She was a 15-year-old who refused to give up her bus seat months before Rosa Parks.
Claudette Colvin?
This Harlem Renaissance poet wrote “The Negro Speaks of Rivers.”
Langston Hughes
This NASA mathematician helped calculate flight paths for astronauts.
Katherine Johnson
She was a voting rights activist who famously said, “I’m sick and tired of being sick and tired.”
Fannie Lou Hamer
This woman became the first Black female physician in the United States in 1864.
Rebecca Lee Crumpler
This dancer and anthropologist brought Caribbean dance to global stages.
Katherine Dunham
This surgeon pioneered blood bank storage techniques.
Charles Drew
He was the first Black Supreme Court Justice.
Thurgood Marshall
He improved the light bulb and worked closely with Thomas Edison.
Lewis Latimer
She was the first Black woman to win the Nobel Prize in Literature.
Toni Morrison
She was the first Black woman to travel into space.
Mae Jemison
She was the first Black woman elected to Congress.
Shirley Chisholm
She developed laser cataract treatment to help restore sight.
Patricia Bath
She was a classical pianist who refused to perform before segregated audiences.
Hazel Scott
He invented improvements to railway telegraph systems.
Granville T. Woods
This organizer played a key role behind the scenes of the March on Washington.
Bayard Rustin
He escaped slavery by mailing himself in a wooden crate to freedom.
Henry "Box" Brown
This sculptor gained international recognition in the 1800s.
Edmonia Lewis
This inventor created the Super Soaker water gun.
Lonnie Johnson
He became the first Black president of the United States in 2008.
Barack Obama