Music (especially crate digging...CDs and MP3's are nice, but nothin' beats vinyl), sports, reading and writing, fishing (relaxation), film and TV, poetry, african (world) art, african (world) history, good wine, good friends, beautiful women. ;)
Malcolm X, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Dr. John Henrik Clarke, Ossie Davis/Ruby Dee, Betty Shabazz, Patrice Lumumba, Assata Shakur, Shirley Chisolm, J.A. Rodgers, Fred Hampton, Lorraine Hansbury, George Washington Carver, Steve Biko, Oscar Robertson, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Wilma Rudolph, Imhotep, Marcus Garvey, Hannibal, Nefertiti, Jack Johnson, Kwame Nkrumah, Fritz Pollard, Jackie Robinson, Cheryl Miller, Wilt Chamberlain, Bill Russell, Muhammad Ali, Marion Motley, and too many others in our glorious history to name. As for the music innovators: Ray Charles, Sly Stone, Sebastian Bach, Louis Armstrong, Curtis Mayfield, Bill Withers, Miles Davis, Billie Holliday, Duke Ellington, Robert Johnson, Big Mama Thornton, Scott Joplin, Son House, Albert King, Robert Johnson, Bessie Smith, Hank Williams, Little Richard, Sammy Davis Jr., Aretha Franklin, Frank Sintratra, John Coltrane, James Brown, Arthur Lee, Mahalia Jackson, Charlie Parker, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Janis Joplin, Louis Armstrong, Sam Cooke, Memphis Minnie, Elvis Presley, Dizzy Gillespie, Ma Rainey, Nina Simone, Chaka Kahn, Nat Cole, Johnny Cash, The Eagles, Chuck Berry, Charlie Pride, Charlie Rich, The Beatles, Thelonius Monk, Stevie Wonder, The Rolling Stones, Gladys Knight, Elton John, Donny Hathaway, Roberta Flack, Sugar Foot, Bernie Worrell, KISS, Bootsy Collins, Aerosmith, Maurice White, Shuggie Otis, Marvin Gaye, Bob Marley, The Eagles, Otis Redding, Elton John, Jimi Hendrix, Curtis Mayfield, Al Green, Peter Tosh, Nile Rodgers, George Benson, Etta James, Larry Graham, Eddie Hazel, Roger Troutman, Kraftwerk, Dinah Washington, Rick James, U2, and a number of great and prolific cats I can't think of at the moment.
Soul, Jazz (particularly be-bop, cool and fusion), Blues, Rock, R-n-B, Funk (my favorite), Classical (i really dig Bach & Beethoven)), Electronic, Hip-Hop (not rap), Gospel (old-time), House/Disco (you gotta love Sylvester), Country (minus the western), Afro-Latin and Neo-soul (message to neosoulsters: the beats, samples and keys are nice...but start playing some REAL FREAKIN' MUSIC - THAT'S the next level.)
The Spook Who Sat By The Door, Carwash, Shaft, Superfly, Sweetback's Badass Song, Badass!, Uptown Saturday Night, Let's Do It Again, (back when both potier and cos were REALLY black) A Soldier's Story, Star Wars Trilogies, A Piece Of The Action, Alien, Predator I and II (did you know Pred2 was the first time a non-blaxploitation pic black male hero ever lived thru the entire film? and um, "action jackson" does NOT count), The Color Purple (although i loathe spielberg), Cotton Comes To Harlem, Five On The Black Hand Side, JD's Revenge, Cooley High, Which Way Is Up?, Menace II Society, Dead Presidents, Ragtime, The Matrix Trilogy, In The Heat Of The Night, Nothing But A Man, Blue Collar, Batman Begins, A Raisin In The Sun, Love Jones, Bullet (both flicks), Eve's Bayou, Tears Of The Sun, Hellboy, Blade Trilogy, Greased Lightning, Ragtime (you gotta love Colehouse Porter), Star Trek Series, any Pam Grier film, Killer of Sheep, To Sleep With Anger, Daughters Of The Dust.
Sanford and Son, Good Times, Fat Albert, The Richard Pryor Show, Chapelle's Show, South Park, MAD TV, The Shield, M.A.S.H., Cheers, King Of The Hill, Sienfeld, The King of Queens, Malcolm In The Middle, American Dad, Speed Racer, Aeon Flux, Robot Chicken, Family Guy, The Simpsons, Law & Order - Criminal Intent/SVU, The Wire (best show on tv today), The Sopranos, Six Feet Under, Deadwood, ROME, The Flintstones, The Jetsons, The Adams Family, The Munsters, Lance Link - Secret Chimp, Batman/Superman - The Animated Series, The Justice League, What's Happening!, All In The Family, Frasier, Barney Miller, The Jeffersons, CSI, okay, okay...i LIKE (not love) The Boondocks, although it's got a ways to go overall.
The Autobiography of Malcolm X -AS TOLD to Alex Haley, The United Independent Compensatory Code/System/Concept - Neely Fuller, Jr. (RECOMMENDED READING FOR EVERY BROTHA & SISTA), Revolutionary Suicide - Huey Newton, Assata - Assata Shakur, This Side of Glory - David Hilliard, Cane - Jean Toomer, Manchild In The Promised Land - Claude Brown, The Isis Papers - Dr. Frances Cress-Welsing, Middle Passage - Charles Johnson, You Are Being Lied To/Everything You Know Is Wrong, any books by Zora Neal Hurston, Richard Wright, James Baldwin, Claude McKay, Langston Hughes, Dr. John Henrick Clarke, J.A. Rodgers, Claude Brown, and Octavia Butler. (I have a deep love and respect for the Harlem Renaissance writers) There are a lot more, but I just can't think of all of the great books I've read at the moment.
Nearly all my heroes are no longer alive. (My grandfathers, Malcolm, Martin, Ossie, Marcus, Kwame Nkrumah, Biko, Dr. Clarke, Sister Betty, Lorraine Hansbury, etc...damn, I guess the price of freedom truly is DEATH) The only heroes I value that are still alive are Muhammad Ali, Nelson Mandela (pre-imprisonment...he's a shell of his former self now...and i don't hate him for that), Winnie Mandela, Sidney Potier, Jim Brown, Ruby Dee, Kareem Abdul Jabbar, Bill Cosby and Bill Russell. But always remember, the true HERO(INE) lives in YOU....."