Famous Inventors
The Netflix series "Self Made" is based on the life of this female Black hair care inventors
Who Is: Madame CJ Walker
This platinum album debut number one on the Billboard 200 in the year 2015, it also won the Grammy for Best Rap Album
What Is: To Pimp A Butterfly
This mathematician was feature in the film "Hidden Figures" and did fundamental calculations that help astronauts get to the moon.
Who Is: Katherine Johnson
This playwright and essayist was the first African American to have a play on broadway, her most famous work was titled after a poem by Langston Hughes
Who Is: Lorraine Hansberry
This 1985 film was “Introducing Whoopi Goldberg” and was nominated for 11 Academy Awards (although it didn’t receive any)
What Is: The Color Purple
In addition to the his traffic signal, which was the first to include the “Yellow Caution” this investor also patented one of the earliest gas masks
Who Is: Garett Morgan
This world renowned jazz artist sang a highly controversial song about the lynching of Black people across America, the song was called Strange Fruit
Who Is: Billie Holiday
She is the founder of Black Girls Code, which introduces girls of Color to computer science with a goal of building a new generation of coders
Who is: Kimberly Bryant
This Algerian philosopher was a contemporary of Jean Paul Sartre and Albert Camus. His work centers the existential experiences of black bodied people.
Who Is: Frantz Fanon
This is the name of the other worldly place black people are trapped in after their bodies are taken over by white hosts
What Is: The Sunken Place
This agricultural scientist was born enslaved, was self-educated and invented hundreds of products using peanuts, sweet potatoes and soybeans
Who Is: George Washington Carver
This world famous opera singer led the way for contemporary Black opera stars like Pretty Yende and Angel Blue. Over the course of her career she won 19 Grammy’s more than any other classical singer.
Who Is: Leontyne Price
This woman was the first to Invent & Demonstrate Laserphaco Cataract Surgery
Who Is: Patricia Bath
This work of nonfiction won the 2015 National Book Award and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize the same year.
What Is: Between the World and Me
This is the name of the first black person to win an Oscar - she playe
Who Is: Hattie McDaniel
This inventor was born enslaved and was the first African American woman to receive a patent for her “Folding Cabinet Bed” made for working class people.
Who Is: Sarah Goode
This English Language Opera by composer George Gershwin contains the famous song Summertime
What Is: Porgy & Bess
He was chief engineer on the team that designed the original IBM PC in the early 1980s. He helped develop technologies, including the color PC monitor and the first gigahertz chip
Who Is: Mark Dean
This novel written by Zora Neal Hurston was made into a movie starring Academy Award winner Halle Berry
What Is: Their Eyes Were Watching God
This popular 90's sitcom centered on the Winslow family and popularized the phrase “Did I do that?”
What Is: Family Matters
This prolific inventor took out more than 60 patents in his lifetime, his most famous invention was the refrigerated truck
Who Is: Frederick McKinley Jones
This is the debut studio album of the artist Nas, it was recently the focus of a Duke University class called “Sampling Soul”
What Is: Illmatic
A Silicon Valley pioneer who developed high-speed semiconductor computer-memory systems at Fairchild Semiconductor R&D Labs in the 1960s
Who Is: Frank Green
This investigative journalist worked during the early 20th Century, her seminal work focuses on the horrific impact of white mob violence, called “On Lynchings”
Who Is: Ida B. Wells
This accident caused the fictional death of Hillary Banks' fiancé on the hit show The Fresh Prince of Bel Air.
What Is: Bungee Jumping Accident