All month, during announcements, we recognize a black individual that has contributed to our science, culture, education, advancements, and communities.
Here they are.....
Martin Luther King Jr.
No single African American in history is perhaps as famous as Martin Luther King Jr., otherwise known as MLK. There is a federal holiday on the third Monday each January celebrated in his honor, and whole sections of textbooks are devoted to his civil rights activism in the 1950s and 1960s. Martin Luther King made his mark by preaching nonviolent means of protesting the segregation of whites and blacks in the United States. His famous speech “I have a dream” ranks among the most famous in history and continues to inspire us today.
Rosa Parks
Rosa Parks is best known for refusing to move to the back of a bus after the driver demanded she give her seat to a white passenger. While not the first person to refuse to obey the segregation laws in the United States, Rosa Parks was labeled as the “Mother of the Freedom Movement” following her bold disobedience and subsequent arrest. Like MLK, Rosa Parks was from Montgomery, and she and King together made great strides in fighting for basic human rights for African Americans across the country.
Barbara Johns: Teen Civil Rights Crusader was a pioneering leader in the American civil rights movement. In 1951, at the age of 16, Powell led a student strike for equal education at her high school. With some help, she filed a case that was consolidated into Brown v. Board of Education, which is the landmark 1954 U.S. Supreme Court decision declaring "separate but equal" public schools unconstitutional.
Muhammad Ali
Born Cassius Clay in 1942, Muhammad Ali made his name in the sport of boxing, where he was one of the greatest heavyweight champions of all time. Ali’s best years were in the early 1960s, during which time he changed his name from “Cassius Clay,” which he associated with slavery, and adopted a new name Mohammad which means “praiseworthy” from the Islamic tradition, the Nation of Islam.
Frederick Douglass
Frederick Douglass lived during the Civil War in the 1800”s, which was fought over slavery. Douglass, an abolitionist who is somebody who was against slavery, and former slave himself, is best known for his autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave. In this book, Frederick Douglass outlines his life as a slave and his escape, which was instrumental to the abolitionist movement and the ultimate goal of ending slavery.
Jane Bolin
A pioneer in law, Jane Bolin was the first Black woman to attend Yale Law School in 1931. In 1939, she became the first Black female judge in the United States, where she served for 10 years. One of Jane Bolin’s significant contributions throughout her career was working with private employers to hire people based on their skills, as opposed to discriminating against them because of their race. Jane Bolin also served on many boards that helped others like the NAACP, Child Welfare League of America, and the Neighborhood Children’s Center.
W.E.B Du Bois
W.E.B Du Bois made his name as an author, scholar, and civil rights activist in the generation before Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr. Du Bois was one of the founders of the NAACP, or National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, which was and still is one of the premier organizations for African American rights and activism.
Jackie Robinson
Jackie Robinson was, like Muhammad Ali in the 1960s, one of the most influential sports figures of his day. In 1947, Jackie Robinson became the first African American to play for a Major League Baseball team, the Brooklyn Dodgers. This was the catalyst that broke baseball’s color barrier –– the idea that African American players couldn’t play in the top professional leagues, but only in the “inferior” Negro leagues. Jackie Robinson career spanned a decade or 10 years. His place in baseball history was solidified when his jersey number, 42, was “retired” by all MLB teams (meaning no player may ever use that number again) in 1997.
Harriet Tubman
Born into slavery in 1822, Harriet Tubman was famous for her abolitionist and humanitarian efforts to help escaped slaves after escaping slavery herself in 1849. An abolitionist is someone who wants to eliminate slavery. Harriet Tubman served an important part of the “Underground Railroad,” a secret path through slave-holding states for runaway slaves to escape to the north. She helped hundreds of slaves find their freedom in the states north of the Mason-Dixon Line (the border between the Northern, non-slaveholding states and the Southern, or slaveholding states).
Claudette Colvin: True Teen Warrior for Desegregation
Before Parks refused to give up her seat on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama in 1955, there was a brave 15-year-old who chose not to sit at the back of the bus. That young girl was Colvin. Touting her constitutional rights to remain seated near the middle of the vehicle, Colvin challenged the driver and was subsequently arrested. She was the first woman to be detained for her resistance. However, her story isn't nearly as well-known as Rosa Parks'.
Sojourner Truth
Like Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass, Sojourner Truth was born into slavery but later escaped and became a prominent abolitionist and activist for women’s rights. And, like many abolitionists, religion was a focal point of Sojourner Truth’s efforts. During the Civil War, she played a major role in recruiting African American soldiers to fight for the Union (northern states), which was pitted against the Confederacy (southern states).
Mae Jemison
Mae Jemison wasn’t just the first African American woman who orbited into space aboard the shuttle Endeavour. She's also a physician, teacher, an engineer, a Peace Corps volunteer, and president of tech company, the Jemison Group. At the age of 65, Mae Jemison continues to work towards the advancement of young women of color getting more involved in technology, engineering, and math careers.
Maya Angelou
Maya Angelou is one of the best-known African American authors, famed for her autobiographies. Her most influential autobiography, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, tells a coming-of-age tale that shows racism as it affected a young girl, and how it transformed her into the proud author she would later become. Maya Angelou worked with Martin Luther King Jr. and other civil rights leaders to put a permanent end to segregation.
Ruby Bridges
Bridges probably had no idea that the bold act she committed in 1960 would set off a chain reaction leading to the integration of schools in the South. She was just six years old when she became the first African American student to attend William Frantz Elementary in Louisiana at the height of desegregation. She is now the chair of the Ruby Bridges Foundation, which was formed in 1999 to promote "the values of tolerance, respect, and appreciation of all differences."
Katherine Johnson: Space Hero
Calling Katherine Johnson a math whiz is an understatement. Known as one of NASA’s “human computers,” she helped calculate the flight path that took Apollo 11 to the moon.
Dorothy Height:
One of the Big Six
A great orator from a young age, Dorothy Height, “the godmother” of the civil rights movement, spent her life addressing the rights of women and African Americans. She is one of the most respected and influential leaders of the civil rights movement and was the only woman at its highest level. In 1946 she directed the integration of all the YWCA; In 1957 she became the president of the National Council of Negro Women; In 1965 she established the Center for Racial Justice; In 1994 she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and in 2004 the Congressional Gold Medal.
Bessie Coleman:
The Woman Who Reached for the Sky
Bessie Coleman grew up in the early 1900s and dreamed of becoming a pilot. But as a Black and Native American woman, she faced racism and unfair treatment. Coleman was determined though, and in 1921 she became the world’s first Black and Native American woman to earn her pilot’s license. She became a barnstormer that amazed crowds with her daring aerial stunts. But she wasn’t just a brave pilot. She also refused to fly in air shows with segregated entrances. Her story continues to inspire people to follow their dreams and reach for the sky.
Matthew Henson:
Co-Discoverer of the North Pole
By age 18, Matthew Henson had already traveled the world and become a skilled sailor. But like most Black people in the 19th century, Henson faced discrimination and had trouble finding work. After finally landing a job as cabin boy on a trip to Central America, he joined explorer Robert Peary on an expedition to the North Pole. After several unsuccessful attempts, Peary, Henson and a team of four Inuit men became the first people to reach the North Pole. While Peary got most of the credit and glory for the discovery, Henson has slowly gained the reputation he deserves and is now credited as co-discoverer of the North Pole.
Bayard Rustin:
Mr. March on Washington
Bayard Rustin, a chief tactician of the civil rights movement, was committed to nonviolence from a very young age. Throughout his life he fought for many causes, such as racial equality, workers’ rights, and gay rights. He was a skilled organizer and strategist who worked with Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to organize the Montgomery bus boycott. In 1963, he helped A. Philip Randolph organize the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom as the chief organizer.
Charles Richard Drew:
Banked Blood and Saved Lives
In the early years of WWII, Charles Richard Drew transformed emergency medicine by finding a method in which to process and store large quantities of blood plasma in “blood banks.” Charles Richard Drew organized and directed the blood-plasma programs of the United States and Great Britain. He became the first director of the American Red Cross Blood Bank in 1941 but resigned his official posts in 1942 after the armed forces decreed that the blood of African Americans would be accepted but had to be stored separately from that of Whites.
