53 Notable alumni of
Tuskegee University
Updated:
Tuskegee University is 1057th in the world, 387th in North America, and 364th in the United States by aggregated alumni prominence. Below is the list of 53 notable alumni from Tuskegee 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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Lionel Richie
- Occupations
- singerrecord producersaxophonistsinger-songwriterfilm actor
- Biography
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Lionel Brockman Richie Jr. is an American singer, songwriter, record producer, and television personality. He rose to fame in the 1970s as a songwriter and the co-lead singer of the Motown group Commodores; writing and recording the hit singles "Easy", "Sail On", "Three Times a Lady", and "Still" with the group before his departure. In 1980, he wrote and produced the US Billboard Hot 100 number one single "Lady" for Kenny Rogers.
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Keenen Ivory Wayans
- Occupations
- television producerscreenwriterfilm producerfilm actorfilm director
- Biography
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Keenen Ivory Desuma Wayans is an American actor, comedian, director and filmmaker. He is a member of the Wayans family of entertainers. Wayans first came to prominence as the host and creator of the 1990–1994 Fox sketch comedy series In Living Color. He has produced, directed or written several films, starting with Hollywood Shuffle, which he cowrote, in 1987. Most of his films have included him and one or more of his siblings in the cast.
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Betty Shabazz
- Occupations
- nursehuman rights activist
- Biography
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Betty Shabazz, also known as Betty X, was an American educator and civil rights advocate. She was married to Malcolm X.
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Sarah Rector
- Occupations
- businessperson
- Biography
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Sarah Rector, also known as Sarah Rector Campbell and Sarah Campbell Crawford, was an American oil magnate since childhood. Under the Treaty of 1866, due to birthright as a Black grandchild of Creek Indians born before the American Civil War, she inherited land. It was surprisingly discovered oil-rich and produced over US$300 (equivalent to $9,800 in 2023) per day, so she was known as the "Richest Colored Girl in the World".
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Ralph Ellison
- Occupations
- novelistwritercriticautobiographerliterary scholar
- Biography
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Ralph Waldo Ellison was an American writer, literary critic, and scholar best known for his novel Invisible Man, which won the National Book Award in 1953.
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Lonnie Johnson
- Enrolled in Tuskegee University
- Graduated with Bachelor of Science in mechanical engineering
- Graduated with master's degree in nuclear engineering
- Occupations
- inventormilitary flight engineerscientist
- Biography
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Lonnie George Johnson is an American inventor, aerospace engineer, and entrepreneur, best known for inventing the bestselling Super Soaker water gun in 1989. He was formerly employed at the U.S. Air Force and NASA, where he worked at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
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Ray Nagin
- Occupations
- businesspersonlocal politician
- Biography
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Clarence Ray Nagin Jr. is an American former politician who was the 60th Mayor of New Orleans, Louisiana, from 2002 to 2010. A Democrat, Nagin became internationally known in 2005 in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
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Al Green
- Occupations
- lawyerpolitician
- Biography
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Alexander N. Green is an American lawyer and politician serving as the U.S. representative from Texas's 9th congressional district. Currently in his 11th term, he has served in Congress since 2005. A member of the Democratic Party, Green served as the justice of the peace of Harris County, Texas from 1977 to 2004. The 9th district includes most of southwestern Houston and part of Fort Bend County, including most of Missouri City. It also includes western portions of Pearland.
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Danielle Spencer
- Occupations
- film actortelevision actorveterinarianactor
- Biography
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Danielle Spencer is an American former actress and child star best known for her role as Dee Thomas on the ABC sitcom What's Happening!!, which ran from 1976 until 1979. She would later reprise the role on the series' sequel, What's Happening Now!!
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Amelia Boynton Robinson
- Occupations
- writerhuman rights activistactivist
- Biography
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Amelia Isadora Platts Boynton Robinson was an American activist and supercentenarian who was a leader of the American Civil Rights Movement in Selma, Alabama, and a key figure in the 1965 Selma to Montgomery marches.
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Chokwe Antar Lumumba
- Years
- 1983-.. (age 42)
- Occupations
- lawyer
- Biography
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Chokwe Antar Lumumba is an American attorney, activist, and politician serving as the 53rd mayor of Jackson, Mississippi, the 7th consecutive African-American to hold the position. In 2024, Lumumba and other officials in the state were indicted on corruption charges. He is the son of former mayor and Black nationalist activist Chokwe Lumumba, who served briefly as mayor of Jackson before his death in 2014.
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Teddy Wilson
- Occupations
- bandleaderpianistjazz musicianmusic educator
- Biography
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Theodore Shaw Wilson was an American jazz pianist. Described by critic Scott Yanow as "the definitive swing pianist", Wilson's piano style was gentle, elegant, and virtuosic. His style was highly influenced by Earl Hines and Art Tatum. His work was featured on the records of many of the biggest names in jazz, including Louis Armstrong, Lena Horne, Benny Goodman, Billie Holiday, and Ella Fitzgerald. With Goodman, he was one of the first black musicians to perform prominently alongside white musicians. In addition to his extensive work as a sideman, Wilson also led his own groups and recording sessions from the late 1920s to the 1980s.
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Daniel James, Jr
- Occupations
- aircraft pilotmilitary officer
- Biography
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Daniel "Chappie" James Jr. was a fighter pilot in the United States Air Force who, in 1975, became the first African American to reach the rank of four-star general in the United States Armed Forces. Three years later, James was forced to retire prematurely due to heart issues, just weeks before he died of a heart attack.
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Charles McGee
- Occupations
- aircraft pilotmilitary officer
- Biography
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Brigadier General Charles Edward McGee was an American fighter pilot who was one of the first African American aviators in the United States military and one of the last living members of the Tuskegee Airmen. McGee first began his career in World War II flying with the Tuskegee Airmen, an all African American military pilot group at a time of segregation in the armed forces. His military aviation career lasted 30 years in which McGee flew 409 combat missions in World War II, the Korean War and Vietnam War.
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Alice Coachman
- Occupations
- high jumperathletics competitor
- Biography
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Alice Marie Coachman Davis was an American athlete. She specialized in high jump and was the first black woman to win an Olympic gold medal.
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Lawrence E. Roberts
- Occupations
- aircraft pilotmilitary officer
- Biography
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Lawrence Edward Roberts Sr. was a pilot with the Tuskegee Airmen and a colonel in the United States Air Force, with 32 years of total military service. He is the father of newscaster Robin René Roberts and Sally-Ann Roberts.
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Thomas McClary
- Occupations
- record producersongwriterguitaristsinger
- Biography
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Thomas McClary is an American musician, guitarist, singer, songwriter, and record producer best known as the founder and lead guitarist of The Commodores. McClary is widely credited with having created the signature sound of The Commodores' original music.
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Eunice Rivers Laurie
- Occupations
- nurse
- Biography
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Eunice Verdell Rivers Laurie was an African American nurse who worked in the state of Alabama. She is known for her work as one of the nurses of the U.S. Public Health Service Syphilis Study in Macon County from 1932 to 1972 which was "arguably the most infamous biomedical research study in U.S. history."
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Nick J. Mosby
- Occupations
- politician
- Biography
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Nicholas James Mosby is an American politician who was the president of the Baltimore City Council from 2020 to 2024. First elected to serve on the city council from 2011 to 2016, Mosby was subsequently appointed in 2017 to the Maryland House of Delegates, representing Baltimore City's 40th District. He was elected as Baltimore City Council president in November 2020, assuming the role in December of that year. Mosby ran for a second term in 2024, but was defeated in the Democratic primary by city councilmember Zeke Cohen.
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Big Bill Morganfield
- Occupations
- singer-songwritersinger
- Biography
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William "Big Bill" Morganfield is an American blues singer and guitarist. He is the son of McKinley Morganfield, also known as Muddy Waters, and the half-brother of Mud Morganfield.
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Sammy Younge Jr
- Occupations
- activist
- Biography
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Samuel Leamon Younge Jr. was a civil rights and voting rights activist who was murdered for trying to desegregate a "whites only" restroom. Younge was an enlisted service member in the United States Navy, where he served for two years before being medically discharged. Younge was an active member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and a leader of the Tuskegee Institute Advancement League.
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Don Lewis
- Occupations
- organistsinger
- Biography
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Don Lewis was an American vocalist, multi-instrumentalist, and electronic engineer. He created an instrument called the Live Electronic Orchestra (LEO), which integrated multiple instruments under a controller system and predated the MIDI controller by ten years.
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Vertner Woodson Tandy
- Occupations
- architect
- Biography
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Vertner Woodson Tandy was an American architect. He was one of the seven founders (commonly referred to as "The Seven Jewels") of Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity at Cornell University in 1906. He was the first African American registered architect in New York State. Tandy served as the first treasurer of the Alpha chapter and the designer of the fraternity pin. The fraternity became incorporated under his auspices.
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Bettye Washington Greene
- Enrolled in Tuskegee University
- In 1955 graduated with Bachelor of Science in chemistry
- Occupations
- engineerchemist
- Biography
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Bettye Washington Greene was an American industrial research chemist. She was one of the first few African American women to earn her Ph.D. in chemistry and she was the first African American female Ph.D. chemist to work in a professional position at the Dow Chemical Company. At Dow, she researched latex and polymers. Greene is considered an early African American pioneer in science.
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Ndubuisi Ekekwe
- Occupations
- academic
- Biography
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Ndubuisi Ekekwe [ⁿdubuisi ekekʷe] is a Nigerian business person. He is the founder of First Atlantic Semiconductors & Microelectronics – West Africa's leading embedded systems company. His working experience includes Analog Devices Corp where he co-designed a generation accelerometer for the iPhone and created the company's first wafer level chip scale package for inertial sensor. He is a player in the U.S. semiconductor industry where he develops innovative microchip and invented a micro-controller for medical robots. Ndubuisi Ekekwe was named in 2020 by The Guardian (Nigeria) as one of 60 Nigerians In 60 Years Making “Nigerian Lives Matter”.
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Frank Walker
- Occupations
- American football player
- Biography
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Frank Bernard Walker is an American former professional football cornerback who played in the National Football League (NFL) for the New York Giants, Green Bay Packers, Baltimore Ravens, Minnesota Vikings and Dallas Cowboys. He was selected by the Giants in the sixth round of the 2003 NFL draft. He played college football at Tuskegee University.
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DeJuan Collins
- Occupations
- basketball player
- Biography
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DeJuan Collins is an American former professional basketball player. He was listed at 6 ft 2 in (1.88 m) in height, and 190 pounds (86 kg) in weight. Collins was best known as a scorer, and also for organizing and leading his team's game on offense.
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Ken Howell
- Occupations
- baseball player
- Biography
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Kenneth Howell, Jr. was an American professional baseball pitcher and pitching coach, who played in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the National League (NL) Los Angeles Dodgers and Philadelphia Phillies (1984-1990). During his playing days, Howell stood 6 ft 3 in (1.91 m) tall, weighing 200 pounds (91 kg). He batted and threw right-handed.
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Charles Clinton Spaulding
- Years
- 1874-1952 (aged 78)
- Occupations
- businessperson
- Biography
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Charles Clinton Spaulding was an American business leader. For close to thirty years, he presided over North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance Company, which became America's largest black-owned business, with assets of over 40 million US$ at his death.
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David Wilson
- Born in
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United States - Occupations
- academic administratorpolitical scientist
- Biography
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David K. Wilson is an American university administrator who has been the tenth president of Morgan State University in Baltimore, Maryland since July 1, 2010.
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Alan Mills
- Occupations
- baseball player
- Biography
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Alan Bernard Mills is an American former relief pitcher and pitching coach. He spent 12 seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB) with the New York Yankees (1990–1991), Baltimore Orioles (1992–1998, 2000–2001) and Los Angeles Dodgers (1999–2000). He pitched right-handed.
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Julius Hobson
- Occupations
- civil servantpolitician
- Biography
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Julius Wilson Hobson was an activist and politician who served on the Council of the District of Columbia and the District of Columbia Board of Education.
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Elizabeth Evelyn Wright
- Occupations
- educator
- Biography
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Elizabeth Evelyn Wright was an American humanitarian and educator, founding several schools for black children. She founded Denmark Industrial Institute in Denmark, South Carolina, as a school for African-American youth. It is present-day Voorhees College, a historically black college (HBCU).
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Herbert Carter
- Occupations
- aircraft pilot
- Biography
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Herbert Eugene Carter was an American military officer of the United States Air Force. He was a member of the original thirty-three members of the Tuskegee Airmen. He flew 77 missions with the Tuskegee Airmen during World War II.
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William Conan Davis
- Occupations
- scientist
- Biography
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William Conan Davis was a professor emeritus and was chair of natural sciences at St. Philip's College in San Antonio, Texas. The William C. Davis Science Building is named in his honor.
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William Sidney Pittman
- Occupations
- journalistarchitect
- Biography
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William Sidney Pittman was an American architect who designed several notable buildings, such as the Zion Baptist Church and the nearby Deanwood Chess House in the Deanwood neighborhood of Washington, D.C. He was the son-in-law of Booker T. Washington.
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Wilson A. Head
- Occupations
- motivational speakersocial workerautobiographerteacherpeace activist
- Biography
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Wilson A. Head was an American/Canadian sociologist and community planner known for his work in race relations, human rights and peace in the United States, Canada and other parts of the world.
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Warren Elliot Henry
- Occupations
- physicist
- Biography
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Warren Elliot Henry was an American physicist, a Fellow of the American Physical Society, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science for his work in the fields of magnetism and superconductivity. He made significant contributions to the advancement of science and technology and education, training and mentoring several generations of physicists.
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Clarence Matthews
- Occupations
- lawyerbaseball player
- Biography
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William Clarence Matthews was an early 20th-century African-American pioneer in athletics, politics and law. Born in Selma, Alabama, Matthews was enrolled at the Tuskegee Institute and, with the help of Booker T. Washington (the principal of the institute), enrolled at the Phillips Academy in 1900 and Harvard University in 1901. At Harvard, he became one of the standout baseball players, leading the team in batting average for the 1903, 1904, and 1905 seasons.
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Bruce Antone
- Occupations
- politician
- Biography
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Bruce Hadley Antone is an American politician from Florida. A Democrat, he served in the Florida House of Representatives from 2002 to 2006, from 2012 to 2020, and again from 2022, representing parts of Orlando in Orange County.
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Chester Higgins, Jr
- Occupations
- photographerjournalist
- Biography
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Chester Higgins Jr. is an American photographer, who was a staff photographer with The New York Times for more than four decades, and whose work has notably featured the life and culture of people of African descent. His photographs have over the years appeared in magazines including Look, Life, Time, Newsweek, Fortune, Ebony, Essence and Black Enterprise, and Higgins has also published several collections of his photography, among them Black Woman (1970), Feeling the Spirit: Searching the World for the People of Africa (1994), Elder Grace: The Nobility of Aging (2000), and Echo of the Spirit: A Photographer’s Journey (2004).
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Roscoe Simmons
- Occupations
- politicianoratorwriterjournalist
- Biography
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Roscoe Conkling Simmons was an American orator, journalist, and political activist. The nephew of Booker T. Washington, he wrote a column from Washington, D.C. about African-American issues for the Chicago Tribune and was influential in the Republican Party.
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Stephanie J. Jones
- Born in
- United States
- Occupations
- lawyer
- Biography
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Stephanie J. Jones is an American lawyer, writer and former senior government official, and she is the President of the Nathaniel R. Jones Foundation. She was the federal government's first Chief Opportunities Officer and Editor-in-Chief of The State of Black America.
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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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Patti Grace Smith
- Biography
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Patricia Grace Smith was a United States Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) associate administrator whose regulatory work helped make personal space travel a possibility.
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Mildred Hemmons Carter
- Occupations
- aircraft pilot
- Biography
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Mildred Louise Hemmons Carter was one of the first women to earn a pilot's license through the Civilian Pilot Training Program, making her the first black female pilot in Alabama. Though she was denied admission into the Tuskegee Airmen and the Women Airforce Service Pilots, she was declared an official member of both later in life.
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McCants Stewart
- Enrolled in Tuskegee University
- Studied in 1896
- Occupations
- notary publiccivil rights advocatelawyerco-founder
- Biography
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McCants Stewart was an American lawyer. Born to a prominent attorney in New York, Stewart studied law in Minnesota and became the first African American lawyer in the state of Oregon. His lack of financial success in Oregon led him to eventually move to San Francisco, where failing vision led him to commit suicide. Living in the era of Plessy v. Ferguson and "separate but equal" doctrine, his life was said to "reflect an unyielding commitment to the principle of justice for all powerless people in the northwest."
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Gladys W. Royal
- Occupations
- chemistuniversity teacherbiochemist
- Biography
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Gladys W. Royal is one of a small number of early African-American biochemists. Part of one of the few African-American husband-and-wife teams in science, Gladys worked with George C. Royal on research supported by the United States Atomic Energy Commission. She later worked for many years as principal biochemist at the Cooperative State Research Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Royal was also active in the civil rights movement in Greensboro, North Carolina.
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George Williamson Crawford
- Occupations
- lawyer
- Biography
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George Williamson Crawford was a lawyer, public servant, and an activist for African-American civil rights in New Haven, Connecticut.
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Cornelia Bowen
- Occupations
- teacheracademic administrator
- Biography
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Cornelia Bowen was an African American teacher and school founder from Alabama. She was in the first graduating class of the Tuskegee Institute and went on to found the Mount Meigs Colored Institute as well as the Mt. Meigs Negro Boys' Reformatory. Based on the principles of the Tuskegee Institute, where she was trained, Bowen created industrial schools to teach students to thrive from their own industry. She was a member of both the state and national Colored Women's Federated Clubs and served as an officer of both organizations. She also was elected as the first woman president of the Alabama Negro Teacher's Association.
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Edward Haygood Adams
- Occupations
- basketball coachAmerican football player
- Biography
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Edward Haygood Adams was an American football and basketball coach.
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Manet Harrison Fowler
- Occupations
- paintermusician
- Biography
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Manet Harrison Fowler was an American musician, dramatic soprano, artist, voice coach, piano teacher, conductor, music educator and midwife. She was a child prodigy, giving piano recitals at the age of six. A native of Fort Worth, Texas she founded the Mwalimu School for the development of African Music and Creative Art in 1928 and relocated to New York City during the Harlem Renaissance. She was President of the Texas Association of Negro Musicians (TANM), the first state branch of the National Association of Negro Musicians.
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Darlene Dixon
- Born in
- United States
- Enrolled in Tuskegee University
- In 1982 graduated with Bachelor of Science
- Occupations
- medical researcherbiologistveterinary pathologist
- Biography
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Darlene Dixon is an American veterinary scientist and toxicologic pathologist researching the pathogenesis/carcinogenesis of tumors affecting the reproductive tract of rodents and humans and assessing the role of environmental and endogenous hormonal factors in the growth of these tumors. She is a senior investigator at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences.
