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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.More 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.More Zora Neale Hurston was one of the great talents of the Harlem Renaissance - but had to work as a manicurist to support herself.More 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.More
From the U.S. Census Bureau
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.
Riding a train in 1884, she was asked by a conductor to move from her seat in the ladies' car to the smoking car. When she refused, it took three men to remove Wells from her seat. She immediately hired a lawyer to bring suit against the railroad, winning 500-dollars in damages.
Although the decision was overturned on appeal, Wells spent the rest of her life as a journalist and tireless crusader against racial injustice. Now, there are just over 300,000 reporters and editors in the U.S., more than half of them women, and five percent African American.
This profile is adapted from Profile America, a radio series produced by the U.S. Census Bureau in 2004.
