Attending integrated classes, but dining in a segregated area of the campus cafeteria, Dr. Edith Irby Jones, in 1952, became the first African-American to graduate from the College of Medicine at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences. In fact, she was the first black admitted to a white medical school, south of the Mason-Dixon line.

Dr. Jones was born Dec. 23, 1927 near Conway to Robert and Mattie Irby. Graduating at the top of her class from Langston High School in Hot Springs in 1944, she worked in Chicago as a clerk-typist, but went on to attend Knoxville College at Knoxville, ...(more)

42nd President of the United States Founder, William Jefferson Clinton Foundation; Co-Chair with Nelson Mandela, International AIDS Trust; Co-Chair with Senator Robert Dole, Families of Freedom Fund; President of the United States 1993-2001; Governor of Arkansas 1979-1981,1983-1992.

William Jefferson Clinton was elected President of the United States in 1992, and again in 1996-the first Democratic president to be awarded a second term in six decades. Under his leadership, the United States enjoyed the strongest economy in a generation and the longest economic expansion in U.S. history. Pres...(more)

Bishop Charles Harrison Mason, who later became the founder and organizer of the Church of God in Christ, was born September 8, 1866, on the Prior Farm near Memphis, Tennessee. His father and mother, Jerry and Eliza Mason, were members of a Missionary Baptist Church.

Bishop Mason was saved in November, 1878. In 1893, he began his Christian Ministry with the accepting of ministerial licenses from the Mt. Gale Missionary Baptist Church, in Preston, Ark. On November 1, 1893, Bishop Mason attended the Arkansas Baptist College, but withdrew after three months.

In 1895, Bishop Mason met Elder ...(more)

An advocate of independent Black institutions, Haki R. Madhubuti (Formerly Don L. Lee) is the founder, publisher and editor of Third World Press, founder and current board member of the Institute of Positive Education/New Concept Development Center, and director of the Gwendolyn Brooks Center at Chicago State University.

Madhubuti was born Feb. 23, 1942, in Little Rock, Arkansas. Lee served in the U.S. Army (1960-63). He attended several colleges in Chicago and graduated from the University of Iowa (M.F.A., 1984). He taught at various colleges and universities, in 1984 becoming a faculty me...(more)

Born Aug. 6, 1931 in Pine Bluff, Ark., Faye Clarke was the first African-American woman to graduate from Harvard Business School. But that isn't her biggest significant accomplishment.

That accomplishment has its roots in her shock and dismay at the abject poverty Ms. Clarke saw in schools during her trips though the South on behalf of food giant ARAMARK, for which she was a regional vice president.

When Ms. Clarke retired in 1991, she and husband Frank decided to do more than grieve. In addition to donating books belonging to themselves and their eight children, they spent $250,000 from...(more)

Stax Records, Memphis' most successful record label was founded by Bluff City natives Jim Stewart and his sister, Estelle Axton. But Al Bell, born Alvertis Isbell in 1940 in Brinkley and raised in North Little Rock, became a driving force behind the company.

Mr. Bell, who also worked in the Civil Rights movement, began promoting records for Stax in 1965. He became a co-owner in 1968 and solo operator of Stax in 1972. Stax Records is said to be one of the most musically and culturally influential labels of the second half of the 20th century.

Mr. Bell came to Stax after working at various...(more)