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Black History Month
Black Award Winners
Age/Grade Level or Audience
Middle school and high school history and journalism classes; civic groups; museums; libraries.
Description
Name prestigious awards given to black people.
Procedure
Make a bulletin board display listing important honors and awards given to black achievers such as these:
- Dominique Dawes's Olympic medals in gymnastics
- Ralph Ellison's receipt of the Harold Washington Award
- Multiracial Tiger Woods's victory in the Masters' Tournament
- Lorna Simpson's solo photographic exhibition at New York's Museum of Modern Art
- Henry Johnson and Needham Roberts's receipt of the Croix de Guerre during World War I
- Hattie McDaniel's Academy Award for best supporting actress in Gone with the Wind
- Bill Cosby's election to the Television Hall of Fame
- Gwendolyn Brooks's Guggenheim Fellowship and appointment as Illinois's poet laureate
- Martin Luther King, Jr., Desmond Tutu, and Ralph Bunche's receipt of the Nobel Peace Prize
- Alice Childress and Leontyne Price's Coretta Scott King Awards for young adult literature
- Al Jarreau's Grammy for pop-jazz music
- Katherine Dunham's receipt of the Albert Schweitzer Music Award
- Alain Locke's acceptance as a Rhodes Scholar
- Lorraine Hansberry, Lena Horne, and Ruth Brown's Tony awards
- Vanessa Williams and Suzette Charles's Miss America title
- Receipt of the Jim Thorpe Award by football star Gale Sayers, tennis player Arthur Ashe, baseball player Ernie Banks, basketball stars Michael Jordan and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and boxers Floyd Patterson, Michael Spinks, Muhammad Ali, Kenny Norris, and Archie Moore
- Chanda Rubin and Althea Gibson's tennis championships at Wimbledon
- Alice Coachman, Florence Griffith Joyner, and Wilma Rudolph's Olympic gold medals
- Paul Robeson's Donaldson Award for his 1944 performance in Shakespeare's Othello
- Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) Medgar Evers Community Service Award
- Clara Hale's Truman Award
- Duke Ellington and Marian Anderson's Presidential Medals of Freedom
- Maya Angelou and Judith Jamison's Candace Awards
- Charles Gordone, Scott Joplin, Toni Morrison, and Maya Angelou's receipt of Pulitzer Prizes
- Maya Angelou's being asked to write a poem to recite at President Bill Clinton's inauguration
- Augusta Savage's commission for a sculpture for the 1939 New York World's Fair
- Gwendolyn Brooks, Toni Morrison, and W. E. B. DuBois's admittance to the National Institute of Arts and Letters
- Architect Paul R. Williams's receipt of the Beaux Arts Medal
- Clarice D. Reid's receipt of the Public Health Service Superior Service Award
- Cicely Tyson, Oprah Winfrey, and Suzanne de Passe's NAACP Image Awards
- The Spingarn Medal, awarded to Marian Anderson, George Washington Carver, Jackie Robinson, Ernest E. Just, Louis T. Wright, Gordon Parks, James Weldon Johnson, Daisy Bates, Charles Young, Carl Murphy, Mary Bethune, Charles W. Chestnutt, Rosa Parks, and Martin Luther King, Jr.
- Aretha Franklin's twenty-one gold records
Sources
Infotrac, Newsbank, and other on-line databases and microfilm reference sources.
Current Biography, H.W. Wilson, various years.
Phelps, Shirelle, ed., Contemporary Black Biography, Gale, various volumes.
Phelps, Shirelle, ed., Who's Who among African Americans Americans, 10th ed., Gale, 1997.
Smith, Jessie Carney, ed., Notable Black American Women, Books 1 & 2, Gale, 1992 and 1996.
Terry, Ted, American Black History: Reference Manual, Myles Publishing, 1991.
Van de Sande, Wendy, ed., Black Americans Information Directory, 3rd ed., Gale, 1993.
Alternative Applications
Have history classes propose black leaders for awards, particularly for people who may have been passed over, such as heroes of the Persian Gulf War, spokespersons for AIDS research and prevention, peacekeepers, religious leaders, architects, philanthropists, or noteworthy volunteers.