Black Excellence: Edwidge Danticat

https://edwidgedanticat.com/about

Edwidge Danticat is the author of several books, including Breath, Eyes, Memory, an Oprah Book Club selection, Krik? Krak!, a National Book Award finalist, The Farming of Bones, The Dew Breaker, Brother, I’m Dying, Create Dangerously, Claire of the Sea Light, The Art of Death, Everything Inside, a Reese’s Book Club selection and National Book Critics Circle Awards winner.

Black Excellence: James Earl Jones

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

James Earl Jones (January 17, 1931 – September 9, 2024) was an American actor known for his film roles and for his work in theater. Jones has been described as “one of America’s most distinguished and versatile” actors for his performances on stage and screen.[1] He has also been called “one of the greatest actors in American history”.[2] He was one of the few performers to achieve the EGOT (Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony).[3][4][5][6] Jones was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame in 1985, and honored with the National Medal of Arts in 1992, the Kennedy Center Honor in 2002, the Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award in 2009, and the Academy Honorary Award in 2011.[2][7]

Black Excellence: Njideka Akunyili Crosby

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

Njideka Akunyili Crosby // (born 1983) is a Nigerian-born visual artist working in Los Angeles, California.[1] Through her art, Akunyili Crosby “negotiates the cultural terrain between her adopted home in America and her native Nigeria, creating collage and photo transfer-based paintings that expose the challenges of occupying these two worlds”.[2] In 2017, Akunyili Crosby was awarded the prestigious Genius Grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.[3]

Black Excellence: Nathaniel Mary Quinn

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

Nathaniel Mary Quinn (1977) is an American painter. Quinn is known for his collage-style composite portraits that feature disfigured faces.[1][2]

https://gagosian.com/artists/nathaniel-mary-quinn

In his collage-like composite portraits derived from sources both personal and found, Nathaniel Mary Quinn probes the relationship between visual memory and perception. Fragments of images taken from online sources, fashion magazines, and family photographs come together to form hybrid faces and figures that are at once neo-Dada and adamantly realist, evoking the intimacy and intensity of a face-to-face encounter.