African American
Firsts
African American Women in Science
African American Men in Science
African American Authors
African American Engineers & Architects
100
First African American invited to dine at the White House?
Who is Booker T. Washington?
100
The first woman to graduate from what would become the University of Hawaii with a master's degree in science?
Who is Alice Ball?
100
Inventor of the revamped sewing machine and improved traffic light.
Who is Garret Morgan?
100
She won the Pulitzer Prize and the American Book Award in 1988 for Beloved.
Who is Toni Morrison?
100
He was recruited by Booker T. Washington to help establish Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, a campus forever associated with the architecture of him.
Who is Robert Robinson Taylor?
200
The First African American to star in an international motion picture?
Who is Josephine Baker?
200
The African American is known as a "Human Computer". at the National Advisory Committee on Aeronautics (NACA) in 1955?
Who is Annie Easley?
200
An African-American biologist and educator best known for his pioneering work in the physiology of development, especially in fertilization.
Who is Earnest Everett Just?
200
Of her four novels and more than 50 published short stories, plays, and essays, she is best known for her 1937 novel Their Eyes Were Watching God.
Who is Zora Neale Hurston?
200
He opened his own practice in Birmingham, Alabama, where he designed many homes and churches — most famously, the 16th Street Baptist Church in 1911. He was the second professionally-educated Black architect in the United States.
Who is Wallace Augustus Rayfield?
300
The First African American to formally practice medicine?
Who is James Derham?
300
What is the known African American who pioneered of Opthomalagy?
Who is Patricia Bath?
300
A U.S. inventor and professor who, in 1962, developed the electret transducer technology later used in 90 percent of contemporary microphones.
Who is James West?
300
He wrote An unfinished manuscript, Remember This House, was expanded and adapted for cinema as the Academy Award-nominated documentary film I Am Not Your Negro.
Who is James Baldwin?
300
Building on the family legacy, the two brothers have worked on thousands of facilities, including managing the design and construction of the African American Museum of History and Culture and being the architect of record for the MLK Memorial, both in Washington, D.C. (the brother's name is the same)
Who is McKissack & McKissack?
400
The First individual African-American woman as a subject on the cover of Life magazine?
Who is Dorothy Dandridge?
400
The First Black woman to become a neurosurgeon?
Who is Alexa Canady?
400
An African-American surgeon who pioneered methods of storing blood plasma for transfusion and organized the first large-scale blood bank in the U.S.
Who is Charles Drew?
400
She wrote the novel The Color Purple (1982) for which she won the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. She also wrote the novels Meridian (1976) and The Third Life of Grange Copeland (1970), among other works.
Who is Alice Walker?
400
This man designed landmark homes for some of the wealthiest residents of Harlem, but he may be best known as one of the founders of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity.
Who is Vertner Woodson Tandy?
500
First African American to vote in an election under the 15th Amendment to the United States Constitution?
Who is Thomas Mundy?
500
She was the first African-American woman to become a board-certified OB/Gyn in Philadelphia.
Who is Helen Octavia Dickens?
500
This person created inventions, such as the ultraviolet camera, or spectrograph, which was used by NASA in the 1972 Apollo 16 flight, revealing the mysteries of space and the Earth's atmosphere.
Who is George Carruthers?
500
He is best known for his novel Invisible Man, which won the National Book Award in 1953.
Who is Ralph Ellison?
500
He is well-known for designing Buffalo's Michigan Avenue YMCA, a building that became a cultural center for the Black community in Buffalo.
Who is John E. Brent?