Celebrating Black History

Civil Rights And Politics Martin Luther King Harriet Tubman Civil Rights And Politics Malcolm X

Shirley Chisholm Abraham Lincoln Frederick Douglass Tuskegee Airmen Shirley Chisholm

Frederick Douglas was a former slave and an important abolitionist who spoke against the evils of slavery during the mid 1800s. Sojourner Truth was born at the end of the 1700s and was important as both an abolitionist and promoter of women rights until the 1880s. President Abraham Lincoln ended slavery with the Emancipation Proclamation and the 13th amendment to the Constitution. Harriet Tubman was an abolitionist in the early/mid 1800s, and a key leader in the Underground Railroad. After gaining her own freedom, she returned to the south 17 times to help over 300 slaves escape to freedom. Booker T. Washington lived from the mid 1800s – 1915 and was famous as an educator, public speaker and advisor to presidents of the United States. During his time, he was the “dominant leader of the African American community.”

Brown vs. Board of Education was the Supreme Court decision that declared segregation or the separation of races in schools and businesses to be unconstitutional. This was in 1954. The Tuskegee Airmen were a group of African American pilots who fought bravely abroad during WWII, meanwhile their country discriminated against African Americans at home. Malcolm X was a leader in the Nation of Islam. While he served time in jail he realized the importance of education. He was an important leader of his day. Rosa Parks refused to give up her bus seat to a white man, in 1955. This led to her arrest and to the boycott and integration of the Montgomery Alabama bus system.

President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Equal Rights amendment which guaranteed everyone their rights, in 1965. Freedom Riders began as mostly white college students but became a group of young and old, black and white, from the north and south, standing together and marching for equal rights, in the early 1960s. In 1967, Thurgood Marshall became the first African American to be a supreme court justice. Dr. Martin Luther King was a preacher during the 1950s – 1960s. He was best known for his non-violent advancement of civil rights. Following several marches he led the government passed the Voting Rights Act in 1965 which banned literacy tests and poll taxes as a voting requirement. In 1969, Shirley Chisholm became the first female African American in Congress and later, the first woman to seek a presidential nomination in 1972.

In 2008, Barack Obama was elected President of the United States In 2008, Barack Obama was elected President of the United States. His journey was long and difficult. It was paved by countless other African Americans who preceded him and stood their ground with self respect and courage few of us can imagine.

Science and Technology Benjamin Banneker Garrett Morgan Science and Technology Madam C. J. Walker Elijah McCoy

Dr. Charles Drew Lewis Latimer George Washington Carver

Benjamin Banneker was a free black man in Baltimore in the mid 1700s Benjamin Banneker was a free black man in Baltimore in the mid 1700s. He is remembered as an author, scientist, mathematician, astronomer, publisher and urban planner. As an urban planner he assisted Andrew Ellicott in surveying the Potomac River, for what would become Washington DC. Elijah McCoy’s work on lubrication for trains helped lead to safer trains and at the time led to the transcontinental railroad. Transcontinental means “goes across the country.” His work was so reliable and successful that customers would ask for the real McCoy! Lewis Latimer was an African American inventor who greatly helped improve the use of electric light along with many important inventions. Granville T. Woods was called the Black Edison and created many inventions which helped with telephones, railway telegraphs, furnaces, amusement parks, and other many other important inventions.

Madam C. J. Walker was an entrepreneur and philanthropist and a self-made millionaire as she built an empire with hair-care products at the turn of the 20th century. During the early/mid-1900s, Dr. Charles Drew was famous for his life saving lives for his work with blood transfusions and setting up blood banks. George Washington Carver lived from the 1860s through the 1940s. He was famous as an inventor, scientist, botanist (studies plants) and educator. Garrett Morgan was an African American inventor famous for inventing the traffic light and gas mask among his many inventions Where there is no vision, there is no hope. George Washington Carver

Arts And Sports Jessie Owens Duke Ellington Marian Anderson Muhammad Ali

Paul Robeson Oprah Winfrey

Duke Ellington was famous for over 50 years in the 1900s as composer, musician and orchestra leader. His work and effort helped make jazz America’s classical music. This singer and jazz musician was known as Pops or Satchmo. Louis Armstrong was America’s goodwill ambassador performing world leaders around the world for decades, in the mid 1900s through his death in the early 1970s. Paul Robeson was a Rutgers football star in the early 1900s. He later became well known as both a singer and actor, but is remembered more for standing his ground against racial injustice. Marian Anderson was a celebrated opera singer in the early/mid 1900s. In 1939, she was refused the right to sing in Constitution Hall by the Daughters of the American Revolution. President Roosevelt and his wife Eleanor intervened. On Easter Sunday, Ms. Anderson gave a concert on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, before a crowd of more than 75,000 people with millions more on the radio.

Jessie Owens competed in 1936 Olympics in Germany and helped prove Hitler’s theories on superior races to be false, by winning a gold medal in four Olympic events that year. In 1916, it happened briefly for two games, but it is Jackie Robinson who will be remembered for breaking baseball’s color barrier on a continuous basis beginning in 1947. As a young child Wilma Rudolph wore a brace on her left leg and foot, until she was nine, as a result of infantile paralysis. Eventually she would be considered the fastest woman in the world in the 1960s, winning 3 gold medals at a single Olympic game. Muhammad Ali, “an American…boxer, generally considered among the greatest heavyweights in the sport's history…Ali is today widely regarded for not only the skills he displayed in the ring but also the values he exemplified outside of it: religious freedom, racial justice and the triumph of principle over expedience…”

Sidney Poitier is a famous actor and was the first African American to win an Oscar as a leading actor in 1963 for the movie Lilies of the Field. One of his more famous roles was for the ground breaking topic of interracial marriage in “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner” in 1968. Bill Cosby is famous comedian brought a realistic view of the black family and the non stereotypical butler, maid, car-lot character into American homes with his television shows. Oprah Winfrey, a baby boomer who is remembered as a self made entrepreneur, celebrity, talk-show host and philanthropist with education being the most important concern. Her talk show of 25 years took on all topics with candor and respect.