Teach Kids About These Black History Heroes This Black History Month

From the very beginnings of Black History Month, teachers would observe this month by exploring pivotal moments and transformative figures in Black culture, so they can teach children about the heroes who managed to change the course of history and make our society better. Learning about Black history heroes will inspire kids to give their best and will make them more resilient to insecurities about their own abilities. See how to teach kids about the importance of Black History month in our separate article. 

Unfortunately, we can’t include everyone who deserves to be here as there are way too many such figures. What we can do is make a list of 20 Black history heroes and, additionally, recommend our Black History section on our main website, where you can find many other Black history figures which deserve to be remembered. 

20 Fascinating Black History Heroes

Typically, our list would’ve started with Martin Luther King Jr, but we’ve recently dedicated a full article on “How to Teach Kids About the Importance of Martin Luther King” and also have a 26-page worksheet bundle on him, so we’ll leave some room for other Black History heroes. 

On our website, you can also find worksheet bundles on more popular figures like Barack Obama, Micheal Jordan, or Oprah Winfrey, but we won’t include them in our list, as we’re sure your child already knows a lot about them. 

Rosa Parks (1913 – 2005)

The first name on our list is the woman whose actions sparked the Civil Rights Movement which Martin Luther King led. More specifically, her refusal to stand up and free a row of four seats in the “colored” section of a bus in favor of a white passenger started the Montgomery bus boycott.

For these reasons, Rosa Louise McCauley Parks is also known as “the first lady of civil rights” and “the mother of the freedom movement”.

Rosa spent her life advocating for equal rights and freedom in the Civil Rights Movement. She was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Congressional Gold Medal, and the  Martin Luther King Jr. Award by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. 

Follow the link to find out more about Rosa Parks and get our worksheet pack on her. 

Claudette Colvin (1939 – )

Before Rosa Parks, there was Claudette Colvin, although she’s not nearly as popular as Rosa Parks. The reason why we compare these two women is that Claudette was the first woman to be detained for her resistance – choosing not to sit at the back of the bus. A very similar incident to Rosa Parks’, although the story of Claudette was never publicized. 

The reason for this is because at the time, Claudette was only 15 years old, unmarried, and believed to be impregnated by a married man. At that time there was also strong gender discrimination and the Civil Rights Movement leaders believed she was not the right person to be the face of the movement. Nonetheless, Claudette was a fierce civil rights movement activist and a nurse aide who helped a lot of people. 

Follow the link to find out more about Claudette Colvin and get our worksheet pack on her. 

Bessie Coleman (1892 – 1926)

Bessie Coleman was the first African-American woman and first Native-American to hold an international pilot license. In her life, she faced many obstacles both as a Black person and as a woman, but her dreams and determination were bigger than those obstacles. 

A famous quote from her is “the air is the only place free from prejudice.”

To achieve her goals, she was forced to leave the United States as no school wanted to admit her due to being Black and a woman. So, she went and got her pilot license in France. When she returned to the USA, she amazed and inspired many people and became known as “Queen Bess” and “Brave Bessie.”

Follow the link to find out more about Bessie Coleman and get our worksheet pack on her.

Shirley Chisholm (1924 – 2005)

Shirley Chisholm is a famous politician, educator, and writer, although her most notable achievements are being the first African-American candidate to make a bid to become U.S. President and the first African-American woman to be elected as a U.S. congresswoman.

Chisholm will be remembered for her bravery and fights to provide equal opportunities for Black people in the United States. After all, she has said she doesn’t want to be remembered as a first person to do something, but as a person who “has guts.”

Follow the link to find out more about Shirley Chisholm and get our worksheet pack on her.  

Benjamin O. Davis, Jr. (1912 -2002)

Benjamin was a United States Air Force general and commander of the World War II Tuskegee Airmen. He is remembered for being the first African-American Brigadier general in the United States Air Force.

The Tuskegee Airmen, which he led, were the first black military aviators in the U.S. Army Air Corps (AAC) (a precursor of the U.S Air Force). Before the Tuskegee Airmen, the U.S forces were composed completely out of Caucasians. People back then didn’t believe that Black men can fight this way as efficiently and as strongly as White people. However, when the country was in need of aviators, President Franklin D. Roosevelt started the “Tuskegee Experiment” – a flight school for Black people. While most people believed the school would be a failure, it was an astonishing success and the first Tuskegee Airmen under General Benjamin O. Davis served the United States in World War II. 

Frederick Douglass (1818 (assumed date) – 1895)

Frederick Douglass was a man born in slavery who escaped and became a national leader of the abolitionist movement – a movement that fought to end slavery in the United States.

Douglass became a successful orator, writer, and statesman. He was most famous for his astonishing oratory skills. He was living proof against many racial beliefs that slaves lacked the intellectual abilities of white American citizens, so much that people didn’t believe he was once a slave. 

Douglass dedicated his life to the mission of ending slavery and traveled the world trying to convince people to end the practice. He wrote many anti-slavery books and gave powerful speeches until he died in 1895.  

Follow the link to find out more about Frederick Douglass and get our worksheet pack on him.  

John Lewis (1940 – 2020)

John Lewis is a man who fought alongside Martin Luther King during the Civil Rights Movement. He marched for equality and freedom while risking his life for justice. He was one of the “Big Six” leaders of groups who organized the 1963 March on Washington. His actions and sacrifices led to the end of legal racial segregation in the United States. In an incident during the Selma to Montgomery marches, known as Bloody Sunday, where state troopers and policemen attacked the marchers, Lewis was leading the march. 

In 1987, John Lewis was elected and served in the U.S. House of Representatives from Georgia’s 5th district until his death. 

Jesse Owens (1913 – 1980)

Jesse Owens was an extraordinary American track and field athlete who set the world record for the long jump at the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin – a record held for 25 years. In 1936, Owens also became a four-time gold medalist in the Olympic Games and even today he’s considered one of the greatest and most famous athletes in track and field history.

For his contributions to the success of the country, Owens received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1976. After his death, he was also awarded the Congressional Gold Medal (1980).

Follow the link to find out more about Jesse Owens and get our worksheet pack on him.  

Gwendolyn Brooks (1917 – 2000)

Continuing the list with the Black History heroes with extraordinary talents, we get to Gwendolyn Brooks, teacher, author, and poet. She went down in history as the first Black author to win the Pulitzer Prize in 1950. Even today, she is considered one of the greatest poets of the 20th century, a reputation which brought her the job as a poetry consultant to the Library of Congress. 

In 1976, Brooks also became the first Black woman inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters. During her lifetime, Brooks received many honors and awards. Her legacy lives on and inspires new generations to pursue a career in the arts.

Follow the link to find out more about Gwendolyn Brooks and get our worksheet pack on him.

Harriet Tubman, Spy (1822 – 1913)

Harriet Tubman was an abolitionist, humanitarian, and Union armed scout and spy during the American Civil War. She was born into slavery, but managed to escape and dedicated her life to helping other enslaved people. She organized around 13 escape missions in which she freed approximately 70 enslaved people. All this was possible by a secret network of antislavery activists and safe houses. 

During the Civil War, General Benjamin Butler recruited Tubman as a volunteer in the troop, becoming the only African-American in an all-white troop. In 1863, she was leading a team in charge of espionage, thanks to whom countless trapped slaves could escape. 

In her later years of life, she became involved in the women’s suffrage movement.

Follow the link to find out more about Harriet Tubman and get our worksheet pack on her. 

Dorothy Johnson Vaughan (1910 – 2008)

If you checked out our article on the best movies to watch this Black History month, you might have noticed a movie about the three female African-American mathematicians who worked in NASA and had a pivotal role in John Glenn’s launch into orbit. (hint: Hidden Figures). 

Well, Dorothy Johnson Vaughan is one of the women on whom the movie is based. She was a brilliant mathematician, known as the human-computer who worked for the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics and NASA. Her brilliance made her the first African-American woman to be in charge of a team at the West Area Computers center. 

Jane Bolin (1908 – 2007)

Jane Matilda Bolin, LL.B. was the first Black woman to graduate from Yale University, pass the bar, and join the New York City Law Department. Bolin opened many doors in the field of law, as she also became the first Black female judge in the United States. 

In 1939, she was appointed Judge of the Domestic Relations Court in New York, a position she held for 40 years. During her time as a judge, Bolin achieved two significant changes that made life easier for the minorities in the US. First, she managed to change the law of assigning probation officers to every case regardless of race or religion. Second, she managed to get publicly funded private child-care agencies to accept children regardless of ethnic background. 

Follow the link to find out more about Jane Bolin and get our worksheet pack on her. 

Mark E. Dean (1957 -)

Mark E. Dean is an African-American pioneer of science and a brilliant inventor. He is one of the youngest people to make it on our list, but with more than 20 patents in the field of computer engineering, he well deserved it. In 2000, the California African-American Museum honored him by naming him one of the “50 Most Important African Americans in Technology.”

Today, Mark is one of the most appreciated and valuable engineering minds at the International Business Machines (IBM) Corporation. Although he has made a lot of incredible innovations, his most popular ones are the three patents on the original personal computer (PC) by International Business Machines (IBM). This means that Mark Dean is one of the key people who developed PCs.

Dorothy Height (1912 – 2010)

Dorothy Height is another very important name related to the Civil Rights Movement and the fight to end segregation in the US. The world knows Height as the first leader in the Civil Rights Movement to recognize and fight against gender discrimination as part of the movement for freedom. She believed we can’t have equality if we don’t consider these two things as a whole. 

Fighting to end women’s unemployment, illiteracy, and raise awareness for voting rights, she served as the president of the National Council of Negro Women for 40 years and also led the Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA). 

In her lifetime, she received many awards including the Freedom from Want Award, Citizens’ Medal Award, Congressional Gold Medal, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Follow the link to find out more about Dorothy Height and get our worksheet pack on her. 

Mae C. Jemison (1956- )

Another young name on our list is the American engineer, physician, and NASA astronaut, Mae C. Jemison. She is known as the first Black woman to travel into space. 

Just how extraordinary Jemison is speaks to the fact that she received two undergraduate degrees, a medical degree, served two years as a Peace Corps medical officer in West Africa, and joined NASA’s astronaut training program, all before she was 30 years old. 

In 1994 she founded a space camp for children between 12-16 years old and is also teaching environmental studies at Dartmouth College. 

Mae has received many awards including Essence Science and Technology Award and the Ebony Black Achievement Award. In 1990 she was named Gamma Sigma Gamma Woman of the Year. Two years later, in 1992, an alternative public school in Detroit, Michigan, was named after her. 

Follow the link to find out more about Mae C. Jemison and get our worksheet pack on her. 

Bayard Rustin (1912 – 1987)

Today, Rustin is considered one of the most important figures in the Civil Rights Movement, even though he still remains the least known. The main reason for this is because he was tied to communism and was openly gay during the movement, which was criminalized in the U.S. back then. Many leaders cut ties with him and even Martin Luther King was pressured to stop communicating with Rustin. However, Rustin was incredibly intelligent and remained a valuable asset to the movement, especially in organizing non-violent marches, even though he never received any public recognition for his role.

King and Rustin were the ones organizing the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), while Rustin and A. Philip Randolph organized the March on Washington in 1941, and later Rustin was the main organizer of the second and more famous March on Washington in 1963.

In 1953 Rustin was arrested and convicted for his sexuality, something for which he received a pardon in 2020, 33 years after his death. In 2013, also posthumously, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Malcolm X (1925 – 1965)

Malcolm X is yet another famous Civil Rights activist and a Muslim minister who spoke vocally for the Nation of Islam. He was very popular even though his approach was more aggressive and sometimes clashed with the non-violence policy of Martin Luther King. 

Just like King, Malcolm had great oratory skills and charisma which helped him become a prominent figure in the movement. He is most famous for promoting Black nationalism in Union with Islam. 

Malcolm was assassinated at an Organization of Afro-American Unity rally on February 21st, 1965, by a Black Muslim. After his death, his most popular book, The Autobiography of Malcolm X, in which he predicted the impact of his death, became a bestseller and inspired the Black Power movement. 

Follow the link to find out more about Malcolm X and get our worksheet pack on him. 

Benjamin Banneker (1731 –  1806)

Benjamin Banneker is a fascinating figure in history and an inspiring Black History hero who was a free, self-thought (no formal education) author, surveyor, astronomer, inventor, and landowner. He acquired a lot of knowledge in mathematics and natural history becoming one of the first Black intellectuals. 

Banneker is known for constructing a wooden clock and making astronomical calculations and predictions, such as the solar eclipse in 1789. 

Follow the link to find out more about Benjamin Banneker and get our worksheet pack on him. 

W.E.B Du Bois (1868 – 1963)

William Edward Burghardt Du Bois was a famous American sociologist, historian, and civil rights activist who led important Black protests in the early 20th century.

Bois was a co-founder of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) where he served as a researcher and editor of its magazine, The Crisis. 

He was very well educated as he had obtained a Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1895. Bois’s degree was in the field of history although he was mostly trained and worked in the social sciences conducting research on the conditions in which Black people lived. He published “The Philadelphia Negro: A Social Study (1899)” which represents the first case-study of a Black community in the USA. 

Follow the link to find out more about W.E.B Du Bois and get our worksheet pack on him. 

Sojourner Truth (1797 – 1883)

We’re finalizing our Black history heroes list with one of the first prominent American abolitionist and women’s rights activists. She was born into slavery but managed to escape with her daughter in 1826. Her son was left behind and she went to court in an attempt to free him. In 1828, she became the first Black woman to win a court case of such nature against a White man. 

After this, Truth became a vocal advocate for abolition, civil, and women’s rights in the 19th century. Her advocacy was so successful that she even received an invitation to meet President Abraham Lincoln and discuss these matters with him. 

Follow the link to find out more about Sojourner Truth and get our worksheet pack on her. 

Before You Leave

What do you think about our list? Do you agree with our selection of the 20 Black history heroes? Who would you add? We understand that there are so many others who deserve a spot, so we encourage you and your child to dig deeper into the history of African-Americans and write a story about a figure that your child finds fascinating or inspiring. You can use our Black History section as a more in-depth resource or check out the National Museum of African American History and Culture.

Furthermore, if you need any help in finding high-quality teaching resources for your upcoming classes, don’t hesitate to browse through our large collection of worksheets and lesson plans as you’ll surely find something for your specific needs. 

Finally, don’t forget to check out our blog where we regularly share interesting articles on many aspects in relation to children’s education, as well as teachers’ and homeschooling parents’ practices.