Athletes
These sisters have earned over $125 million combined throughout their tennis careers.
Venus & Serena Williams
His inventions included an evaporative air conditioner, an improved process for manufacturing carbon filaments for light bulbs, and an improved toilet system for railroad cars. Also the first Telephone which Alexander Graham Bell hired him to help with.
Lewis Howard Latimer
Despite being arrested and jailed, her bravery sparked the famous Montgomery Bus Boycott, which led to the segregation of buses being deemed unconstitutional.
Rosa Parks
Frederick Douglass
January 20, 2009
Obama's inauguration speech
He helped bridge the segregation gap when he started for the Dodgers in 1947.
Jackie Robinson
Innovated mobile refrigeration technology. He received 61 patents, 40 for refrigeration technology.
Frederick McKinley Jones
After he converted while in prison for robbery, his Islamic faith was the foundation of his social justice advocacy.
Malcolm X
(1811-1896) published more than 30 books, but it was her best-selling anti-slavery novel Uncle Tom's Cabin that catapulted her to international celebrity and secured her place in history.
Harriet Beecher Stowe
Slavery was abolished.
Nicknamed "the Greatest", he is regarded as one of the most significant sports figures of the 20th century and is often regarded as the greatest heavyweight boxer of all time
Muhammad Ali
In 1966, she invented a video home security system along with her husband Albert Brown, an electronics technician.
Marie Van Brittan Brown
sociologist, historian, and editor who cofounded the NAACP in 1909.
W.E.B. Du Bois
Was known as the “The Moses of Her People.” She was born enslaved, and very fortunately as a young woman was able to escape and claim her freedom. She also became known as a “conductor” of the Underground Railroad.
Harriett Tubman
September 4, 1957
Little Rock Nine
American track and field athlete who won four gold medals at the 1936 Olympic Games.
Jesse Owens
Best known for being awarded a patent for automatically opening and closing elevator doors.
Alexander Miles
President Lyndon Johnson appointed him to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1967, making him the first African American person to assume this role (which he held for 24 years). Also won Brown v. BOE which resulted in desegregation.
Thurgood Marshall
Her speech demanded equal human rights for all women. She also spoke as a former enslaved woman, combining calls for abolitionism with women's rights, and drawing from her strength as a laborer to make her equal rights claims.
Sojourner Truth
August 28, 1963
Martin Luther King Jr's "I have a dream speech"
American former professional baseball and football player. He is the only professional athlete in history to be named an All-Star in two major North American sports.
Bo Jackson
He is known for his work in designing the Fairchild Channel F video game console as well as leading the team that pioneered the commercial video game cartridge. "father of the videogame cartridge" according to Black Enterprise magazine in 1982.
Jerry Lawson
At age 6, this person became the first Black student to integrate William Franz Elementary School—a white public school in New Orleans—in November 1960.
Ruby Bridges
He participated in the underground railroad and in 1851 helped found the League of Gileadites, an organization of whites, free blacks, and runaway slaves dedicated to protecting fugitive slaves from slave catchers.
John Brown
June 19, 1865
Juneteenth