Fats Waller

New York, NY

Roy Wilkins, one of the most influential civil rights leaders of the 20th century, lived in this Queens home from 1952 until his death in 1981. A journalist and longtime editor of the NAACP's "The Crisis," he served the organization for 46 years, becoming its executive director. A champion of working through constitutional and legislative means, he helped plan the 1963 March on Washington and press for landmark civil rights, voting rights, and fair housing laws.

New York, NY

Jackie Robinson lived at this Brooklyn address from 1947 to 1949, the very years he broke Major League Baseball's color barrier as an infielder for the Brooklyn Dodgers. He was named Rookie of the Year in 1947 and Most Valuable Player in 1949, won the National League batting title, and led the Dodgers to the pennant in 1947, 1949, 1952, and 1953.

New York, NY

This memorial honors Dr. Ronald E. McNair, a gifted physicist and NASA astronaut whose words about curiosity and perseverance are preserved here. Raised in the segregated South, McNair earned a doctorate in physics and became one of the first African Americans to fly in space. He was killed in 1986 aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger, and communities across the country—including here in Brooklyn—named parks and schools in his memory.

New York, NY

Unveiled at United Nations headquarters in 2015, The Ark of Return is the permanent memorial to the victims of slavery and the transatlantic slave trade — the forced passage of roughly fifteen million African men, women, and children across four centuries. Designed by architect Rodney Leon, its marble form evokes a vessel and the Middle Passage, turning a place of world diplomacy into a space of remembrance. Its three-part charge — acknowledge the tragedy, consider the legacy, and remember — asks visitors to reckon with a crime whose consequences still echo through the Americas.