TODAY’S LEADERS
SHAPING TOMORROW’S HISTORY
CNBC Make It celebrates Black history year-round, but in February is shining a special spotlight on 23 Black leaders whose accomplishments and impact will inspire generations to come. “We encourage sharing with other sites such as Facebook or Email”.
The Interfaith Alliance has selected four of these leaders to feature in our February Newsletter.To read more, consult CNBC’s website:
23 Black leaders who are shaping history today (cnbc.com).
“Black Americans have played a crucial role in helping to advance America’s business, political and cultural landscape into what it is today. Since 1976, every U.S. president has designated the month of February as Black History Month to honor the achievements and the resilience of the Black community. “Following the lead of trailblazers throughout American history, including Shirley Chisholm, John Lewis, Martin Luther King, Maya Angelou, Frederick Douglas, Rosa Parks, and Mary Ellen Pleasant,(among many others) today’s Black history-makers are shaping not only today but tomorrow. “
On Jan. 2020, Kamala Harris became the first Black, first South Asian American and first woman Vice President of the United States.
Harris, born in Oakland, California to an Indian mother and Jamaican father, spoke about her mother, Shyamala Gopalan Harris, in her first speech as vice president-elect.
“When she came here from India at the age of 19, she maybe didn’t quite imagine this moment,” her daughter said on Nov. 7. (Shyamala came to the U.S. in 1958 to study biochemistry.) “But she believed so deeply in an America where a moment like this is possible.” . . . “So, I’m thinking about her and about the generations of women – Black women, Asian, White, Latina, and Native American women who throughout our nation’s history have paved the way for this moment tonight,” she said. —Cory Stieg
Victor J. Glover, Jr., 44, first Black astronaut to live and work at the International Space Station for an extended stay
When NASA astronaut Victor Glover arrived at the International Space Station — roughly 250 miles above earth — on a SpaceX Crew Dragon Capsule, he settled in for a six-month stay to become the first Black astronaut to live and work on ISS for an extended period of time. (Of the more than 300 NASA astronauts who have been sent to space, only 14 have been Black Americans.)
“It is bittersweet, because I’ve had some amazing colleagues before me that really could have done it, and there are some amazing folks that will go behind me,” Glover, who is serving as pilot and second-in-command on the crew, told The Christian Chronicle. “I wish it would have already been done, but I try not to draw too much attention to it.” —Catherine Clifford
Raphael Warnock, 51, Georgia’s first Black senator
Both in January 2021 and November2022 Reverend Raphael Warnock defeated his Republican opponent to create a path for Democrats to gain control of the Senate and make Warnock the state of Georgia’s first Black senator as well as the first Black Democrat Senator from the South since the Reconstruction Era.
Warnock, 51, grew up in Savannah, Georgia, graduated from Morehouse College cum laude in 1991 and in 2005 he became the youngest senior pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church – where Martin Luther King Jr. was once a pastor – since the church was founded in 1886.
In a live-streamed victory speech, Warnock reflected on the historic nature of his election as well as on his mother, who in the 1950s picked cotton and tobacco. “The 82-year-old hands that used to pick somebody else’s cotton went to the polls and picked her youngest son to be a United States senator,” said Warnock. “The improbable journey that led me to this place in this historic moment in America could only happen here.” —Abigail Johnson Hess
Midshipman Sydney Barber, U.S. Naval Academy’s first Black female brigade commander.
In the U.S. Naval Academy’s 175-year history, there has never been a Black woman to serve as a brigade commander. But all of that changed this January when Midshipman Sydney Barber stepped into the role.
Barber, who grew up in Lake Forest, Illinois, says she was inspired by her dad, who graduated from the academy in 1991, to attend the institution. “My dad is someone who always believed in me early on and so he will say that he wasn’t surprised [by my position],” says the 21-year-old mechanical engineering major. “But, he started crying first of all on the phone just because he was so proud of me and the opportunity that came ahead.”
Knowing her dad’s experience and the experience of countless other diverse leaders, the 21-year-old says she’s “extremely humbled” by her new opportunity and she doesn’t take the responsibilities of her role lightly.
“Ms. Janie Mines is another one of my mentors. She’s the first Black female graduate of the Naval Academy,” Barber says. “She’s someone that I speak to often. And she talks about how, at her time at the Academy, she wasn’t even acknowledged or recognized by her peers being that it was a predominantly White male institution.” Mines, who graduated from the academy in 1980, currently manages her own business as an author and executive management consultant.
“So, I kind of take this as an opportunity to carry on their legacy,” says Barber. “I realize that they blazed the trail for me, and with that I feel a responsibility to continue blazing the trail for those who are coming after me.” —Courtney Connley
Read more about Sydney Barber’s journey to becoming the U.S. Naval Academy’s first Black female brigade commander. Sydney Barber