Black Excellence: Vivian Ayers Allen
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vivian_Ayers_Allen
Vivian Elizabeth Ayers Allen (July 29, 1923 – August 18, 2025) was an American poet, playwright, cultural activist, museum curator and classicist.[1][2
Black Excellence: Halima Aliko Dangote
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halima_Dangote
Halima Aliko Dangote is a Nigerian businesswoman. She is the executive director, commercial operations of Dangote Group, an African industrial conglomerate. She is the second daughter of Nigerian billionaire Aliko Dangote. She is on the board of Dangote Group, NASCON Allied Industries Plc, Aliko Dangote Foundation, Endeavor Nigeria, and a member of Women Corporate Directors and president of the board of the Africa Centre in New York.[1]
Black Excellence: Deatrich Wise Jr.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deatrich_Wise_Jr.
Deatrich Wise Jr. (born July 26, 1994) is an American professional football defensive end for the Washington Commanders of the National Football League (NFL). He played college football for the Arkansas Razorbacks and was selected by the New England Patriots in the fourth round of the 2017 NFL draft.
Black Excellence: Mayor Brandon M. Scott
https://mayor.baltimorecity.gov
Brandon M. Scott serves as the 52nd mayor of Baltimore, the youngest person to hold his position in over a century. Mayor Scott is committed to ending gun violence, investing in our youth, restoring trust in government, and building a better, more equitable Baltimore for all. In November 2024, he made history as the first Baltimore mayor in 20 years to win re-election.
Black Excellence: Dr. Alieu Kamara
Dr. Alieu Kamara is the first and only neurosurgeon in Sierra Leone. After starting his practice at the beginning of January 2025, Kamara carries the neurosurgical disease burden — traumatic injuries, spinal paralyses, seizures, brain tumors — of an entire country of eight million people.
Black Excellence: Viola Fletcher
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viola_Fletcher
Viola Fletcher (née Ford; born May 10, 1914), also known as Mother Fletcher, is an American woman who is the oldest known living survivor of the Tulsa race massacre and a supercentenarian. One hundred years after the massacre, she testified before Congress about the need for reparations.
Black Excellence: Toni Scott
https://www.toniscott.com/about1
Toni Scott’s exhibitions and installations weave together artistically powerful stories presented through installations, multi-media, photography, painting, sculpture and digital ingenuity, often referencing fraught histories. “Learning of my multicultural family heritage has inspired me to give life to the lost images and stories of history.” Scott’s “Bloodlines” series is a testament to her goals to inspire, educate, heal, engage, stimulate dialog, and bring together diverse cultures. “In every work, I create resides a commitment to themes that build and enrich humanity.” Scott’s work has been awarded and celebrated internationally. In 2012, she created a solo mixed media installation, Bloodlines, for the California African American Museum.
Black Excellence: Nduduzo Makhathini
https://www.npr.org/2025/08/18/g-s1-81562/nduduzo-makhathini-tiny-desk-concert
Whether through his recordings, live in concert or at the Tiny Desk, South African pianist and Zulu healer Nduduzo Makhathini has the ability to transfix an audience with his deeply meditative and engaging music. His work is lush with ancestral invocation, meditations on Blackness and spiritual exploration.
Here, Makhathini presents a cross-section of his works that he has dubbed for the Tiny Desk as the Ntu Sonicities Devotion Suite in Five Movements. His notes on the suite shared with the Tiny Desk team illuminate a thoughtful intentionality that is a hallmark of Makhathini’s work.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nduduzo_Makhathini
Nduduzo Makhathini (born 24 September 1982) is a South African jazz musician from Umgungundlovu, Pietermaritzburg, South Africa.
Coming from a musical family, his love for music began at an early age.[1] Makhathini has performed with Zim Ngqawana, Simphiwe Dana, Feya Faku, and McCoy Mrubata. Nduduzo completed his Diploma in Jazz Piano at the Durban University of Technology in 2005,[2][3] and obtained a PhD in music from the University of Stellenbosch in 2023.[4][5]
Black Excellence: Rep. Nicole Collier
https://house.texas.gov/members/95
https://www.texastribune.org/2025/08/19/nicole-collier-texas-house-dps-escort-redistricting-quorum
A Texas House Democrat was confined in the Capitol overnight after she refused a police escort that Republican leaders imposed on lawmakers who participated in a two-week walkout over a GOP mid-decade redistricting plan.
Rep. Nicole Collier, D-Fort Worth, declined on Monday afternoon to sign a slip giving her permission from Speaker Dustin Burrows, R-Lubbock, to leave the House floor with a state law enforcement officer shadowing her.