Wilson, Flip (Clerow Wilson Jr.)

Foxx, Redd (John Elroy Sanford)

1922-1991

Star of 'Sanford and Son,' one of television's first sitcoms built around a predominantly Black cast; pioneered the raunchy 'party record' comedy album format and personally mentored Flip Wilson and Richard Pryor

Pryor, Richard Franklin Lennox Thomas

1940-2005

Transformed American stand-up comedy by bringing unflinching honesty about race, addiction, and his own troubled life to the stage; first recipient of the Kennedy Center's Mark Twain Prize for American Humor

Mabley, Moms (Loretta Mary Aiken)

1894-1975

First female comedian to headline at Harlem's Apollo Theater, where she performed more times than any other entertainer in the venue's history; pioneered stand-up comedy as a vehicle for addressing race, sexuality, and aging through a deliberately disarming grandmotherly persona

Cosby, William Henry Jr.

1937-

Created and starred in 'The Cosby Show,' which revived the television sitcom format and became the most-watched program in America for five consecutive years; criminally convicted in 2018 of drugging and sexually assaulting Andrea Constand, a conviction later vacated in 2021 on procedural due-process grounds unrelated to the underlying facts, with civil juries subsequently finding him liable for sexual assault in two separate cases involving other accusers