Yasuke is Japan’s first black samurai. He was brought to Japan in 1579 during the nanban trade with the Portuguese by an Italian missionary. *He essentially was captured as a slave and brought to Japan for mission trips. The origins are Yasuke are still unknown. We are not sure if he is from Sudan from the Dinka tribe, or from Mozambique from the Yao tribe, or Ethiopian.

Langston Hughes was an African American poet, writer, and activist. He wrote a lot about how proud he was of being Black and having Black heritage.

John Agard realised that he had a love for language after listening to cricket commentator, John Arlott, on the radio, in Georgetown, Guyana.

James Baldwin wrote novels, plays, essays, and poems. He was also a civil rights activist, who fought for the rights of Black people in the United States.

Ignatius Sancho was born into enslavement, and given to three unmarried sisters living in Greenwich, South-East London. He was taught to read by the Duke of Montagu, who lived nearby and encouraged him to learn.

Henry Ossawa Tanner was the first African American painter to be famous around the world. He became interested in painting after seeing a painter in a park when he was twelve. Tanner studied painting at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts.

Gwendolyn Elizabeth Brooks was born in Topeka, Kansas in the United States. Her family moved to Chicago when she was young. She is famous for being a poet, author, and teacher.

Houston wrote about where African American people came from, to show that Africa has an amazing history. There was a myth at the time, which said that African people had no important history of their own, so Houston wanted to show this was wrong.

Chinua was born in Eastern Nigeria to a family from the Igbo tribe. Chinua is most famous for his first novel Things Fall Apart which was published in 1958. It tells the story of a Nigerian Igbo village and their life before Britain colonised Nigeria.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie was born in 1977, in Enugu, Nigeria. While growing up in Nigeria, she was not used to being identified by the colour of her skin, which changed when she arrived in the United States.

Carter G. Woodson was a famous African American historian, author, journalist, and creator of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History. When he was young, he had to work in coal mines in Kentucky.

Born in Birmingham, Benjamin Zephaniah is one of the most famous Black British writers and poets of the 20th and 21st centuries. His parents were Jamaican, and he enjoyed reggae music and poetry from Jamaica as a child.

In 1982, Walker published her novel called The Color Purple. This book became so popular that it was turned into a film and a musical. She also won many awards for this book. She still writes short stories and poems to this day.

Alexandre Dumas was a French writer, whose works have been translated into many languages. His father – an enslaved man of African descent, who became one of Napoleon’s generals – died when Dumas was just four years old, and his mother found it hard to give him an education. Despite this, Dumas is still one of the best read French writers of all time. Dumas is seen as one of the leaders of the Romantic movement.

Alexander Pushkin is one of the most famous Russian poets of all time. He was the great grandson of an enslaved African woman. When he was a child, he read a lot of books from his father’s library, making him very clever and giving him a lot of knowledge about literature.

Born in Birmingham, Alabama, in the 1940s, Angela Davis is a famous Black political activist and feminist. She has spent her life fighting for the rights of Black people and women. She was also a leader of the Communist Party in the United States, although she is not a member anymore.

Annie Lee Cooper was a civil rights activist, who dedicated most of her life to fighting for justice in a society filled with discrimination and prejudice. Cooper had limited education as she dropped out of school while in the seventh grade (twelve-thirteen years old). She lived in Kentucky until she was 52, when she returned to her home state of Alabama to care for her elderly mother, while also working as a nurse. At the time, the civil rights movement in the United States was growing.

Steve Biko was a South African writer, community project director, and medic. However, he was also well known for being an activist against apartheid in South Africa. He is famous for being the father of the Black Consciousness, a movement he formed to fight against the oppression of Black people.

Claudia Jones was a professional journalist who used her skills to advocate for the end of racial segregation. Jones was born in Port of Spain, on the island of Trinidad. Her parents later moved to New York City in the U.S., after a financial crash in Trinidad due to the price of cocoa falling.

Desmond Tutu was born in Klerksdorp, South Africa. In 1978, Tutu became the first black general secretary of the South African Church Council. He used his position to fight against South African apartheid, and campaigned for equal education for all. He received the Nobel Peace Prize for his work in promoting peace in South Africa. He was then appointed as Cape Town’s first black Anglican Archbishop.

Fred Hampton was born in Chicago. While at college, Hampton became involved in the civil rights movement. He joined the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People (NAACP), and became the leader of the Youth Council of the organizations West Suburban branch.

While at college, Newton met Bobby Seale. Newton and Seale created the Black Panther Party for Self Defense, because African Americans in Oakland were often victims of police violence and harassment. Seale was chairman, and Newton was the minister of defense. The group had a number of goals which were set out in a what they called the ‘Ten-Point Programme’. This included the need for better housing, jobs, and education for African Americans. It also called for an end to people taking advantage of the financial limits of the Black people within the community at the time.

Jane Bolin was the first African American woman to graduate from Yale University, at a time when very few African American women were accepted into high-ranking universities in the United States.

Kofi Annan worked at the World Health Organization serving as a Budget Officer, and for two years, he was the Director of Tourism in Ghana. In 1997, Annan was promoted by the United Nations Security Council to the position of their Secretary-General.