1. African Americans born to shine
Black History Month

2. James Armistead Lafayette
an African American slave who was an important American Revolutionary spy
Joined the Continental Army with the approval of his master
risked his life to help America win its independence from Great Britain.
Acted as a double-agent to gain the trust of both British Generals Cornwallis and the American traitor Benedict Arnold
supplied American General George Washington and Marquis de Lafayette with important military information

3. Louis Armstrong Born into poverty in 1901 Started working at 7
Quit school at 11 to provide for his family
started street performing, got noticed, and from there continued to learn to music
became a trumpet player and beloved entertainer
played a key role in the development of jazz music
well-known also for his distinctive gravelly singing voice.

4. George Crum
son of an African-American father and a Native American mother
worked as the chef in 1853
A customer ordered a plate of French-fried potatoes but sent them back to Crum's kitchen because he felt they were too thick and soft. To teach the picky patron a lesson, Crum sliced a new batch of potatoes as thin as he possibly could, and then fried them until they were hard and crunchy. Finally, to top them off, he added a generous heaping of salt. To Crum's surprise, the dish ended up being a hit with the patron and a new snack was born! Later, Crum opened his own restaurant that had a basket of potato chips on every table. Though Crum never attempted to patent his invention.

5. Claudette Colvin
At 15 years old Colvin sat in a designated “whites only” seat on a Montgomery bus. Colvin decided that she would not voluntarily leave her seat. Colvin was arrested and charged with disturbing the peace, violating segregation laws, and assaulting a police officer.
This got the attention of activists throughout the South and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Soon after Colvin was arrested and released, local leaders discovered that she was pregnant, and the father of her unborn child was married to another woman. Immediately, local leaders began questioning if Colvin could be the face of the bus boycott because her “moral transgression would scandalize the deeply religious black community. During this time, victims of injustice had to appear unimpeachable. 
Mary Louise Smith was also a teenager in Montgomery, Ala. who was arrested for refusing to move to another bus seat. She, like Colvin, was considered as a potential martyr, but was also discarded when local leaders discovered that her father was an alcoholic.
Rosa Parks fit the mold so the NAACP had her sit in the “whites only” section and refuse to give up her seat.

6. Bass Reeves
the first black U.S. Deputy Marshal west of the Mississippi River
Became the personal companion and body servant of his master
His owner takes him with him to fight for the Confederacy in the Civil War
Ran away to Indian Territory and took refuge wit the Seminole and Creek Indians
After the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 he settled in Arkansas
However, Reeve’s life as a contented farmer was about to change when Isaac C. Parker was appointed judge for the Federal Western District Court at Fort Smith, Arkansas on May 10, At the time Parker was appointed, Indian Territory had become extremely lawless as thieves, murderers, and anyone else wishing to hide from the law, took refuge in the territory that previously had no federal or state jurisdiction.
The head of the Marshals heard of Bass Reeves' significant knowledge of the area, as well as his ability to speak several tribal languages, and soon recruited him as a U.S. Deputy.
Reeves began to ride the Oklahoma range in search of outlaws. Though Reeves could not read or write it did not curb his effectiveness in bringing back the criminals. Before he headed out, he would have someone read him the warrants and memorize which was which. When asked to produce the warrant, he never failed to pick out the correct one
He brought in more than 3,000 outlaws, even his own son!

7. Janet Collins
the first and only African American to become Prima Ballerina at the Metropolitan Opera in New York
 The world of classical dance was closed to blacks or any one of color. 
Even the public library in her home town of New Orleans was closed to blacks.  When denied access to the public library, her grandmother insisted the entire family relocate to Los Angeles, and they did.  When Janet was denied access to dance classes with other little white girls, her mother sewed costumes in exchange for private lessons with a worthy teacher. Her family and her early teachers recognized her extraordinary talent, and they all fought for her abilities to be recognized and honed despite the many barriers of racial segregation.  
At age 15, in 1932, she managed to gain entrance to an audition for The Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, she enchanted the master Leonide Massine. He told her she can enter the company but only  “…if you paint your face and body white.”  Janet refused.
 It took her over 30 years to attain the glory of the Metropolitan Opera stage.  When most dancers are bringing an end to their careers, hers began to blossom and grow, boundless and in ways that surprised all that knew her.

8. Garrett Morgan
With only an elementary school education, Garrett Morgan, began his career as a sewing-machine mechanic. He was the seventh of 11 children.
When in his mid teens, he found it as a handyman to a wealthy landowner. Morgan was able to pay for lessons from a private tutor. But jobs at several sewing-machine factories were to soon capture his imagination and determine his future. Learning the inner workings of the machines and how to fix them, Morgan obtained a patent for an improved sewing machine and opened his own repair business
Sometimes he encountered woolen fabric that had been scorched by a sewing-machine needle. It was a common problem at the time, since sewing-machine needles ran at such high speeds. In hopes of alleviating the problem, Morgan experimented with a chemical solution in an effort to reduce friction created by the needle, and subsequently noticed that the hairs of the cloth were straighter.
After trying his solution to good effect on a neighboring dog's fur, Morgan finally tested the concoction on himself. When that worked, he quickly established the G.A. Morgan Hair Refining Company and sold the cream to African Americans. The company was incredibly successful, bringing Morgan financial security and allowing him to pursue other interests.
In 1914, Morgan patented a breathing device, or "safety hood," providing its wearers with a safer breathing experience in the presence of smoke, gases and other pollutants. Morgan worked hard to market the device, especially to fire departments, often personally demonstrating its reliability in fires. Morgan's breathing device became the prototype and precursor for the gas masks used during World War I, protecting soldiers from toxic gas used in warfare. The invention earned him the first prize at the Second International Exposition of Safety and Sanitation in New York City.
There was some resistance to Morgan's devices among buyers, particularly in the South. Morgan hired a white actor to pose as "the inventor" during presentations of his breathing device; Morgan would pose as the inventor's sidekick, disguised as a Native American man named "Big Chief Mason," and, wearing his hood, enter areas otherwise unsafe for breathing.
He also created a new kind of traffic signal, one with a warning light to alert drivers that they would need to stop, after witnessing a carriage accident at a particularly problematic intersection in the city.

9. 2nd Lt. Henry Ossian Flipper
Henry Ossian Flipper was born into slavery. In 1873 Flipper was appointed to the U.S. Military Academy, and in 1877 he became the first African-American to graduate from the institution. He was commissioned a second lieutenant and assigned to the 10th Cavalry. From 1878 until 1880 Lieutenant Flipper served on frontier duty in various installations in the southwest, including Fort Sill, Oklahoma.
As a civilian, Henry Flipper went on to distinguish himself in a variety of governmental and private engineering positions. These included serving as surveyor, civil and military engineer, author, translator, special agent of the Justice Department, special assistant to the Secretary of the Interior with the Alaskan Engineering Commission, aide to the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, as well as an authority on Mexican land and mining law.

10. Frederick Jones
an inventor best known for the development of refrigeration equipment used to transport food and blood during World War II.
Both of his parents had died by the time Jones was 9 years old. At the age of 11, Jones found work as a janitor, later working as an automobile mechanic.
Frederick Jones had talent for and an interest in mechanical work. He read extensively on the subject in addition to his daily work, educating himself in his spare time. In 1912, he moved to Minnesota to work as a mechanic on a farm. Jones served in the U.S. Army during World War I, returning to the farm following his service.
It was on the farm that Jones educated himself in electronics. When the town decided to fund a new radio station, Jones built the transmitter needed to broadcast its programming. He also developed a device to combine moving pictures with sound. Local businessman Joseph A. Numero hired Jones to improve the sound equipment he produced for the film industry.
Jones continued to expand his interests in the 1930s. He designed and patented a portable air-cooling unit for trucks carrying perishable food. Forming a partnership with Numero, Jones founded the U.S. Thermo Control Company. The company grew exponentially during World War II, helping to preserve blood, medicine and food. By 1949, U.S. Thermo Control was worth millions of dollars.

11. Jesse Owens
Jesse Owens achieved what no Olympian before him had accomplished. His stunning achievement of four gold medals at the 1936 Olympic games in Berlin has made him the best remembered athlete in Olympic history. The seventh child of Henry and Emma Alexander Owens was named James Cleveland when he was born in Alabama on September 12, "J.C.", as he was called, was nine when the family moved to Cleveland, Ohio, where his new schoolteacher gave him the name that was to become known around the world. The teacher was told "J.C." when she asked his name to enter in her roll book, but she thought he said "Jesse". The name stuck and he would be known as Jesse Owens for the rest of his life.
He broke junior high and high school records and even world records as a high schooler. He won all the major track events in high school.
Owens chose the Ohio State University but the school could not offer a track scholarship at the time. He worked a number of jobs to support himself and his young wife, Ruth. He worked as a night elevator operator, a waiter, he pumped gas, worked in the library stacks, and served a stint as a page in the Ohio Statehouse, all of this in between practice and record setting on the field in intercollegiate competition.
While at the Big Ten Championships on May 25, 1935, he set three world records and tied a fourth, all in a span of about 45 minutes. Jesse was uncertain as to whether he would be able to participate at all, as he was suffering from a sore back as a result from a fall down a flight of stairs.
Jesse entered the 1936 Olympics, which were held in Nazi Germany amidst the belief by Hitler that the Games would support his belief that the German "Aryan" people were the dominant race. Jesse became the first American track & field athlete to win four gold medals in a single Olympiad. During a time of deep-rooted segregation, he not only discredited Hitler's master race theory, but also affirmed that individual excellence, rather than race or national origin, distinguishes one man from another.
Athletes didn't return from the Olympics to lucrative advertising and product endorsement campaigns in those days, and Owens supported his young family with a variety of jobs. One was of special significance - playground director in Cleveland. It was his first step into a lifetime of working with underprivileged youth, which gave him his greatest satisfaction. After relocating to Chicago, he devoted much of his time to underprivileged youth as a board member and former director of the Chicago Boys' Club.

12. Matthew Henson
Henson lost his mother when he was very young. Then his father died a few years later.
Henson ran away from home his relatives home at age 11, and was taken in by a woman who lived near his home.
At age 12, he left to work as a cabin boy on a ship. Over the next six years and under the mentorship of Captain Childs, Henson learned literacy and navigation skills.
He met Robert Edwin Peary, an explorer and officer in the U.S. Navy Corps of Civil Engineers. Peary hired Henson as his valet for his travel expeditions.
Henson joined Peary on several Greenland expeditions. Henson embraced the local Eskimo culture, learning the language and the natives' Arctic survival skills.
Nearly starved on many of the journeys due to lack of food and supplies.
They tried several time to make it to the North Pole. On April 6, 1909, Peary, Henson, four Eskimos and 40 dogs finally reached the North Pole—or at least  they claimed to have.

13. Silas Herbert Hunt
a veteran of World War II and a pioneer in the integration of higher education in the South.
Hunt put his education on hold when he was drafted into the U.S. Army following America’s entry into World War II. He was stationed in Europe and seriously wounded at the Battle of the Bulge.
Returned home to finish his degree and applied to numerous law schools.
Southern colleges and universities were so segregated at the time that Southern states would actually pay the tuition for black students to attend one of the many black colleges rather than admit them to white universities.
Hunt applied to the University of Arkansas School of Law with the hopes of breaking the color barrier and obtaining a law degree.
Having witnessed the negative publicity that segregation had brought to other white Southern universities, officials announced that they would allow qualified black graduate students to be admitted to the university, which made Arkansas the first white Southern university since Reconstruction to admit black students for graduate or professional studies.
Hunt attended segregated classes in the basement of the law school. White students were not restricted from taking these classes, and in fact, between three and five students attended each of these classes regularly.
He seemed destined for success, but illness cut short his studies. He was hospitalized at the Veteran’s Hospital in Springfield, Missouri, where he ultimately died on April 22, 1949, from tuberculosis, a possible complication from his war injuries.
To commemorate his achievements, UA began awarding the Silas Hunt Distinguished Scholar Awards in 2003 to deserving black students. In 2008, the University of Arkansas School of Law awarded Hunt a posthumous degree.
Even a building at UA Fayetteville named after him!!!

14. Mary Eliza Mahoney
After working for several years as a private-duty nurse at Boston's New England Hospital for Women and Children, in 1878, Mahoney was admitted to the hospital's nursing program.
The following year, Mary Mahoney made history when she became the first black woman to complete nurse's training. Subsequently, she became one of the first black members of the American Nurses Association as well as the National Association of Colored Graduate Nurses.
Mahoney has been credited as one of the first women to register to vote in Boston following the ratification of the 19th Amendment, granting women's suffrage, on August 26, 1920.
In the early 1900s, Mahoney served as supervisor of the Howard Orphan Asylum for Black Children.

15. Mae C Jemison
She spent a considerable amount of time in her school library reading about all aspects of science, especially astronomy.
She received a Bachelor of Science degree in chemical engineering from Stanford University in 1977.
She then went to Cornell University Medical College and, during her years there, studied in Cuba and Kenya and worked at a Cambodian refugee camp in Thailand.
After she obtained her M.D., Jemison interned at Los Angeles County/University of Southern California Medical Center and later worked as a general practitioner.
For the next two and a half years, she was the area Peace Corps medical officer for Sierra Leone and Liberia where she also taught and did medical research.
Following her return to the United States in 1985, Jemison made a career change and decided to follow a dream she had nurtured for a long time. In October of that year, she applied for admission to NASA's astronaut training program.
She became the first African-American woman to be admitted into the astronaut training program. After more than a year of training, she became the first African-American female astronaut.
When Jemison flew into space, she became the first African-American woman in space. During her eight days in space, she conducted experiments on weightlessness and motion sickness on the crew and herself.
Following her historic flight, Jemison noted that society should recognize how much both women and members of other minority groups can contribute if given the opportunity

16. Bessie Coleman the first black woman to earn a pilot's license
At 23 years old she was working as a manicurist where she began listening to and reading stories of WWI pilots which sparked her interest in aviation
Because flying schools in the United States denied her entry, she taught herself French and moved to France, earning her license from France's well-known Caudron Brother's School of Aviation in just seven months.
Coleman specialized in stunt flying and parachuting, earning a living barnstorming and performing aerial tricks.

17. Lonnie Johnson
Engineer and inventor who earned his degree in nuclear engineering, joined the U.S. Air Force and the NASA Space Program, and then invented the Super Soaker water gun
Growing up poor his dad taught him how to build his own toys. He attached a lawnmower engine to a go-kart that he built from scraps he found at a junkyard. He raced it along the highway until he was pulled over by a cop.
He wanted to be an inventor from an early age and it didn’t always excite his family when he ruined something of theirs or nearly burned the house down.
He mentors high school and college student in Alabama

18. Bessie Blount Griffin
Worked as a physical therapist with WWII injured soldiers
Created a device that allowed amputees to feed themselves
A tube delivered food to the patient whenever the patient bit down on that tube
The US Veterans Association didn’t want to use the device so she gave it to the French who put it to good use
“a black woman can invent something for the benefit of humankind

19. Dr. Vivien T. Thomas
In 1929 he was preparing for college and medical school when his savings for tuition disappeared following the October stock market crash. With no means for education, he took a job as a laboratory technician at Vanderbilt University's medical school, working for Dr. Alfred Blalock.
Thomas still hoped to save tuition money to earn his own medical degree, but the Great Depression worsened and the research with Blalock grew. Soon Thomas was working sixteen hours a day in the laboratory, performing operations on animals to study high blood pressure and traumatic shock. For his work, Thomas invented a heavy spring device that could apply varying levels of pressure. Blalock and Thomas' work at Vanderbilt created a new understanding of shock, showing that shock was linked to a loss of fluid and blood volume.
At Johns Hopkins, Thomas and Blalock pioneered the field of heart surgery with a procedure to alleviate a congenital heart defect, the Tetralogy of Fallot ("blue baby syndrome"). Sufferers faced brutally short life expectancies. Working with cardiologist Helen Taussig, Blalock and Thomas developed an operation that would deliver more oxygen to the blood and relieve the constriction caused by the heart defect. In 1944, with Thomas advising Blalock, the first "blue baby" operation was successfully performed on 15-month-old Eileen Saxon.

20. Dr. Daniel H Williams
founded the first black-owned hospital in America
performed the world's first successful heart surgery in 1893
At age 20, Williams became an apprentice to a former surgeon general for Wisconsin. Williams studied medicine at Chicago Medical College.
He taught anatomy at the Chicago Medical College and served as a surgeon for the City Railway Company.
The governor of Illinois later appointed him to the state’s board of health.
He pushed for a hospital where all races could train and work to help others.
In 1893 he made the first successful heart surgery after a man came in who was stabbed in the heart.
Became the Freedmen’s Hospital in D.C. which was the most prestigious medical post available to African Americans then
Became the first African American to be inducted into the American college of surgeons.

21. Ruby Bridges
Ruby Bridges was 6 when she became the first African-American child to integrate a white Southern elementary school, having to be escorted to class by her mother and U.S. marshals due to violent mobs. Bridges' bravery paved the way for continued Civil Rights action.
When Ruby was in kindergarten, she was one of many African American students in New Orleans who were chosen to take a test determining whether or not she could attend a white school. It is said the test was written to be especially difficult so that students would have a hard time passing. The idea was the if all the African American children failed the test, New Orleans schools might be able to stay segregated for awhile longer.
Ruby lived only 5 blocks away from an all white school, but had to attend an all black school several miles away.
She passed the test and the U.S. government send the U.S. marshals to protect her from mobs for the whole school year. She spent a few weeks with the principal because she wasn’t wanted in the classrooms. One teacher said they they would teach Ruby and she was the only child in the class as parents did not want their children in class with her.
On her second day of school a woman threatened to poison her so she had to bring her lunch from home each day. On another day a woman “greeted” her with a wooden coffin with a black doll in it. Ruby was not allowed to go to recess.
In 1999 she started the Ruby Bridges Foundation to promote tolerance for all. The organization’s motto is, “Racism is a grown-up disease and we must stop using our children to spread it.”

22. Thurgood Marshall
Helped end legal segregation and became the first African American Supreme Court justice
His dad listened to court cases and told the family about them at home. This made Marshall very interested in debating.
applied to the University of Maryland Law School but was denied on the basis of his race.
attended Howard University Law School instead and graduated first in his class
Worked for the NAACP
he took on the case of Donald Gaines Murray, a Black graduate of Amherst College, who had also been denied admission to the University of Maryland Law School because of its segregation policy despite his excellent credentials.
He won the Brown v Board of Education case in which the Supreme Court ended racial segregation. The case was brought by thirteen Topeka parents on behalf of their twenty children. One child was Linda who was forced to walk six blocks and through a railway yard to a bus stop in order to catch a bus to take her to a Black school more than a mile away from her home while there was a white school about seven blocks from her school.

23. Langston Hughes
Helped in the Harlem Renaissance ( a time in the 1930s were many African Americans began their careers: writers, artists, musicians, photographers, poets, and scholars)
He wrote books, poems, and plays while working odd jobs.
At one job he met a famous poet who introduced his work to those he was connected to. He met more and more writers who helped in his success.
His poetic style was very unique and popular.
While writing he was also a teacher at Atlanta University

24. Doris Miller
enlisted in the U.S Navy to earn money for his family and was given a job in the kitchen because African Americans weren’t allowed to fight
On the USS West Virginia he became the ship’s heavyweight boxing champion.
On December 7th, 1941 his ship was stationed in Pearl Harbor. At 6am that morning the Japanese attacked. He carried the wounded to safe places. Then he manned an anti-aircraft machine gun on which he had no training and shot at the Japanese until he ran out of ammunition.
He received the Navy Cross.
He continued to serve on ships during WWII when he was killed in the Pacific when his current ship was attacked.
He was awarded the Purple Heart.
Later a ship, a park, and many schools and buildings were named after him.

25. Benjamin Davis, Sr. First African-American general for the U.S. Army
Volunteered for the Spanish-American War in 1898
Professor of military science and tactics
Adviser on African-American discrimination in the military
Traveled the world for the U.S. Army

26. Marian Wright Edelman Became a lawyer for the NAACP
First African-American women to pass the bar exam in Mississippi
Wrote many inspirational and academic work on racial inequality
Created the Children’s Defense Fund for the poor, minority, and handicapped children

27. Maya Angelou Author, actress, dancer, poet, and screenwriter
After a traumatic childhood incident she became a mute for many years
Studied dance in California and became the first black female cable car conductor
Became a teenage mom but she didn’t let that stop her from succeeding
A member of the Harlem Writers Guild
A civil rights activist
Spent a lot of time in Africa and worked at the University of Ghana
Wrote about her childhood
First African American woman to have a screenplay produced

28. George Washington Carver
Born into slavery
His masters later taught them how to read and write since schools wouldn’t accept black students.
He was not accepted into college because of his color so he worked on some land and conducted biological experiments.
Eventually he was accepted into college at pursued art and music. A professor noticed he drew a lot of plants and suggested an agricultural college.
After getting his bachelor’s degree, he worked on his master’s degree and became a brilliant botanist.
He became a teacher for the university and even brought the classroom to struggling farmers to teach them how to take care of their farms.
He found that many crops like peanuts can help with or create other products like plastics and paints.
He had a kind personality and regardless of his skin color people liked him. This opened the eyes of many.

29. Charles Drew
African American surgeon who created many methods of storing blood plasma for transfusion and organized the first large-scale blood bank in the U.S.
This was very helpful during WWII.
He developed the process for preserving blood plasma.
He discovered that plasma can be dried and then reconstituted when needed.
He headed an effort called Blood for Britain to collect plasma for British causalities.

30. Harlem Hell-fighters
An African American Infantry group during WWI who spent 191 days under enemy fire in Europe
Dealt with racial segregation in the U.S. military
Fought in the trenches of France for France
They had to prove their skills and courage to everyone.
The Germans gave them their nickname.
Fought in WWI more than ANY other American infantry unit in WWI