In honor of Black History Month, I joined a committee of Black women at my job to develop a program to educate our fellow coworkers about the advancements and innovations of Black Americans throughout history.  One aspect of the project that excited me, was taking the opportunity to research and create posters of Black historical figures who did amazing things, but do not have the household name status of figures like Martin Luther King, Jr. or Harriet Tubman.  In the process I found out about some truly inspirational, social-justice-minded, ah-MAZING people that absolutely should be well-known among Americans of all colors. Here is a rundown of some badass Black people I learned about this Black History Month!  There might be an overabundance of exclamation points and excitable hashtags in this. #SorryNotSorryItIsBlackHistoryMonthLemmeGeekTheEffOut!!!

Claudette Colvin (1939–)

Badass Cred: She was famously arrested for refusing to give up her bus seat to a white person, before Rosa Parks! 

In 1955, 15-year-old straight-A student Claudette Colvin was arrested and jailed for refusing to give up her seat on the bus to a white person.  During the incident, Colvin stated that giving up the seat she paid bus fare for because of her race was a violation of her constitutional rights.  #SmartBlackGirlMagic

Colvin’s arrest drew a ton of media attention, leading the NAACP to consider using her case to challenge Montgomery’s segregated bus system.  Unfortunately, whether for her young age, her dark skin, or her accidental pregnancy a few months later, the NAACP instead arranged for Rosa Parks to take the now iconic stand (or, sit) for Civil Rights by refusing to give up her bus seat and letting herself be arrested.  Colvin’s story fell into obscurity. She did eventually become a plaintiff in the Browder vs. Gayle case, which ruled bus system segregation unconstitutional.  She later moved to New York where she worked as a nurse’s aide until retiring in 2004.

Bayard Rustin (1912–1987)

Badass Cred: He was the lead organizer of the March on Washington, the site of Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream Speech.” 

A strong proponent of pacifism, Rustin organized numerous non-violent protests and acts of civil disobedience in response to racial discrimination and war attrocities.  He was once arrested and placed on a chain gang for protesting segregated public transit in North Carolina (1947). Rustin experienced additional discrimination, including from within the Civil Rights world, for being an openly gay man.  He nevertheless continued working as an organizer, spirited public speaker, and LGBT rights advocate throughout his life.  In 2013, former President Barack Obama posthumously awarded Rustin the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Medgar Evers (1925–1963)

Badass Cred: First state field secretary of the NAACP, Mississippi chapter (1954). 

Following an honorable discharge after fighting in World War II, Evers built a reputation as a charismatic organizer and Civil Rights protester.  He led the Regional Council of Negro Leadership in a boycott of gas stations that refused Black people access to their restrooms. After filing a lawsuit against the University of Mississippi Law School to force it to integrate, he caught the attention of the NAACP’s Mississippi chapter and was hired to become their first field secretary.  In this role he led numerous boycotts of racist businesses and recruited new chapter members throughout the state.

Evers was assassinated in 1963.  This led to public outcry, which influenced the passing of the Civil Rights Act in 1964.  Evers’ brother, Charles Evers, took over the role of NAACP field secretary. He was eventually elected mayor of Fayette, Mississippi in 1969.

Mary Ellen Pleasant (~1810–1904)

Badass Cred: Three words: Black.  Female. Millionaire!!!

While her origins are fuzzy (she may have been born a southern slave or a northern free woman), she began her glorious ascension by learning about business and abolitionism while working in a shop as an indentured servant.  She went on to marry a rich abolitionist named J.J. Smith. After he died, Pleasant moved to San Francisco where she built up her own savings grinding it as a cook and servant to wealthy homeowners. She eventually saved enough money to open several boarding houses.  She also ran a business training and hiring out servants to the rich, and used her connections among the elite to make investments in stocks, estates, and businesses. Pleasant eventually amassed a fortune of–wait for it–$30 million dollars!!! I dunno if that amount is before or after inflation, but does it matter?!  Get it, gurl!!

While she could have taken all that paper and bought herself a bangin’ McMansion in Tahiti, she instead used her massive wealth to fight for Civil Rights.  She sued businesses that discriminated against African Americans–and won! She became a beloved figure in the Black San Francisco community and today is remembered as The Mother of Civil Rights in California.

Bessie Coleman (1892–1926)

Badass Cred: First African American woman to fly an airplane. 

Coleman was born into a poor household of 13 children, and sometimes had to miss school to support her family by picking cotton.  As an adult she became fascinated by the stories of World War I soldiers who piloted warplanes, and decided to become an airplane pilot herself.  Unfortunately (but not surprisingly) Coleman was stonewalled by white male pilots who refused to teach a Black woman to fly.

Robert Abbott, an African American journalist and publisher of The Chicago Defender, learned of Coleman’s struggle and personally paid for her to travel to France to study aviation.  Coleman studied with the best airplane pilots in Europe and earned her pilot’s license after just one year in 1921.  When she returned to America, her story went viral. She gained even more popularity when she found work as a stunt flyer, earning the nickname “Queen Bess.”  #QweenBest

Jesse LeRoy Brown (1926–1950)

Badass Cred: First Black Navy fighter pilot. 

Inspired by Queen Bess herself, LeRoy Brown dreamed of becoming a pilot since early childhood.  He once wrote then-President Franklin D. Roosevelt demanding to know why no African American pilots had been admitted into the US military at that time.  FDR, what’s good?

In 1945, LeRoy Brown joined the Navy’s piloting program.  He earned his Naval Aviator Badge in 1948, and became a Navy officer in 1949.  He earned celebrity status in America as a symbol of Black excellence, and was written about in Life magazine and The Chicago Defender–the same newspaper that paid Queen Bess’s pilot school bills.  #ChicagoDefenderIsBlackHistoryMonthBae

Alice Ball (1892–1916)

Badass Cred: Discovered the first effective treatment for leprosy. 

In 1915 Alice Ball became the first African American and the first woman to graduate with an M.S. degree in chemistry from the College of Hawaii (now the University of Hawaii).  After graduating she was asked to apply for a teaching and research position, becoming that institution’s first female chemistry teacher. She did all that by age 23!

Ball would go on to develop the first effective treatment for leprosy–a horrible disease that slowly destroys the skin and nervous system of those afflicted.  This was an Earth-shattering scientific triumph because historically, people who caught leprosy were “treated” by being exiled to Leper Colonies. Ball’s leprosy treatment method, the “Ball Method,” would be used to treat thousands of patients who were then able to escape the colonies and reunite with their families.

Marsha P. Johnson (1945–1992)

Badass Cred: Instigated the Stonewall Riots of 1969. 

As a transgender woman of color living in the 20th century, Johnson faced harrowing challenges throughout her life.  She grew up in a strict religious household and was punished for her love of cross-dressing. After finishing high school she left for New York where she experienced homelessness.  She eventually found support in the LGBT nightlife of Christopher Street where she became a successful drag queen and an advocate for homeless queer and transgender youths. With her friend, Sylvia Rivera, Johnson would found the nonprofit Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (STAR) to provide aid and shelter to homeless LGBT people.

Her most notable accomplishment (or most obscure) was instigating the Stonewall Riots.  In those days, gay bars were regularly raided by police, and patrons were arrested and assaulted.  The worst thing I’ve experienced in a gay bar is seeing extremely straight couples dry hump on the dance floor like horned up high schoolers on prom night–sooo, progress?  On June 28th, 1969, a police raid of the Stonewall Inn (a popular NYC gay community space) drew an angry crowd.  As legend has it, Johnson was the first to take action by hurling a brick at a police car, shattering the windshield.  Okay, exact accounts of how the riots started vary, but I’m going to stick with this account because I like it!  The Stonewall riots lasted several days, caught the attention of the entire nation, and made an irrefutable impact on LGBT History.  Remember this, it was Marsha P. Johnson (and numerous other queer and trans people of color) who played prominent roles in the riots and in LGBT advocacy in the late 20th century.  It was people like Johnson and Rivera who made the Stonewall riots, and not that basic-ass, cis-ass white boy from that dumb-ass movie nobody remembers. #RIPMarshaP

Onesimus (late 1600s–1700s)

Badass Cred: Introduced inoculation to the United States in the 18th century.

About a century before Edward Jenner would be credited with creating the first smallpox vaccine, an enslaved African man named Onesimus introduced inoculation to the United States.  In 1721, Massachusetts was struck by an epidemic of smallpox. Onesimus introduced the colonists to an inoculation technique practiced in Africa. The inoculation involved taking blood and pus (*retch*) from an infected person, and introducing it to a healthy person via cuts in the skin so they could build immunity.  This was viewed with suspicion by many religious leaders at the time, but communities that received inoculation experienced vastly fewer deaths from smallpox than communities that were too skeezed out to try it.

Bass Reeves (1838–1910)

Badass Cred: The original “Lone Ranger” and the first Black deputy US marshall west of the Mississippi.

Step aside, Django, there’s a new Black cowboy in town.  And this one was real! Beginning life as an enslaved Black man in the American south, Reeves was forced to join a party of wannabe confederate soldiers during the Civil War.  Reeves escaped one night and touched down in “Indian Territory,” modern-day Oklahoma, where he lived among the Seminole and Creek tribes until slavery was abolished in 1865.

A skilled gunman, Reeves was one of a handful of Black men recruited as a deputy marshall (basically an old-timey bounty hunter) to capture criminals that ran wild in the lawless west.  Reeves was an incredibly good shot and did whatever it took to nab a crook. Once he posed as a beggar to gain entry to a cabin where two criminals were hiding out, and then slapped cuffs on them while they were asleep in their beds.  Over his 32-year career, he arrested more than 3,000 outlaws and killed an additional 14 while never sustaining a single bullet wound. #Yeehaw

Sarah Rector (1902–1967)

Badass Cred: Richest Black girl on Earth by age 11. 

The daughter of a free Black family living in Indian Territory, the state of Oklahoma gave Rector 160 acres of land under the Dawes Allotment Act of 1887.  This land just so happened to lay atop a deep well of Texas Tea, aka Black Gold, aka good old-fashion fossil fuel (remember kids, no one knew it was bad for the planet back then).  Rector’s father leased her land to an oil company that began pumping out over 100,000 gallons of oil a day. Rector earned $300 per day for her land’s oil output (that’s about seven or eight-thousand dollars today).  Rector’s wealth quickly ballooned into the hundreds of thousands. She became an international celebrity, appeared in several newspapers, and received marriage proposals from German bachelors who wanted a slice of her fortune.  Let that sink in, a Black girl received marriage proposals from Germans in the 20th century.

She became a beloved figure in the African American community.  The NAACP, WEB DuBois, and Booker T. Washington came to her aid when they learned the state had appointed a white overseer–ugh, I mean “guardian”–to control her finances.  By age 18, Rector increased her wealth by starting multiple businesses, investing in stocks and buying more land–becoming a bonafide millionaire. She married Kenneth Campbell, the second African American auto dealership owner, in 1922, and their family enjoyed a luxurious upper-middle class lifestyle.  The huge Rector Mansion–the family home in Kansas City Missouri–still stands to this day.