Julieanna L. Richardson (born June 10, 1954) is an American Harvard-trained lawyer and the founder and executive director of The HistoryMakers, a nonprofit preserving archival collections of African-American video oral histories.
But an encounter with William Thompson, a veteran of World War II's all-black Tuskegee Airmen, convinced Richardson that the HistoryMakers was about more than just celebrities.
When they met, Thompson told Richardson about the Golden 13, the thirteen black men commissioned as officers by the navy during World War II.
Working out of their Chicago office, Richardson and her staff have recorded more than 2,000 interviews (8,000 hours of footage) with both well-known and unsung African Americans, including General Colin Powell, Angela Davis, Julian Bond, Katie Booth, Russell Simmons, Benjamin Carson, Harry Belafonte, Ernie Banks, Gwen Ifill, Maya Angelou, and President Barack Obama when he was an Illinois State Senator.
The archive also includes lesser-known African Americans who have been successful in a variety of ways, such as Myrtis Dightman, the first black cowboy to qualify for the Professional Rodeo Association National Finals, Geraldine Johnson, the first African-American woman to be Superintendent of Schools in Connecticut, and Ludie Jones, a tap dancer famous for her performances during the prohibition era.
[9] As Executive Director, she has also produced public programs and special events, including the HistoryMakers' annual signature PBS-TV Celebrity interview and fundraiser, "An Evening With...".
"An Evening With..." has featured interviews with notable African Americans, including Eartha Kitt, John Rogers, Smokey Robinson, Quincy Jones, Valerie Simpson, Colin Powell, and Andrew Young among others.
In 2004, the HistoryMakers received a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services to create a unique digital archive in collaboration with Carnegie Mellon University.