Essential facts on some unsung heroes.
During Black History Month, we tend to celebrate the same group of highly deserving but very well-known icons: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks, and Jackie Robinson. That means, inevitably, giving short shrift to so many other incredible Black Americans — the names that don’t always appear in the history books.
Historical figures like Bessie Coleman, Max Robinson, and Marsha P. Johnson have transformed everything from modern aviation to media and activism. Others, including Alice Coachman, paved the way for other athletes to make history in their own right. But most American kids don’t get a lesson on these trailblazers.
It’s time to shine a light on lesser-known change-makers, and give credit where it’s due. So we’re bringing you a list of eight Black Americans who’ve made profound contributions to our culture. Though their names may not always get top billing in conversations about Black history, we’re celebrating their legacies — this month, and every other one.
Alice Coachman
Before Serena Williams or Simone Biles, there was Alice Coachman. In 1948, she became the first Black woman from any country to win an Olympic gold medal, but as the story goes for so many Black people, she had to fight to reach this historic feat. Born in Georgia, the heart of the segregated south, she faced racism and was repeatedly denied the opportunity to train for or compete in organized sports events. Ever the innovator, she improvised by running barefoot on dirt roads and using sticks and rope to practice the high jump. Eventually, she caught the attention of a well-known historically Black school, Tuskegee Institute in Alabama (now Tuskegee University), where she broke records and dominated competitions.
But her Olympic dreams were temporarily put on hold due to the outbreak of World War II, and it would be a few years before she was able to compete. But when she did, she didn’t disappoint. Despite a back injury, Coachman set a record in the high jump with a mark of 5 feet, 6 1/8 inches. To this day, she continues to inspire others to pursue their athletic dreams, even if there are obstacles in their way. “When the going gets tough and you feel like throwing your hands in the air, listen to that voice that tells you ‘Keep going,’” she once said.
Howard Thurman
We’ve all learned about Martin Luther King, Jr. but you might not know about the scholar who first inspired him. Through his sermons and lessons as a professor at Howard and Boston Universities, Howard Thurman is credited with inspiring Dr. King’s nonviolent approach to the fight for equality. In fact, he was known for quoting and paraphrasing Thurman extensively in his speeches throughout the 1950s and 1960s.
Though Thurman and Dr. King were never personally close, the two did meet when Dr. King was in the hospital after surviving a near-fatal stabbing at a book signing. The two would never cross paths again, but Dr. King was influenced by Thurman’s thoughtful and mindful approach to the fight for equal rights, even taking his advice to recuperate at the height of the Civil Rights movement.
Thurman went on to become a prolific speaker and author up until his death. He authored more than 20 books, including Deep River and Meditations of the Heart, which offers a rich collection of meditations and prayers.
Bessie Coleman
Bessie Coleman may have flown under the radar compared to fellow aviation contemporaries, but she certainly made history. In 1921, she became the first Black and Native American woman to earn her pilot’s license (a whole two years before Amelia Earhart did).
Coleman was first inspired to become a pilot after hearing her brother’s stories from his time in France during World War I, but she had to move to France to pursue her dream because no American schools, which only accepted white men at the time, would admit her. That didn’t stop her, and in 1921, she completed flight school there and then moved back to the U.S., where she quickly gained a reputation for her air tricks, earning her several nicknames, including “Brave Bessie.”
Sadly, her life was cut short at just 34 years old, due to the crash of a test flight gone wrong. But her legacy lives on: In 1931, the Challenger Pilots’ Association of Chicago started a tradition of flying over Coleman’s grave every year.
Gordon Parks
Considered a modern-day renaissance man, Gordon Parks was truly a man of many talents. He got his start as a groundbreaking photographer, documenting the brutal realities of being Black in America, and the fight for equal rights throughout the 1960s. This included capturing some of the most high-profile leaders of the time, like Malcolm X. “I saw that the camera could be a weapon against poverty, against racism, against all sorts of social wrongs,” he said in 1999.
In 1969, he became the first Black American to direct a major Hollywood film, The Learning Tree, based on his autobiography about growing up in Kansas. But he’s probably best known for directing the 1971 action film, Shaft, starring Richard Roundtree.
Grossing 12 million dollars, the movie became a major box office hit and had a huge cultural impact for challenging racial stereotypes in its portrayal of a Black detective who brings white criminals to justice.
Eunice Hunton Carter
Often overlooked in history books, Eunice Hunton Carter has only recently gotten the attention she deserves in bringing down one of America’s most powerful mobsters, Charles “Lucky” Luciano. In 2018, her grandson, Stephen L. Carter, shed light on her trailblazing career by publishing a book about her entitled, Invisible: The Forgotten Story of the Black Woman Lawyer Who Took Down America’s Most Powerful Mobster. In it, he delves into his grandmother’s extraordinary work as the first Black woman to serve as a prosecutor in the New York County Manhattan District Attorney’s Office.
Then in 1935, she was appointed as a key assistant to special prosecutor Thomas Dewey and she helped establish key facts in the prosecution against Luciano, which included piecing together how he was profiting from prostitution. Due in large part to her hard work and dedication, Luciano was ultimately convicted on related charges and sentenced to 30 to 50 years in prison in 1936 before he was paroled early for his “wartime services” and deported back to his home in Italy 11 years later.
Max Robinson
Max Robinson broke all kinds of racial barriers in media, but that wasn’t easy: In fact, during one of his first jobs in 1959, Robinson was hired by a television station in Portsmouth, Va. to read the news, but he was forced to hide behind the station’s logo when he was on the air. Well, that was until he boldly and rightfully instructed a cameraman to remove it, which prompted his firing. Despite beginning his career with a setback, he became the first Black anchor of a major city when he became a host of WTOP, a local news program in Washington, D.C.
While he had achieved a lot by this point, he didn’t stop there. Robinson’s first big break didn’t come until 1978, when he once again made history by becoming a co-anchor for ABC’s World News Tonight, alongside Frank Reynolds and Peter Jennings. During his 5-year run on the network, he fought to cover the news with a Black perspective. Eventually, Robinson left ABC News and joined Chicago’s WMAQ-TV as a news anchor, but his life came to a tragic end in 1988 when he was diagnosed with AIDS. Luckily, he was able to make it back to D.C., a city he had come to love, one last time before his death. Local leaders and television news stars, including Jennings and Dan Rather, joined civil rights activist Jesse Jackson at the Shiloh Baptist Church in the nation’s capital to pay tribute to him.
Marsha P. Johnson
Activist Marsha P. Johnson helped pave the way for transgender youth, thanks to her fearless belief in speaking truth to power. And she did it in style — complete with flower headpieces and lavish outfits, which were often thrifted or gifted from friends. Her name even radiated attitude, with her saying the “P” stood for “Pay it no mind.”
Despite describing herself as a “nobody, from Nowheresville,” she took part in what would become a catalyst for the LGBTQ+ movement. In 1969, she played a key role in the uprising against police at a popular gay bar in New York City in what became known as the “Stonewall uprising.”
“We were just saying, ‘No more police brutality’ and ‘We had enough of police harassment in the Village and other places,’” she told historian Eric Marcus in a 1989 interview.
Often suffering from homelessness herself, Johnson went on to launch the group Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries as a way to offer houses to homeless and transgender youth. Tragically, in 1992, her body was found floating in the Hudson River, and the circumstances around her death remain unclear. Police initially ruled it as a suicide before reopening her case and it remains a mystery to this day. That said, it’s widely known that transgender people are often targets of violence. Last year, the Human Rights Campaign said that deaths of trans and gender nonconforming hit an all-time high of 32, and of those, people of color account for 81 percent of those victims.
Alvin Ailey
The modern world of dance just wouldn’t be what it is today without Alvin Ailey. At just 27, he founded the renowned Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, which was geared toward helping other Black dancers develop their talents and celebrate their heritage.
He credits his mother, who raised him on her own, for his drive. “When the dance bug bit me [my mother] said, ‘You go and do whatever you want to do,’” he once said.
Ailey tragically passed away from AIDS in 1989 and initially concealed his cause of death to spare his mother the unfortunate stigma against those who succumbed to the disease. Of course, his legacy lives on. His company continues to be an influential force to this day, with dancers performing for more than 20 million people around the world. Talk about reach.
