February is Black History month. Each school day during the month of February we will be recognizing African Americans who had a lasting impact on the U.S. Today we recognize Shirley Chisholm.

Shirley Chisholm, the first African American woman in Congress, was born in 1924 in Brooklyn, New York City.

Born to immigrant parents, Chisholm consistently demonstrated high levels of academic achievement. Her professional career included work as a nursery school teacher, as well as efforts on behalf of the League of Women Voters, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the Urban League, and the Democratic party.

First serving in the New York Legislature in 1964, and then elected to Congress in 1968, she introduced more than 50 pieces of legislation and championed racial and gender equality, the plight of the poor, and ending the Vietnam War. In 1972, despite opposition from within the Democratic party, and even the male dominated Congressional Black Caucus, Shirley Chisholm became the first woman and African American to seek the nomination for president of the United States from one of the two major political parties. Even though she participated in only 12 primaries, she still ended up with 10% of the delegates’ votes.

Chisholm retired from Congress in 1983 and passed away, due to ill health, in 1991.

February is Black History month. Each school day during the month of February we will be recognizing African Americans who had a lasting impact on the U.S. Today we recognize James Baldwin.

James Baldwin was an African American writer and activist who was born in Harlem, NYC in 1924. Growing up in an impoverished and troubled home, Baldwin moved about frequently. As an adult, he would state that his reason for moving around so much was to find a place where he could feel like a man and not be fearful for his life.

After first moving to Paris at age 24, Baldwin would eventually settle in a small village in Switzerland where he would write his American masterpiece, Go Tell It On the Mountain, an autobiographical book about growing up in Harlem.

James Baldwin’s later works would continue to explore issues of civil rights, from an intensely personal view, as well as exploring topics considered taboo at the time, like homosexuality and interracial marriages.

While his books were some time labeled as harsh and bitter critiques of society, James Baldwin was committed to a life of universal love and brotherhood.

James Baldwin died at age 63 in 1987.

February is Black History month. Each school day during the month of February we will be recognizing African Americans who had a lasting impact on the U.S. Today we recognize Serena Williams.

Considered by some to be the greatest female tennis player ever, Serena Williams was born in Michigan in 1981.

Trained with her sister, Venus, by their father, Serena began playing tennis at age 3. She won her first major championship in 1999 and by 2003 had completed the career Grand Slam, having won each of tennis’ four major championships at least once.

Further demonstrating her versatility, Williams has developed her own fashion line, appeared in movies and on television, and formed the Serena Williams Foundation to provide educational opportunities for underprivileged youth around the world and to build schools in Africa.

No matter what Serena Williams does, whether its winning one of her 23 Major Singles Titles, taking time off from her athletic career to be a mother, or competing in her “Wakanda inspired” athletic catsuit, she seems to draw the public’s attention. Despite it all, she remains true to herself.

February is Black History month. Each school day during the month of February we will be recognizing African Americans who had a lasting impact on the U.S. Today we recognize Bayard Rustin. 

Bayard Rustin, born in Pennsylvania in 1912, was an African American civil rights activist. 

Rustin helped to organize Freedom Rides in the South and helped to organize the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, a driving force of the Civil Rights Movement, in the 50s and 60s.

As a gay man, Bayard Rustin would later publicly embrace and fight for gay and lesbian causes.

Rustin died in 1987, while on a humanitarian mission in Haiti. In November 2013, President Barack Obama posthumously awarded Bayard Rustin the Presidential Medal of Freedom.