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

Nancy Bazemore A landmark court case that reshaped voting rights across the state soon will be recognized with a North Carolina Highway Historical Marker. The N.C. Historical Marker Program is part of the N.C. Department of Natural and Cultural Resources. The marker commemorating the Bazemore v. Bertie County Board of Elections court case will be

Henrietta S. Duterte with one of her children who died in infancy. Henrietta Smith Bowers Duterte (pronounced Dew-tier) was the first female undertaker in the United States. Born a free woman in Philadelphia in 1817, she was one of 13 children born to John Bowers and Henrietta Smith Bowers. Henrietta Bowers’ father became the sexton of the African

Sarah Breedlove, who later became known as Madam C.J. Walker, was born on Dec. 23, 1867, on the same Delta, Louisiana, plantation where her parents had been enslaved before the end of the Civil War. This child of sharecroppers transformed herself from an uneducated farm laborer and laundress into one of the 20th century’s most successful, self-made

Dr. Myra Adele Logan shattered multiple barriers throughout her distinguished career. In 1943, she became the first Black woman admitted to the American College of Surgeons, nine years after earning her medical degree from New York Medical College. She built her practice at Harlem Hospital, and, in 1951, she became the first Black woman to perform a

Frank S. Greene Jr. NORTH CANTON, Ohio — Gebisa Ejeta and Frank S. Greene Jr. (posthumous) are among 15 pioneers who will be honored in the 2026 class of National Inventors Hall of Fame inductees. In partnership with the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the ceremony will be held May 7 at one of the innovation industry’s most highly

Reginald Francis Lewis was born on Dec. 7, 1942, in Baltimore, Maryland. His entrepreneurial skills began at age 9 when he increased his newspaper delivery route from 10 neighbors to 100 customers and later sold it for a profit. He graduated from Virginia State University in 1965 with a degree in political science. That summer he participated in a program