Step 1 : Introduction to the question "Who was the first African American billionaire in the United States?"
Robert L. Johnson is an American entrepreneur best known as the founder of the BET channel and as the country’s first African-American billionaire. In 1979, Johnson and his wife Sheila founded Black Entertainment Television, the first cable network targeting the African-American market. In 2001, he sold the network to Viacom for a reported $3 billion, making him the richest African American in the United States at that time as well as the first African-American billionaire. Johnson has since started a new business, the RLJ Companies, and has invested in an NBA team, a film company, and many political causes.