Legacy Honorees
Part of Reckoning with Academy History
The Legacy Recognition Program recognizes individuals who were not members of the Academy and whose accomplishments were overlooked or undervalued due to their race, ethnicity, gender, or sexual orientation.
The initiative, launched in 2023, is rooted in the values of the Academy’s Anti-Racism Committee and its statement establishing a responsibility to “seek to undo the wrongs and to move us forward in the search for racial justice, advancing the ongoing project of perfecting our Union.”
The first Legacy Recognition honorees were announced in September 2024. Additional honorees will be nominated and honored in the years ahead.
Legacy Honorees
Jane Addams
Social worker; Reformer; Writer
Ruth Aiko Asawa
Artist (sculptor)
James Baldwin
Writer; Advocate (civil rights)
Benjamin Banneker
Mathematician; Astronomer; Naturalist
Derrick A. Bell, Jr.
Lawyer; Scholar; Advocate (civil rights)
Gwendolyn Brooks
Writer; Poet laureate; Educator
Carlos Bulosan
Writer (novelist, poet)
Rachel Carson
Marine biologist; Writer; Conservationist
George Washington Carver
Agricultural scientist; Inventor
Ella Cara Deloria, Aŋpétu Wašté Wiŋ (Beautiful Day Woman)
Writer; Educator; Ethnographer; Linguist
Frederick Douglass
Social reformer; Abolitionist; Orator; Writer; Statesman
Charles R. Drew
Surgeon; Medical scientist
W. E. B. Du Bois
Sociologist; Historian; Advocate (civil rights)
Katherine Dunham
Dancer; Choreographer; Anthropologist; Advocate
Charles Hamilton Houston
Lawyer; Academic administrator
Scott Joplin
Composer; Musician (pianist)
Barbara Jordan
Lawyer; Member, U.S. House of Representatives; Educator
Edmonia Lewis
Artist (sculptor)
Alain Locke
Philosopher; Writer; Educator
Thurgood Marshall
Lawyer; Jurist (U.S. Supreme Court)
Maria Montoya Martinez, Po’ve’ka (Water Lily)
Artist (potter)
Constance Baker Motley
Lawyer; Jurist; Public official; Advocate (civil rights)
Pauli Murray
Legal scholar; Writer; Clergy member; Advocate
Amalie Emmy Noether
Mathematician
Zelia Nuttall
Archaeologist; Anthropologist
Frances Perkins
U.S. Secretary of Labor; Advocate (workers’ rights)
Susan LaFlesche Picotte
Physician; Advocate (Native American rights)
Paul Robeson
Musician (bass-baritone); Actor; Advocate (civil rights)
Solomon Schechter
Rabbi; Scholar; Educator
Maria W. Stewart
Abolitionist; Advocate (women’s rights); Educator; Journalist
Maria Tallchief, Wa-Xthe-Thomba (Two Standards)
Ballet dancer
Sojourner Truth
Advocate (civil rights, women’s rights, temperance); Abolitionist
William “Willie” C. Velásquez
Advocate (civil rights)
Wassaja (Signaling), Carlos Montezuma
Physician; Advocate (Native American rights)
Ida B. Wells-Barnett
Journalist; Educator; Advocate (civil rights)
Phillis Wheatley
Writer (poet)
Daniel Hale Williams
Surgeon; Hospital administrator
Anna May Wong
Actor
Carter G. Woodson
Writer (nonfiction); Editor; Publisher; Historian
Zitkala-Ša (Red Bird), Gertrude Simmons Bonnin
Advocate (Native American rights, women’s rights); Writer; Librettist; Musician