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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.
When William Grant Still mounted the podium and began conducting the L.A. Philharmonic in 1936, it marked the first time that an African-American had led a major symphonic orchestra.
Sarah Breedlove Walker was born the daughter of former slaves and orphaned at the age of seven. She went on to become America's first African-American woman millionaire business-owner.
Seventy years before Rosa Parks sparked the civil rights movement by refusing to move to the back of a bus, there was Ida B. Wells.
From the U.S. Census Bureau
A century ago, bread bought at stores was hand-made, a time-and labor-intensive process.
That changed when an African-American baker from Boston, Joseph Lee, invented the automatic bread-making machine. This device mixed the ingredients and then kneaded the dough, dropping the cost of making bread while increasing production. Lee then developed a machine to eliminate the waste of unsold bread by recycling stale loaves into bread crumbs - a device that soon became popular in restaurants the world over.
Today in the U.S., the average African American spends 234-dollars a year on bakery products.
This profile is adapted from Profile America, a radio series produced by the U.S. Census Bureau in 2004.
