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Innovative African-American Fellows - The MacArthur Foundation, which supports creative groundbreakers making a difference in their communities and beyond, announced on Sept. 29 the 2015 MacArthur “Genius” fellows. This year, three innovative African-Americans joined the list.  BET.com takes a look at some of the past and present African-American fellows. — Dominique Zonyéé and Erin E. Evans(Photos: MacArthur Foundation)

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Patrick Awuah - Educator and entrepreneur Patrick Awuah founded Ashesi University, a four-year institution of higher learning, in Ghana in 2002. The school has become one of the country’s leading universities and all of its graduates have found employment. (Photo: John D. & Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation)

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Ta-Nehisi Coates - For the past several years, Ta-Nehisi Coates’s work has been some of the most talked about writings on America and race in our time. Coates, who writes for The Atlantic and released Between the World and Me this year, uses his personal experiences and historical context to pen long-form essays on racial identity, racial bias and policing in America. He has been lauded by everyone from Toni Morrison to Jay Z. (Photo: Antoine Doyen/AP Images for John D. & Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation)

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LaToya Ruby Frazier - Photographer and artist LaToya Ruby Frazier has used her personal story to portray social inequality in her art. The Notion of Family, Frazier’s first book, is a series of photos of her mother and grandmother in their hometown of Braddock, Pa., a steel mill town that suffered from the postindustrial decline. (Photo: John D. & Catherine MacArthur Foundation)

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Terrance Hayes - A professor of writing at the University of Pittsburgh, 2014 fellow Terrance Hayes creates poems that are heralded for their “fluid, often humorous wordplay with references to popular culture both past and present in his subversion of canonical poetic forms.” His work, which includes 2010’s Lighthead and 2006’s Wind in a Box, often reflects on race, gender and family.  (Photo: Courtesy of the John D. & Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation) 

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Steve Coleman - Jazz composer and saxophonist Steve Coleman’s illustrious career shows a steadfast commitment to expanding the expressive and formal possibilities of spontaneous composition while drawing inspiration from the music of African-American jazz icons and the larger African Diaspora. Mentorship and community have also played a large role in the 2014 fellow's life, particularly in the co-founding of the non-profit music organization M-Base Concepts in the mid-1980s.(Photo: Courtesy of the John D. & Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation) 

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Rick Lowe - Rick Lowe is a 2014 fellow whose 20-year-old public art project, Project Row Houses, has revitalized a dilapidated neighborhood in Houston’s predominantly Black Third Ward.(Photo: Courtesy of the John D. & Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation) 

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Jennifer L. Eberhardt - The MacArthur Foundation made social psychologist Jennifer L. Eberhardt a fellow in 2014. The Stanford University Associate professor was chosen for her significant work investigating the “subtle, complex, largely unconscious yet deeply ingrained ways that individuals racially code and categorize people,” particularly with law enforcers and jurors.(Photo: Courtesy of the John D. & Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation) 

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Kyle Abraham - Kyle Abraham is a dancer and choreographer and a 2013 fellow. Through his New York-based company, Kyle Abraham/Abraham.in.Motion, Abraham has produced innovative choreographic work highlighting issues within African-American urban communities and inner-city youth. (Photo: Courtesy of the John D. & Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation)

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Tarell McCraney - Playwright Tarell McCraney was noted for “evoking a sense of shared community with his work as he explores the diversity of the African-American experience and the significance of ordinary people’s lives.” He is a 2013 fellow, who also works to bring theater to kids in under-served communities, especially in his hometown of Miami.(Photo: Courtesy of the John D. & Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation)

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Carrie Mae Weems - Carrie Mae Weems is a 2013 fellow, photographer and video artist, who explores African-American identity, class and culture in documentary-style works. Her work tackles tough subjects: the harsh realities of race, class and gender discrimination alongside the enduring resilience of the human character.(Photo: Courtesy of the John D. & Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation)

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Annette Gordon-Reed - Harvard Law School historian Annette Gordon-Reed became a fellow in 2010. She was noted for her “persistent investigation into the life of an iconic American president, Thomas Jefferson, which dramatically changed the course of Jeffersonian scholarship.”(Photo: Brian Adams/Getty Images for The John D. & Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation)

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John Dabiri - John Dabiri, a biophysicist at the Division of Engineering and Applied Science at the California Institute of Technology, was in the MacArthur fellows class of 2010. He attracted the fellows’ committee with his research on the earliest means of animal locomotion.(Photo: Ann Summa/Getty, Courtesy of the John D. & Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation)

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Jason Moran - Pianist, composer and band leader Jason Moran of New York became a fellow in 2010. He stood out for his unique ability to combine an array of music genres, including classical, blues and jazz techniques with the musical influences of his generation, including funk, hip hop and rock.(Photo: Shaul Schwarz/Getty Images, Courtesy of the John D. & Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation)

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Majora Carter - Determined to make her South Bronx community healthier, greener and more livable, 2005 fellow Majora Carter founded Sustainable South Bronx (SSB). As an urban strategist, she helped to address the disproportionate environmental and public health burdens experienced by residents of the South Bronx.(Photo: Courtesy of the John D. & Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation)

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Tiya Miles - Tiya Miles was a public historian in the department of history at the University of Michigan when she was inducted into the 2011 class of fellows. Miles was credited for her detailed studies exploring the complex interrelationships between African and Cherokee people living and working in colonial America.(Photo: Jeffrey Sauger/Getty Images, Courtesy of the John D. & Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation)

Photo By Photo: Jeffrey Sauger/Getty Images

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John A. Rich - When physician and scholar and John A. Rich became a fellow in 2005, he was a leader in addressing the health care needs of one of the nation’s most ignored and underserved populations—African-American men in urban settings.(Photo: Courtesy of the John D. & Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation)

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Mary Jackson - Fiber artist Mary Jackson was keeping a Gullah, South Carolina, tradition alive with her intricately coiled vessels, which preserved the centuries-old craft of sweet-grass basketry when she became a fellow in 2008.(Photo: Courtesy of the John D. & Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation)

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Roland Fryer - Economist Roland Fryer was working with Harvard University to illuminate the causes and consequences of economic disparity due to race and inequality in American society when he joined the 2011 fellowship class. His in-depth research featured well over 20,000 students from more than 200 schools in three cities.(Photo: Jodi Hilton/Getty Images, Courtesy of the John D. & Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation)

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Regina Carter - Master of improvisational jazz violin, Regina Carter became a fellow in 2006. She was applauded for crafting her own unique sound style, which includes influences of Motown, Afro-Cuban, swing, bebop, folk and international music.(Photo: Courtesy of the John D. & Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation)

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Will Allen - After concluding that unhealthy diets of low-income, urban populations are largely attributable to limited access to affordable healthy food, urban farmer Will Allen founded the non-profit Growing Power. He became a fellow in 2008.(Photo: Courtesy of the John D. & Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation)

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Regina Benjamin - Making an impact on the American health care system, Regina Benjamin, a rural family doctor, became a fellow in 2008. She founded the Bayou La Batre Rural Health Clinic in 1990 to serve the Gulf Coast fishing community of Bayou La Batre, Alabama, a village twice devastated by hurricanes: George in 1998 and Katrina in 2005.(Photo: Courtesy of the John D. & Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation)