Black History Month

Rosa Parks was a civil rights activist who refused to surrender her seat to a white passenger on a segregated bus in Montgomery, Alabama. Her defiance sparked the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Its success launched nationwide efforts to end racial segregation of public facilities.

Martin was one of the most recognizable African Americans, most noticeably known for his  “I Have a Dream” speech. He was also a civil rights activist in the 1950s and 1960s and led non-violent protests to fight for the rights of all people, including African Americans. He hoped that America and the world could become a mixed society where race would not affect a person's civil rights....

Katherine Johnson was the first African American woman who worked with an all-male flight research team for NASA. She also helped calculate the orbit for the 1969 Apollo 11 flight to the moon. She faced many problems with being a woman of color because she used numbers to find her voice at NASA.

Harriet Tubman was the influential “conductor” of the Underground Railroad. She was born into slavery and suffered physical violence almost every day in her early years. She led hundreds of slaves out of the South to freedom and each of her journeys and every person mattered.

Jessie L. Brown became the first black aviator in the U.S. Navy and received a Distinguished Flying Cross for his service. When he heard that no black pilots were allowed in the U.S. military, Brown wrote to President Roosevelt in protest regarding his race. Sadly, he also became the first Black naval officer killed in the Korean War when his plane was shot down by Chinese infantry fire....

Bessie Coleman was the first black woman American aviator and the first black woman to earn a pilot's license. At the time, female pilots were rare and African American female pilots were non-existent. On April 30, 1926, Coleman was tragically killed at only 34 years old when an accident during a rehearsal for an aerial show sent her plummeting to her death.