Phillip Bell Downing was born on March 22, 1857, in Providence, Rhode Island. He was one of six children born to George T. Downing and Serena L. deGrasse. His father was a successful businessman and well-known abolitionist who also ran the dining room for the U.S. House of Representatives for several years after the Civil War ended. His grandfather,

Patrica Era Bath, M.D., (Nov. 4, 1942 to May 30, 2019) is best known for her invention called Laserphaco Probe, a device and technique for cataract surgery. She also was the first female member of the Jules Stein Eye Institute. Bath was the first black female doctor to receive a patent for a medical purpose. A holder of five patents, she also founded the

Daniel Hale Williams founded the first Black-owned hospital in America, and performed the world's first successful heart surgery in 1893. Williams was born in 1858 in Hollidaysburg, Pennsylvania, the fifth of seven children. Young Daniel started as a shoemaker but quickly knew he wanted more education. He completed secondary school in Wisconsin. At age 20,

Gerald Anderson Lawson – By Unknown but currently held by Museum of Play/Estate of Jerry Lawson. Gerald Anderson Lawson (Dec. 1, 1940 – April 9, 2011) was an American electronics engineer. Besides being one of the first African American computer engineers in Silicon Valley, Lawson was also known for his work in designing the Fairchild Channel F

Jan Matzeliger invented the automatic shoe-lasting machine, mechanizing the complex process of joining a shoe sole to its upper and revolutionizing the shoe industry. Matzeliger was born in 1852 in what is now Paramaribo, Surinam, to a Dutch father and a Surinamese mother who had been enslaved. At age 19, Matzeliger began working as a sailor on a merchant

Garrett Morgan was born March 4, 1887, and died Aug. 27, 1963. In 1907, he started a business repairing and selling sewing machines. While his wife Mary sewed clothes, Morgan built and maintained the sewing machines. He also began experimenting with a liquid for polishing sewing machine needles to prevent them from burning fabric as they sewed. When he

Susie King Taylor was born Aug. 5, 1848, the oldest of nine children to Hagar Ann Reed and Raymond Baker in Liberty County Georgia. She was deemed property, as she was born on the Grest Plantation. Even though she and her family were enslaved, the Grest did not follow the norm of being cruel owners. At the age of 7, Taylor and one of her brothers were

Every nation tells stories about itself. Some stories are polished. Some are patriotic. Some are repeated so often they become civic scripture. And then there are the stories buried beneath the monuments. Memorial Day is one of them. Unburying this American truth helps the country realize that so much of its greatness has been shaped by contributions many