Madam C. J. Walker | A staple in most school curriculums today, Madam C. J. Walker is revered as the first Black woman to become a self-made millionaire. Walker created an empire by being the sole investor in her own hair-care business. She showed that the keys to a successful business are answering a specific need and catering to an audience you know well. (Scurlock Studio/Wikimedia Commons)
Robert L. Johnson & Sheila Johnson | Co-founders of the groundbreaking cable network Black Entertainment Television (BET)—the first network dedicated to Black culture, which also was the first business on the New York Stock Exchange to have Black owners—Robert and Sheila Johnson made history again when they became the first Black billionaires in 2001 after selling BET to Viacom. (Michael Loccisano & Theo Wargo/Getty Images)
Daymond John | You may know him as one judge from the hit television show “Shark Tank,” but Daymond John has been an entrepreneur for many years. He founded the wildly popular streetwear brand FUBU in 1992, which revolutionized the clothing industry and brought streetwear to the masses. Additionally, John has written books, won Emmys, created new businesses, and even served as Presidential Ambassador for Global Entrepreneurship during the Obama administration. (Monica Schipper/Getty Images)
Janice Bryant Howroyd | Janice Bryant Howroyd achieved the American Dream when she founded the ACT-1 Group and turned it into the first billion-dollar business run by a Black woman. (Larry French/Getty Images for Thurgood Marshall College Fund)
Robert F. Smith | The richest Black man in America, Robert F. Smith made his billions as the CEO of Vista Equity Partners, a company he founded in 2000. Smith recently made headlines for his surprise generosity when he announced he would pay off the debts of everyone in the graduating class of Morehouse College during his commencement speech. (Astrid Stawiarz/Getty Images for RFK Human Rights)
David Steward | The second-richest African-American man on our list, Steward launched his company, World Wide Technology (WWT) in 1990. He even counts the U.S. government as a high-profile client. (Michael Loccisano/Getty Images for Jazz At Lincoln Center)
John H. Johnson | John H. Johnson made his mark on the magazine and publishing world. as the founder of Ebony and Jet magazines. Johnson’s publications were the first to cater to Black audiences and celebrate Black culture during the 1940s and ’50s. (Scott Olson/Getty Images)
Chloe McKenzie | Chloe McKenzie founded BlackFem in 2015 to teach financial literacy to students in underprivileged areas in the United States. The company aims to use a community-centered approach to help close the wealth gap that exists especially for Black women. (Live Your Dreams Out Loud Publishing)
Maggie Lena Walker | Maggie Lena Walker in 1903 became the first woman to open a bank account—a milestone made more striking by the fact that her parents had been enslaved. Throughout her lifetime, Walker worked to empower Black people and encourage them to create their own businesses. (National Park Service/Flickr)
Franklin Leonard | Franklin Leonard’s website The Black List accepts unproduced scripts and creates a space where submitters can have their scripts read by the community and potentially sent to producers, actors and Hollywood bigwigs. (Michael Bradley/Getty Images for New Zealand Film Commission)
Robert Sengstacke Abbott | Another publishing mogul, Robert Sengstacke Abbott founded the weekly newspaper Chicago Defender in 1905. One of the first self-made Black millionaires in the United States, his newspaper spread the word about the opportunities that could be found in the North and encouraged others to move there. ( Jack Delano/Library of Congress)
Gordon Parks | Gordon Parks worked as a composer, director, photographer, and songwriter, to name a few talents. The first Black staffer at Life magazine as well as the first Black director of a major motion picture (“Shaft”), Parks could tell stories through the eyes of a Black man and shape the way Americans perceived Black stories. (Gabe Palacio/ImageDirect/Getty Images)
Jane Bolin | As the first African-American woman to attend (and graduate from) Yale Law School in 1931, Jane Bolin began her career impressively, but didn’t stop there. She became the first Black female judge in the United States, championing workers’ rights and fighting discrimination in the workplace. (FSA/OWI/Library of Congress)
Maria P. Williams | A true triple threat, Maria P. Williams was the first Black woman to write, produce and act in her own movie. The film, “The Flames of Wrath,” was released in 1923. (Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture/New York Public Library Digital Collections)
Thomas Jennings | The first Black American to receive a patent was Thomas Jennings in 1821 for “dry scouring”—a precursor to the dry cleaning methods we have today. Despite being born before the Civil War, Jennings secured a patent because he was born a free man in the North rather than the slaveholding states of the South. (Unsplash)
Marie Van Brittan Brown | Today home security systems can be bought at your local store, and you can use your phone to view the inside of your home or doorstep from anywhere in the world. Back in the ’60s however, things weren’t as simple—until Marie Van Brittan Brown came along. She designed the first at-home, closed-circuit security system, decked out with a panic button, monitor and two-way radio system. Without her patents, modern security systems wouldn’t exist. (Suti Stock Photo/Shutterstock)
Rose Marie McCoy | Though you may not recognize Rose Marie McCoy’s name, you’ll probably recognize the famous names of the people who sang her songs. Does Elvis Presley ring a bell? McCoy wrote many hits for him and other popular white male singers during the 1950s. Though she wasn’t allowed to sing them herself, she shaped music and pop culture through her songwriting. (Unsplash)
Frederick McKinley Jones | An entrepreneur and inventor, Frederick McKinley Jones made major contributions to society during World War II when his new refrigeration equipment was utilized to transport food and blood to soldiers. The refrigeration method meant that trucks could keep things colder for much longer. (Michael Vi/Shutterstock)
Alexander Miles | The next time you get safely into an elevator, thank Alexander Miles. In the late 19th century, Miles created the automatic closing doors that ensure passengers don’t have to operate the doors and risk falling into the shaft. (Duluth Public Library/Wikimedia Commons)
Charles Hamilton Houston | One of the most influential attorneys in American history, Charles Hamilton Houston was responsible for helping to eradicate segregation in the United States. He sought to prove that “separate but equal” only led to inequality and changed the landscape of the modern-day U.S. (neftali/Shutterstock)
Alvin Ailey | One of the best-known choreographers of all time, Alvin Ailey started the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater in 1958, which exposed people around the country, and the world, to modern dance by all different ethnicities rather than the majority white dance companies. His legacy still stands today as the dance group remains extremely popular. (Timothy A. Clary/Getty Images)
Lonnie G. Johnson | While Lonnie G. Johnson has an impressive resume, including serving as an Air Force and NASA engineer, his invention of the Super Soaker water gun is his most famous (and fun) accomplishment. Created in the ’80s, the Super Soaker started off slow but eventually made millions of dollars in revenue. (Flickr)
Patricia Bath | Known as the first Black person to complete a residency in ophthalmology, Patricia Bath put her medical school knowledge to good use when she also became the first African-American female doctor to receive a medical patent. Bath created a cataract treatment device back in 1986, receiving the patent in 1988. (National Library of Medicine/Wikimedia Commons)
Erin A. Simon | Rounding out the list is another up-and-comer taking the world of eSports—competitive video game playing—by storm. As a host of a live-streamed show, Erin A. Simon brings a fresh perspective to an industry previously dominated by young white males. (OHishiapply/Shutterstock)
Mark Dean | Reading this list on a monitor that has color? Well, you can thank Mark Dean for that. The computer scientist and engineer was the first Black person to be named an IBM fellow and is credited with inventing the color PC monitor in the ’90s. (Fernando Macias Romo/Shutterstock)
