Current Events > Who are some lesser-known people to recognize for for Black History Month

(+) Yeah! (+)

I am making a mini-presentation for Advisory and I would like it to be centered on five important (and contemporary?) Black people who the students aren't already reading about in their history/English classes (they are 7th graders)

For example, I want to put Matthew A. Cherry, who wrote and directed the beautiful short Hair Love that won the Oscar for Best Animated Short. I know it might sound silly, but I was moved to tears by the short and it is so important to fight for representation, everywhere

Hope this makes sense

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hope I can help. are you looking for specific time periods? if not, I'll probably be all over the place, lol. let's see...

there's Benjamin Banneker. 1731-1806. he was a free, self-taught mathematician, author and more. he authored the almanac, invented the first American clock, etc..

there's Bessie "Queen Bess" Coleman. the first Black woman pilot.

there's Bass Reeves, a Black American cowboy. the story of The Lone Ranger was based off of him.

Claudette Colvin, the literal pioneer of the Civil Rights movement. she got the Rosa Parks treatment 9 months before Rosa Parks, lol. she's not as talked about.

there's:
Dick Gregory(comedian, activist, writer, social critic)
Fannie Lou Hamer(voting rights activist, Civil Rights leader)
Huey P Newton(co-founder of the original Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, sponsored free breakfast program for kids, sickle cell anemia test, free shoes, a school)
Ida B Wells(journalist, a leader in the Civil Rights movement that predated the 60's, suffragist)
James Baldwin(social critic, poet, writer)

I have a lot of unread books, lol. I know a little about a lot of people, but usually not enough to do more than point others in the right direction to learn more than me, lmao.

Ivan Van Sertima died in 2009. I know of him because he published "They Came Before Columbus." he was an anthropologist who criticized literary works that were inaccurate.

for something more current, Joan Higginbotham is the 3rd Black woman to go into space. she's an engineer and former NASA astronaut. I learned about her on Facebook lol.

Madam CJ Walker was the first Black female self-made millionaire in America. she developed and marketed Black hair/beauty products.

more names might come later, but there are plenty of lesser names that get skipped over in American history.

edit: I only used Americans because I assumed... lol but there's also guys like Marcus Garvey, Nelson Mandella, etc...
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https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/400-current-events/78412015

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yasuke

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Carter G. Woodson - the father of Black History Month (I think he came up with Black History Week, or something, but I can't remember).

and he wasn't black black, but Alexandre Dumas (the Count of Monte Cristo, the Three Musketeers) was part black, iirc.

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Fred Hampton
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boxington posted...

Carter G. Woodson - the father of Black History Month (I think he came up with Black History Week, or something, but I can't remember).

and he wasn't black black, but Alexandre Dumas (the Count of Monte Cristo, the Three Musketeers) was part black, iirc.

I have one of his books too, lol. I really should finish...
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katherine_Johnson - worked out the math to get to the moon

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alessandro_de%27_Medici,_Duke_of_Florence
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevalier_de_Saint-Georges

in the usa:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Grant_Still
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lonnie_Johnson_(inventor)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiram_Rhodes_Revels
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Brooke
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Laurence_Dunbar

of american descent
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Jenkins_Roberts

but if we're talking about "lesser-known" in the "not taught in (public) school" sense:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcus_Garvey
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eldridge_Cleaver
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Sowell
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elijah_Muhammad
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zora_Neale_Hurston

i should mention booker t washington, though he's pretty notable; i do wish more people would read his writings though

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TheMikh posted...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Sowell

CE would be a far less interesting place without Sowell fanboys.

George Washington Carver

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Questionmarktarius posted...

CE would be a far less interesting place without Sowell fanboys.

sowellposting is love, sowellposting is life

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A. Philip Randolph:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJ7sa7x0h6w

James Baldwin:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_fZQQ7o16yQ

Carter G. Woodson:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jkBEjJH1j5U

Madame CJ Walker:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wEKXMHIGmrQ

Robert Smalls: (They should make a movie about him)
Was born into slavery in Beaufort, S.C., but during and after the American Civil War, he became a ships pilot, sea captain, and politician. He freed himself, his crew and their families from slavery on May 13, 1862, when he led an uprising aboard a Confederate transport ship, the CSS Planter, in Charleston harbor, and sailed it north to freedom. His feat successfully helped persuade President Abraham Lincoln to accept African-American soldiers into the Union Army. As a politician, Smalls authored state legislation that gave South Carolina the first free and compulsory public school system in the United States.


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Martin Delany, Prince Hall, Alexander Crummell, and to name a few.

Chief Keef Sosa

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I'm gonna third James Baldwin

https://youtu.be/UzpnrjWgNm8

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AloofHermit posted...

Chief Keef Sosa

in 1884, crp rodgers presided over the international meridian conference, the most consequential outcome being the adoption of "greenwich mean time" and the "greenwich meridian", which established an international standard for longitude and time

such remained the global standard with respect to timekeeping and geographic measurements until 2013 saw keith cozart's groundbreaking introduction of "macaroni time", which supplanted greenwich time and established chicago as the new global meridian with respect to latitude and longitude

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Patrice Lumumba - the Pan-Africanist prime minister of the Republic of Congo, who was assassinated with the help of Belgium

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrice_Lumumba

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Wow, thank you all so much!!

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Black Gallagher

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Blackula.

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If you want to include a lesser known guy from the Civil Rights era look up Eldridge Cleaver and his collection of essays "Soul on Ice."

And why does it make you sad to see how everything hangs by such thin and whimsical threads? Because youre a dreamer, an incredible dreamer, with a tiny spark hidden somewhere inside you which cannot die, which even you cannot kill or quench and which tortures you horribly because all the odds are against its continual burning. In the midst of the foulest decay and putrid savagery, this spark speaks to you of beauty, of human warmth and kindness, of goodness, of greatness, of heroism, of martyrdom, and it speaks to you of love.

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usa:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stokely_Carmichael
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assata_Shakur
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medgar_Evers
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Ernest_Wilkins_Jr.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Fox_(computer_programmer)

africa:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Sankara
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C._Odumegwu_Ojukwu
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nnamdi_Azikiwe
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haile_Selassie
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muammar_Gaddafi

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Biko

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omega cookie posted...

Blackula.

A much better King of Cartoons than the other guy.

The Brown Bomber, Joe Lewis. That man was doing some risky shit for his time, haha.

Also, maybe you can teach them about the true activism of Bob Marley so they don't think he's some pothead's Jesus, lol.
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Glenn Burke, L.A. Dodgers.

Gave the first recorded high five in professional sports. Black people had been doing it for decades prior, but he and Dusty Baker decided to break one out during a Dodger game.

Ended sadly for Burke though. He was gay and the Dodgers overlooked that fact until he allegedy had an affair with Tommy Lasorda's son. Soon Burke was out of baseball. He later died of HIV.

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Senegalese Ousmane Sembene went from an illiterate soldier in WWII to one of Africa's greatest writers and the first major black African filmmaker.

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lex luthor