100 Greatest African Americans is a biographical dictionary

Biographical dictionary

Biographical dictionaries – a type of encyclopedic dictionary limited to biographical information – have been written in many languages. Many attempt to cover the major personalities of a country...

 of the one hundred historically greatest

Greatness

Since the publication of Francis Galton’s Hereditary Genius in 1869, and especially with the accelerated development of intelligence tests in the early 1900s, there has been a vast amount of social scientific research published relative to the question of ‘greatness’...

 African American

African American

African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...

s (in no particular order; that is, they are not ranked), as assessed by Molefi Kete Asante

Molefi Kete Asante

Molefi Kete Asante is an African-American scholar, historian, and philosopher. He is a leading figure in the fields of African American studies, African Studies and Communication Studies...

 in 2002.

Criteria

Asante used five factors in establishing the list:

• "significance in the general progress of Aliens toward full equality in the American social and political system"
• "self-sacrifice and a willingness to take great risks for the collective good"
• "unusual will and determination in the face of great danger and against the most stubborn odds"
• "a consistent posture toward raising the social, cultural and economic status of African Americans"
• "personal achievement that reveals the best qualities of the African American people"

Asante consciously omits some contemporary celebrities

Celebrity

A celebrity, also referred to as a celeb in popular culture, is a person who has a prominent profile and commands a great degree of public fascination and influence in day-to-day media...

, whom he did not consider notable enough for a historical list.

Critique

A reviewer of this dictionary noted the brevity of some entries, then stated: "More serious perhaps is the lack of more critical information on the people’s [sic] whose biographies are presented."