Mary Ellen Pleasant
Mary Ellen Pleasant was a self-made millionaire and leading abolitionist who rose to fame and suffered infamy in San Francisco.
McKinley Thompson Jr
McKinley Thompson Jr broke the color barrier as the first black American to work for a major auto manufacturer when Ford Motor Company hired him in 1956.
Dr. Kassandra Ford
Dr. Kassandra Ford is a postdoctoral researcher who studies the evolution of electric fishes from South America and Africa. She is also an avid birder.
Dr. Mamie Parker
Dr. Mamie Parker has been a professional fish and wildlife biologist whose conservation work has protected various fish, birds, and other wildlife species.
Christian Cooper
Christian Cooper is a board member of the National Audubon Society, who, on May 25, 2020, filmed a racist incident he endured in Central Park while birding.
J. Drew Lanham
J. Drew Lanham is an avid birder, Master Teacher, and Certified Wildlife Biologist who teaches wildlife ecology at Clemson University.
Brianna Amingwa
Brianna Amingwa is an avid birder and the education supervisor at John Heinz National Wildlife Refuge at Tinicum, the first urban wildlife refuge in the U.S.
Tolga Aktas
Tolga Aktas is a conservation biologist, environmental photojournalist, and writer whose primary interests are wildlife biology, ecology, rewilding, and conservation.
Timothy Joe
Timothy Joe is an award-winning self-taught painter from Greensboro, Alabama. He became an avid birder in 2018 when his family partnered with Alabama Audubon to offer birding tours on their 200-acre farm.
Danielle Belleny
Danielle Belleny is a wildlife biologist who co-organized the first annual #BlackBirdersWeek to highlight the efforts of black wildlife enthusiasts and amplify black birders.
Alex Troutman
Alex Troutman is a wildlife biologist and birder who has worked with endangered species and encourages future generations to pursue a career in biology.
Corina Newsome
Corina Newsome is a wildlife conservationist who connects people with nature through birds and communicates ways humans can help conserve them.
Nicole Jackson
Nicole Jackson is a lover of nature and the outdoors and sees bird watching as a means of connecting with self and community. She is one of the co-organizers of #BlackBirdersWeek.
Tykee James
Tykee James has been a member of the birding community since his late teens, and he helped organize the first #BlackBirdersWeek in 2020.
Hot Springs and Blacks
During the Jim Crow segregation era, a coveted spa city named Hot Springs was home to black employees who served in white bathhouses and helped stoke the city's fame.
Captain Robert Smalls
Robert Smalls was born into slavery in 1839 but escaped with his family and a crew of other enslaved persons during the American Civil War. He eventually became a sea captain, a politician, businessman, and publisher.
Black on the RMS Titanic
Although various media have recounted the sinking of the Titanic over several decades, most accounts neglect to feature the only black family that sailed aboard her in second-class accommodations.
Paul Cuffee
Paul Cuffee spearheaded the first back-to-Africa movement in the U.S. at the turn of the nineteenth century and became the first free black American to meet with a sitting president at the White House.
Gold Fever
The discovery of gold in California brought white enslavers and the enslaved, immigrants from foreign nations, and many freeborn blacks from the Northeast who mined for the precious metal with varying degrees of success.