Black History Month 2023
Happy Black History Month! Black history is American history, and we want to highlight key Black heroes who have advanced this nationβs history. We celebrate these achievers and look to them and countless others for inspiration all year round.
These Black heroes have moved this nation forward:
Henry Box Brown
Henry "Box" Brown was an enslaved man who shipped himself to freedom in a box. Born into enslavement, Henry sought to escape. He shipped himself in a wooden box from Virginia to Philadelphia, where slavery was abolished. He spent 27 hours on his journey and was welcomed by Philadelphia abolitionists. He inspired many people by performing and publishing his story.
Ruby Bridges
On November 14th, 1960, Ruby Bridges was escorted to school by four federal marshals, becoming the first and youngest African American student to integrate schools. She worked one-on-one with a teacher the whole year. The following year, more Black students were enrolled in the school. Ruby went on to author a memoir and children's book and establish the Ruby Bridges Foundation, which uses educational initiatives to inspire the next generation of leaders to end racism.
Mae Jemison
Mae Jemison was the first African American woman to become an astronaut and to be admitted to the astronaut training program. Mae spent a week in space in 1992 on the space shuttle Endeavor, becoming the first Black woman in space. After six years as an astronaut, she went on to start a consulting company encouraging science, technology, and social change. She became an author, a professor, an organizational founder; she currently runs a project ensuring human space travel to another star in the next 100 years with the United States Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.
Jesse Owens
Jesse Owens was a track and field athlete who set a 25-year long-standing record for the long jump and took home four Olympic medals at the 1936 Olympic games in Berlin. His national reputation began in high school and expanded into college, setting records in long jumps and 100- and 200-yard dashes, earning him the nickname "Buckeye Bullet." In the 1936 Berlin Olympics, Jesse earned four of the eleven gold medals the United States athletes won and broke two Olympic records.
We encourage you to be curious and look deeper into the stories of these legends and the others who have shaped history with their stories. Happy Black History Month.
