A black-and-white photograph of blues musician Charles Brown playing piano during a performance in Ft. Lauderdale, FL. Brown is photographed in profile from his right. He is crouched over the piano and wears a cap and dark jacket that appear to be covered…
Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and CultureCatalog 2012.164.55
Charles Burnett (; born April 13, 1944) is an American film director, film producer, writer, editor, actor, photographer, and cinematographer. His most popular films include Killer of Sheep (1978), My Brother's Wedding (1983), To Sleep with Anger (1990),…
Charles Burrell (October 4, 1920 – June 17, 2025) was an American classical and jazz bass player most prominently known for being the first African American to be a member of a major American symphony (the Denver Symphony Orchestra, now known as the…
Charles W. Caldwell (May 18, 1943 – September 3, 2003) was an American musician from Mississippi, known for a raw and fiery brand of electric North Mississippi hill country blues. Caldwell was a lifelong resident of the hill country around Coffeeville,…
A color photograph of Charles Cauthen by Sheila Pree Bright. The photograph is a close-up portrait of Cauthen wrapped in a United States flag against a bright white background. The American flag is wrapped entirely around his neck and shoulders, with only…
Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and CultureCatalog 2024.68.2
Charles Coleman, "CharlesInCharge", is an American record producer and songwriter. He began his musical journey as a member of the group, ICON. It was with the group that CharlesInCharge began to professionally produce and write music. To create he uses an…
Charles "Honi" Coles (April 2, 1911 – November 12, 1992) was an American actor and tap dancer, who was inducted posthumously into the American Tap Dance Hall of Fame in 2003. He had a distinctive personal style that required technical precision, high-speed…
A black-and-white photograph of Charles Covington. He is looking at the camera and wearing glasses and a jacket over is shirt. Light is reflecting off of his glasses. The print is inscribed on the back.
Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and CultureCatalog 2012.41.8
Charles Daniels was a Black Canadian working as a porter supervisor with the CPR at the beginning of the 20th century. In 1914, he launched a $1,000 discrimination lawsuit against the Sherman Grand theatre in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, when the management…
Charles Dickson (born 1947) is an American artist and sculptor. He lives and works in Los Angeles, where he has created small to large-scale sculptures honoring Black culture for decades. The Los Angeles Times named Dickson’s public sculpture Wishing on a…
Charles F. Harris (January 3, 1934 – December 16, 2015) was an American book publisher and editor. Through his pioneering work at Howard University Press and at Amistad Press, which he founded in 1986, Harris was instrumental in the publication of many…
Charles Farrar is an American songwriter, composer, and producer, best known for his songwriting work with vocal groups SWV, 702, Today, and Shades. In the late 1990s/early 2000s, Farrar, alongside Troy Taylor, was a member of "The Characters": a…
Charles Flores was born in Cuba in 1970. He became a bassist when he was 10 years old, but Cuban laws prohibited an in depth study of jazz and other American genres of music. Flores eventually immigrated to the United States as a refugee and settled in…
Charles Baker Fowlkes (February 16, 1916 – February 9, 1980) was an American baritone saxophonist who was a member of the Count Basie Orchestra for over 25 years.
Charles Franklin Moss (1878-1961) was an African American photographer and painter born in Winchester, Virginia. Moss' mother was born into slavery and his father was a mason. He showed interest in art early in his life and attended Cooper Union and the…
Charles Freeman Lee, known as Freeman Lee (August 13, 1927 – June 15, 1997) was an American Jazz Trumpeter, recording with the Elmo Hope Quintet, Bennie Green, Babs Gonzales and Howard McGhee.
Charles H. Fuller Jr. (March 5, 1939 – October 3, 2022) was an American playwright, best known for his play A Soldier's Play, for which he received the 1982 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and the 2020 Tony Award for Best Revival of a Play.
Charles George Hayes (December 10, 1937 – February 12, 2014) was an American gospel musician and founding pastor of Cosmopolitan Church of Prayer. He enjoyed a career spanning over 50 years as a musician with the Cosmopolitan Church of Prayer Choir that…
Charles Gaines (born 1944) is an American visual artist, whose work interrogates the discourse of aesthetics, politics, and philosophy. Taking the form of drawings, photographic series and video installations, the work consistently involves the use of…
Charles Gayle (February 28, 1939 – September 7, 2023) was an American free jazz musician. Initially known as a saxophonist who came to prominence in the 1990s after decades of obscurity, Gayle also performed as pianist, bass clarinetist, bassist, and…
Charles H. Turpin (died 1935) was a constable filmmaker, theater owner, and judge in St. Louis, Missouri. In 1910, he became the first African American elected to city-wide office in St.
Charles Eddie-Lee Hamilton Jr. (born November 10, 1987) is an American rapper from Cleveland, Ohio. He released his debut mixtape, Crash Landing in June 2008, and signed an undisclosed multi-million dollar recording contract with Interscope Records two…
Charles "Teenie" Harris (July 2, 1908 – June 12, 1998) was an American photographer from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Harris was known for his photographs of residents and prominent visitors to Pittsburgh, including musicians and baseball players, which often…
