African American Heroes
Bessie Coleman
The skies had never seen a pilot like Bessie Coleman before. She was the first African American woman to obtain an international pilot's license, flying to new heights that Black people in the United States had never reached before. But as a Black woman in the 1920s, she faced many barriers because of her race and sex. She would say that "the air is the only place free from prejudice(偏见)."
Benjamin O. Davis, Jr.
Nothing was going to stop Benjamin O. Davis, Jr. from becoming a pilot. Not his white classmates at West Point, a military academy, refusing to be his roommate. Or being banned from an all-white officers' club, even though he was an officer himself. Or being rejected from the Army Air Corps, an early version of the Air Force, because he was African American.
Ida B. Wells
Ida B. Wells was born into slavery in Mississippi on July 16, 1862. After moving to Tennessee when she was about 20, Wells began writing for Black newspapers, speaking out against segregated schools—which forced Black children to go to separate schools—and other forms of discrimination(歧视) in the southern states.
Katherine Johnson
The stars were always within reach for Katherine Johnson. Using her mathematics skills, she helped NASA send astronauts to the moon and return them safely home. One of her biggest achievements at NASA was helping calculate the path of the country's first human spaceflight in 1961, making sure astronaut Alan B. Shepard, Jr. had a safe trip. A year later she helped figure out John Glenn's orbit of the planet, another American first. In 1969, she calculated the path of Neil Armstrong's historic mission to the moon on Apollo 11.
