Spingarn Medal

The Spingarn Medal is awarded annually by the NAACP for outstanding achievement by a Black American.

The award, consisting of a gold medal, was created by Joel Elias Spingarn, Chairman of the Board of the NAACP in 1914. It was first given in 1915, and each year thereafter, with the exception of 1938.

Winners of the award include: W.E.B. DuBois, COL. Charles Young, George Washington Carver, Marian Anderson, Paul Robeson, Thurgood Marshall, Jackie Robinson, Martin Luther King, Jr., Langston Hughes, Sammy Davis, Jr., Alex Haley, Andrew Young, Rosa Parks, Coleman Young, Lena Horne, Bill Cosby, Jr., Jesse Jackson, Colin Powell, Maya Angelou, and Oprah Winfrey.

Past Winners of the Medal

• 1915 Ernest E. Just
• 1916 Major Charles A. Young (U.S. Army)
• 1917 Harry T. Burleigh (composer, pianist, singer)
• 1918 William S. B. Braithwaite (poet, editor, literary critic).
• 1919 Archibald H. Grimke (U.S. Consul, president of the American Negro Academy, president of the D. C. Branch of the NAACP)
• 1920 William E. B. duBois
• 1921 Charles S. Gilpin (actor)
• 1922 Mary B. Talbert (president, National Association of Colored Women)
• 1923 George Washington Carver
• 1924 Roland T. Hayes (singer, soloist with the Boston Symphony Orchestra)
• 1925 James Weldon Johnson
• 1926 Carter G. Woodson (historian and founder of the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History, editor of Negro Orators and Their Orations)
• 1927 Anthony Overton (businessman, president of the Victory Life Insurance Company)
• 1928 Charles W. Chesnutt (author)
• 1929 Mordecai W. Johnson
• 1930 Henry A. Hunt (high school principal)
• 1931 Richard B. Harrison (actor)
• 1932 Robert Russa Moton (principal of Tuskegee Institute)
• 1933 Max Yergan (missionary)
• 1934 William T. B. Williams (dean of Tuskegee Institute)
• 1935 Mary McLeod Bethune
• 1936 John Hope
• 1937 Walter F. White (executive secretary of the NAACP)
• 1938 No award given
• 1939 Marian Anderson
• 1940 Louis T. Wright (surgeon)
• 1941 Richard N. Wright
• 1942 A. Philip Randolph
• 1943 William H. Hastie (jurist and educator)
• 1944 Charles R. Drew
• 1945 Paul B. Robeson (singer, actor)
• 1946 Thurgood Marshall
• 1947 Percy L. Julian (research scientist)
• 1948 Channing Heggie Tobias (participant on the President's Committee on Civil Rights)
• 1949 Ralph J. Bunche
• 1950 Charles H. Houston (Chairman, NAACP Legal Committee)
• 1951 Mabel K. Staupers (leader of the National Association of Colored Graduate Nurses)
• 1952 Harry T. Moore (NAACP leader, martyr in the "crusade for freedom")
• 1953 Paul R. Williams (architect)
• 1954 Theodore K. Lawless (physician, educator, philanthropist)
• 1955 Carl J. Murphy (editor, publisher, civic leader)
• 1956 Jack R. Robinson
• 1957 Martin Luther King, Jr.
• 1958 Daisy Bates and the Little Rock Nine
• 1959 Edward "Duke" Ellington
• 1960 J. Langston Hughes
• 1961 Kenneth B. Clark (professor of Psychology at CCNY)
• 1962 Robert C. Weaver (Administrator of Housing and Home Finance Agency)
• 1963 Medgar W. Evers
• 1964 Roy O. Wilkins (Executive Director of the NAACP)
• 1965 M. Leontyne Price (Metropolitan Opera star)
• 1966 John Harold Johnson (founder and president of Johnson Publishing Co.)
• 1967 Edward W. Brooke III (first Negro to win popular election to the U.S. Senate)
• 1968 Sammy Davis, Jr.
• 1969 Clarence M. Mitchell, Jr. (NAACP regional director, civil rights lobbyist)
• 1970 Jacob Lawrence
• 1971 Leon H. Sullivan (clergyman, activist, prophet)
• 1972 Gordon A. B. Parks (photographer, writer, film-maker, composer)
• 1973 Wilson C. Riles (educator)
• 1974 Damon J. Keith (jurist)
• 1975 Henry L. Aaron
• 1976 Alvin Ailey, Jr.
• 1977 Alexander P. Haley
• 1978 Andrew J. Young, Jr. (diplomat, civil rights activist, minister)
• 1979 Rosa L. Parks
• 1980 Rayford W. Logan (educator, historian, author)
• 1981 Coleman A. Young
• 1982 Benjamin E. Mays (educator, civil rights activist, president of Morehouse College)
• 1983 Lena Horne
• 1984 Thomas Bradley
• 1985 William H. Cosby, Jr.
• 1986 Benjamin L. Hooks (Executive Director of the NAACP)
• 1987 Percy E. Sutton (public servant, businessman, community leader)
• 1988 Frederick Douglass Patterson (educator, veterinarian, visionary, humanitarian)
• 1989 Jesse L. Jackson
• 1990 L. Douglas Wilder (public servant)
• 1991 General Colin L. Powell
• 1992 Barbara C. Jordan
• 1993 Dorothy I. Height (president of the National Council of Negro Women)
• 1994 Maya Angelou
• 1995 John Hope Franklin (historian, educator)
• 1996 A. Leon Higginbotham, Jr. (jurist, public servant)
• 1997 Carl T. Rowan (journalist)
• 1998 Myrlie Evers-Williams (civil rights activist, Chairman of the NAACP)
• 1999 Earl G. Graves, Sr. (chairman of Black Enterprise Magazine)
• 2000 Oprah Winfrey
• 2001 Vernon E. Jordan, Jr.
• 2002 John Lewis
• 2003