Birthday Celebrations — September 21

Born on this day. These are the birthdays we celebrate on September 21 — the people whose lives added to the story of Black history.

Learie Constantine

Full name: Learie Nicholas Constantine

Born September 21, 1901 — died July 1, 1971

Trinidadian cricket great and Britain’s first Black peer.

The dazzling all-rounder won a landmark 1944 racial discrimination case against a London hotel and entered the House of Lords as Baron Constantine.

Kwame Nkrumah

Full name: Francis Kwame Nkrumah

Born September 21, 1909 — died April 27, 1972

First president of Ghana and Pan-African visionary.

In 1957 Nkrumah led the first sub-Saharan colony to independence, declaring "Ghana, your beloved country, is free forever."

Slam Stewart

Full name: Leroy Elliott Stewart

Born September 21, 1914 — died December 10, 1987

Jazz bassist.

Stewart’s signature — bowing his bass while humming an octave higher — graced bands from Art Tatum to Dizzy Gillespie.

Édouard Glissant

Born September 21, 1928 — died February 3, 2011

Martinican poet and philosopher.

Glissant’s Poetics of Relation made him a defining theorist of Caribbean identity and créolité.

Sidney Moncrief

Full name: Sidney Alvin Moncrief

Born September 21, 1957

Basketball Hall of Famer.

Moncrief won the NBA’s first two Defensive Player of the Year awards for the Milwaukee Bucks.

Cecil Fielder

Full name: Cecil Grant Fielder

Born September 21, 1963

MLB slugger and World Series champion.

Fielder’s 51 homers in 1990 made him the American League’s first 50-homer man in nearly three decades.

Billy Porter

Full name: William Ellis Porter II

Born September 21, 1969

Emmy, Grammy, and Tony winner.

Porter made history as the first openly gay Black man to win the lead drama acting Emmy, for Pose.

Alfonso Ribeiro

Full name: Alfonso Lincoln Ribeiro Sr.

Born September 21, 1971

Actor, dancer, and host.

Forever Carlton Banks, creator of television’s most famous dance, and host of America’s Funniest Home Videos.

Wale

Birth name: Olubowale Victor Akintimehin

Born September 21, 1984

Nigerian American rapper.

Wale carried D.C.’s go-go sound into national hip-hop with platinum hits like "Bad."

Jason Derulo

Birth name: Jason Joel Desrouleaux

Born September 21, 1989

Haitian American pop star.

From "Whatcha Say" to "Talk Dirty," Derulo built a career of global multiplatinum dance-pop.