Without Abbott's creative vision, many of the Black publications of today—such as Ebony, Essence, Black Enterprise, and Upscale—wouldn't exist. In 1905, Abbott founded the Chicago Defender weekly newspaper. The paper originally started out as a four-page pamphlet, increasing its circulation with every edition. Abbott and his newspaper played an integral part in encouraging African Americans to migrate from the South for better economic opportunities.
https://www.oprahdaily.com/life/g25954127/african-american-historical-figures/

Today, Brooks is considered to be one of the most revered poets of the 20th century. She was the first Black author to win the Pulitzer Prize (in 1950, for Annie Allen), and she served as poetry consultant to the Library of Congress, becoming the first Black woman to hold that position. She was also the poet laureate of the State of Illinois, and many of her works reflected the political and social landscape of the 1960s, including the civil rights movement and the economic climate.
https://www.oprahdaily.com/life/g25954127/african-american-historical-figures/

Parks was the first African American photographer on the staff of Life magazine, and later helped found Essence. He also was the first Black writer and director of a studio film, and his second movie, Shaft, helping to shape the blaxploitation era in the '70s. Parks famously told Life in 1999: "I saw that the camera could be a weapon against poverty, against racism, against all sorts of social wrongs. I knew at that point I had to have a camera."
https://www.oprahdaily.com/life/g25954127/african-american-historical-figures/

A renowned professional golfer, Calvin Peete made history by winning 12 major PGA (Professional Golf Association) tournaments between 1979 and 1986. One of the most prolific winners and one of the straightest hitters on the PGA Tour in the 1980s, Peete won the PGA’s driving accuracy title for ten consecutive years (1981-1990). Before the emergence of Tiger Woods, Peete was the most successful African American on the PGA Tour.

Dr. Shirley Jackson is an American physicist who received her Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1973. She was the first African-American woman to earn a doctorate in nuclear physics at MIT. In addition to her lengthy list of academic achievements, she also has an impressive number of inventions under her belt. Her experiments with theoretical physics paved the way for numerous developments in the telecommunication space including the touch-tone telephone, the portable fax, caller ID, call waiting, and the fiber-optic cable. Today, Dr. Shirley Jackson is the 18th president of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York.

If you ever enjoyed an animated Gif on the web, like this one amazing clip of a kitten being scared by an iguana, then you have Lisa Gelobter to thank. Gelobter was integrally involved with the advent of Shockwave, a technology that formed the beginning of web animation. She also played a major role in the emergency of online video, later serving on the senior management team at Hulu. Previously, Lisa was the Interim Head of Digital for BET Networks and ran Technology, Product and Business Operations. Today, you can catch Lisa at the White House, in the United States Digital Service. She is currently serving as the Chief Digital Service Officer with the US Department of Education.

Due to cost, Philip Emeagwali was forced to drop out of school at age 14. But this didn’t stop him from becoming one of the greatest computer pioneers of our time. In fact, he’s often called “The Bill Gates of Africa.” As an adult, Emeagwali began studying nature, specifically bees. The construction of the honeycombed inspired him to rethink computer processing. In 1989, he put this idea to work, using 65,000 processes to invent the world’s first massively parallel processing supercomputer — able to perform 3.1 billion calculations per second. That same year, Emeagwali received the Gordon Bell Prize for his application of the CM-2 massively-parallel computer.

Dr. Marian Croak, Engineer, developed Voice Over Internet Protocol (VoIP), enabling services such as Skype and Zoom, and the technology behind "text to donate." She owns over 200 patents.
Marian Rogers Croak is a Vice President of Engineering at Google. She was previously the Senior Vice President of Research and Development at AT&T. She holds more than 200 patents. She was inducted into the Women in Technology International Hall of Fame in 2013. In 2022, Croak was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame for her patent regarding VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) Technology. She is one of the first two Black women to receive that honor, along with Patricia Bath. Her invention allows users to make calls over the internet instead of a phone line. Today, the widespread use of VoIP technology is vital for remote work and conferencing.

At the turn of the century, Maggie Lena Walker was one of the foremost female business leaders in the United States. She gained national prominence when she became the first woman to own a bank in the United States. Walker’s entrepreneurial skills transformed black business practices while also inspiring other women to enter the field.
Walker was born to enslaved parents on July 15, 1864 in Richmond, Virginia. After the Civil War, her mother worked as a laundress and her father as a butler in a popular Richmond hotel. Walker’s father was killed and she had to help her mother financially by working. Although his death was ruled a suicide, Walker later revealed that she believed he had been murdered. She attended a local school in Richmond and upon graduation, began teaching. She stepped down from teaching after she married a successful brick maker.
When Walker was 14, she joined the Independent Order of St. Luke’s, an African American benevolent organization that helped the sick and elderly in Richmond. Within the organization, Walker held many high-ranking positions. In 1902, she began publishing the organization’s newspaper, The St. Luke Herald. She encouraged African Americans in Richmond to harness their economic power by establishing their own institutions through the newspaper.
Walker had always focused her efforts on accounting and math. Her first business endeavor was a community insurance company for women. From there she continued her entrepreneurial pursuits. In 1903, she founded the St. Luke Penny Savings Bank. Walker was the first woman of any race to charter a bank in the United States. The bank was a powerful representation of black self-help in the segregated South. The Penny Savings Bank not only attracted adults but Walker worked to appeal to children by passing out banks which encouraged them to save their money.
In 1915, Walker’s husband was killed by her son, after he mistook him for a burglar. Her husband’s passing left her in charge of a large estate. She continued working for the Order of St. Luke's but also held leadership positions in other civic organizations, including National Association of Colored Women (NACW). She also served as the Vice President of the Richmond chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).
By 1924, the Penny Savings Bank had spread to other parts of Virginia and included more than 50,000 members. While other banks collapsed during the Great Depression St. Luke’s Penny Saving survived. The bank eventually consolidated with two other large bank and moved to downtown Richmond. It is still in operation today.
After an illness in 1928, Walker was forced to use a wheelchair. Although limited in movement, Walker remained a leader in the Richmond African American community. She fought arduously for women’s rights as well. For much of her life Walker served as board member of the Virginia Industrial School for Girls.
On December 15, 1934, Walker died from complications due to diabetes. Walker’s house in Richmond has since been designated a National Historic Site by the National Park Service.
https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/maggie-lena-walker

Opal (Flake) Lee is a retired teacher and activist who is considered the “grandmother of Juneteenth.” Flake was born on October 7, 1926, in Marshall, Texas, to Otis Flake and Mattie Broadus. When Lee was a child, her family home burned down in a fire, and her father left town to find work but did not immediately return. Her mother moved the family to Fort Worth when she was ten years old, where Flake attended Cooper Street Elementary School. When Otis Flake heard the family was in Fort Worth, he joined them. Mattie Broadus fell on a city bus and was awarded a settlement, which the family used to purchase a home at 940 East Annie Street on the south side of Fort Worth in June 1939. They were the first Black family in the neighborhood, prompting an angry mob of 500 white residents to burn down the home on June 19, 1939.
The family relocated, and Flake graduated from I.M. Terrell High School in 1943. She got married, had four children, and divorced after five years of marriage. Flake returned to Marshall and enrolled in Wiley College. She worked as a maid at the Texas Hotel with her mother while attending college during the day. Flake earned her Bachelor of Arts in 1953 and returned to Fort Worth, where she began teaching at Amanda McCoy Elementary School for $2,000 a year. She took a second job at the Convair aircraft plant to make ends meet.
In 1967, Flake married Dale Lee, the principal at Morningside Elementary, and then enrolled in recently-desegregated North Texas State University (now the University of North Texas), where she earned a master’s degree in counseling and guidance in 1968. Lee then worked as an educator and home school counselor at the Fort Worth Independent School District before retiring in 1977.
At 51, Lee began a new career working at a community food bank in the Jax beer-distributing building. When the building burned down, she and other community workers moved into a warehouse where initially the rent was $4,000 a month. After a year, however, the owner donated the building after he recognized the importance of the food bank to the community. For the past five decades, the community food bank has fed an average of 500 families each week. Lee lives near the warehouse and owns a thirteen-acre farm to grow food for the food bank.
Since the 1970s, Lee has been involved in the preservation of local African American history, which eventually led to the creation of the Tarrant County Black Historical and Genealogical Society, founded in April 1977 by 21 charter members, including Lee. Since its founding, the society organized the annual Juneteenth celebrations. Each year thousands gathered at Sycamore Park to commemorate the official end of slavery in Texas. As part of the celebration, Lee often walked two and a half miles, representing the number of years before Texas enslaved people knew they were free.
In 2016, however, after urging society to “go bigger,” Lee, then 89 years old, walked from Fort Worth to Washington, D.C., to deliver 1.6 million signatures in support of making Juneteenth a national holiday. She began her walk in September 2016, gathering pledges and signatures along the 1,360-mile route, and arrived in Washington in January 2017. Her Juneteenth walk sparked renewed interest in making the day a federal holiday. On June 17, 2021, Lee was present at The White House when President Joe Biden signed the bill to make Juneteenth a federal holiday.
https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/opal-lee-1926/

Born July 5, 1949, in Guthrie, Logan County, Oklahoma, he was a son of Rev. Nathaniel and Iona Burleigh.
He studied piano at the University of Oklahoma and at Oklahoma City University. He coached with James Mathis (former professor of piano at the University of Oklahoma and student of Rosina Lhevinne of the Juilliard School). He served as principal accompanist and Assistant Music Director for Lyric Theater of Oklahoma, and accompanist for the School of Dance at the University of Oklahoma.
Mr. Burleigh accompanied the Ebony Opera Guild of Houston, TX, and studied accompanying with its late music director, Dr. Robert Henry. He also studied and performed the Saint Saens Piano Concerto No 2 in a Master Class with Pianist, Jaen Cassadesus.
In 1993, Mr. Burleigh founded the Glenn Burleigh Music Workshop and Ministry, Inc., an organization that is dedicated to teaching and training of those in Christian music ministry.
Many of his musical compositions are on file at the Center for Black Music Research at Columbia College in Chicago and at the American Music Center in New York City. He has over 100 works copyrighted in the Library of Congress.
https://www.giamusic.com/store/artists/glenn-burleigh

Mary and her sister Mildred patented many practical inventions. They didn’t have technical education, but they were both exceptional at spotting ways to make peoples’ lives better. Together, they invented the sanitary belt. Later, Mary invented the moisture-resistant pocket for the belt. While disabled from multiple sclerosis, Mary went on to invent the walker and the toilet-tissue holder. Mildred Davidson Austin Smith also grew up to patent a board game, Family Treedition, in the 1980s.
In 1976 Kenner patented an attachment for a walker or wheelchair that included a hard-surfaced tray and a soft pocket for carrying items. Kenner also invented a toilet paper holder that she patented. Her final patent, granted on September 29, 1987, was for a mounted back washer and massager.
Kenner never received any awards or formal recognition for her work. However, her inventions and contributions helped pave the way for subsequent innovations. Kenner still holds the record for the greatest number of patents awarded a Black woman by the U.S. government.