Milestones in African American History

Lewis Howard Latimer is one of the greatest engineers in history. Born on September 4th, 1848 in Massachusetts, Lewis Howard Latimer was born to self-emancipated Virginians. At 16, Latimer enlisted in the Union Navy and taught himself mechanical drawing. Eventually, he became a chief draftsman, patent expert, and inventor!  Latimer was a prominent member of the African American community and worked hard to promote the education and advancement of Black people, teaching mechanical drawing to immigrants at the Henry Street Settlement in New York. Known as a “Renaissance Man”, Latimer was very involved in the arts, writing poems, plays, and playing the flute. Many of his works can be seen today at the Latimer House Museum in Flushing, New York. After the Civil War, Latimer landed a job at a patent law firm in Boston as a draftsman, helping investors like Alexander Graham Bell develop the telephone, developing a more effective transmitter that improved the quality of the sound. He also worked with Thomas Edison and Hiram Maxim on the development and commercialization of the light bulb, creating a method to manufacture the carbon filament to make them mass-producible. Despite the economic and social challenges he faced, Latimer was a pioneer in technology and engineering, who helped to bring the lightbulb and telephone to life. Lewis Howard Latimer will forever be a symbol of perseverance and an advocate for education.

Bessie Coleman is the foundation of aviation as we know it today. Born in Waxahachie, Texas, in 1892 to African and Native American parents, Bessie Coleman was born during the Jim Crow era, a time when a racial caste system operated all over the United States in backlash to emancipation, and slavery being abolished. Local and state governments, specifically in the South heavily disenfranchised African Americans through legal means. Coleman traveled and attended the Ecole d’Aviation des Freres Caudron, an aviation school in France, to become a pilot. In 1921, she became the first American woman to receive an international pilot’s license. Coleman then returned to the United States and became a stunt pilot, and fascinated audiences all across the country with her “loop the loops” and figure 8’s in the sky. She was known as “Queen Bess, Daredevil Aviatrix”. While touring Europe, she gave lessons and encouraged other African Americans to learn aviation. Bessie Coleman was even offered a full-length feature film, but after seeing that black people would be portrayed in a racist & derogatory way while wearing ragged clothing. African American news outlets praised her for promoting Black equity. Unfortunately on April 30th, 1926, Coleman died from falling out of a plane during a test flight at 3,000 feet. It shocked the nation. Thousands attended the funeral. Although she died at only 34, Bessie Coleman’s legacy continues to inspire aviators all over the world. Her perseverance and determination to educate and live her dream make her one of the most influential women in all of history.

Gordon Parks is one of the greatest photographers and directors of the twentieth century, Gordon Parks was born in Kansas in 1912 during segregation. He was drawn to photography at a very young age after seeing migrant workers taken by Farm Security Administration photographers in a magazine. Parks taught himself how to use a camera after buying one at a pawn shop. Despite his lack of professional knowledge and training, he won the Julius Rosenwald Fellowship in 1942, which helped him land a position with the photography section of the FSA in Washington, DC, and later the Office of War Information. Experience with these agencies helped Parks gain a personal style that would make him well-known and one of the most celebrated photographers of his time. His extravagant pictures helped him to break the color barrier in professional photography while creating expressive images that opened the doors for discussion about poverty, racism, and many other forms of discrimination. Gordon Parks is also well known for directing the 1971 film, Shaft, which played a crucial part in the development of African Americans in Hollywood, and introduced the world to the first black action hero. The movie touched on several themes that reflected the Black Power movement. The lead actor, Richard Rountree, is credited with influencing the rise of African American leading actors and portrayed Shaft so well that it created a black male style that was so distinct and persuasive, that it became known as “Swag”. Black masculinity in Hollywood was dramatically changed, and it’s all thanks to Gordon Parks. Thanks to his work and artistry, photography and film have changed forever by opening the doors to discrimination while celebrating black people through the eye of a camera lens.

Shirley Chisholm was the first African American woman in Congress and the first African American to run for President of the United States, Shirley Chisholm is a Brooklyn native, born November 30th, 1924. Chisholm was always brilliant, graduating cum laude from Brooklyn College, where she won prizes while on the debate team. Her professors encouraged her to take a career in politics, even though Chisholm herself thought she was a double handicap, being a black woman. She received her master’s degree from Colombia University in 1951 for early childhood education in 1951 and worked as a school teacher, then was a consultant to the New York City Division of Daycare by 1960. Always aware of racial and gender inequality, she was deeply involved in local chapters of The League of Woman Voters, NAACP, The Urban League, as well as the Democratic Party in Brooklyn. In 1964, she became the second African American in the New York State Legislature, and in 1968 she won a seat in Congress. There, known as “Fighting Shirley”, she introduced over 50 pieces of legislation and strongly championed race and gender equality, as well as ending the Vietnam War. Chisholm co-founded the National Women’s Political Caucus in 1971 and became the first black woman to serve on the House Rules Committee When Shirley Chisholm ran for president in 1972, discrimination followed. Even though she was blocked from participating in televised primary debates, she entered 12 primaries, garnered 10% of the total votes, and took legal action to make a speech on television. Shirley Chisholm was a spectacular woman of many firsts, and will always be remembered as a woman who dared to be a catalyst of change.

Amelia Boynton Robinson was born August 18, 1911, and grew up in a two-story wooden house in Savannah, Georgia, where her father owned a wholesale wood lot. Her introduction to politics came as a ten-year-old when traveling by horse and buggy she accompanied her mother–a committed women’s suffragist. After studying home economics at Tuskegee University, Boynton began working as a home demonstration agent in Dallas County. There she met and married an agricultural extension agent, S.W. Boynton. They traveled down dusty dirt roads deep in the backwoods of the county teaching Black people methods for farming, politics, and finances. In 1964, Amelia Boynton became the first African American woman in the state of Alabama to run for Congress, challenging a white incumbent in the Alabama Fourth District seat. The campaign motto hung in her office window, was “A voteless people is a hopeless people.” Despite being defeated, she earned eleven percent of the local vote, where only five percent of Blacks were registered. In 1990, Boynton Robinson was awarded the Martin Luther King Jr. Medal of Freedom. She continued to tour the United States on behalf of the Schiller Institute and was portrayed by Lorraine Toussaint in the 2014 film Selma. Amelia Boynton Robinson will always be an icon and inspiration in the political world for African Americans everywhere with her determination, concern for her community, and pushing the barriers for all to come after her.