Arthur Ashe became the first (and remains the only) African American male tennis player to win the U.S. Open and Wimbledon singles titles. He was also the first African American man to earn the No. 1 ranking in the world and the first to earn induction into the Tennis Hall of Fame.

Max Manning was a notable pitcher in the Negro league, playing for the Newark Eagles from 1938 to 1949. Manning also served his country in the United States Army Air Forces during World War II. After his illustrious sports career, he transitioned into education, reflecting his lifelong commitment to learning and growth. 

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In the days when basketball was still divided along the lines of race and color, John “Boy Wonder” Isaacs starred for the New York Renaissance Big Five, the greatest all-black team of the segregated era. Isaacs helped the Rens to more than 350 wins and the first ever World Professional Basketball Tournament championship in Chicago in 1939.

Jerry Izenberg, one of the country’s premier sportswriters, has won countless awards
and has published 15th nonfiction books. Writing mostly for the Newark Star-Ledger, his incisive style and trademark revealed the people behind the headlines, held the powerful to account, and tackled racial injustice and other pressing issues of the day.

Larry Doby was an American professional baseball player in the Negro leagues and
Major League Baseball. Doby was the second Black player to break baseball's color
barrier and the first Black player in the American League. He was the second Black to
serve as a manager.

“The Mighty Burner,” was an Olympic track athlete, educator and
visionary. At the 1968 Olympics he won a gold medal in the 4 × 400 m relay and a silver
in the individual 400 m. He served as the athletic Director for Stockton College, NJ.

Established in 1973 by Rachel Robinson to perpetuate the memory of her husband, The
Jackie Robinson Foundation is a public, nonprofit organization that administers one of
the nation’s premier scholarship and leadership development programs for college
students.

Redenia Gilliam-Mosee was employed by Bally's Park Place and its subsequent
companies, for twenty-seven years. She was the first African American female Vice-
President in Atlantic City casino industry and was subsequently promoted to Senior
Vice-President of Governmental Relations and Planning. She supervised the
construction and renovation of the Atlantic City Boys and Girls Club and the renovation
of “Pop” Lloyd Stadium.

Monte Irvin grew up in Orange, NJ and became a baseball player for the Newark
Eagles of Negro Leagues and was one of the earliest African Americans to be drafted
by the New York Giants (MLB). Irvin was drafted into military and served three years in
Europe during World War ll. After his playing career, Irvin was a baseball scout and held
an administrative role in the MLB commissioner’s office. He was inducted into the
National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1973.

Sam Lacey was an African American sportswriter, reporter, columnist, editor, and
television/radio commentator who worked in the sports journalism field for nine

decades. Credited as a persuasive figure in the movement to racially integrate sports,
Lacy in 1948 became one of the first Black members of the Baseball Writers
Association of America. In 1997 he received the J.G. Taylor Spink Award for
outstanding baseball writing.

Fay Vincent was elected baseball's eighth Commissioner in a unanimous vote of major
league owners on September 13, 1989. Vincent, who five months earlier was named
the first Deputy Commissioner of Major League Baseball, succeeded A. Bartlett
Giamatti, who died in office September 1, 1989. Vincent was elected to complete
Giamatti's five-year term which was marked by controversy with a players lock out of
spring training and the gambling allegations of Pete Rose. Throughout his tenue,
Vincent remained supportive of Negro League players.

Former U.S. Congressman, the Reverend Dr. Floyd H. Flake is the senior pastor of the
more than 23,000-member Greater Allen A. M. E. Cathedral of New York in Jamaica,
Queens. The church owns expansive commercial and residential developments; a 600-
student private school founded by Flake and his wife Elaine, and various commercial
and social service enterprises, which has placed it among the nation’s most productive
religious and urban development institutions.

Jean Webster began serving free meals to the poor of the city out of her own home in
1986, cooked in her personal kitchen. Eventually her informal charity expanded into a
substantial operation that moved to Victory First Presbyterian Deliverance Church. Food
was available to any and all who came. At its height, Sister Jean's Kitchen served over
400 people per day with hot meals.

Jim Whalen was born in Philadelphia and attended Temple University where he
became a nationally ranked distance swimmer. He was a life-long educator in the
Atlantic City Public School system and served three terms as Mayor of Atlantic City. As
mayor he worked to increase public investments in projects such as a convention
center, a minor league baseball stadium, road improvements to beautify the city’s
entryways and an entertainment district known as The Walk. Whalen was an elected NJ
Assemblyman and State Senator serving on several committees including, Tourism &
Historic Preservation and Health & Human Service

Leonard Coleman is the former president of the National League of Professional
Baseball Clubs. After graduating with a degree in history from Princeton University,
Coleman received a master’s in public administration and a master’s in education and
social policy from Harvard University. From 1976 to 1980, Mr. Coleman worked in Africa
in mission service for the Protestant Episcopal Church of the United States, providing
management consultant services in health care, education and church and community
development in 17 African countries. In addition, he served as honorary chairman of the
board of the Jackie Robinson Foundation for nearly 20 years.

Art Dorrington was a Canadian professional ice hockey centre. Dorrington became the
first Black hockey player to sign a National Hockey League contract when he joined the

New York Rangers. After retiring from hockey, Dorrington joined the Atlantic County
Sheriff’s Office. In the late 1990s he created the Art Dorrington Ice Hockey Foundation,
a program that teaches hockey to children for low-income families in Atlantic City.

John Lewis was the co-founder and chairman of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating
Committee (SNCC), Lewis led and helped organize many of the seminal moments in
the Civil Rights movement, including the Freedom Rides, the 1963 March on
Washington, and the Selma to Montgomery March. Lewis served in the United States
House of Representatives from 1987 until 2020.

Gordan Parks, one of the greatest photographers of the twentieth century, was a
humanitarian with a deep commitment to social justice. He left behind an exceptional
body of work that documents American life and culture the early 1940s into the 2000s,
with a focus on race relations, poverty, civil rights, and urban life. Parks was also a
distinguished composer, author, and filmmaker who interacted with many of the leading
people of his era- from politicians and artists to athletes and celebrities.

David “Honeyboy” Edwards was a delta blues guitarist and singer from Mississippi.
He learned to play music from his father and at the age of 14, left home to begin a life
as an itinerant musician, which he maintained through the 1930s and 1940s. He
performed and had a close friendship with famed blues musician Robert Johnson.
Between 1996 and 2000, Edwards was nominated for eight W.C. Handy Blues Music
Awards.

Richard Lapchick is a human rights activist, pioneer for racial equality, scholar, author
and internationally recognized as an expert on sports issues. He is often described as
“the racial conscience of sport.” At an early age he witnessed the hostility toward his
father, Joe Lapchick, when as the coach for the New York Knicks, signed Nat
“Sweetwater” Clifton, the first African American player signed in the NBA in 1950. He is
the Director of The Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport (TIDES) and President of
the Institute for Sport and Social Justice (formerly the National Consortium for
Academics and Sport).

Robert W. Peterson was a newspaper writer, a freelance journalist, and the author of
several books on sports and contemporary news events. His primary contribution to
baseball research was the seminal Only the Ball Was White, a 1970 book on the Negro
Leagues, which remained a foundation for the next few decades of scholarship in the
field. Peterson was inspired by his memories of watching barnstorming black players in
his hometown of Warren, Pennsylvania, in the late 1930s. He was part of the Special
Committee on the Negro Leagues that elected 17 people to the Baseball Hall of Fame
in 2006.

The North Jersey Philharmonic Glee Club was formed by Dolores Collins Benjamin
in Newark, NJ, in 1939.  It is one of the oldest continuously singing all male groups in
the Mid-Atlantic States and one of the most enduring community-based arts
organizations in the United States. NJPGC performs a wide repertoire but has long
recognized and emphasized the importance of preserving African American music,
particularly the Spirituals.

Patti Harris was born in North Carolina but grew up in Atlantic City and was a graduate
of Atlantic City High School. She was known for her dance performances with Larry
Steel’s Smart Affairs at the famous Kentucky Avenue nightspot, Club Harlem. Her
resume also includes performances with the Nicolas Brothers, Pearlie, and Hello Dolly
on Broadway. Pattie was a lifelong participant and champion of the Arts. Harris was also
founder and executive artistic director of the Atlantic City Dance Theatre and Centre of
Cultural Learning where she taught jazz and tap dance to countless students.

Emilio Navarro, better known as "Millito Navarro," was the first Puerto Rican to play
baseball in the American Negro leagues. Navarro was elected to the Puerto Rico
Baseball Hall of Fame in 1992. At the time of his death, at age 105, Navarro was the
oldest former professional baseball player and the last surviving player from the
American Negro League. After retiring from professional baseball, Navarro worked as a
coach and athletic teacher at schools in Ponce and Caguas.

Dionne Warwick is one of the most successful female artists in history. Warwick was
born in East Orange, NJ where she started singing gospel as a child at the New Hope
Baptist Church. Known for her collaboration with composers/songwriters Burt Bachrach
and Hal David, she has won many six Grammy Awards. She has been inducted into
several Halls of Fame including the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Warwick is a former
Goodwill Ambassador for the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization

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John “Buck” O’Neil was a first baseman and manager in the Negro American League,
mostly with the Kansas City Monarchs. Following his playing career, he worked as a
scout and became the first African American coach in Major League Baseball. O’Neil
became a renowned speaker for Negro League Baseball and played a major role in
opening the Kansas City Negro League Museum. He was elected to the National
Baseball Hall of Fame in 2022 as an executive.

Dr. Billy Taylor was a jazz pianist, composer, broadcaster and educator. He was the
Robert L. Jones Distinguished Professor of Music at East Carolina University in
Greenville, and from 1994 was the artistic director for jazz at the John F. Kennedy
Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. For his performances and

professional activities, Taylor received two Peabody Awards; an Emmy; a Grammy; and
a place in the Hall of Fame for the International Association of Jazz Educators.

Earl woods was the father of American professional golfer Tiger Woods. Woods started
his son in golf at a very early age and coached him exclusively over his first years in the
sport. He later published two books about the process. Woods was previously a US
Army officer who served two tours in South Vietnam and retired with the rank of
lieutenant colonel.

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