50 Notable alumni of
Tuskegee University
Updated:
Tuskegee University is 1060th in the world, 387th in North America, and 363rd in the United States by aggregated alumni prominence. Below is the list of 50 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
- film actorsinger-songwritersaxophonistrecord producersinger
- 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
- film actorfilm producerscreenwritertelevision produceractor
- Biography
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Keenen Ivory Desuma Wayans is an American actor, comedian, 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
- human rights activistnurse
- 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 who was known as the "Richest Colored Girl in the World".
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Ralph Ellison
- Occupations
- music criticliterary criticessayistliterary scholarautobiographer
- Biography
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Ralph 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
- aerospace engineerinventorscientist
- Biography
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Lonnie George Johnson is an American inventor, aerospace engineer, and entrepreneur, whose work includes a U.S. Air Force-term of service and a twelve-year stint at NASA, where he worked at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. He invented the Super Soaker water gun in 1989, which has been among the world's bestselling toys ever since.
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Ray Nagin
- Occupations
- local politicianbusinessperson
- Biography
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Clarence Raymond Joseph 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
- politicianlawyer
- 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 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
- television actorfilm actoractorveterinarian
- Biography
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Danielle Spencer is an American actress and former 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
- human rights activistwriteractivist
- Biography
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Amelia Isadora Platts Boynton Robinson was an American activist who was a leader of the American Civil Rights Movement in Selma, Alabama, and a key figure in the 1965 Selma to Montgomery marches. In 1984, she became founding vice-president of the Schiller Institute affiliated with Lyndon LaRouche. She was awarded the Martin Luther King Jr. Freedom Medal in 1990. Robinson was a centenarian reaching the age of 104.
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Chokwe Antar Lumumba
- Years
- 1983-.. (age 41)
- 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.
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Teddy Wilson
- Occupations
- pianistbandleadermusic teacherjazz musician
- 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
- military officeraircraft pilot
- 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
- military officeraircraft pilot
- 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
- athletics competitorhigh jumper
- 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
- military officeraircraft pilot
- 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
- songwriterrecord producersingerguitarist
- 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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Nick J. Mosby
- Occupations
- politician
- Biography
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Nick J. Mosby is an American politician from Baltimore, Maryland. He is the current President of the Baltimore City Council. 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.
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Big Bill Morganfield
- Occupations
- singersinger-songwriter
- Biography
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William "Big Bill" Morganfield is an American blues singer and guitarist, who is the son of McKinley Morganfield, also known as Muddy Waters.
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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
- singerorganist
- 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
- chemistengineer
- 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 PhD 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 // 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
- player of American football
- Biography
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Frank Bernard Walker is a former American football cornerback in the National Football League (NFL) for the Green Bay Packers, Baltimore Ravens, Minnesota Vikings and Dallas Cowboys. He was selected by the New York Giants in the sixth round of the 2003 NFL Draft. He played college football at Tuskegee University.
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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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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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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
- political scientistacademic administrator
- Biography
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David K. Wilson is an American university administrator who has been president of Morgan State University in Baltimore, Maryland since July 1, 2010.
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Elizabeth Evelyn Wright
- Occupations
- educator
- Biography
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Elizabeth Evelyn Wright was a 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
- architectjournalist
- 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
- peace activistteacherautobiographersocial workermotivational speaker
- 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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Clarence Matthews
- Occupations
- baseball playerlawyer
- 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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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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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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Roscoe Simmons
- Occupations
- journalistwriteroratorpolitician
- 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 is the President of The Call to Justice Foundation. She was the federal government's first Chief Opportunities Officer and the former Editor-in-Chief of The State of Black America.
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Chester Higgins, Jr
- Occupations
- journalistphotographer
- 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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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
- Years
- 1947-2016 (aged 69)
- 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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McCants Stewart
- Enrolled in Tuskegee University
- Studied in 1896
- Occupations
- lawyercivil rights advocatenotary publicco-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
- chemistbiochemist
- 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
- Years
- 1877-1972 (aged 95)
- 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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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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Cornelia Bowen
- Occupations
- academic administratorteacher
- 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
- player of American footballbasketball coach
- Biography
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Edward Haygood Adams was an American football and basketball coach.
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Manet Harrison Fowler
- Occupations
- musicianpainter
- 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
- biologistmedical researcherveterinary 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.
