Red
This person was the first black woman elected to congress. In 1972, she ran for president. Her campaign slogan was "Unbought and Unbossed". She wanted to be remembered as someone who "had guts".
Rosa Parks
Michelle Obama
Ruby Bridges
Shirley Chisholm
Shirley Chisholm
This person was one of the greatest non-violent civil rights leaders in world history. He used protests, grassroots organizing, and civil disobedience to achieve goals that seemed impossible. His "I Have a Dream" speech is one of the most famous speeches in American History.
Booker T. Washington
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Frederick Doublass
Jessie Owens
When this person was 15 years old she bravely refused to give up her seat on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama. She was arrested for refusing to follow the racist and unjust laws.
Ruby Bridges
Claudette Colvin
Shirley Chisholm
Rosa Parks
Claudette Colvin
This person was a lawyer, educator, and politician who was a leader of the Civil Rights Movement. She served on the Texas Senate and was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives.
Shirley Chisholm
Condoleeza Rice
Harriet Tubman
Barbara Jordan
Barbara Jordan
This person served as the 44th president of the United States of America. He was the first African-American president of the United States.
Colin Powell
George Washington Carver
Barack Obama
Jackie Robinson
Barack Obama
This person moved from the U.S. to France to learn to fly. She could not train in the U.S. due to discrimination. Once she learned to fly she returned to the U.S. and performed thrilling stunts at airshows. She fought for equality by refusing to perform at airshows where Black people were not admitted.
Sojourner Truth
Bessie Coleman
Mary McLeod Bethune
Katherine Johnson
Bessie Coleman
This person served as the 66th U.S. Secretary of State from 2005 to 2009 and as the 20th U.S. National Security Advisor from 2001 to 2005.
Shirley Chisholm
Michelle Obama
Condoleeza Rice
Sojourner Truth
Condoleeza Rice
This person was a jazz and swing music singer with a career spanning 26 years. She greatly influenced jazz and pop music.
Katherine Johnson
Misty Copeland
Billie Holiday
Hattie McDaniel
Billie Holiday
This person was the commander of the World War II Tuskegee Airmen. This group of African American fighter pilots became one of the most highly respected fighter groups of World War II. The Tuskegee Airmen paved the way for the full integration of the U.S. military.
Gen. Colin Powell
Gen. Benjamin O. Davis Jr.
Louis Armstrong
Garrett Morgan
Gen. Benjamin O. Davis Jr.
This person was the founder and the first president of Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute (now Tuskegee University).
Fred Jones
Booker T. Washington
Elijah McCoy
Daniel Hale Williams
Booker T. Washington
This person was the first African American cardiologist. He performed the first successful open heart surgery.
Daniel Hale Williams
James Weldon Johnson
George Washington Carver
Garrett Morgan
Daniel Hale Williams
This person's invention enabled trains to run faster and more efficiently. He developed an automatic lubricator that spread oil evenly over a train's engine while it was still moving, which saved time and money.
Langston Hughes
W.E.B. DuBois
John Lewis
Elijah McCoy
Elijah McCoy
This person is a politician, diplomat, and retired four-star general who served as the 65th United States Secretary of State from 2001 to 2005. He was the first African-American Secretary of State.
Gen. Benjamin O. Davis Jr.
Malcom X
Gen. Colin Powell
Langston Hughes
Gen. Colin Powell
This person invented a hair-straightening product, a breathing device, an improved sewing machine, and the three light traffic signal.
James Weldon Johnson
John Lewis
Garrett Morgan
Matthew Henson
Garrett Morgan
This person was enslaved at birth and became free shortly after the civil war. He developed innovative farming practices that helped Black farmers sustain their livelihoods during the Jim Crow era. He was famous for this work with peanuts.
Elijah McCoy
Thurgood Marshall
Daniel Hale Williams
George Washington Carver
George Washington Carver
This person was enslaved at birth in Maryland. He disguised himself as a sailor at age 20 and escaped to New York. He began giving powerful speeches to inspire people to fight for freedom.
Muhammad Ali
Arthur Ashe
Frederick Douglass
John Lewis
Frederick Douglass
This person was the most well-known Underground Railroad "conductor." Over the course of ten years. she led over 300 enslaved people to freedom. She proudly told Frederick Douglass she "never lost a single passenger."
Katherine Johnson
Harriet Tubman
Bessie Coleman
Billie Holiday
Harriet Tubman
This person became the first African American baseball player in modern MLB history. He was later inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame.
Ralph Ellison
Jackie Robinson
Robert Robinson Taylor
Louis Armstrong
Jackie Robinson
This person was a brilliant mathematician. She worked for NASA and did the math that was used to send the first astronaut to the moon. Due to discrimination, her work was not acknowledged publicly by NASA at the time. In 2015 she was recognized by President Obama for her accomplishments.
Shirley Chisholm
Katherine Johnson
Misty Copeland
Mary McLeod Bethune
Katherine Johnson
This person is a lawyer, a writer, and was the first African American first lady of the United States. She graduated from Princeton with degrees in sociology and African American studies and Harvard law school.
Michelle Obama
Sojourner Truth
Harriet Tubman
Misty Copeland
Michelle Obama
This person developed a way of playing jazz music using instruments and his voice that had an influence on all musicians to follow. He recorded hit songs for five decades and his music is still heard today on television and radio and in films.
James Weldon Johnson
Louis Armstrong
Thurgood Marshall
Jackie Robinson
Louis Armstrong
This person grew up during a time when public facilities were segregated. He took up boxing at 12 years old and later became a professional boxer who won the heavyweight championship three times. He defended his title 19 times.
Elijah McCoy
James Weldon Johnson
Jackie Robinson
Muhammad Ali
Muhammad Ali
This person was born in Mexico and raised in Kenya. She earned a Master's degree in acting from the Yale School of Drama. She won an Academy Award in 2013 for her first feature film 12 Years a Slave. She also acted on Broadway and appeared in the acclaimed superhero movie, Black Panther.
Taraji P. Henson
Gabrielle Union
Viola Davis
Lupita Nyong'o
Lupita Nyong'o
This person had a physical disability as a child but through her determination she became a star athlete. As an adult she competed as a sprinter in the Olympics and was the first American woman to earn three gold medals in a single Olympics. She also helped kids develop their talent in Track and Field through a youth foundation in Chicago.
Mabel Landry
Alice Brown
Florence Griffith Joyner
Wilma Rudolph
Wilma Rudolph
This person was an author that received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1993. Her book, Beloved, won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1988. She primarily wrote about the Black American experience in an unjust society.
Lorraine Hansberry
Toni Morrison
Maya Angelou
Gwendolyn Brooks
Toni Morrison