Black leader, educator and diplomat John Mercer Langston is known as the first African-American lawyer in Ohio and the first black person to be elected to public office in the United States.

Harriet Ann Jacobs escaped slavery and went on to write Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, one of the most influential slave narratives of all time.

Johannes Brahms was a German composer and pianist who wrote symphonies, concerti, chamber music, piano works, and choral compositions.