30 Notable alumni of
Shaw University
Updated:
Shaw University is 2346th in the world, 822nd in North America, and 776th in the United States by aggregated alumni prominence. Below is the list of 30 notable alumni from Shaw University sorted by their wiki pages popularity. The directory includes famous graduates and former students along with research and academic staff.
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Adam Clayton Powell, Jr
- Enrolled in Shaw University
- Studied in 1934
- Occupations
- journalistpastorpoliticianorganizational founder
- Biography
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Adam Clayton Powell Jr. was an American Baptist pastor and politician who represented the Harlem neighborhood of New York City in the United States House of Representatives from 1945 until 1971. He was the first African American to be elected to Congress from New York, as well as the first from any state in the Northeast. Re-elected for nearly three decades, Powell became a powerful national politician of the Democratic Party, and served as a national spokesman on civil rights and social issues. He also urged United States presidents to support emerging nations in Africa and Asia as they gained independence after colonialism.
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Shirley Caesar
- Occupations
- singer
- Biography
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Shirley Ann Caesar-Williams, known professionally as Shirley Caesar, is an American gospel singer. Her career began in 1951, when she signed to Federal Records at the age of 12. Throughout her seven decade career, Caesar has often been referred to as the "First Lady of Gospel Music", and "The Queen of Gospel Music". Additionally, she has won eleven Grammy Awards, fifteen Dove Awards, and fourteen Stellar Awards.
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James Smith
- Occupations
- boxer
- Biography
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James "Bonecrusher" Smith is an American former professional boxer who competed from 1981 to 1999 and held the WBA heavyweight title from 1986 to 1987.
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Ella Baker
- Enrolled in Shaw University
- Graduated with bachelor's degree
- Occupations
- civil rights advocatewomen's rights activist
- Biography
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Ella Josephine Baker was an African-American civil rights and human rights activist. She was a largely behind-the-scenes organizer whose career spanned more than five decades. In New York City and the South, she worked alongside some of the most noted civil rights leaders of the 20th century, including W. E. B. Du Bois, Thurgood Marshall, A. Philip Randolph, and Martin Luther King Jr. She also mentored many emerging activists, such as Diane Nash, Stokely Carmichael, and Bob Moses, as leaders in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC).
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Max Yergan
- Occupations
- missionarycivil rights advocate
- Biography
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Max Yergan was an American activist notable for being a Baptist missionary for the YMCA, then a Communist working with Paul Robeson, and finally a staunch anti-Communist who complimented the government of apartheid-era South Africa. He was a mentor of Govan Mbeki, who later achieved distinction in the African National Congress. He served as the second president of the National Negro Congress, a coalition of hundreds of African-American organizations created in 1935 by religious, labor, civic and fraternal leaders to fight racial discrimination, establish relations with black organizations throughout the world, and oppose the deportation of black immigrants. Along with Paul Robeson, he co-founded the International Committee on African Affairs in 1937, later the Council on African Affairs.
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Shelia P. Moses
- Occupations
- children's writerwriterbiographer
- Biography
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Shelia P. Moses is an American writer whose subjects include comedian Dick Gregory and The Legend of Buddy Bush. In 2004, she was nominated for the National Book Award and named the Coretta Scott King Honoree for "The Legend of Buddy Bush" In 2009, her novel "Joseph" was nominated for the NAACP Image Award.
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James E. Cheek
- Enrolled in Shaw University
- Graduated with Bachelor of Arts
- Occupations
- theologianeducator
- Biography
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James Edward Cheek was president emeritus of Howard University. He was born in Roanoke Rapids, North Carolina.
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Angie Brooks
- Enrolled in Shaw University
- Graduated with Doctor of Philosophy
- Occupations
- diplomatlawyeruniversity teacherjudgepolitician
- Biography
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Angie Elizabeth Brooks was a Liberian diplomat and jurist. She was the only African female President of the United Nations General Assembly. She was also the second woman from any nation to head the U.N. body.
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James E. Shepard
- Occupations
- pharmacist
- Biography
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James Edward Shepard was an American pharmacist, civil servant and educator, the founder of what became the North Carolina Central University in Durham, North Carolina. He first established it as a private school for religious training in 1910 but adapted it as a school for teachers. He had a network of private supporters, including northern white philanthropists such as Olivia Slocum Sage of New York.
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Radovan Trifunović
- Occupations
- basketball playerbasketball coach
- Biography
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Radovan "Rado" Trifunović is a Slovenian professional basketball coach and former player. He currently serves as the assistant coach for Fenerbahçe Beko of the Basketball Super League and the EuroLeague.
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Henry P. Cheatham
- Occupations
- politician
- Biography
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Henry Plummer Cheatham was an educator, farmer and politician, elected as a Republican member of the United States House of Representatives from 1889 to 1893 from North Carolina. He was one of only five African Americans elected to Congress from the South in the Jim Crow era of the last decade of the nineteenth century, as disfranchisement reduced black voting. After that, no African Americans would be elected from the South until 1972 and none from North Carolina until 1992.
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Aaron McDuffie Moore
- Occupations
- physician
- Biography
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Aaron McDuffie Moore, M.D. was a medical doctor, medical director, and officer at a bank, hospital, pharmacy, university and insurer serving African Americans in North Carolina. He was born in Whiteville, North Carolina. He lived in Durham, North Carolina.
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Rita Walters
- Occupations
- politician
- Biography
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Rita Dolores Walters was an American politician.
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James B. Dudley
- Occupations
- academic
- Biography
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James Benson Dudley was President of North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University from 1896 until his death in 1925. James B. Dudley High School in the town of Greensboro, North Carolina, where the Agricultural and Technical University is located, was named after Dudley in recognition of his work for his community.
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Edward A. Johnson
- Occupations
- politicianlawyer
- Biography
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Edward Austin Johnson was an attorney who became the first African-American member of the New York state legislature when he was elected to the New York State Assembly in 1917.
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William R. Pettiford
- Occupations
- bankerChristian ministerteacher
- Biography
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William R. Pettiford was a minister and banker in Birmingham, Alabama. Early in his career he worked as a minister and teacher in various towns in Alabama, moving to the 16th Street Baptist Church in 1883 and serving there for about ten years. In 1890 he founded the Alabama Penny Savings Bank. It played an important role in black economic development in Alabama and in the South during the 25 years it existed. Pettiford has been called the most significant institutional builder and leader in the African American community in Birmingham during the period in which he lived. In 1897 he was said to be next to Booker T. Washington the black man who has done the most in the South for blacks.
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Ezekiel Ezra Smith
- Years
- 1852-1933 (aged 81)
- Occupations
- diplomat
- Biography
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Ezekiel Ezra Smith was an American educator and diplomat.
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Vernon Malone
- Occupations
- politician
- Biography
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Vernon Malone was a Democratic member of the North Carolina General Assembly representing the state's fourteenth Senate district from 2003 until his death in 2009. His district included constituents in Wake County. A retired teacher and educational administrator from Raleigh, Malone was a graduate of Shaw University and held public offices in Wake County for over three decades.
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John A. Lankford
- Occupations
- architect
- Biography
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John A. Lankford, American architect. He was the first professionally licensed African American architect in Virginia in 1922 and in the District of Columbia in 1924. He has been regarded as the "dean of black architecture".
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James H. Young
- Years
- 1860-1921 (aged 61)
- Occupations
- politician
- Biography
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James Hunter Young was an American soldier and politician from North Carolina. He was a colonel in the Third North Carolina Regiment during the Spanish–American War and served in the North Carolina House of Representatives. He was a Republican.
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Clinton Caldwell Boone
- Years
- 1872-1939 (aged 67)
- Occupations
- missionary
- Biography
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Clinton Caldwell Boone was an African-American Baptist minister, physician, dentist, and medical missionary who served in the Congo Free State and Liberia. The son of Rev. Lemuel Washington Boone and Charlotte (Chavis) Boone of Hertford County, North Carolina, he played an important role in Africa as a missionary for the Lott Carey Foreign Mission Convention and the American Baptist Missionary Union, now American Baptist International Ministries.
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Louise Celia Fleming
- Years
- 1862-1899 (aged 37)
- Occupations
- physicianmissionary
- Biography
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Louise Celia "Lulu" Fleming was an American medical doctor. She was one of the first African Americans to graduate from the Women's Medical College of Pennsylvania. She returned from Africa to improve her skills and she was the first African American woman to be commissioned for work in Africa by the Woman's American Baptist Foreign Missionary Society.
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John Crosby
- Occupations
- Christian ministeracademic administrator
- Biography
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John Oliver Crosby was an American educator and the first President of what is now North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University in Greensboro, North Carolina.
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William Henry Steward
- Occupations
- civil rights advocatejournalist
- Biography
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William Henry Steward was a civil rights activist from Louisville, Kentucky. In February 1876, he was appointed the first black letter carrier in Kentucky. He was the leading layman of the General Association of Negro Baptists in Kentucky and played a key role in the founding of Simmons College of Kentucky by the group in 1879. He continued to play an important role in the college during his life. He was also co-founder of the American Baptist, a journal associated with the group, and Steward went on to be the journal's editor. He was a leader in Louisville civic and public life, and played a role in extending educational opportunities in the city to black children. In 1897, his political associations led to his appointment as judge of registration and election for the Fifteenth Precinct of the Ninth Ward, overseeing voter registration for the election. This was the first appointment of an African American to such a position in Kentucky. He was elected president of the Afro-American Press Association in the 1890s He was a close associate of Booker T. Washington, and in the late 1890s and early 1900s, Steward was a prominent member of the National Afro-American Council, which was dominated by Washington. He was president of the council from 1904 to 1905. He was a lifelong opponent of segregation and was frequently involved in anti-Jim Crow law activities. In 1914 he helped found a Louisville branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), which he left in 1920 to become a key player in the Commission on Interracial Cooperation (CIC). He was also a prominent freemason and twice elected Worshipful Master of the Grand Lodge of Kentucky.
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Nicholas Franklin Roberts
- Occupations
- journalist
- Biography
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Nicholas Franklin Roberts was a leading Baptist minister and educator in Raleigh, North Carolina. He was a faculty member and for a short time acting president at Shaw University. He also was a city alderman in Raleigh and served on the county board of education.
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Charles L. Purce
- Biography
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Charles L. Purce was an educator in Louisville, Kentucky, and Selma, Alabama. He was a leader in the Baptist church and president of Selma University and Simmons College of Kentucky, both Baptist institutions.
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John A. Kenney Sr
- Occupations
- physiciansurgeon
- Biography
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John Andrew Kenney Sr. was an African-American surgeon who was the medical director and chief surgeon of the John A. Andrew Memorial Hospital at the Tuskegee Institute in Tuskegee, Alabama, from 1902 to 1922. He served as secretary of the National Medical Association (NMA) from 1904 to 1912, and was elected president of the NMA in 1912. He was the editor-in-chief of its journal, the Journal of the National Medical Association, from 1916 to 1948. He also served as the personal physician of both Booker T. Washington and George Washington Carver.
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James H. Holmes
- Occupations
- Christian minister
- Biography
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James H. Holmes was a Baptist minister in Richmond, Virginia. As pastor of Richmond's First African Baptist Church, he was the leader of one of the largest churches in the country.
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Lawson A. Scruggs
- Occupations
- physicianpharmacist
- Biography
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Lawson Andrew Scruggs was a physician in North Carolina who was active in politics and civil rights. He was African American. In 1893, he published a volume of biographies of African-American Women, Women of Distinction.
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Edward Hart Lipscombe
- Occupations
- journalist
- Biography
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Edward Hart Lipscombe was an educator and religious leader in North Carolina in the late 19th century. He was a professor at Shaw University and a co-founder of the journal, the African Expositor. Later, he became a professor of the Dallas Institute, which he developed into the Western Union Institute, a leading Baptist school in Asheville, North Carolina.
