10 People You Probably Didn’t Know Were Black

French novelist Alexandre Dumas, author of "The Three Musketeers," was the son of Gen. Alexandre Dumas and the grandson of a Haitian woman.


Gen. Thomas-Alexandre Dumas, fighting off the Austrian army, at the bridge of Clausen in Tyrol, on 17 January 1797.


Anatole Broyard was born in New Orleans in 1920 to light-skinned black parents, spent much of his childhood in a predominantly black Brooklyn neighborhood and then crafted a carefully constructed image devoid of his ethnic heritage.


Malcolm Gladwell, decorated staff writer at The New Yorker and author of four best-selling books


Carol Channing, born in 1921, was already a Broadway star known for her performances in "Gentleman Prefer Blondes" and "Hello Dolly" when she learned something surprising about her heritage. Her father, George Channing, had been a light-skinned black man.


Pete Wentz sported a signature look during the years he spent as a member of the Fall Out Boy rock band: singularly straight hair. As the band's bassist and chief lyricist, Wentz penned hit songs, including "Infinity on High," before the group's lengthy hiatus began in 2009


When Soledad O'Brien debuted as host of CNN's "Black in America" documentary series, she volleyed plenty of questions -- especially from the black community -- about why she should be the one to tackle the premise.
Turns out, O'Brien is black, too. She is the daughter of a black Latina mother and a white Australian father; she grew up in a primarily white neighborhood with parents who insisted she identify as black. As a mixed-race, first-generation American, O'Brien became a broadcast journalist and found herself fighting for equal coverage for people of color


In the 18th century, a painting of Queen Charlotte -- wife of the British King George III -- sparked a flurry of debate because her ? features seemed more in keeping with someone of African heritage. And with good reason: It seems that Queen Charlotte was descended from a branch of a Portuguese royal family who traced their ancestry to a 13th-century ruler named Alfonso III and his lover Madragana, who was "a Moor" ( an old term for someone of African or Arabic descent)



Considered the father of Russia's Golden Age of literature, Alexander Pushkin, was born into nobility in the summer of 1799. He was the great-grandson of an Ethiopian prince named Ibrahim Gannibal, who had relocated to Russia and become a general in the army of Peter the Great


If you're an action-movie fan, odds are you'll recognize Michael Fosberg for the roles he landed in "Hard to ? " and "The Presidio." Fosberg, who played white characters in these movies, didn't really have to stretch for the roles. After all, he'd grown up white in an upper-class family; his mother was a brunette and his father was a fair-skinned blonde.
When Fosberg was 32, however, his parents divorced and spilled a family secret that would change the course of his life. The man Fosberg had always known as his father was actually his stepfather. His biological father and his mother had only been briefly married after his unexpected conception, and Fosberg set out to find the man. When he did, he was stunned to discover his father was black.
The emotional reunion changed Fosberg's perception, not only about himself, but the world around him. It's a journey he chronicled in a memoir, "Incognito: An American Odyssey of Race and Self-Discovery." Fosberg discovered that the African-American side of his family included a grandfather who was chairman of the science and engineering department at Norfolk State University, Va., and a great-grandfather who was a star pitcher for the ? Leagues


An exploration of the Italian Renaissance wouldn't be complete without talking about the powerful banking and political family the Medicis. And Alessandro de Medici, the first Duke of Florence, supported some of the era's leading artists. In fact, he is one of only two Medici princes to be buried in a tomb designed by Michelangelo.
You could say Medici was the first black ruler in Italy, in fact the first black head of state in the Western world, though his African heritage was rarely talked about. He was born in 1510 to a black servant and a white 17-year-old named Giulio de Medici, who would later become Pope Clement VII. Upon his election to pope, Clement VII had to relinquish his position as Duke of Florence and appointed his son instead.