Louis Armstrong

Louis Armstrong had a difficult childhood as his father abandoned the family after his birth, and his mother often turned to prostitution to support the family. Due to his economic condition, he had to quit school and work odd-jobs such as selling newspapers and supplying coal to the red-light district. Louis had a passion for music, and a Jewish family, the Karnofskys, encouraged him to pursue his passion. It was in the year 1918 that Louis was able to focus completely on his music career as he joined one of the most popular bands in New Orleans - Kid Ory. In the following years, Louis became one of the most distinguished trumpeters of his time, and gave jazz music a new definition. He died in 1971, but the impact he left on the jazz scene continues to this day.

Sojourner Truth

Sojourner was born into slavery with the name Isabella Baumfree. She changed her name after escaping from her owner and became a Christian preacher while living with a family in New York. After the state's Emancipation Act was passed, she became a vehement and vocal supporter of abolition and women's rights. She traveled the country giving speeches, including a famous one entitled Ain't I a Woman? that emphasized the strength and power of women and the need for equality between the sexes.

W.E.B. Du Bois

He is known as arguably one of the most intelligent individuals to ever live, W.E.B. Du Bois was instrumental in bringing along the process of human rights for African-American's. In a time when the despotic and abundant prejudice and bigotry towards African-Americans was not only tolerated, it was with reason and law. Du Bois was the first African-American to earn a PH.D from Harvard University. He was also the founding member of what we know today to be the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People).

President Barack Obama

Obama was born on August 4, 1961, at the Kapi’olani Medical Center for Women and Children in Honolulu, Hawaii born to a Kenyan father and English mother. He was a civil-rights lawyer and teacher before pursuing a political career. He was elected to the Illinois State Senate in 1996, serving from 1997 to 2004. Barack Hussein Obama is the first African-American to serve as President of the United States and is the 44th President.  

Langston Hughes

Langston Hughes is best known as a poet. He was prolific in a wide variety of writing styles, in addition to 15 books of poetry. He published a number of novels and short story collections, nonfiction books such as A Pictorial History of the Negro in America, plays, children's books, and more. He edited the literary magazine Common Ground, co-wrote the screenplay for Way Down South, and wrote two autobiographies. Hughes was given many awards and honors – a Guggenheim Fellowship that allowed him to travel to Spain and the Soviet Union, the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, the NAACP's Spingarn Medal for distinguished achievements by an African American. He was awarded honorary degrees by Lincoln University, Howard University, and Western Reserve University. After his death, the City College of New York began awarding an annual Langston Hughes Medal to an influential and engaging African-American writer.

Eartha Kitt

Eartha Kitt was one of the first mega-stars of her time. Paving the way for the Beyonce's of today. Kitt, born on a plantation farm and conceived of land-owner/share-cropper rape, moved off the South Carolina cotton plantation and eventually to New York with her biological mother. There she started working on a career in showbusiness, reaching career peaks with a starring role in the Orson Wells film Dr. Faustus, portraying Helen of Troy. She most notably earned the recurring role of Catwoman in the television version of Batman. But above all of her success in film in t.v., Eartha earned the most stripes as an activist and social speaker on many causes. Eartha was utterly blacklisted from the professional community for her position on the Veitnam war and the Johnson administration's policy on the youth who fought.

Jane Bolin

Jane Bolin was the first black woman to become judge in the United States (1932) . She was also the first black woman to earn a law degree from Yale, the first black woman to pass the New York State bar exam and the first to join the city's law department. Bolin worked to end segregation in child placement facilities and the assignment of probation officers based on race. She also helped create a racially integrated treatment center for delinquent boys.

Samuel R. Lowery

Samuel R. Lowery was born in Nashville, Tennessee to Peter and Ruth Lowery in December of 1832.  His mother died when he was only seven years old,  leaving Samuel to be raised by his father. Samuel’s father, Peter, had been born a slave, but purchased his own freedom.  As a Freedman, he ran a business, worked as a farmer, operated a livery stable, and served as a janitor at Franklin College.  The Reverend Talbot Fanning, white proprietor of Franklin College, would become tutor to both Peter and Samuel. In 1848, Samuel himself became a Christian Church minister. However, after a local race riot in December 1856 endangered the lives of many free black families, Samuel moved his family North.  He continued working as a pastor in Cincinnati, Ohio and organizing Christian Churches in Canada until the mid 1860′s, when Union forces occupied Nashville and Samuel returned from exile, between 1865 and 1875, Lowery was involved with the State Colored Men’s Conventions, the National  Emigration Society, and the Tennessee State Equal Rights League. He studied law under a white attorney in Rutherford County and began a law practice.  On February 2, 1880, Lowery was admitted to the bar of the U. S. Supreme Court, a first for Blacks in America. In the 1880s, he established a cooperative community, Loweryvale, in Jefferson County, Alabama, where he died around 1900.

Greensboro Sit-in

In the fall of 1959, four young men (Joseph McNeil, Franklin McCain, Ezell Blair, Jr. and David Richmond) enrolled as freshmen at North Carolina A&T University. The four young men quickly became a close-knit group and met every evening in their dorm rooms for "bull sessions". It was during these nightly discussions that they considered challenging the institution of segregation. The breaking point for the group came after Christmas vacation when Joseph McNeil was returning to N.C. A&T after spending the holidays at home in New York. McNeil was denied service at a Greyhound bus station in Greensboro. McNeil's frustrating experience was shared by the group, and they were willing to make the necessary sacrifices - even if it meant their own lives - to provoke change in society. On that final night in January 1960 in Scott Hall, the four friends challenged each other to stop talking and take action. They didn't realize the journey they would take the next day would ignite a movement, change a nation and inspire a world. Joseph McNeil, Franklin McCain, Ezell Blair, Jr. and David Richmond (The Greensboro Four) entered the F.W. Woolworth store in Greensboro, N.C., around 4:30 p.m. and purchased merchandise at several counters. They sat down at the store's "whites only" lunch counter and ordered coffee, and were denied service, ignored and then asked to leave. They remained seated at the counter until the store closed early at 5 p.m. The four friends immediately returned to campus and recruited others for the cause. It started on February 1 and ended on July 26, 1960 with more than 70,000 people had participated in sit-ins, which resulted in more than 3,000 arrests.
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Origins of Black History Month

The origins of Black History Month can be traced back to a man named Carter G. Woodson born on December 19, 1875, in New Canton, Virginia, to Anna Eliza and James Woodson. He of the first African Americans to receive a doctorate from Harvard, Woodson dedicated his career to the field of African-American history. Woodson chose the second week of February to celebrate Negro History Week because that week included the birthdays of two important men: President Abraham Lincoln (February 12) and Frederick Douglass (February 14). When Negro History Week turned into Black History Month in 1976, the celebrations during the second week of February expanded to the entire month of February.