The first sociology department in the U.S. was established by educator and civil rights leader, W.E.B. Du Bois. Du Bois and William Monroe Trotter started The Niagara Movement, a black civil rights organization which got its name from the group's first meeting location, Niagara Falls. This collective later became the N.A.A.C.P. W.E.B. Du Bois died one day before Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his 'I Have a Dream' speech at the 1963 March on Washington. Learn more.
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Scientist and mathematician Benjamin Banneker is credited with helping to design the blueprints for Washington, D.C. He was also an author, farmer, astronomer, and publisher of an almanac.
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When neurosurgeon Ben Carson was a child, his mother required him to read two library books a week and give her written reports, even though she was barely literate. She would then take the papers and pretend to carefully review them, placing a checkmark at the top of the page showing her approval. The assignments gave Carson his eventual love of reading and learning.
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In 1995, writer Maya Angelou was recognized for remaining on The New York Times Paperback Nonfiction Bestseller List for two years—the longest running record in history.
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Believing that education provided the key to racial advancement, Mary McLeod Bethune founded the Daytona Normal and Industrial Institute, Florida, which through her persistent direction as president (1904–42) became Bethune-Cookman College in 1929. In 1938, First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt challenged the segregation rules at the Southern Conference on Human Welfare in Birmingham, Alabama, so she could sit next to African-American educator Mary McLeod Bethune, whom she referred to as "her closest friend in her age group." Learn more.
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