Beauford Delaney managed to carve a place in art history with his vibrant, modernist paintings that emerged during the Harlem Renaissance and other important art movements.

When most U.S. cities and towns lived in segregation, one small township defied the racist norms by integrating from its founding, though in relative secrecy. That township was Covert, Michigan.

Mary Fields, a woman of natural strength who stood six feet tall and weighed two hundred pounds, fearlessly delivered mail for the U.S. Post Office while braving the harsh terrain of Montana.

While many have not heard of Mark Dean, he is the black inventor and computer engineer who led a creative team in developing the Industry Standard Architecture (ISA) ecosystem that makes the PC so essential in daily life.

Having grown into an international success, the iconic children’s show Sesame Street grew out of the Civil Rights era and took on a look inspired by the streets of 1960s Harlem.

Cathay Williams became the first black female to enlist in the United States Army after posing as a man and using the pseudonym William Cathay.

Roy Eaton broke through the barriers in the advertising industry and rose to become an executive while he composed enduring jingles that resonated with the public.

C.R. Patterson and Sons, the first and only automobile manufacturer owned by black Americans, was initially a carriage building firm that later manufactured luxury cars.

Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller was an accomplished black American sculptor, painter, and poet who expressed the black experience through her art and created groundbreaking pieces in celebration of black culture.

Horace King was a celebrated bridge architect and builder in the mid-nineteenth century. He began his bridge-building career as a slave and ended as a free, wealthy black Southerner.

In the summer of 1800, a literate enslaved blacksmith named Gabriel planned and organized the most extensive slave uprising in the history of the American South.

Lucy Terry is noted as the author of the oldest existing poem composed by a black American, but she was also a gifted storyteller and seasoned orator.

The winner of three Kentucky Derbies, Isaac Burns Murphy is a Hall of Fame jockey who is arguably the greatest rider in the history of American Thoroughbred horse racing.

Founded in 1905 by Robert S. Abbott with an initial investment of only 25 cents, the Chicago Defender rose to become the most influential black newspaper in the country.

Sarah Jane Smith Thompson Garnet is noted as the first black female principal in the New York public school system. She was also the first black American female to found and lead a suffrage organization for black women.

Onesimus, a Boston slave owned by Puritan minister Cotton Mathers, is credited with instituting the first recorded inoculations in the Americas.

Founded by a group of black New Yorkers the same year slavery was abolished in the state, Freedom’s Journal was the first black-owned and operated newspaper in the United States.

Born a slave in 1818, Bridget “Biddy” Mason died a free woman, and the wealthiest resident of Los Angeles, California. She was an astute businesswoman who was beloved by the people of her city.

Edward Alexander Bouchet became the first black American to be named a PhD physicist after completing his graduate studies and dissertation at Yale University.

Once the nation’s largest and most self-sufficient black town, Mound Bayou, Mississippi was a thriving haven for thousands of black Americans during Jim Crow.

Norma Merrick Sklarek was a pioneering female architect who accomplished several important firsts in her field and was a prominent leader in architecture up into her retirement.

Dorothy Brunson owned three radio stations and pioneered what came to be known as urban contemporary radio. She was also the first black woman to own and operate a television station.

Lewis Howard Latimer was a black inventor and engineer who contributed to the patenting and improvement of the incandescent light bulb and the telephone.

South-View Cemetery, home to more than 80,000 black Americans who are buried on its grounds, is the first and therefore the oldest black stockholder corporation in the U.S.

Ginger Smock was a prominent bandleader, composer, and symphony musician known for her signature horn-like jazz violin renditions.

Jean Baptiste Point du Sable, a Haitian trader, trapper, and pioneer, was not only the first settler of what became Chicago, Illinois but also its founder.

Simone Biles is the most decorated gymnast in U.S. history, having won more than two dozen Olympic and World Championship medals thus far.

Amanda Gorman is a black American poet and activist. She is the youngest inaugural poet in history and the first-ever national poet laureate.

Derek Jeter is a former Major League Baseball baseball player who was a shortstop for the New York Yankees and has since become a Hall of Famer.

Lester Holt is an American broadcast journalist who in 2015 made history by becoming the first black person to solo anchor a weekday nightly newscast for a major network.