The blues, a Baseball Hall of Famer, a pioneering combat pilot and one of the most famous portraits in America all trace back to the same city: Columbus. Here are 10 famous people with Columbus roots, and the places around town where you can still feel their legacy.

1. Ma Rainey: "The Mother of the Blues"

Gertrude "Ma" Rainey was one of the first great blues singers, recording more than 100 songs in the 1920s and working with legends like Louis Armstrong. Most accounts say she was born in Columbus in 1886. She came home to Columbus in 1935, ran theaters in Columbus and Rome, and died here in 1939.

She was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1990, honored with a U.S. postage stamp in 1994, and portrayed by Viola Davis in the Oscar-winning film Ma Rainey's Black Bottom (2020). The home she built for her mother and later lived in is now the Ma Rainey House museum in Columbus.

2. Frank Thomas: "The Big Hurt"

Before he was one of baseball's most feared hitters, Frank Thomas was a star at Columbus High School, where he hit .440 as a senior. He went on to Auburn, then to the Chicago White Sox, where he won back-to-back American League MVP awards in 1993 and 1994.

Thomas hit 521 career home runs and was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame on his first try in 2014.

3. Amy Sherald: the artist behind Michelle Obama's portrait

Columbus native Amy Sherald, who attended St. Anne-Pacelli Catholic School, painted Michelle Obama's official portrait, unveiled in 2018. It's one of the most famous portraits of our time. She also painted Breonna Taylor for the cover of Vanity Fair in 2020.

In 2016, she became the first African American and first woman to win the National Portrait Gallery's Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition. In 2026, Time named her one of its Women of the Year.

4. Eugene Bullard: the first Black American combat pilot

Born in Columbus in 1895, Eugene Bullard left home as a boy after a mob tried to lynch his father, and eventually made his way to France. When World War I broke out, he joined the French Foreign Legion, was badly wounded at Verdun, then became a fighter pilot. He flew more than 20 combat missions and is recognized as the first African American combat pilot.

France awarded him 14 decorations, including the Croix de Guerre. In 1994, 33 years after his death, the U.S. Air Force posthumously commissioned him as a second lieutenant.

5. Carson McCullers: the novelist

One of America's great Southern writers, Carson McCullers was born in Columbus in 1917. She was just 23 when she published The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter (1940), followed by classics like The Member of the Wedding and The Ballad of the Sad Café.

Her childhood home is now the Carson McCullers Center for Writers and Musicians, run by Columbus State University, with a museum, archives and fellowships for writers and composers. Columbus's Rainey-McCullers School of the Arts is named for her and Ma Rainey.

6. Wayne Brady: the comedian and host

Wayne Brady was born in Columbus before moving to Orlando as a young child to live with his grandmother. He became famous for his quick-witted improv on Whose Line Is It Anyway? and has hosted Let's Make a Deal since 2009.

Brady has won five Emmy Awards and earned two Grammy nominations, and he has starred on Broadway in Chicago, Kinky Boots, Hamilton and The Wiz.

7. Robert Cray: the blues guitarist

Robert Cray was born in Columbus in 1953 while his father was stationed at Fort Benning. He became one of the leading blues guitarists of his generation, winning five Grammy Awards, and was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in 2011. That puts him in the same hall of fame as his fellow Columbus native, Ma Rainey.

8. Tim Hudson: the All-Star pitcher

Columbus-born Tim Hudson starred at Glenwood School in Phenix City and Chattahoochee Valley Community College before Auburn. He pitched 17 seasons in the majors with the Oakland A's, Atlanta Braves and San Francisco Giants, made four All-Star teams, won 222 games and won the World Series with the Giants in 2014.

9. Sam Mitchell: from Columbus High to NBA Coach of the Year

Another Columbus High School graduate, Sam Mitchell, took the long road to the NBA, playing in the minor leagues and overseas before making the Minnesota Timberwolves at age 26. He played 13 NBA seasons, then became a coach, winning NBA Coach of the Year in 2007 with the Toronto Raptors.

10. John Pemberton: the man behind Coca-Cola

Coca-Cola's story starts in Columbus. Pharmacist John Pemberton ran a drugstore here, and after being wounded in the Battle of Columbus in 1865, he began experimenting with remedies. That led to "Pemberton's French Wine Coca," created in Columbus, which he later turned into Coca-Cola after moving to Atlanta in 1886. His Columbus home, the Pemberton House, is on the National Register of Historic Places.

Visit their legacy

• Ma Rainey House museum
• Carson McCullers Center (Columbus State University)
• Pemberton House

Who did we miss? Email your picks for famous Columbus natives to [email protected], and we may feature them in a follow-up.