Written by Robert Thompson III | 2/25/2021

Most importantly, black history should be respected and remembered by everyone. Urban Intellectuals are remembered by what they do and how they do things. Some are known by all such as Barack Obama and Martin Luther King Jr. However, there are others that you may have never heard of. In that case, we will tell you 5 blacks that you might be interested in.

Surya Bonaly

Firstly, Surya Bonly was an Award-winning french figure skater and PETA activist. Surprisingly, she was the only Olympic figure skater to successfully land a backflip on one skate blade. Bonly originally trained as a gymnast but switched to figure skating at the age of eleven. Also, she rose above many challenges in her career including: breaking both wrists during a fall and rupturing her Achilles tendon during practice. Bonly was famous for her jumps and risky moves as well as her bold and unusually colored costumes. Surprisingly, she removed her silver medal during the ceremony at the 1994 World Championships because she believed she should have won first instead of second. She became a american citizen in 2004 and is a proud vegetarian and advocate for animal rights.

Tarenorerer A.K.A Wayler

First off, Tarenorerer was born in circa 1800 near Emu Bay, Van Diemen’s Land as a member of the Tommeginne people. As a teenager, she was taken captive by Indigenous kidnappers and sold as a slave to white colonists. During her captivity, she learned to speak English and how to use firearms. Two of her brothers and two of her sisters joined her with the sealers. In 1828, she was able to return to Tasmania, where she gathered a guerrilla band of indigenous warriors of both sexes and led them against the colonists. As she was able to train them in using firearms, they were successful. George Augustus Robinson referred to her as an Amazon and was very concerned about her ability to incite a revolution.

Tarenorerer escaped to Port Sorell with her brothers Linnetower and Line-ne-like-kayver and two sisters but was captured by sealers and taken to the Hunter Islands. They were then taken to Bird Island to catch seals and mutton birds.

Eventually, she was taken captive. She was imprisoned at the Gun Carriage (Vansittart) Island, where she fell sick and died of influenza in prison.

Zora Neale Hurtston

Firstly, Zora Neale Hurston was an American author, anthropologist, and filmmaker. She portrayed racial struggles in the early-1900s American South and published research on hoodoo. The most popular of her four novels is Their Eyes Were Watching God, published in 1937. She also wrote more than 50 short stories, plays, and essays.

Hurston was born in Notasulga, Alabama, and moved with her family to Eatonville, Florida, in 1894. She later used Eatonville as the setting for many of her stories. It is now the site of the “Zora! Festival”, held each year in her honor. 

Wilma Rudolph

Wilma Glodean Rudolph  was an American sprinter born in Saint Bethlehem, Tennessee, who became a world-record-holding Olympic champion and international sports icon in track and field following her successes in the 1956 and 1960 Olympic Games. Rudolph competed in the 200-meter dash and won a bronze medal in the 4 × 100-meter relay at the 1956 Summer Olympics at Melbourne, Australia. She also won three gold medals, in the 100- and 200-meter individual events and the 4 x 100-meter relay at the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome, Italy. Rudolph was acclaimed the fastest woman in the world in the 1960s and became the first American woman to win three gold medals in a single Olympic Games.

Due to the worldwide television coverage of the 1960 Summer Olympics, Rudolph became an international star along with other Olympic athletes such as Cassius Clay (later known as Muhammad Ali), Oscar Robertson, and Rafer Johnson who competed in Italy.

As an Olympic champion in the early 1960s, Rudolph was among the most highly visible black women in America and abroad. She became a role model for black and female athletes and her Olympic successes helped elevate women’s track and field in the United States. Rudolph is also regarded as a civil rights and women’s rights pioneer. In 1962 Rudolph retired from competition at the peak of her athletic career as the world record-holder in the 100- and 200-meter individual events and the 4 × 100-meter relays. After competing in the 1960 Summer Olympics, the 1963 graduate of Tennessee State University became an educator and coach. Rudolph died of brain and throat cancer in 1994

Toni Morrison

Chloe Anthony Wofford Morrison (born Chloe Ardelia Wofford; February 18, 1931 – August 5, 2019), known as Toni Morrison, was an American novelist, essayist, book editor, and college professor. Her first novel, The Bluest Eye, was published in 1970. The critically acclaimed Song of Solomon (1977) brought her national attention and won the National Book Critics Circle Award. In 1988, Morrison won the Pulitzer Prize for Beloved (1987); she gained worldwide recognition when she was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1993.

Born and raised in Lorain, Ohio, Morrison graduated from Howard University in 1953 with a B.A. in English. on 1955, she earned a master’s degree in American Literature from Cornell University. In 1957 she returned to Howard University, was married, and had two children before divorcing in 1964. the late 1960s, she became the first black female editor in fiction at Random House in New York City. In the 1970s and 1980s, she developed her own reputation as an author, and her perhaps most celebrated work, Beloved, was made into a 1998 film. Her works are praised for addressing the harsh consequences of racism in the United States.

In 1996, the National Endowment for the Humanities selected her for the Jefferson Lecture, the U.S. federal government’s highest honor for achievement in the humanities. Also that year, she was honored with the National Book Foundation’s Medal of Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. On May 29, 2012, President Barack Obama presented Morrison with the Presidential Medal of Freedom. In 2016, she received the PEN/Saul Bellow Award for Achievement in American Fiction. In 2020, Morrison was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the blacks on this list are more than just mere people. They have done extraordinary things, without them we wouldn’t be where we are now. Those people are just an example that shows us that we can do anything! People like you and me can change ANYTHING! If you have any questions email us at Info@Thompsonempire.com 

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