Howard University alumni

Edward William Brooke III (October 26, 1919 – January 3, 2015) was an American lawyer and politician who represented Massachusetts in the United States Senate from 1967 to 1979. A member of the Republican Party, he was the first African American elected to the United States Senate by popular vote. Prior to serving in the Senate, he served as the Attorney General of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts from 1963 until 1967. Edward Brooke was the first African-American since Reconstruction in 1874 to have been elected to the United States Senate and he was the first African-American United States senator since 1881 to have held a United States Senate seat. Edward Brooke was also the first African-American United States senator ever to have been re-elected to the United States Senate.
Born to a middle-class black family, Brooke was raised in Washington, D.C. After attending Howard University, he graduated from Boston University School of Law in 1948 after serving in the U.S. Army during World War II. Beginning in 1950, he became involved in politics, when he ran for a seat in the Massachusetts House of Representatives. After serving as chairman of the Boston Finance Commission, Brooke was elected attorney general in 1962, becoming the first African-American to be elected attorney general of any state.
He served as attorney general for four years, before running for Senate in 1966. In the election, he defeated Democratic former Governor Endicott Peabody in a landslide, and was seated on January 3, 1967. In the Senate, Brooke aligned with the liberal faction in the Republican party. He co-wrote the Civil Rights Act of 1968, which prohibited housing discrimination. He was re-elected to a second term in 1972, after defeating attorney John Droney. Brooke became a prominent critic of Republican President Richard Nixon, and was the first Senate Republican to call for Nixon's resignation in light of the Watergate scandal. In 1978, he ran for a third term, but was defeated by Democrat Paul Tsongas. After leaving the Senate, Brooke practiced law in Washington, D.C., and was affiliated with various businesses and nonprofit organizations. Brooke died in 2015, at his home in Coral Gables, Florida, at the age of 95, and was the last living former U.S. senator born in the 1910s.

Georgette Seabrooke (aka Georgette Seabrooke Powell; August 2, 1916 – December 27, 2011), was an American muralist, artist, illustrator, art therapist, non-profit chief executive and educator. She is best known for her 1936 mural, Recreation in Harlem at Harlem Hospital in New York City, which was restored and put on public display in 2012 after being hidden from view for many years.

Mary Dudley (born Mary Elizabeth Goode; April 8, 1912 – March 17, 1964), known as Mary Dee, was an American disc jockey who is widely considered the first African-American woman disc jockey in the United States. She grew up in Homestead, Pennsylvania, and then studied at Howard University for two years. After having her family, she attended Si Mann School of Radio in Pittsburgh, and on August 1, 1948, went on the air at WHOD radio. Gaining national attention, Dee broadcast from a storefront, "Studio Dee", in the Hill District of Pittsburgh from 1951 to 1956. She moved her show, Movin' Around with Mary Dee, to Baltimore and broadcast from station WSID from 1956 to 1958. In 1958, she moved to Philadelphia and hosted Songs of Faith on WHAT until her death in 1964.
Dee is considered a pioneer in developing the radio format that combines coverage of community affairs with music and news. She was one of the first two black women admitted to the Association of American Women in Radio and Television, and was successful in campaigning for the organization to forgo meetings in segregated facilities. During her lifetime she received numerous awards for her civic work. In 2011 she was honored posthumously with the Thomas J. MacWilliams Lifetime Achievement Award from the Media Association of Pittsburgh.

Carolyn L. Cannon-Alfred (born August 16, 1934 – August 29, 1987) was an American pharmacologist who established a medical clinic in South-central Los Angeles. She was an assistant professor of pharmacology at the Keck School of Medicine of USC and a senior pharmacologist at Riker Laboratories. Cannon-Alfred co-authored the Medical Handbook for the Layman in 1971.

Edward Estis Holloway (June 12, 1908 – April 8, 1993) was a Philadelphia cardiologist who also served as the last elected city coroner.
Holloway was born in 1908 in Philadelphia, the son of Daniel Holloway and Margaret Estis Holloway. Daniel Holloway was a doctor, one of just a few African Americans practicing medicine at the time. As a boy, Holloway often accompanied his father as he made housecalls on horseback in Southwest Philadelphia. After graduating from Central High School and Howard University, the son followed his father into the medical profession. He interned at Freedman's Hospital in Washington, D.C., before returning to his hometown in 1937 and starting his own practice in North Philadelphia.He married Mildred Brazington in 1938, but they divorced in the early 1940s. In 1944, he married again, to Ruth Smart, a social worker. Holloway quickly became recognized as one of the top men in his field; despite a lack of formal post-graduate training, he was certified by the American Board of Internal Medicine in 1946. In 1950, he became the second black doctor ever elected to the American College of Physicians. In 1955, he was the first ever elected to the American Board of Cardiovascular Diseases.In 1953, Holloway married again, to Carmen Chisholm, with whom he later had two daughters, Michelle and Cheryl. That same year, he ran in the local election for Philadelphia city coroner as a Republican and won. He never took office, however, as the Democratic-majority City Council abolished several county offices, including coroner, and converted the jobs to civil service positions. Holloway and city treasurer Francis D. Pastorius filed suit to retain their offices, but were unsuccessful.Meanwhile, Holloway's medical career progressed as he rose from an instructor at Women's Medical College to a clinical associate professor of medicine. He also gained a reputation as an engaging speaker at medical conferences. He served as the final chief of staff at Frederick Douglass Memorial Hospital and the only chief of staff at its successor, Mercy-Douglass Hospital.Holloway and his wife divorced in 1977. He married for the last time soon thereafter to Agatha Lawson. He continued to practice medicine until 1991, when he retired. Two years later, Holloway died at the age of 84 at Philadelphia's Graduate Hospital and was buried at Mount Lawn Cemetery in Sharon Hill, Pennsylvania.

Samuel Wilbert Tucker (June 18, 1913 – October 19, 1990) was an American lawyer and a cooperating attorney with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). His civil rights career began as he organized a 1939 sit-in at the then-segregated Alexandria, Virginia public library. A partner in the Richmond, Virginia, firm of Hill, Tucker and Marsh (formerly Hill, Martin and Robinson), Tucker argued and won several civil rights cases before the Supreme Court of the United States, including Green v. County School Board of New Kent County which, according to The Encyclopedia of Civil Rights In America, "did more to advance school integration than any other Supreme Court decision since Brown."

George Edward Alcorn Jr. (born March 22, 1940) is an American physicist, engineer, inventor, and professor. He taught at Howard University and the University of the District of Columbia, and worked primarily for IBM and NASA. He has over 30 inventions and 8 patents resulting in his induction into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2015.

Yvonne Y. Clark (born Georgianna Yvonne Young; April 13, 1929 – January 27, 2019) was a pioneer for African-American and women engineers. Also known as Y.Y., she was the first woman to earn a Bachelor of Science degree in mechanical engineering at Howard University, the first woman to earn a master's degree in Engineering Management from Vanderbilt University, and the first woman to serve as a faculty member in the College of Engineering and Technology at Tennessee State University, afterward becoming a professor emeritus.

William Henry Hughes (March 28, 1930 – January 14, 2018) was an American jazz trombonist and bandleader. He spent most of his career with the Count Basie Orchestra and was the director of that ensemble until September 2010.