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Bessie Coleman was born into poverty and picked cotton to help support her family. As WWI ended, her dream was to fly, but every flying school turned her down because of her gender and race.
African-Americans have contributed to American society in every walk of life, and one purpose of Black History Month is to call attention to some of those who may have escaped notice. Here are 10 brief biographies from the Profile America series produced by the U.S. Census Bureau.
Zora Neale Hurston was one of the great talents of the Harlem Renaissance - but had to work as a manicurist to support herself.
A century ago, bread bought at stores was hand-made, a time intensive process. That changed when a baker from Boston, Joseph Lee, invented the automatic bread-making machine.
Thousands of Americans owe their lives to the inventions of Garrett Morgan. The son of former slaves, Morgan invented the gas mask.
From the U.S. Census Bureau
On a hot summer night in Chicago, in 1893, a deliveryman was rushed to the emergency room of Provident Hospital. He had been stabbed in the heart in a barroom brawl.
Dr. Daniel Hale Williams, an African American, was on duty. With the patient's life ebbing, Williams decided to surgically repair the torn heart tissue. In doing so, he made history as the first doctor to successfully perform open heart surgery.
The patient went on to live another 20 years. Dr. Williams became one of the 100 charter members of the American College of Surgeons in 1913.
Today in the U.S., there are 761,000 physicians, 6 percent of them African American.
This profile is adapted from Profile America, a radio series produced by the U.S. Census Bureau in 2004.
