Celebrating Global Black Heritage

Black History Directory

A comprehensive, crowdsourced calendar and registry highlighting Black people and historical events from around the world.

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Historical Figures

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Sports

Bessie Coleman

United States

Bessie Coleman was an American aviator and the first African American woman to hold a pilot license. She was a daredevil stunt pilot who became a sensation in the 1920s.

Sports

Cathy Freeman

Australia

Cathy Freeman is an Australian former sprinter who specialized in the 400 metres. She is an Olympic champion and a symbol of reconciliation between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians.

Arts

Chevalier de Saint-Georges

France / Guadeloupe

Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges, was a champion fencer, classical composer, virtuoso violinist, and conductor of the leading symphony orchestra in Paris. He was one of the most celebrated figures in 18th-century French society.

Literature

Frederick Douglass

United States

Frederick Douglass was an American social reformer, abolitionist, orator, writer, and statesman. After escaping from slavery in Maryland, he became a national leader of the abolitionist movement in Massachusetts and New York, gaining note for his antislavery writings and incisive oratory.

Activism

Harriet Tubman

United States

Harriet Tubman was an American abolitionist and political activist. Born into slavery, Tubman escaped and subsequently made some thirteen missions to rescue approximately seventy enslaved people, family and friends, using the network of antislavery activists and safe houses known as the Underground Railroad.

Science

Mae Jemison

United States

Mae Jemison is an American engineer, physician, and former NASA astronaut. In 1992, she became the first African American woman to travel into space.

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