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Born into slavery on a Maryland's Eastern Shore in 1822, Tubman was named Araminta by her enslaved parents, Ben and Rit Ross.
More >>Born into slavery on a Maryland's Eastern Shore in 1822, Tubman was named Araminta by her enslaved parents, Ben and Rit Ross.
More >>Colin L. Powell was appointed Secretary of State by George W. Bush on January 20, 2001, after being unanimously confirmed by the U.S. Senate.
More >>Colin L. Powell was appointed Secretary of State by George W. Bush on January 20, 2001, after being unanimously confirmed by the U.S. Senate.
More >>Condoleezza Rice was nominated for Secretary of State by George W. Bush on November 14, 2004, and assumed office on January 26, 2005.
More >>Condoleezza Rice was nominated for Secretary of State by George W. Bush on November 14, 2004, and assumed office on January 26, 2005.
More >>Bessie Coleman was born into poverty and picked cotton to help support her family. As WWI ended, her dream was to fly, but every flying school turned her down because of her gender and race.More >> African-Americans have contributed to American society in every walk of life, and one purpose of Black History Month is to call attention to some of those who may have escaped notice. Here are 10 brief biographies from the Profile America series produced by the U.S. Census Bureau.More >> Zora Neale Hurston was one of the great talents of the Harlem Renaissance - but had to work as a manicurist to support herself.More >> A century ago, bread bought at stores was hand-made, a time intensive process. That changed when a baker from Boston, Joseph Lee, invented the automatic bread-making machine.More >> Thousands of Americans owe their lives to the inventions of Garrett Morgan. The son of former slaves, Morgan invented the gas mask.More >> When William Grant Still mounted the podium and began conducting the L.A. Philharmonic in 1936, it marked the first time that an African-American had led a major symphonic orchestra.More >> Sarah Breedlove Walker was born the daughter of former slaves and orphaned at the age of seven. She went on to become America's first African-American woman millionaire business-owner.More >>
From the U.S. Census Bureau
On a hot summer night in Chicago, in 1893, a deliveryman was rushed to the emergency room of Provident Hospital. He had been stabbed in the heart in a barroom brawl.
Dr. Daniel Hale Williams, an African American, was on duty. With the patient's life ebbing, Williams decided to surgically repair the torn heart tissue. In doing so, he made history as the first doctor to successfully perform open heart surgery.
The patient went on to live another 20 years. Dr. Williams became one of the 100 charter members of the American College of Surgeons in 1913.
Today in the U.S., there are 761,000 physicians, 6 percent of them African American.
This profile is adapted from Profile America, a radio series produced by the U.S. Census Bureau in 2004.
