Richard Wright was an African American writer who was born in Roxie, Mississippi. Wright's childhood consisted of severe poverty, enslaved grandparents, a abandoning father and his dreams of becoming a writer, which seemed like wishful thinking back then. Wright tried to look for jobs in the South but couldn't bare the way he was treated, so he moved to Chicago in 1927. In Chicago he joined John Reed's Club where he finally had an opportunity to write. He then moved to New York in 1937 to write for the Daily Worker (newspaper). He published his first book in 1938, called Uncle Tom's Children, but it was his second book, Native Boy, published in 1940, that made him a famous author. Native Boy became a best-seller, a broadway show and motion picture film. He left John Reed's Club in 1944 for personal issues, but then published Black Boy, a book based on his childhood. In 1957 Wright moved to Paris and published White Man, Listen!. Wright's autobiography was published in 1977 after his death.

Madam C.J. Walker was originally named Sarah Breedlove. She was married at fourteen years old, became a widow at age twenty but was the first African American woman who became a self-made millionaire. She took her two year old daughter to St. Louis and started her own line of hair care products which became a huge success. She started a mail order business in 1906, in Denver, Colorado. Her company grew to develop beauty schools, open offices, manufacturing plants, and locations in places outside the United States. She donated to organizations like YMCA and NAACP. Madam C.J. Walker was a representative woman activist who made her own opportunities and inspired others.