5 LITTLE KNOWN BLACK PEOPLE

:D

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GEORGE WASHINGTON CARVER

(1864-1943)
Carver is a well-known African American. Who isn't aware of his
work with peanuts? He's on this list, though, because of one
of his contributions that we don't often hear about:
The Tuskegee Institute Movable School. Carver established this
school to introduce modern agricultural techniques and
tools to farmers in Alabama. Movable schools are now used
around the world.

EDWARD BOUCHET (1852-1918)

Bouchet was the son of a former slave who had moved to New
Haven, Connecticut. Only three schools there accepted
Black students at the time, so Bouchet's educational
opportunities were limited. However, he managed to get
admitted to Yale and became the first African American to
earn a PhD and the 6th American of any race to earn one in
physics. Although segregation prevented him from attaining
the kind of position he should have been able to get with his
outstanding credentials (6th in his graduating class), he
taught for 26 years at the Institute for Colored Youth,
serving as an inspiration to generations of young African
Americans.

JEAN BAPTISTE POINT DU SABLE

(1745?-1818)
DuSable was a Black man from Haiti is who is credited with
founding Chicago. His father was a Frenchman in Haiti and
his mother was an African slave. It's not clear how he
arrived in New Orleans from Haiti, but once he did, he
traveled from there to what is now modern day Peoria,
Illinois. Although he was not the first to pass through the
area, he was the first to establish a permanent settlement,
where he lived for at least twenty years. He set up a trading
post on the Chicago River, where it meets Lake Michigan,
and became a wealthy man with a reputation as a man of
good character and "sound business acumen."

MATTHEW ALEXANDER HENSON

(1866-1955)
Henson was the son of free-born tenant farmers, but his early
life was difficult. He started his life as an explorer at the age
of eleven when he ran away from an abusive home. In 1891,
Henson went with Robert Peary on the first of several trips
to Greenland. Peary was determined to find the geographic
North Pole. In 1909, Peary and Henson went on what was to
be their final trip, the one on which they reached the North
Pole. Henson was actually the first to set foot on the North
Pole, but when the two returned home, it was Peary who
received all the credit. Because he was Black, Henson was
virtually ignored.

BESSIE COLEMAN (1892 -1926)

Bessie Coleman one of 13 children born to a Native American
father and an African American mother. They lived in Texas
and faced the kinds of difficulties many Black Americans
faced at the time, including segregation and
disenfranchisement. Bessie worked hard in her childhood,
picking cotton and helping her mother with the laundry she
took in. But Bessie didn't let any of it stop her. She educated
herself and managed to graduate from high school. After
seeing some newsreels on aviation, Bessie became
interested in becoming a pilot, but no U.S flight schools
would accept her because she was Black and because she
was female. Undeterred, she saved enough money to go to
France where she heard women could be pilots. In 1921, she
became the first Black woman in the world to earn a pilot's
license.