilson, Billy Strayhorn, Duke Ellington, Charlie Barnet, Benny Carter, and Billy Eckstine....
     (singer)
  • 1984 Thomas Bradley
    Tom Bradley (politician)

    Thomas J. "Tom" Bradley was a five-term mayor of Los Angeles, California, 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 and activist. A veteran stand-up performer, he got his start at various clubs, then landed a vanguard role in the 1960s action show I Spy....
     (entertainer, author and educator)
  • 1986 Benjamin Hooks
    Benjamin Hooks

    Dr. Benjamin Lawson Hooks , is an American civil rights leader. A Baptist minister and practicing Lawyer, he served as executive director of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People from 1977 to 1992, and throughout his career has been a vocal campaigner for civil rights in the United States....
     (Executive Director of the NAACP)
  • 1987 Percy Sutton
    Percy Sutton

    Percy Sutton is a American Civil Rights Movement , lawyer and entrepreneur.Born November 24, 1920, Percy Sutton is a San Antonio, Texas native....
     (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 (author)
  • 1995 John Hope Franklin
    John Hope Franklin

    John Hope Franklin is 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....
     (historian, educator)
  • 1996 Aloyisus Leon Higginbotham, Jr.
    Aloyisus Leon Higginbotham, Jr.

    Aloyisus Leon Higginbotham, Jr. was a prominent African American civil rights, author, and United States federal judge. Higginbotham was the seventh African American Article Three of the United States Constitution judge appointed in the United States, and the first African American judge on the United States District Court for the Eastern D...
     (jurist, public servant)
  • 1997 Carl T. Rowan (journalist)
  • 1998 Myrlie Evers-Williams
    Myrlie Evers-Williams

    Myrlie Evers-Williams is an United States activist. She was the first full-time chairman of the NAACP and is the former widow of murdered civil rights leader Medgar Evers....
     (civil rights activist, Chairman of the NAACP)
  • 1999 Earl G. Graves
    Earl G. Graves

    Earl Gilbert Graves, Sr. is an United States author, publisher, entrepreneur, philanthropist and founder of Black Enterprise magazine. He currently resides in Scarsdale, New York....
     (chairman of Black Enterprise Magazine)
  • 2000 Oprah Winfrey
    Oprah Winfrey

    Oprah Gail Winfrey is an United Statesn television presenter, Media proprietor and philanthropist. Her television syndication talk show, The Oprah Winfrey Show, has earned her multiple Emmy Awards and is the highest-rated talk show in the history of television....
     (actress and philanthropist)
  • 2001 Vernon E. Jordan, Jr. (public servant)
  • 2002 John Lewis
    John Lewis (politician)

    John Robert Lewis is an united States politician and was a leader in the American Civil Rights Movement . He was chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and played a key role in the struggle to end Racial 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, New York State Senate, and Borough President, New York City....
     (federal court judge, Senator)
  • 2004 Robert L. Carter
    Robert L. Carter

    Robert Lee Carter is a United States civil rights activist and judge....
     (federal court judge, cofounder of National Conference of Black Lawyers
    National Conference of Black Lawyers

    The National Conference of Black Lawyers , is an United States 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 school, lawyers, legal activists, legal workers, and scholars....
    )
  • 2005 Oliver W. Hill (civil rights lawyer)
  • 2006 Benjamin Carson (neurosurgeon)
  • 2007 John Conyers
    John Conyers

    John Conyers, Jr. is a member of the United States House of Representatives representing Michigan's 14th congressional district, which includes most of northwestern Detroit, as well as Highland Park, Michigan, Hamtramck and part of Dearborn, Michigan....
     (congressman)
  • 2008 Barack Obama
    Barack Obama

    Barack Hussein Obama II is the List of Presidents of the United States and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office....
     (44th President of the United States)
  • 2009 Magic Johnson
    Magic Johnson

    Earvin "Magic" Johnson, Jr. is a retired American professional basketball point guard who played for the Los Angeles Lakers of the National Basketball Association ....
     (cure for AIDS)


External links



See also

  • NAACP Image Award
    NAACP Image Award

    The NAACP Image Awards is an award presented annually by the American National Association for the Advancement of Colored People to honor outstanding people of color in film, television, music, and literature....