Florida Institute of Technology

Woodson authored numerous scholarly books on the positive contributions of Blacks to the development of America. He also published many magazine articles analyzing the contributions and role of Black Americans. He reached out to schools and the general public through the establishment of several key organizations and founded Negro History Week (precursor to Black History Month).

Dr. Williams was an African American physician who made history by performing the first successful open heart surgery operation.

Pastor, Civil Rights Leader, Nobel Peace Prize recipient, President of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), author

"Coleman was American's first female African-American pilot. She made headlines in 1921 when she became the first African-American woman to earn an international pilot's license."

Arctic explorer, co-discoverer of the North Pole

"Henson accompanied Robert E. Peary on eight journeys to the Arctic over eighteen years (1891-1909). After several failed attempts to reach the North Pole, on April 7, 1909, Henson, Peary and their four Inuit comrades attained their goal."

"Hughes, who claimed Paul Lawrence Dunbar, Carl Sandburg, and Walt Whitman as his primary influences, is particularly known for his insightful, colorful portrayals of black life in America from the twenties through the sixties. He wrote novels, short stories and plays, as well as poetry, and is also known for his engagement with the world of jazz and the influence it had on his writing, as in 'Montage of a Dream Deferred.'"

Three-time Olympic gold medalist in track

"Wilma Rudolph was the first American woman runner to win three gold medals in the Olympic games. Her performance was all the more remarkable in light of the fact that she had double pneumonia and scarlet fever as a young child and could not walk without braces until age 11."

"Born to wealth, Terrell majored in classics at Oberlin College, where she received her bachelor's degree in 1884, one of the first African-American women awarded a college degree. A charter member and first president of the National Association of Colored Women, Terrell became nationally known both for her support of women's suffrage and her opposition to racial segregation. She was also one of the founders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. In 1953, at the age of ninety, she led a successful drive to end the segregation of public facilities in Washington, D.C."

"Maynard was an authentic pioneer in the newspaper industry who will be remembered for his reportorial, oratorical and creative entrepreneurial skills. Maynard's efforts to bring ethnic and cultural diversity into American newspapering is legendary and occurred in large measure, through the Institute for Journalism Education, which he cofounded in 1977."

"On Dec. 1, 1955, Mrs. Rosa Parks, seamstress for the Montgomery Fair department store, boarded the Cleveland Avenue bus. She took a seat in the fifth row - the first row of the "Colored Section...She was arrested on a Thursday; bail was posted by Clifford Durr, the white lawyer whose wife had employed Parks as a seamstress. That evening, after talking it over with her mother and husband, Rosa Parks agreed to challenge the constitutionality of Montgomery's segregation laws."

His mother was a slave; his father a white man. At a young age Frederick Douglass learned to read and write as a slave to a ship carpenter in Baltimore. At this young age he heard and understood the meaning of the word 'abolition'. He was later sold to a farmer known for his brutality to slaves. Douglass vowed he would escape and be free by the end of 1836. It wasn't until 1838, however, that his dream would come true. In the years that followed, he became very involved in the growing abolitionists movement. He continued his thirst for reading and educating himself. During the Civil War he recruited northern blacks for the Union Army and met to discuss war concerns with President Abraham Lincoln. In later years he promoted rights for African Americans and women.

Frederick Douglass recorded his memoirs in: "Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave Written by Himself"

Stamp on Black History

Postage stamps of historical Black Americans

Zora Neale Hurston

Author

Joel Agustus Rogers

Writer, Lecturer, Anthropologist, Publisher

Dr. Mae Jemison

Chemical Engineer, Scientist, Physician, Teacher, Astronaut

Dick Gregory

Activist, Author, Actor, Comedian

Shirley Chisholm

U.S. Representative (re-elected six times)

Doris 'Dorie' Miller

Awarded the Navy Cross for actions at Pearl Harbor