In school, they teach you about Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, Harriet Tubman, Rosa Parks, Muhammad Ali, Maya Angelou, and Barack Obama, but as a white kid, there are many things I do not know about black history. It's a shame, really, because black history is our history too. No matter your race, African-American history is always going to be human history. So here are the people I did not learn were a big part of history.
1.) Shirley Chisholm -- The first black woman elected to congress.
2.) Bayard Rustin -- Organized and strategized the March on Washington.
3.) Claudette Colvin -- The first woman to be detained for her resistance to sit at the back of a bus.
4.) Annie Lee Cooper -- "She is lauded for punching Alabama Sheriff Jim Clark in the face, but she really deserves to be celebrated for fighting to restore and protect voting rights."
5.) Dorothy Height -- "She was a leader in the Young Women's Christian Association (YWCA) and the president of the National Council of Negro Women (NCNW) for more than 40 years. She was also among the few women present at the 1963 March on Washington."
6.) Jesse Owens -- "A track-and-field athlete who set a world record in the long jump at the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin—and went unrivaled for 25 years."
7.) Bessie Coleman -- The first black licensed airplane piolet.
8.) Robert Sengstacke Abbott -- "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."
9.) Ethel Waters -- The first African-American to star in her own TV show.
11.) Alice Coachman -- The first African American woman from any country to win an Olympic Gold Medal.
12.) Gordon Parks -- The first African American on the staff of LIFE Magazine.
13.) Jane Bolin -- The first Black woman to attend Yale Law School in 1931.
14.) Maria P. Williams -- The first black woman to act, produce, and write her own movie.
15.) Marsha P. Johnson -- "Johnson, a Black transwoman, and activist, was at the forefront of the LGBTQ movement. In addition to being the co-founder of STAR, an organization that housed homeless queer youth, Johnson also fought for equality through the Gay Liberation Front."
16.) Ruby Bridges -- The first African American student to attend William Frantz Elementary in Louisiana at the height of desegregation.
17.) Mae Jemison -- The first African American woman who orbited into space.
18.) Marian Anderson -- In 1963, she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
19.) Rose Marie McCoy -- Rrote and produced some of the biggest pop songs in the 1950s.
20.) Phillis Wheatley -- The first African American and third woman to publish a book of poems.
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