As the world celebrates Black History Month this February, here is The Gazelle’s celebration of some prominent black voices that make a difference in the community today.

####Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

“The single story creates stereotypes, and the problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete. They make one story become the only story.”

Writer and feminist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie has taught us about the dangers of the single story, emphasizing the misrepresentation of various cultures. As a Nigerian who received her bachelor’s degree from Drexel University in the U.S., Adichie got to understand the stereotypes associated with the collective understanding of the African identity. The struggle of freeing herself from the misunderstood collective noun, Africa, gave voice to the powerful message in some of her notable works, such as Purple Hibiscus, Half of a Yellow Sun and Americanah, for the latter of which she was awarded the National Book Critics Circle Award and the MacArthur Fellowship. In her novels, she travels from Nigeria to the world encountering along the way racism, the effect of war on people, maturity and religion.

####Ava DuVernay “As a Black woman filmmaker I feel that’s my job: visibility. And my preference within that job is Black subjectivity. Meaning I’m interested in the lives of Black folk as the subject. Not the predicate, not the tangent. [These stories] deserve to be told. Not as sociology, not as spectacle, not as a singular event that happens every so often, but regularly and purposefully as truth and as art on an ongoing basis, as do the stories of all the women you love.”

In 2012, DuVernay made history by being not only the first African-American woman to win Best Director at the Sundance Film Festival, but also the first black female director to be nominated for a Golden Globe. As an activist, DuVernay advocates for black representation in the media and is part of the new vanguard of African-American filmmakers. She is the founder of the African-American Film Festival Releasing Movement, now called ARRAY, that promotes the engagement of black people in cinema. Her works encourage a reimagining of black female perspective in cinema. DuVernay also advocates self-determination, inclusivity and perseverance.

####Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o “What’s good about writing is that when you write novels or fiction, people can see that the problems in one region are similar to problems in another region.”

79-year old Kenyan writer Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o is a powerful literary voice of the 20th century. Considered for the Nobel Prize in Literature, Thiong’o’s works include novels, plays, short stories, and essays, centered around themes of multilingualism and Africa. As a social activist, he sought to liberate the theatrical process in Kenya that encouraged passivity in ordinary people. After his play, Ngaahika Ndeenda, meaning I Will Marry When I Want, became a success in 1977, it was shut down by authorities, and Thiong’o was imprisoned for over a year. Thiong’o is a true believer in writing as a form of liberation, and has taught at NYU New York and Yale University.

####Shaun King “I’m trying to break through the noise and make these stories known in a way that they’ve never been known before. I know that in order for a story to make the mainstream news, I have to tell it loudly.”

An activist for civil rights in the Black Lives Matter movement and writer for New York Daily News, Shaun King is an important public figure who has raised awareness of police brutality and violence against black people in the U.S. In August 2015, he launched Justice Together, an organization to identify police brutality and lobby local politicians for change. His book The Power of 100 urges people to pursue their life’s purpose and fight for their dreams.