Frederick H. Black

Military officer Colonel Frederick H. Black was born on October 17, 1946 in Chicago, Illinois, to Gorham Black, Jr. and Mabel Black. Black received his B.A. degree in government from Howard University in Washington, D.C. in 1968 and his M.P.A. degree from Syracuse University in New York in 1976.

After graduating from Howard University in 1968, Black joined the United States Army as an airborne infantry platoon leader at Fort Bragg near Fayetteville, North Carolina and served for a total of twenty-six years. During this period, Black also worked as a professor of social sciences at the United States Military Academy in West Point, New York, for fifteen years. Following his retirement from the U.S. Army in 1994, Black founded his own consulting firm, FHB Consulting, Inc., where he served as CEO until 2009. His clients included Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina, the Chief of Staff of the United States Army, National Defense University, General Motors, Nissan, and Sprint. In 2010, Black became senior vice president of Black Star Strategies, Inc., a consulting and executive coaching firm, where he worked for six years before his retirement in 2016.

During his career, Black served on the boards of numerous organizations, including the Boy Scouts of America Hudson-Delaware Council, the United States Military Academy Board of Visitors, the West Point Lutheran Congregation, the West Point-Highland Falls Rotary Club, the Chapel Hill Public Library Board of Trustees, the Interfaith Council, the North Carolina Veterans Commission, the Habitat for Humanity Capital Campaign, the Chapel Hill-Carrboro Chamber of Commerce, and the Military Officers Association of America. Black was also a member of Kappa Alpha Psi, Inc., the American Political Science Association, the American Society of Notaries, the American Society for Public Administration, and the Association of the United States Army.

Black also received numerous awards and honors, such as the Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, Inc. Man of the Year Award, the Silver Beaver Award from the Hudson-Delaware Council of the Boy Scouts of America in 1992, and the Citizen of the Year Award from the Chapel Hill-Carrboro Chamber of Commerce in 2015. For his military service, Black received the Legion of Merit, a Bronze Star, a Meritorious Service Medal with two Oak Leaf Clusters, a Joint Service Commendation Medal, an Army Commendation Medal, a National Defense Service Medal, an Overseas Service Ribbon with one Oak Leaf Cluster, an Army Service Ribbon, a Vietnam Service Medal, and a Korea Defense Service Medal.

Black lives with his wife, Sylvia Sloan Black, in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. They have two children and two grandchildren.

Frederick H. Black was interviewed by The HistoryMakers on April 20, 2023.