I Need Space
After receiving a B.S. in chemical engineering from Stanford, and an M.D. from Cornell University Medical College, she was accepted to NASA's astronaut training program. It was there that this Black woman was the first to travel into space.
Who was Mae Jemison
Played by Taraji P. Henson in the film Hidden Figures, her mathematical computations were critical to the success of the first U.S. manned spaceflights
Who is Katherine Johnson
Considered to be the wealthiest African-American businesswoman and wealthiest self made woman in America at the time of her death in 1919, she made her fortune by developing and marketing a line of cosmetics and hair care products for black women through the business she founded.
Who was Madame C.J. Walker
Born a slave, he became one of the most highly regarded botanists of his day. His groundbreaking work uncovered more than 100 uses for peanuts and had a huge impact on current crop-growing techniques.
Who is George Washington Carver
He was an American Baptist minister and activist who became the most visible spokesperson and leader in the civil rights movement from 1954 until his assassination in 1968. Born in Atlanta, he is best known for advancing civil rights through nonviolence and civil disobedience.
Who was Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Participating in four Space Shuttle flights between 1983 and 1992, this person was the first Black American to fly to the stars.
Who was Guion Bluford
After joining IBM in 1980, he quickly became a major player, eventually holding three of the company’s nine original patents. He’s also responsible for developing the color PC monitor and first gigahertz chip.
Who is Mark Dean
In 2010, Fast Company named her one of their Most Influential Women in Technology. She co-founded Black Web 2.0, now called B20, to highlight the innovation of “Blacks in the technology and new media industries.” She also created NewME, a platform that helps minority and women entrepreneurs create successful businesses
Who is Angela Benton
In 1881, he, along with Joseph Nichols, invented a lightbulb with a carbon filament, an improvement on Thomas Edison's original paper filament, which would burn out quickly, and sold the patent to the United States Electric Company in 1881.
Who is Lewis Latimer
She was an American activist in the civil rights movement best known for her pivotal role in the Montgomery Bus Boycott. The United States Congress has called her "the first lady of civil rights" and "the mother of the freedom movement."
Who is Rosa Parks
Selected for astronaut training in 1967 for the MOL program, he was the first ever Black astronaut; although he never made it into space.
Who was Robert Henry Lawrence Jr.
Played by Mos Def in the HBO made film inspired by his story, he, along with Alfred Blalock and Helen Taussig, developed an operation to that helped babies with Tetralogy of Fallot or blue baby syndrome by increasing the amount of oxygen in the blood and reducing constriction.
Who was Vivien Thomas
While serving in the U.S. Air Force as an Electronics Officer, this person developed high-performance computers for the NSA. He founded multiple companies and was one of just a few dozen people to be inducted into Silicon Valley Engineering Hall of Fame.
Who was Frank Greene
An American inventor and engineer who holds more than 120 patents, he is the inventor of the Super Soaker water gun, which has been among the world's bestselling toys every year since its release.
Who is Lonnie Johnson
Changing his birth surname from "Little" to what some would call a much larger symbol, this American Muslim minister and human rights activist is still studied today for his immensely powerful teachings.
Who is Malcolm X
Receiving his Bachelors at North Carolina A&T State University, and later his PhD from MIT, he was one of the crewmates of the Space Shuttle Challenger during its disastrous explosion.
Who was Ronald McNair
After becoming the first African American woman in the country to get a PhD in chemistry, she began researching the connection between high cholesterol and clogged arteries. Her innovative findings helped start a conversation within the medical community about how a person’s diet can affect heart health and the circulatory system.
Who was Marie M. Daly
The chairman of Microsoft, a former CEO at Virtual Instruments, a vice-president at IBM and the former chief executive officer (CEO) of Symantec, Business Insider named him the most influential Black person in tech
Who is John Thompson
Who is Garrett Morgan
She was an American abolitionist and political activist. Born into slavery, she escaped and subsequently made some thirteen missions to rescue approximately seventy enslaved people, family and friends, using the network of antislavery activists and safe houses known as the Underground Railroad.
Who was Harriet Tubman
He was the Administrator of NASA, from July 2009, to January 2017
Who is Charles Bolden
The first black woman to get a PhD from MIT, and the first to be awarded the National Medal of Science , she is a prominent theoretical physicist who served as chair of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Who is Shirley Ann Jackson
In 2011, she launched Black Girls Code, an organization devoted to teaching young girls of color computer coding and programming languages, such as Scratch and Ruby on Rails. Through classes and programs, she hopes to grow the number of black women in technology and give underprivileged girls better opportunities.
Who is Kimberly Bryant
The popular expression, "The Real McCoy", typically meaning the real thing, has been associated with his oil-drip cup invention. One theory is that railroad engineers looking to avoid inferior copies would request it by name, and inquire if a locomotive was fitted with "the real McCoy system."
Who is Elijah McCoy
One of the major American Civil Rights Movement organizations of the 1960s. It emerged from the first wave of student sit-ins and formed at a May 1960 meeting organized by Ella Baker at Shaw University
What is The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)