Names Worth Knowing

February is Black History Month, and it's a good time to learn about influential black Americans. But if you want to read about all of them, you'll have to go to an encyclopedia, because there's not enough room in this newspaper!

Here are just a few of the men and women who have helped to make America what it is today. Can you guess who these famous black Americans are? The answers are below.

1. This explorer and fur trader founded a settlement that grew into the city of Chicago.

2. Some have called this jazz musician the greatest composer American society has ever produced.

3. A colonial mathematician and astronomer, he assisted in the 1790 survey that laid out the District of Columbia.

4. This American abolitionist, born in 1797, traveled through the North preaching emancipation and women's rights.

5. His 1845 account of his life is one of the most compelling books about the brutality of slavery.

6. This author and educator founded the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, one of the leading black educational institutions.

7. Born into slavery in 1820, she escaped and became one of the most successful ``conductors'' on the Underground Railroad, leading more than 300 slaves to freedom.

8. At the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, this American athlete broke two world records and won four gold medals as Adolf Hitler looked on.

9. Her refusal to give up her seat on a municipal bus to a white man led to the successful 1955 bus boycott in Montgomery, Ala.

10. This Baptist minister gained worldwide renown as an advocate of nonviolent protest.

11. This diplomat won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1950 for negotiating an armistice between Israel and its Arab neighbors.

12. This outspoken civil-rights leader became a Muslim minister in 1952.

13. He was a civil-rights leader and author who cofounded the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1909.

14. Before becoming a United States Supreme Court justice in 1967, he served as chief counsel for the NAACP.

15. His long struggle and phenomenal talent finally broke the color barrier for blacks in professional baseball.

16. In 1989, he was appointed chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the top military man in the US.

17. This Wimbledon-winning tennis star wrote a three-volume series of books about black athletes.

18. This minister won more than 1,200 delegate votes at the 1988 Democratic National Convention.

19. This educator and college founder served as a special adviser on minority affairs to president Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

1. Jean Baptiste Pointe DuSable

2. Duke Ellington

3. Benjamin Banneker

4. Sojourner Truth

5. Frederick Douglass

6. Booker T. Washington

7. Harriet Tubman

8. Jesse Owens

9. Rosa Parks

10. Martin Luther King Jr.

11. Ralph Bunche

12. Malcom X

13. W.E.B. DuBois

14. Thurgood Marshall

15. Jackie Robinson

16. Colin Powell

17. Arthur Ashe

18. Jesse Jackson

19. Mary McLeod Bethune `Kidspace' is a place on The Home Forum pages where kids can find stories that will spark imaginations, entertain with a tall tale, explain how things work, or describe a real-life event. These articles appear twice a month, usually on Tuesdays.

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