Trailblazers
He was a noted African American historian, scholar, educator, and publisher who became known as the "Father of Black History" as he was the founder of Negroe History Week - now Black History Month
He became the first African American in over fifty years to play on a major league baseball team.
He was an American civil rights activist with the NAACP)and the first African American to serve on the Supreme Court of the United States.
She was the host of her own talk show and was the first African American woman to appear on Forbes’s billionaire list.
In 2008, this Jamaican sprinter became the first man to ever set three world records in a single Olympic games.
Although she was most known for working along side her husband during the Civil Rights Movement, she had an active role in the Montgomery Bus Boycott, journeyed to Ghana to mark that nation's independence, traveled to India on a pilgrimage and worked to pass the 1964 Civil Rights Act, among other endeavors.
She was the first African-American performer to win an Academy Award—the film industry’s highest honor—for her role in Gone With the Wind.
He became the first African American to earn a Ph.D. from Harvard but is best known for founding the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in 1909 and helping it to become the country's single most influential organization for African Americans.
Who is W.E.B. Du Bois
He was an American professional boxer and activist. From early in his career, he was known as an inspiring, controversial, and polarizing figure both inside and outside the ring
She was the first Black woman elected to Congress and the first Black major-party presidential candidate survived three assassination attempts during her 1972 campaign
She became the first African American woman to be promoted to principal dancer in American Ballet Theater's 75-year history
Nelson Mandela, South African president and political activist, was released from prison after 27 years in this year
He was an American track and field athlete and four-time Olympic gold medalist in the Summer 1936 Games becoming the most successful athlete at the Games and, as a black man, was credited with "single-handedly crushing Hitler's myth of Aryan (white) supremacy
She was a trailblazing attorney who became the first African-American female judge in the United States, serving on New York's Family Court for four decades.
He was an American poet, social activist, playwright, and novelists who's life and work were enormously influential during the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s
On this date, the U.S. Supreme Court delivered its verdict in Brown v. Board of Education, ruling unanimously that racial segregation in public schools violated the 14th Amendment of the US Constitution
What is May 17, 1954
This University in Pennsylvania is the first institution of higher education founded for African-Americans. It paved the way for the 104 other historically Black colleges.
She became the first black woman to play tennis at the US Nationals - in 1957 she went on to win the US Nationals and Wimbledon.
This play by Lorraine Hansberry, becomes the first drama written by a black woman to be produced on Broadway
This year held the Stono Rebellion in South Carolina which became the largest slave revolt in colonial America — some of the men who participated had been soldiers in Africa before being sold into slavery