Contributions African Americans have given to the United States.
Civil rights activist. Born July 2, 1925, in Decatur, Mississippi. After growing up in a Mississippi farming family, Evers enlisted in the United States Army in 1943. He fought in both France and Germany during World War II before receiving an honorable discharge in 1946. In 1948, he entered Alcorn Agricutural and Mechanical College (now …
(born September 12, 1913, Oakville, Alabama, U.S.‚Äö√Ñ√Ædied March 31, 1980, Phoenix, Arizona) American track-and-field athlete, who set a world record in the running broad jump (also called long jump) that stood for 25 years and who won four gold medals at the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin. His four Olympic victories were a blow to …
(born February 27, 1897, Philadelphia, Pa., U.S.‚Äö√Ñ√Ædied April 8, 1993, Portland, Ore.) American singer, one of the finest contraltos of her time. Anderson displayed vocal talent as a child, but her family could not afford to pay for formal training. From the age of six, she was tutored in the choir of the Union Baptist …
Inventor, born in Paris, Kentucky, USA. Born into poverty and with only a fifth-grade education, he moved to Cleveland, OH and worked as a sewing-machine mechanic. By 1907 he had a patent for an improved sewing machine and began his own sewing machine business. In 1909 he discovered a substance that straightened hair (temporarily) and …
(born Nov. 9, 1731, Ellicott’s Mills, Md.‚Äö√Ñ√Ædied Oct. 25, 1806, Baltimore, Md., U.S.) mathematician, astronomer, compiler of almanacs, inventor, and writer, one of the first important black American intellectuals. A free black who owned a farm near Baltimore, Banneker was largely self-educated in astronomy by watching the stars and in mathematics by reading borrowed textbooks. …
(born Jan. 3, 1824, New Salem, Mass., U.S.‚Äö√Ñ√Ædied June 21, 1891, Washington, D.C.) American educator, cofounder in Atlanta, Georgia, of a school for African American women that would eventually become Spelman College. Packard attended local district school and from the age of 14 alternated periods of study with periods of teaching in rural schools. In …
(born Aug. 7, 1904, Detroit, Mich., U.S.‚Äö√Ñ√Ædied Dec. 9, 1971, New York, N.Y.) U.S. diplomat, a key member of the United Nations for more than two decades, and winner of the 1950 Nobel Prize for Peace for his successful negotiation of an Arab-Israeli truce in Palestine the previous year. Bunche worked his way through the …
Entrepreneur and philanthropist. Born Sarah Breedlove on December 23, 1867, in Delta, Louisiana. Madam C. J. Walker was one of the first female African-American entrepreneurs. Orphaned at the age of seven, she was raised by an elder sister. Walker married to Moses McWilliams at age 14 in Vicksburg. Widowed at age 20 with a daughter, …
Leader of a slave insurrection. Born October 2, 1800¬¨‚Ćin Southampton County, Virginia. He was born on the Virginia plantation of Benjamin Turner, who allowed him to be instructed in reading, writing, and religion. Sold three times in his childhood and hired out to John Travis (1820s), he became a fiery preacher and leader of African-American …
(born c. 1820, Dorchester county, Maryland, U.S.‚Äö√Ñ√Ædied March 10, 1913, Auburn, New York) American bondwoman who escaped from slavery in the South to become a leading abolitionist before the American Civil War. She led hundreds of bondsmen to freedom in the North along the route of the Underground Railroad‚Äö√Ñ√Æan elaborate secret network of safe houses …
