Do You Know These Heroes of Black History?

Every February, as America marks Black History Month, it seems that we hear the same familiar names.

While the stories and sacrifices of heroes like Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X and Rosa Parks obviously should be celebrated and remembered, there are so many others who have contributed so much to the ongoing struggle for justice and equality, and yet have remained under-appreciated and virtually unknown.

Rx for Brown Skin would like to celebrate some of these unsung heroes.

William Still: Considered the “Father of the Underground Railroad,” Still helped as many as 60 slaves escape to freedom each month for a period of years. He also kept meticulous records which were vital to preserving the history of the Underground Railroad as well as the names and stories of the fugitive slaves he helped save.

Annie Turnbo Malone: Her most famous employee, Madam C.J. Walker, has overshadowed her legacy, but Malone was the original pioneer of black beauty. She developed hair care products under the name Poro, which she sold door to door. As her business grew, Malone trained other agents to sell Poro products and built her own factory and beauty training school, known as Poro College, helping to provide jobs to hundreds of African Americans as well as breaking boundaries in American business.

Charles Hamilton Houston: Simply put, Houston was the man who killed America’s segregationist Jim Crow laws. He masterminded the NAACP’s legal strategy to challenge the “separate but equal” doctrine. Houston served as one of the U.S. Army’s first African American officers during World War. After the war, he enrolled in Harvard Law School, becoming the first black editor at the “Harvard Law Review” and went on to mentor Thurgood Marshall, the first black Supreme Court Justice of the United States.

Irene Morgan: Eleven years BEFORE Rosa Parks famously refused to give up her bus seat to a white men, Irene Morgan, a young mother of two, refused to yield her seat to white patrons when the bus got crowded in the summer of 1944. The NAACP appealed the case all the way to the Supreme Court, which ruled segregation in interstate travel illegal in 1947, setting an important precedent in dismantling Jim Crow.