Here are other famous African Americans, suggested by readers:
• Steve and Mike Roberts, brothers who served on the Board of Aldermen, founded Channel 46 in 1986 and ran Roberts Wireless along with other business ventures.
• Wayman F. Smith II, the first Black licensed CPA in Missouri.
• Clifton W. Gates, first Black person named to the city Board of Police Commissioners; co-founder of Gateway National Bank and former publisher for the American newspaper.
• Ina M. Boon, NAACP leader who was national regional director in the 1960s and helped the integration oft he St. Louis Fire Department.
• Clovis A. Bordeaux, who served with the World War II Tuskegee Airmen and worked with Enrico Fermi.
• Ethel Hedgeman Lyle, founder of Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority at Howard University in 1908. She was a teacher in Oklahoma, Illinois, and Pennsylvania.
• Kenneth Brown Billups Sr., choir director for the Legend Singers, St. Louis public schools’ supervisor of music, president of the National Association of Negro Musicians in 1959.
• Ivory Perry, a civil rights activist who rose to lead activism during the Jefferson Bank protest in 1963. He led the effort to educate people about lead paint and the impacts of lead on children’s health.
• Archer Alexander, an escaped enslaved man who became the inspiration for the Emancipation Memorial in Washington, D.C.
• David E. Hines, a jazz trumpeter who performed with James Brown, Ray Charles, Pattie LaBelle and many others, and his own David Hines Ensemble.
• Phil Perry, an R&B musician
• David Peaston, an R&B and gospel singer whose performance on “Showtime at the Apollo” led to fame.
• Football player Ezekiel Elliott, a graduate of John Burroughs School.
• Harry Edwards, a sports sociologist who taught at the University of California, Berkeley and worked as a consultant to several major league baseball teams, as well as the San Francisco 49ers and the Golden State Warriors.
• Ivory Crocket, a Webster High School graduate who set the world record for fastest manually timed 100-yard dash in 1974, and still holds that record to this day.
• Actress Jennifer Lewis, who has appeared in “Black-ish,” and the movies “Beaches” and “Sister Act.”
•Sister Mary Antona Ebo, a nun with the Franciscan Sisters of Mary who was a hospital director, marched in Selma, Ala., and worked on social justice issues into her 90s (including in Ferguson).
• Larry Hughes, who had a 14-year NBA career and played with the Philadelphia 76ers, Golden State Warriors, Washington Wizards, Cleveland Cavaliers, Chicago Bulls, New York Knicks, Sacramento Kings, Charlotte Bobcats and Orlando Magic. He went to CBC and St. Louis University.
• Eddie Mae Binion, organizer of the South Side Welfare Rights Organization and activist for renters and low-income people. The group Legal Services of Eastern Missouri gives a community service award named after her.
• Gen. Roscoe Robinson Jr. was the first black man to become a four-star general in the Army. After graduating from West Point, he served in the Korean and Vietnam wars. He retired in 1985 and died in 1993.
• Norman R. Seay, one of the “St. Louis 19” who led the 1963 demonstrations at Jefferson Bank & Trust Co.
• Isiaah Crawford, president of the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, Washington.
• Ernest A. Calloway, who worked with the Teamsters Union in St. Louis to try to integrate public schools. He then became president of the local NAACP, and worked in politics to elect black people to local and state offices.
• Albert Burgess, the first Black attorney in St. Louis, who was born in Detroit, moved to St. Louis in 1877, and passed the bar. He died in 1932. Information from the Bar Association of Metropolitan St. Louis
• Dorothy Freeman, the first Black woman attorney in Missouri and St. Louis in 1942. Information from the Bar Association of Metropolitan St. Louis
• Judge Robin Ransom, the first Black woman on the Missouri Supreme Court.
• Dana Tippen Cutler, the first Black woman elected president of the Missouri Bar. Information from the Bar Association of Metropolitan St. Louis
The St. Louis Walk of Fame honors those who were born, lived or had their success in the area. Here are the people whose names are on the star…
