A00012 - Mutaz Barshim, Record Setting High Jumper

Mutaz Essa Barshim (Arabic: معتز عيسى برشم‎; b. 24 June 1991) is a Qatari track and field athlete who specializes in the high jump.  He is the national record and Asian record holder with a best mark of 2.43 m (7 ft 11¹⁄₂ in). He was the Asian Indoor and World Junior champion in 2010. He won the high jump gold medals at the 2011 Asian Athletics Championships and 2011 Military World Games, and he won the bronze medal at the 2012 Olympic Games held in London, with a height of 2.29 m (7' 6"). He jumps off his left foot, using the Fosbury Flop technique, with a pronounced backwards arch over the bar.

A00011 - Ahmed Abu Khattala, Islamist Militia Commander in Libya

Khattala, Ahmed Abu

Ahmed Abu Khattala (born c. 1971) was a Islamist militia commander in Libya, a commander of Ansar al-Sharia militia. He is suspected of participating in the 2012 Benghazi attack on the American diplomatic mission at Benghazi, in which the American Ambassador and three other Americans were killed. In a December 2013 investigation of the attack, the New York Times described Abu Khattala as a central figure.  However, Abu Khattala denied killing the Americans or being part of the attack.

Abu Khattala spent most of his adult life in Abu Salim prison in Tripoli, jailed by the Qaddafi government for his Islamist views. During the 2011 uprising against Qaddafi in Libya, he formed his own militia of perhaps two dozen fighters, naming it Obeida Ibn Al Jarra for an early Islamic general. He later became involved in Ansar al-Shariah, a group of as many as 200 militants who, had broken away from the other militias in 2012 in protest of those militia's support for parliamentary elections in Libya.  Abu Khattala opposed American involvement in Libya and in interviews with the New York Times stated that “the enmity between the American government and the peoples of the world is an old case.” In regards to the role of the air campaign of NATO that overthrew Colonel Qaddafi, he believed that if NATO had not intervened, “God would have helped us.” He also claimed that, “We know the United States was working with both sides” and considering “splitting up" Libya.

Witnesses of the September 11, 2012 attack on the American diplomatic compound in Benghazi say they saw Abu Khattala leading the attack. On August 6, 2013, United States officials confirmed that Abu Khattala had been charged with playing a significant role in the attack. 

On the weekend of June 14 to June 15, 2014, U.S. Special Forces captured Abu Khattala in a covert mission in Libya. Khattala is one of the suspected leaders of the 2012 Benghazi attack. 

A00010 - Judith Cummings, First Black Woman to Head a National News Bureau for NYT

Judith Cummings (December 27, 1945, Detroit, Michigan - May 6, 2014, Detroit, Michigan) was the first black woman to head a national news bureau for The New York Times, serving as chief correspondent in Los Angeles from 1985 to 1988.

Cummings was born on December 27, 1945, in Detroit and attended Howard University, where she received her bachelor's degree in 1967.

In 1971, her career in journalism began after she was recruited by the Times in their minority training program. Prior to this, she was a speech writer for Clifford L. Alexander Jr., the head of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in Washington, D.C.

From 1972 to 1979, Cummings was a general assignment reporter for the Times, where she covered crime and major events in New York City. Unsatisfied with the fact that Blacks and other minorities were pigeonholed into covering local beats, she joined others in filing a federal lawsuit against the paper for neglecting to promote journalists of color to cover national stories.

The Times agreed in a settlement to expand their minority hiring, training and promotional practices. Cummings became a correspondent for the Los Angeles area in September 1981 and became the bureau chief four years later.

In 1988, Cummings retired to care for her parents. 

A00009 - Malik Bendjelloul, Oscar Winner for "Searching for Sugar Man"

Bendjelloul, Malik

Malik Bendjelloul (September 14, 1977 – May 13, 2014) was an Algerian Swedish Academy-Award-winning  documentary filmmaker, journalist and former child actor. He is best known for his 2012 documentary, Searching for Sugar Man, which won an Academy Award and a BAFTA Award.

A00008 - Lupita Nyong'o, "12 Years a Slave" Actress

Lupita Amondi Nyong'o (born March 1, 1983) is an actress and music video director of dual Kenyan and Mexican citizenship. She made her feature film debut in Steve McQueen's 12 Years a Slave (2013) as Patsey, for which she won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, among numerous other awards and nominations. She is one of the few actors who has won an Academy Award for their debut performance in a feature film.

Nyong'o was born in Mexico City, Mexico, to Dorothy and Peter Anyang' Nyong'o, a politician in Kenya. It is a Luo tradition to name a child after the events of the day, so her parents named her Lupita (a diminutive of "Guadalupe" Our Lady of Guadalupe). She is of completely Luo descent on both sides of her family, and is the second of six children. Her father was the former Kenyan Minister for Medical Services. At the time of Lupita's birth, he was a visiting lecturer in political science at El Colegio de Mexico in Mexico City, and her family had been living in Mexico for three years.
Nyong'o moved back to Kenya with her parents when she was less than one year old, when her father was appointed a professor at the University of Nairobi. She grew up primarily in Kenya, and describes her upbringing as "middle class, suburban". At age sixteen, her parents sent her back to Mexico for seven months to learn Spanish. During those seven months, Nyong'o lived in Taxco, Mexico, and took classes at Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico's Learning Center for Foreigners.

In 2013, her father was elected to represent Kisumu County in the Kenyan Senate. Nyong'o's mother was the managing director of the Africa Cancer Foundation and owned her own communications company.  In 2012, her older cousin, Isis Nyong'o, was named one of Africa's most powerful women by Forbes magazine. Her uncle, Aggrey Nyong'o, a prominent Kenyan physician, was killed in a road accident in 2002.

She was fluent in her native Luo, English, Swahili and Spanish. On February 27, 2014, at the Essence Black Women In Hollywood luncheon in Beverly Hills, Lupita gave a speech on black beauty. Lupita talked about a letter she received from a young fan who stated she was unhappy with herself until she saw the actress on the cover of a magazine. In her speech, Lupita talked about the insecurities she had about herself as a teenager; growing up as a dark skinned black girl, women that looked like her were barely portrayed in the media and when they were, they were not deemed as being beautiful. She said her views about herself changed when she saw South Sudanese supermodel Alek Wek become successful.

Nyong'o grew up in an artistic family, where family get-togethers often included performances by the children in the family and trips to see plays. She attended an all-girls school in Kenya and acted in school plays, with a minor role in Oliver Twist being her first play. At age 14, Nyong'o made her professional acting debut as Juliet in Romeo and Juliet in a production by the Nairobi, Kenya-based repertory company Phoenix Players. While a member of the Phoenix Players, Nyong'o also performed in the plays "On The Razzle" and "There Goes The Bride". Nyong'o cites the performances of Whoopi Goldberg and Oprah Winfrey in The Color Purple with inspiring her to pursue a professional acting career.

Nyong'o attended college in the United States. After graduating from Hampshire College with a degree in film and theatre studies, she worked on the production crew of many films, including Fernando Meirelles's The Constant Gardener, with Ralph Fiennes, Mira Nair's The Namesake, and Salvatore Stabile's Where God Left His Shoes. She cites Fiennes as another individual who inspired her to pursue a professional acting career.

She starred in the 2008 short film East River, directed by Marc Grey and shot in Brooklyn, New York. She returned to Kenya in 2008 and starred in the Kenyan television series Shuga, an MTV Base Africa/UNICEF drama about HIV/AIDS prevention. In 2009, she wrote, directed, and produced the documentary In My Genes, about the treatment of Kenya's albino population, which played at several film festivals and won first prize at the 2008 Five College Film Festival. Nyong'o also directed the The Little Things You Do music video by Wahu featuring Bobi Wine, which was nominated for the Best Video Award at the MTV Africa Music Awards 2009.

Nyong'o subsequently enrolled in the acting program at the Yale School of Drama. At Yale she appeared in many stage productions, including Gertrude Stein's Doctor Faustus Lights the Lights, Chekhov's Uncle Vanya, and Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew and The Winter's Tale. While at Yale, she was the recipient of the Herschel Williams Prize "awarded to acting students with outstanding ability" during the 2011–2012 school year.

Nyong'o landed her breakout role when she was cast in 12 Years a Slave immediately before graduating from Yale with an MFA in 2012. The film was released in 2013 to great critical acclaim. Nyong'o received rave reviews for her performance, and was nominated for several awards including a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress and two Screen Actors Guild Awards including Best Supporting Actress, which she won. She also co-starred in Liam Neeson's 2014 film Non-Stop.

On March 2, 2014, she won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, becoming the sixth black actress to win the award.

In 2014, she was chosen as one of the faces for Miu Miu's Spring 2014 campaign, with Elizabeth Olsen, Elle Fanning and Bella Heathcote. She also appeared on the covers of several magazines, including New York's Spring 2014 fashion issue and UK magazine Dazed & Confused. She was also a regular on Harper's Bazaar's Derek Blasberg's Best Dressed List.

000007 - Jackie Ormes, First African American Woman Cartoonist

Jackie Ormes (August 1, 1911 – December 26, 1985) is known as the first African-American woman cartoonist, known for her strips Torchy Brown and Patty-Jo 'n' Ginger.

Jackie Ormes was born Zelda Mavin Jackson in the Pittsburgh area town of Monongahela, Pennsylvania. Ormes started in journalism as a proofreader for the Pittsburgh Courier, a weekly African American newspaper that came out every Saturday. Her 1937-38 Courier comic strip, Torchy Brown in Dixie to Harlem, starring Torchy Brown, was a humorous depiction of a Mississippi teen who found fame and fortune singing and dancing in the Cotton Club.

Ormes moved to Chicago in 1942, and soon began writing occasional articles and, briefly, a social column for the Chicago Defender, one of the nation's leading black newspapers, a weekly at that time. For a few months at the end of the war, her single panel cartoon, Candy, about an attractive and wisecracking housemaid, appeared in the Defender.

By August 1945, Ormes's work was back in the Courier, with the advent of Patty-Jo 'n' Ginger, a single-panel cartoon which ran for 11 years. It featured a big sister-little sister set-up, with the precocious, insightful and socially/politically-aware child as the only speaker and the beautiful adult woman as a sometime pin-up figure and fashion mannequin.

Ormes contracted with the Terri Lee doll company in 1947 to produce a play doll based on her little girl cartoon character. The Patty-Jo doll was on the shelves in time for Christmas and was the first American black doll to have an extensive upscale wardrobe. As in the cartoon, the doll represented a real child, in contrast to the majority of dolls that were mammy and Topsy-type dolls. In December 1949, Ormes's contract with the Terri Lee company was not renewed, and production ended. Patty-Jo dolls are now highly sought collectors' items.

In 1950, the Courier began an eight-page color comics insert, where Ormes re-invented her Torchy character in a new comic strip, Torchy in Heartbeats. This Torchy was a beautiful, independent woman who finds adventure while seeking true love. Ormes expressed her talent for fashion design as well as her vision of a beautiful black female body in the accompanying Torchy Togs paper doll cut outs. The strip is probably best known for its last episode in 1954, when Torchy and her doctor boyfriend confront racism and environmental pollution. Torchy presented an image of a black woman who, in contrast to the contemporary stereotypical media portrayals, was confident, intelligent, and brave.

Jackie Ormes enjoyed a happy, 45-year marriage to Earl Clark Ormes. She retired from cartooning in 1956, although she continued to create art, including murals, still lifes and portraits. She contributed to her South Side Chicago community by volunteering to produce fundraiser fashion shows and entertainments. She was also on the founding board of directors for the DuSable Museum of African American History.

Ormes was a passionate doll collector, with 150 antique and modern dolls in her collection, and she was active in Guys and Gals Funtastique Doll Club, a United Federation of Doll Clubs chapter in Chicago.

000006 - Bert Andrews, Photographer of Black Theatre

Bert Andrews (March 21, 1929–January 25, 1993) was an American photographer, who chronicled black theatre in New York City. In a career that spanned over three decades he photographed many of the leading African American actors of the stage and screen including James Earl Jones, Cicely Tyson, Diana Sands, Louis Gossett, Jr., Billy Dee Williams, Morgan Freeman, Alfre Woodard, Denzel Washington and Samuel L. Jackson.

Bert J. Andrews was born in Chicago on March 21, 1929, the son of John and Frieda Andrews. At a young age, he moved to Harlem, where he grew up. His career began in the entertainment industry as a songwriter, singer and a dancer. In the early 1950s, while serving in the army, Andrews began studying photography. 

In 1953, soon after his discharge from the army, Andrews began his work as an apprentice for Chuck Stewart, who was well known for his photography of jazz musicians. He served in that capacity until 1957, when he branched out on his own, photographing among other things, stills for black theatre productions in New York City.

One of his first assignments as a freelance photographer was the 1957 production of the play, Dark of the Moon, which was produced by the YMCA Drama Guild at the Little Theatre. This production was staged by Vinnette Carroll and featured among the cast Cicely Tyson, Roscoe Lee Browne and Clarence Williams III. 

Throughout his long career, Andrews would photograph numerous productions of important plays including The Blacks  (1961), The Blood Knot (1964),To Be Young, Gifted and Black (1969), The River Niger (1972), Bubbling Brown Sugar (1976), A Soldier's Play (1982) and Ma Rainey's Black Bottom (1984).

His photographs have also appeared in numerous major publications, such as Time, Life, Ebony, Newsweek and the New York Times. 

On January 29, 1985, a fire destroyed his studio at 750 Eighth Avenue at the corner of 46th Street in New York City. Somewhere between 40,000 and 50,000 images were lost, spanning roughly thirty years of work. However, through the help of various theatre companies, Andrews was able to obtain prints of a significant number of his photographs including approximately 2,000 from the Negro Ensemble Company. 

In 1988, the Bert Andrews Photographic Collection of Blacks in the Theatre was established at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. The following year, a collection of these photographs were published in the book In the Shadow of the Great White Way: Images from the Black Theatre (Thunder’s Mouth Press, 1989).

Andrews died of cancer at the Lenox Hill Hospital in Manhattan on January 25, 1993 at the age of 63.

000005 - William Henry Johnson, Artist

William Henry Johnson (March 18, 1901–1970) was an African-American painter born in Florence, South Carolina. He became a student at the National Academy of Design in New York. His style evolved from realism to expressionism to a powerful folk style (for which he is best known).

Johnson moved from Florence, South Carolina, to New York City at the age of 17. Working a variety of jobs, he saved enough money to pay for classes at the prestigious National Academy of Design. He worked with the painter Charles Hawthorne, who raised funds that allowed Johnson to go abroad to study. He spent the late 1920s in France, where he learned about modernism. During this time, he met the Danish textile artist Holcha Krake in Cagnes-sur-Mer and they married in 1930. Johnson and his wife spent most of the 1930s in Scandinavia, where his interest in folk art influenced his painting. They returned to the United States in 1938, where Johnson immersed himself in African-American culture and traditions, producing paintings that were characterized by their folk art simplicity.

Johnson enjoyed a degree of success as an artist during the 1940s and 1950s, but he was never able to achieve financial stability. In 1944 his wife Holcha died from breast cancer. To deal with his grief, he took work in a Navy Yard, and in 1946 left for Denmark to be with his wife's family. Johnson soon fell ill himself, from the effects of advanced syphilis, and returned to New York in 1947 to enter the Central Islip State Hospital on Long Island, where he spent the last twenty-three years of his life. He stopped painting in 1956 and died on January 1, 1970.

After his death, his entire life's work was almost disposed of to save storage fees, but it was rescued by friends at the last moment. The Harmon Foundation gave more than 1,000 paintings, watercolors, and prints by Johnson to the Smithsonian American Art Museum (then the National Museum of American Art) in 1967. In 1991, the Smithsonian American Art Museum organized and circulated a major exhibition of his artwork, Homecoming: The Art and Life of William H. Johnson, and in 2006, they organized and circulated William H. Johnson's World on Paper. An expanded version of this exhibition traveled to the Amon Carter Museum in Fort Worth, Texas (February 3 - April 8, 2007),the Philadelphia Museum of Art (May 20 - August 12, 2007), and the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts in Montgomery, Alabama (September 15 - November 18, 2007).

In 2012, the United States Postal Service issued a stamp in Johnson's honor, recognizing him as one of the nation’s foremost African-American artists and a major figure in 20th-century American art. The stamp, the 11th in the American Treasures series, showcases his painting Flowers (1939-1940), which depicts brightly colored blooms on a small red table.