January 2017

Ward became the first woman and first Black author to win the National Book Award for Fiction twice, having previously won for Salvage the Bones in 2011. Her achievement cemented her place as the defining voice of contemporary Southern Black literature and brought the Mississippi Gulf Coast into the national literary imagination.

Whitehead's novel, imagining the Underground Railroad as a literal subterranean train, won the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, and an Oprah's Book Club selection in the same year — a combination that made it one of the bestselling literary novels of the decade. It was later adapted by Barry Jenkins for Amazon.

Serena Williams won the 2017 Australian Open while eight weeks pregnant, reaching 23 Grand Slam singles titles and surpassing Steffi Graf's Open Era record of 22. The achievement, accomplished at age 35, is widely considered the greatest individual sporting record in tennis history.

Serena Williams won the Australian Open while eight weeks pregnant, claiming her 23rd Grand Slam singles title — the most in the Open Era — surpassing Steffi Graf's record. Williams' career, spanning four decades, made her the most dominant tennis player of her generation and a symbol of Black excellence and perseverance.

Serena Williams won the 2017 Australian Open while eight weeks pregnant, reaching 23 Grand Slam singles titles and surpassing Steffi Graf's Open Era record of 22. The achievement, accomplished at age 35, is widely considered the greatest individual sporting record in tennis history.

Richelieu Dennis sold Sundial Brands, parent of SheaMoisture and Nubian Heritage, to Unilever in 2017 in a deal valued at over $1.6 billion — one of the largest exits by a Black entrepreneur. Dennis used a portion of proceeds to launch the New Voices Fund, a $100 million fund dedicated to investing in women-of-color entrepreneurs, creating transformative new capital access.

The Atlanta trio's second studio album debuted at number one and produced multiple hit singles including Bad and Boujee, which spent three weeks at number one. Culture's triplet-flow rhythmic innovations were subsequently adopted by artists across the musical spectrum, making it one of the most influential albums of the decade.