Wilma Rudolph was born on June 23, 1940, in St. Bethlehem, Tennessee, one of the eight children of Ed and Blanche Rudolph. At birth, she weighed only four-and-a-half pounds and had numerous health issues as a child. She suffered from double pneumonia twice and scarlet … Read MoreWilma Rudolph (1940-1994)
Perry Wilbon Howard was one of the shrewdest and most enduring Southern black politicians of the early 20th Century. Howard was a dominant figure in Mississippi Republican politics for half of the twentieth century. For thirty-five years between 1924 until shortly before his death in … Read MorePerry Wilbon Howard (1877-1961)
Born in 1903 in Columbus, Ohio, Ruth Ella Moore was the first African American woman in the United States to earn a Ph.D. in the natural sciences. Her doctorate was in the field of bacteriology. Moore earned a B.S. in 1926 and a M.S. in … Read MoreRuth Ella Moore (1903-1994)
Dr. Mark Dean, an American inventor and computer engineer, is one of the most important figures in the emergence of the personal computer in the late 20th Century. Three of the nine patents on the original personal computer (PC) by International Business Machines (IBM) are … Read MoreMark Dean (1957- )
Dolores Cooper was the first African American woman in the U.S. to earn a Ph.D. in pharmacology. She was also the first African American to earn a Ph.D. from Purdue University. Cooper was born in 1930 in Clarksdale, Mississippi to a successful family of professionals. … Read MoreDolores Cooper Shockley (1930- )
A native of Tuskegee, Alabama, Nathaniel Oglesby Calloway was a pioneer in the field of chemistry. As a child growing up in Tuskegee, he spent time with George Washington Carver, a well-known soil chemist and faculty member at Tuskegee Institute (now Tuskegee University). In 1930, … Read MoreNathaniel Oglesby Calloway (1907-1979)
Evelyn Boyd was born in Washington, D.C. on May 1st, 1929, the second daughter of William and Julia Boyd. Though she was raised by a single working class mother and attended segregated schools, Boyd became the second black woman in the United States to earn … Read MoreEvelyn Boyd Granville (1924- )
A native of Montgomery, Alabama and grandson of slaves, Percy Lavon Julian, born April 11, 1899, was a trailblazer in the chemical sciences. His parents Elizabeth Lena Adams, a school teacher, and James Sumner Julian, a railroad mail clerk who loved mathematics, raised six children, … Read MorePercy Lavon Julian (1899-1975)
A’Lelia Walker, the only daughter of Madam C.J. Walker, helped her mother found the Madam C. J. Walker Manufacturing Company in Denver, Colorado in 1906. From 1908 to 1918, she played a major role in the growth of the Madam C.J. Walker business empire by … Read MoreA’Lelia Walker (1885-1931)
John Edmondson Prim was the first African American to serve as deputy prosecuting attorney for King County and the first African American judge in the State of Washington. He was born to Charles and Sara Prim in Nashville, Tennessee on September 15, 1898. In 1904, … Read MoreJohn E. Prim (1898-1961)
