101 & Counting
Amazing Facts About Foundational Black Americans
Today’s Amazing Fact Is Being Prepared
What don’t you know about us? Explore the collection below while today’s fact is being prepared.
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Phillis Wheatley Peters
Did you know an enslaved West African girl in Boston became the first African American to publish a book—and Boston's leading white men had to examine her in person to believe she wrote it?
Mary Church Terrell
Did you know the Supreme Court case that ended legal segregation in D.C. restaurants was won in 1953—by a woman who was 89 years old and had been fighting Jim Crow for over 60 years?
Percy Lavon Julian
Did you know a Black American chemist, refused a faculty post because of his race, pioneered the chemistry that helped make cortisone affordable and laid part of the foundation for the birth-control pill?
The Exodusters
Did you know a decade before the Great Migration, tens of thousands of Black Americans left the post-Reconstruction South for Kansas—the first major voluntary mass migration of African Americans in U.S. history?
Harriet Tubman and the Combahee River Raid
Did you know Harriet Tubman planned and guided a U.S. military raid that freed more than 700 enslaved people in a single morning—the first woman to lead a major military operation in United States history?
Annie Turnbo Malone
A Black American woman built a beauty empire and training network that created economic opportunities for tens of thousands—and Madam C. J. Walker worked as a sales agent for her and learned the Poro system before building her own company.
Maggie Lena Walker
A Black American woman became the first in the United States to charter a bank and serve as its president—in 1903.
Granville T. Woods
Did you know a Black American inventor patented a system that let moving trains talk to each other for the first time—and twice defeated Thomas Edison in court when he tried to claim credit?
Bessie Coleman
Did you know Bessie Coleman had to leave the United States because American flight schools wouldn't train her—then returned from France as the first African American woman known to hold an international pilot's license?
Elizabeth Keckley
Did you know a Black woman born into slavery purchased her own freedom and her son's—then built a successful dressmaking business in Washington, D.C.?
Stagecoach Mary Fields
Did you know a Black woman born into slavery became the first African American woman to carry U.S. mail on a Star Route—when she was already in her sixties?
Free Frank McWorter
Did you know a man born into slavery bought his own freedom, helped free 15 family members—and founded the first U.S. town platted and legally registered by an African American?
Thomas L. Jennings
Did you know the first known Black American to receive a U.S. patent did it in 1821—for a process that helped lead to modern dry cleaning?
Ellen & William Craft
Did you know an enslaved Black woman escaped slavery disguised as a White male slaveholder—while her husband traveled beside her as "his" enslaved servant?
Robert Smalls and the Planter
Did you know an enslaved Black American helped commandeer a Confederate military steamer and carry 16 people to freedom?