Famous Index

Sarah Breedlove (December 23, 1867 – May 25, 1919), known as Madam C. J. Walker, was an African-American entrepreneur, philanthropist, and a political and social activist. Walker was considered the wealthiest African-American businesswoman and wealthiest self-made woman in America at the time of her death in 1919. Although she was eulogized as the first female self-made millionaire in the US, her estate was worth an estimated $600,000 upon her death. According to Walker's obituary in The New York Times, 'she said herself two years ago [in 1917] that she was not yet a millionaire, but hoped to be some time'.
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Mae Carol Jemison (born October 17, 1956) is an American engineer, physician, and former NASA astronaut. She became the first black woman to travel in space when she served as a mission specialist aboard the Space Shuttle Endeavour. Jemison joined NASA's astronaut corps in 1987 and was selected to serve for the STS-47 mission, during which she orbited the Earth for nearly eight days on September 12–20, 1992.
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Malcolm X (1925–1965) was an American Muslim minister and human rights activist. Some saw him as a courageous advocate for the rights of blacks, a man who indicted white America in the harshest terms for its crimes against black Americans; others accused him of preaching racism and violence. He has been called one of the greatest and most influential African Americans in history.
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Musa I (c. 1280 – c. 1337) or Mansa Musa was the tenth Mansa, which translates to 'sultan', 'conqueror', or 'emperor', of the wealthy West African Islamic Mali Empire. At the time of Musa's rise to the throne, the Malian Empire consisted of territory formerly belonging to the Ghana Empire in present-day southern Mauritania and in Melle (Mali) and the immediate surrounding areas. Musa held many titles, including 'Emir of Melle', 'Lord of the Mines of Wangara', 'Conqueror of Ghanata', and at least a dozen others. Mansa Musa conquered 24 cities, each with surrounding districts containing villages and estates. During his reign, Mali may have been the largest producer of gold in the world; it was at a point of exceptional demand for the commodity. One of the richest people in history, he is known to have been enormously wealthy; reported as being inconceivably rich by contemporaries, Time magazine reported: 'There's really no way to put an accurate number on his wealth.'
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Marc B Auguste Sr was instrumental in the development and the prototyping of a multi-purpose portable coin-organizer, which he shares intellectual property rights with his eldest son Marc Jr. and his daughter-in-law Jacqueline.
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Mariah Carey (born March 27, 1969 or 1970) is an American singer, songwriter, actress, record producer, and entrepreneur. Referred to as the 'Songbird Supreme' by the Guinness World Records, she is noted for her five-octave vocal range, power, melismatic style, and signature use of the whistle register.
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Marie Van Brittan Brown (October 30, 1922 – February 2, 1999) was an African American inventor. She was the inventor of the home security system (U.S. Patent 3,482,037) in 1966, along with her husband Albert Brown. In the same year they jointly applied for a patent, which was granted in 1969. Brown was born in Jamaica, Queens, New York; she died there at the age of 76.
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She was born in 1896, in Monterey, Virginia. she was the granddaughter of a slave and a white slave-owner. She moved to Chicago in 1912, and shortly thereafter, she began studying cosmetology. She graduated A.B. Molar Beauty School in Chicago in 1916, the first African American to achieve this. That year, at the age of 20, she married podiatrist Robert E. Joyner and opened her salon. That was where she met Madam C. J. Walker, an African American beauty entrepreneur, and the owner of a cosmetic empire.

Always a lover of women's cosmetics, Joyner went to work for her and oversaw 200 of Madame Walker's beauty schools as the national adviser. A major role was sending Walker's hair stylists door-to-door, dressed in black skirts and white blouses with black satchels containing a range of beauty products that were applied in the customer's house. Joyner taught some 15,000 stylists over her fifty-year career. She was also a leader in developing new products, such as her permanent wave machine. She helped write the first cosmetology laws for the state of Illinois, and founded a sorority and fraternity, Alpha Chi Pi Omega on October 27, 1945 as well as a national association for black beauticians.
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Martin Luther King Jr. (January 15, 1929 – April 4, 1968) was an American Baptist minister and activist who became the most visible spokesperson and leader in the civil rights movement from 1954 until his assassination in 1968. Born in Atlanta, King is best known for advancing civil rights through nonviolence and civil disobedience, tactics his Christian beliefs and the nonviolent activism of Mahatma Gandhi helped inspire.
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Marvin Gaye (born Marvin Pentz Gay Jr.; April 2, 1939 – April 1, 1984) was an American singer, songwriter and record producer. Gaye helped to shape the sound of Motown in the 1960s, first as an in-house session player and later as a solo artist with a string of hits, including 'Ain't That Peculiar', 'How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You)' and 'I Heard It Through the Grapevine', and duet recordings with Mary Wells, Kim Weston, Diana Ross and Tammi Terrell, later earning the titles 'Prince of Motown' and 'Prince of Soul'.
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Mary Fields (c. 1832–1914), also known as Stagecoach Mary and Black Mary, was the first African-American female star route mail carrier in the United States. She was not an employee of the United States Post Office; the Post Office Department did not hire or employ mail carriers for star routes but rather awarded star route contracts to persons who proposed the lowest qualified bids, and who in accordance with the Department’s application process posted bonds and sureties to substantiate their ability to finance the route.
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Mary Jane Blige (; born January 11, 1971) is an American singer, songwriter, and actress. She started her career as a backing singer on Uptown Records in 1989. She has released 13 studio albums, eight of which have achieved multi-platinum worldwide sales.
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Gerald Maxwell Rivera (born May 23, 1973), also known by his stage name Maxwell, is an American singer-songwriter, record producer, and actor. Along with fellow musicians D'Angelo and Erykah Badu, Maxwell has been credited with helping to shape what has been termed the 'neo soul' movement that rose to prominence during the late 1990s.
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Maya Angelou ( born Marguerite Annie Johnson; April 4, 1928 – May 28, 2014) was an American poet, singer, memoirist, and civil rights activist. She published seven autobiographies, three books of essays, several books of poetry, and is credited with a list of plays, movies, and television shows spanning over 50 years. She received dozens of awards and more than 50 honorary degrees. Angelou is best known for her series of seven autobiographies, which focus on her childhood and early adult experiences. The first, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969), tells of her life up to the age of 17 and brought her international recognition and acclaim.
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Meghan, Duchess of Sussex (born Rachel Meghan Markle; August 4, 1981), is a retired American actress who became a member of the British royal family upon her marriage to Prince Harry.

In 2017, she announced her engagement to Prince Harry, grandson of Queen Elizabeth II, and moved to London. She retired from acting, closed her social media accounts, and started undertaking public engagements as part of the British royal family. She became the Duchess of Sussex upon her marriage to Prince Harry in May 2018.
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Michael Joseph Jackson (August 29, 1958 – June 25, 2009) was an American singer, songwriter and dancer. Dubbed the 'King of Pop', he is widely regarded as one of the most significant cultural figures of the 20th century and one of the greatest entertainers of all time. Jackson's contributions to music, dance, and fashion, along with his publicized personal life, made him a global figure in popular culture for over four decades.
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Michelle LaVaughn Robinson Obama (born January 17, 1964) is an American writer, lawyer, and university administrator who was First Lady of the United States from 2009 to 2017. She is married to the 44th U.S. President, Barack Obama, and was the first African-American First Lady.
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Miriam E. Benjamin (September 16, 1861 – 1947) was an American school teacher and inventor from Washington, D.C. On July 17, 1888 she obtained a patent for her invention, the Gong and Signal Chair for Hotels. The chair would 'reduce the expenses of hotels by decreasing the number of waiters and attendants, to add to the convenience and comfort of guests and to obviate the necessity of hand clapping or calling aloud to obtain the services of pages.' The chair worked when the person sitting would press a small button on the back of the chair which would then send a signal to a waiting attendant. A light would illuminate as well, allowing the attendant to see which guest needed help. The system was eventually adopted by the United States House of Representatives and was a precursor to the signaling system used on airplanes for passengers to seek assistance from flight attendants.
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Misty Danielle Copeland (born September 10, 1982) is an American ballet dancer for American Ballet Theatre (ABT), one of the three leading classical ballet companies in the United States. On June 30, 2015, Copeland became the first African American woman to be promoted to principal dancer in ABT's 75-year history.
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Muhammad Ali (; born Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr.; January 17, 1942 – June 3, 2016) was an American professional boxer, activist, and philanthropist. He is nicknamed 'The Greatest' and is widely regarded as one of the most significant and celebrated sports figures of the 20th century and as one of the greatest boxers of all time.
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