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Bessie Coleman was born into poverty and picked cotton to help support her family. As WWI ended, her dream was to fly, but every flying school turned her down because of her gender and race.Full Story African-Americans have contributed to American society in every walk of life, and one purpose of Black History Month is to call attention to some of those who may have escaped notice. Here are 10 brief biographies from the Profile America series produced by the U.S. Census Bureau.Full Story Zora Neale Hurston was one of the great talents of the Harlem Renaissance - but had to work as a manicurist to support herself.Full Story A century ago, bread bought at stores was hand-made, a time intensive process. That changed when a baker from Boston, Joseph Lee, invented the automatic bread-making machine.Full Story Thousands of Americans owe their lives to the inventions of Garrett Morgan. The son of former slaves, Morgan invented the gas mask.Full Story When William Grant Still mounted the podium and began conducting the L.A. Philharmonic in 1936, it marked the first time that an African-American had led a major symphonic orchestra.Full Story Sarah Breedlove Walker was born the daughter of former slaves and orphaned at the age of seven. She went on to become America's first African-American woman millionaire business-owner.Full Story Seventy years before Rosa Parks sparked the civil rights movement by refusing to move to the back of a bus, there was Ida B. Wells.Full Story On a hot summer night in Chicago, in 1893, a deliveryman was rushed to the emergency room of Provident Hospital. He had been stabbed in the heart in a barroom brawl.Full Story Paul Williams was orphaned at the age of 4 and no one paid much attention to the child's artistic talent. But he earned his engineering degree and went on to become one of the nation's premier architects.Full Story
From the U.S. Census Bureau
Thousands of Americans owe their lives to the inventions of Garrett Morgan.
The son of former slaves, Morgan invented the gas mask. Originally designed for firemen, he used one of his masks to help rescue men trapped by a gas explosion in a tunnel under Lake Erie. The masks were used extensively by U.S. soldiers in World War I.
Morgan also greatly helped traffic safety. After witnessing a collision between an automobile and a horse-drawn carriage, he invented an automatic traffic signal, the basis for today's modern systems. These are much needed in view of the fact that there are more than 178- million cars, trucks and buses on the nation's highways.
This profile is adapted from Profile America, a radio series produced by the U.S. Census Bureau in 2004.
