50 pathfinders - Special Issue: 50 Years of JPC - JPC and the New World of Black America

Ebony, Nov, 1992

LT. GEN. B.O. DAVIS JR.

(1912- )

The first Black general in the Air Force and the first Black officer ta operate at the senior levels of power in the armed forces, Lt. Gen. Benjamin O. Davis Jr. almost singlehandedly shaped the image of the Black military officer. The son of Brig. Gen. B.O. Davis Sr., the Army's first Black general, Lt. Gen. Davis served in World War II and the Korean War and held major command positions in the Pentagon and in the European Theater. He retired in 1970.

DR. CHARLES R. DREW

[1904-1950]

A pioneer in the preservation of blood, Dr. Charles R. Drew helped save the lives of thousands of Americans during World War II and afterwards with his blood plasma WorK. The blood plasma bank he organized in 1938 at Columbia University-Presbyterian Hospital became the model for the American Red Cross. He headed the blood plasma project in Great Britain in 1940 and later directed a U.S. project that collected blood for the military. He was a professor of surgery at the Howard University College of Medicine from 1941 until his death in 1950.

DUKE ELLINGTON

(1899-1974)

Edward Kennedy (Duke) Ellington was arguably America's greatest composer. Always growing, always experimenting, he carried jazz and American music-to new heights, developing longer pieces and painting new colors. An orchestra leader, pianist and composer, he wrote more than 2,000 works, including "Mood indigo," "Solitude," "Sophisticated Lady" and "Liberian Suite."

RALPH W. ELLISON

(1914- )

Perhaps the most influential of all Black novelists, Ralph Ellison became a national literary model after publication of Invisible Man in 1952. In a 1965 poll of authors, editors and critics, the navel was called "the most distinguished postwar novel" and Ellison was called the sixth most influential novelist.

ALEX HALEY

[1921-1992]

Author and lecturer Alexander Palmer Haley made TV and literary history with the publication of his book, Roots, which mixed fact and fiction In tracing his family fram Africa to America. The TV miniseries based on the book drew record audiences. Haley was largely responsible for creating a new "roots" industry of Blacks and Whites searching tar records an their ancestors.

PATRICIA R. HARRIS

(1924-1984)

The first Back woman to serve in the cabinet of a U.S. president and the first Black to hold two cabinet positions Patricia Harris held the positions of secretary of Housing and Urban Development and secretary of Health Education and Welfare in the Jimmy Carter administration. She was also the first Black woman ambassador and served as ambassador to Luxembourg in the Lyndon B. Johnson administration.

LORRAINE HANSBERRY

(1930-1965)

The first Black woman to write a Broadway play was Lorraine Hansberry, who created Raisin In The Sun, which opened at the Barrymore Theater on March 11, 1959, with Sidney Poitier and Claudia McNeil in starring roles. Among her other major works are The Sign in Sidney Burnstein's Window, and To Be Young, Gifted and Black.

WILLIAM H. HASTIE

(1904-1976)

The first Black federal judge was William H. Hastie, who was confirmed as judge of the Federal District Court of the Virgin Islands on March 26, 1937. He became the first Black governor of the Virgin Islands on May 7, 1946, and later became the first Black on a federal appeals court.