Black History Month

1
Black History Month

• Courtesy of the Student National Medical
  Association
• KCUMB Chapter

2
Early Pioneers
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Benjamin Bannecker

• In 1761 he attracted attention by building a
  wooden clock that kept precise time
• Self educated, he began astronomical calculations
  about 1773accurately predicted a solar eclipse
  in 1789
• Sent a copy of his first almanac to Thomas
  Jefferson with a letter asking for aid in
  bringing about better conditions for American
  blacks

4
Carter G. Woodson

• Second African American to earn a doctorate from
  Harvard University
• Began promoting Negro History Week during the
  second week of February to celebrate the
  birthdays of Abraham Lincoln and Frederick
  Douglass. In the 1960s it became Black History
  Month

5
Daniel Hale Williams

• One of the first African American surgeons in
  America
• Helped found Provident Hospital in Chicago in
  1891
• In 1893, achieved international fame by
  performing the world's first successful heart
  surgery at Provident

6
Rebecca Lee Crumpler

• Became the first African American woman in the
  United States to earn an M.D. degree
• Authored A Book of Medical Discourses - one of
  the very first medical publications by an African
  American

7
Mary McLeod Bethune

• Appointed administrative assistant for Negro
  affairs of the National Youth Administration by
  President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1936
• Became an adviser on minority affairs to
  Roosevelt and assisted the secretary of war in
  selecting officer candidates for the U.S. Women's
  Army Corps (WAC)
• Vice president of the National Association for
  the Advancement of Colored People from 1940 to
  1955

8
Great Inventors
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George Washington Carver

• Agricultural chemist who discovered 300 uses for
  peanuts and hundreds of uses for soybeans, pecans
  and sweet potatoes
• Created recipes and improvements to/for bleach,
  buttermilk, ink, instant coffee, linoleum, metal
  polish, shaving cream, shoe polish, synthetic
  rubber, talcum powder
• Despite hundreds of inventions, he was only
  issued three patents

10
Charles Richard Drew

• Black American physician and surgeon who became
  an authority on the preservation of human blood
  for transfusion
• Developed efficient ways to process and store
  large quantities of blood plasma in blood banks
  
• Agitated the authorities to stop excluding the
  blood of blacks from plasma-supply networks

11
Activists
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Thurgood Marshall

• First African-American justice on the Supreme
  Court of the United States
• Primary strategist of the series of cases that
  ended with the Supreme Court's 1954 decision in
  the case of Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka
  which declared segregation in public schools as
  unconstitutional

13
Ruby Bridges

• First African American to enter an all-white
  school when the New Orleans public school system
  was ordered to desegregate in 1960
• Her first walk to school inspired the familiar
  painting by Norman Rockwell

14
Reverend Vernon Johns

• Controversial Alabama preacher who often upset
  his conservative congregation with his sermons,
  including "Segregation After Death" and "When The
  Rapist Is White"
• Strongly opposed segregation and on one occasion
  walked into a 'White' restaurant and ordered a
  sandwich, knowing he was putting his life at
  risk
• After Johns retired, the congregation appointed
  a new preacher--Martin Luther King

15
Dorothy I. Height

• One of the major leaders of the Civil Rights
  Movement of the 1960s
• Organized "Wednesdays in Mississippi, to create
  a dialogue about the Civil Rights Movement
  between Southern and Northern white and black
  women
• Served as the president of the National Council
  of Negro Women for over 40 years

16
Artists and Authors
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Gwendolyn Brooks

• American poet whose works deal with the everyday
  life of urban blacks
• First African American poet to win the Pulitzer
  Prize 1949
• Named Poet Laureate of Illinois in 1968
• Received a lifetime achievement award from the
  National Endowment for the Arts in 1989

18
Johnnetta B. Cole

• Became the seventh president of Spelman College
  in 1987
• Called herself Sister President,and became
  known as a strong advocate for the liberal arts
  curriculum in a changing society
• Author of Conversations Straight Talk with
  America's Sister President (1993) and many other
  scholarly articles focusing on race and and class
  in the Pan-African world

19
Gordon Parks

• Bought a used camera in 1938, deciding on a
  career in photography
• Three years later, received a fellowship from the
  Julius Rosenwald Foundation to work in the
  photography section of the Farm Security
  Administration
• Became a poet, novelist, film director and
  photographer

20
Physicians
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David Satcher M.D.

• Medical doctor and public health administrator
• Past Director of the Centers for Disease Control
  and Prevention (CDC)
• Appointed as the 16th Surgeon General by
  President Bill Clinton
• Director of the National Center for Primary Care
  at the Morehouse School of Medicine

22
Barbara Ross Lee, D.O.

• Initially a school teacher after a college
  advisor discouraged her from becoming a doctor
• Graduated from the Michigan State University
  College of Osteopathic Medicine in 1973
• First African American woman to be appointed dean
  of an American medical school

23
William G. Anderson, D.O.

• Graduate of the University of Osteopathic
  Medicine and Health Sciences in Des Moines
• Leader in the Civil Rights Movement in Georgia
  where he worked along side Dr. Martin Luther King
• First African American President of the American
  Osteopathic Association
• Associate Dean of the Kirksville College of
  Osteopathic Medicine