Category: Black Excellence

https://nantucketcurrent.com/news/a-nantucket-tale-the-adventures-of-nancy-gardner-prince-to-become-part-of-sixth-grade-curriculum-at-cps

This spring, Nantucket’s sixth-grade students will be reading a book both by and about a fellow Nantucket resident.

Local historian Frances Karttunen’s graphic narrative, The Adventures of Nancy Gardner Prince, Written by Herself, tells the story of Nancy Gardner Prince, a Black 19th-century Nantucketer.

Prince, who was active in both the women’s suffrage and abolition movements during her life, wrote an autobiography before disappearing from the historical record in the mid-1850s. Karttunen reworked her autobiography into a graphic narrative, and, thanks to a grant from the Nantucket Education Trust, that book will now be taught to sixth-grade students at the Cyrus Peirce Middle School.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nancy_Gardner_Prince

Nancy Gardner Prince (September 15, 1799 – c. 1859) was an African-American woman born free in Newburyport, Massachusetts,^[1] She wrote about her travels in Russia and Jamaica during the nineteenth century in her autobiography titled A Narrative of The Life And Travels of Mrs. Nancy Prince, published in 1850.^[2]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nate_Smith_(drummer)

Ira Nathaniel Smith (born December 14, 1974), generally referred to as Nate Smith, is an American drummer, songwriter, producer, and two-time Grammy Award winner.^[1]

Nate Smith Announced as New Artistic Director of the Newport Jazz Festival

NEWPORT, RI (February 12, 2026) — Fresh off of his two GRAMMY wins earlier this month, polymath musician, virtuosic drummer, producer, and bandleader Nate Smith has been appointed as the new Artistic Director of the Newport Jazz Festival. He will work hand in hand with the Newport creative team to aid with booking, artistic direction, community building and the foundation’s year-round work in jazz education. He will serve in the role for three years beginning with this year’s festival taking place July 31st – August 2nd in Newport, Rhode Island at Fort Adams State Park. Smith takes over the role from Christian McBride, who served in the position for a decade, and festival founder George Wein before him. Smith ushers in this new era following three years of consecutive festival sell outs.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elana_Meyers_Taylor

Elana Meyers Taylor^[1] (born Elana Alessandra Meyers; October 10, 1984) is an American Olympic bobsledder who has competed since 2007. Born in Oceanside, California, Meyers Taylor was raised in Douglasville, Georgia and is a graduate of George Washington University, where she was a member of the softball team.^[2] After three silver and two bronze medals at the previous four Olympic Games, Meyers Taylor won her first gold at the 2026 Winter Olympics at age 41. She is also a four-time World Champion, winning two gold medals each in the two-woman and mixed team events.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sylvia_Hoffman

Sylvia Hoffman (born June 29, 1989, in Philadelphia^[1]) is an American bobsledder who was first discovered and recruited for the national bobsled team on The Next Olympic Hopeful.^[2] She is originally from Arlington, TX^[3] and attended Louisiana State University Shreveport.^[2] Before bobsledding she was a college basketball player and participated in weightlifting.^[2]

Attorney Lizana is the great-grandson of T.J. Huddleston Sr. (featured in the photograph on the right), a prominent African American entrepreneur and community leader who is famous for having built the first black hospital in the State of Mississippi, and who is also proudly remembered as the founder of the Afro-American Sons and Daughters Grand Lodge. Attorney Lizana taught Employment Law, as an Adjunct Professor at Western New England University School of Law, and is an Adjunct Professor in Bay Path University’s Masters degree program in Higher Education Administration.

Author of the bestselling book “Workplace Jujitsu: How to Protect Yourself from HR“, Attorney Lizana is a frequent speaker and presenter at professional conferences and seminars on topics related to Higher Education Law, Employment Law, Discrimination, Diversity Management and EEO compliance.

https://www.npr.org/2026/02/04/g-s1-107656/how-a-black-fossil-digger-became-a-superstar-in-the-very-white-world-of-paleontology

Lazarus Kgasi walks with ease across a gently rolling landscape about an hour’s drive outside of Pretoria, South Africa. A few trees are sprinkled here and there but it’s mostly grass. Kgasi, a tall man with a big smile, knows the place well.

“We are going to see a fossil site in the Cradle of Humankind,” he says, referring to the UNESCO World Heritage site that has produced a stunning trove of early hominid fossils, helping prove that the African continent was indeed the birthplace of humanity.

“This is where the story started,” says Kgasi, age 52. “Every fossil here help[s] us to reconstruct the past — to tell the story of where do we come from.”

https://www.imdb.com/name/nm10085932/bio/?ref_=nm_ov_ql_1

Julio is known as Julito Gastón and is a percussionist and music producer. He works as Bad Bunny‘s Musical Director. In April 2025 he appeared playing at the Tiny Desk with the famous Puerto Rican musician.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaysha_Love

Kaysha Love (born September 24, 1997) is an American bobsledder and former collegiate sprinter. She attended and competed in track and field at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas, where she was a two-time Second Team All-American (2017–2018). She was Utah’s 2016 Gatorade State Girls Track and Field Athlete of the Year in high school. She represented the United States at the 2022 Winter Olympics, where she competed in the two-woman bobsled.

She is competing in the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milano-Cortina.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabrina_Simader

Sabrina Wanjiku Simader (born 13 April 1998^[1]) is an alpine skier from Kenya.

Simader was born in Kilifi, Kenya and moved to Austria when she was three years old with her Kenyan mother and Austrian step-father.^[2][3] Her step-father owned a ski lift and trained Simader in skiing during her childhood.^[4] She grew up in Sankt Johann am Wimberg and later the family moved to Haus im Ennstal from where Simader would go to Schihauptschule Schladming, one of the few secondary schools focussed on skiing in Austria.^[5][6]

Poet, songwriter, author, workshop facilitator, and educator Regie Gibson has performed, taught, and lectured at schools, universities, theaters and various other venues on two continents and in seven countries including Havana Cuba. Regie and his work appear in the New Line Cinema film love jones, based largely on events in his life. The poem entitled “Brother to the Night (A Blues for Nina)” appears on the movie soundtrack and is performed by the film’s star, Larenz Tate. Regie performed “Hey Nappyhead” in the film with world-renowned percussionist and composer Kahil El Zabar, composer of the score for The Lion King musical.

https://nantucketcurrent.com/news/massachusetts-poet-laureate-regie-gibson-headlines-black-history-month-event-at-african-meeting-house

Massachusetts Poet Laureate Regie Gibson headlined an event celebrating Black History Month and the intergenerational power of Black art on Saturday at the African Meeting House, reading several of his poems and participating in a panel discussion.

Gibson involved the audience in some of his poetry, using a call-and-response format for poems including “Let’s Take it Back.”