Praise for The Book of Awesome Black Americans
“Monique L. Jones is my go-to for witty, bold, and compassionate takes on pop culture. In The Book of Awesome Black Americans, Jones brings her impressive breadth of knowledge and slick style to this well-researched and endlessly exciting collection of Black American stories. The Book of Awesome Black Americans sheds new light on familiar heroes and showcases Black Americans we should be talking about more. Activists and rap stars, abolitionists and pioneers, inventors and scientists surge with life throughout this thrilling and comprehensive work. Read this book! It’s awesome.”
—Jennifer Maritza McCauley, National Endowment for the Arts Fellow and author of SCAR ON/SCAR OFF
“The Book of Awesome Black Americans belongs on every coffee table in America. Monique Jones packs her book with astonishing stories of bravery, grit, and joy. The astonishing anecdotes of overlooked personalities and heroes will ensure you never look at history the same again. Who says history has to be boring?”
—Li Lai, founder of Mediaversity Reviews
“Monique Jones digs deep to provide little-known facts and context for a marvelous assemblage of our unsung heroes.”
—Trey Mangum, contributor to The Hollywood Reporter
“Black history has always been more than one month, more than one chapter in a history book. Monique L. Jones’s Book of Awesome Black Americans show us that and more. Black people built America, despite being ripped from Africa via the act of global terrorism called the Transatlantic Slave Trade. In her vital and thorough book, Jones writes the history we don’t learn in school, the history we need to truly understand the multitudes we contain as Black people. This is a textbook in Black excellence and contribution, and it begins a conversation many are too eager to stifle. Black people’s history did not begin in 1619, and our place in this country will continue to evolve for many years to come.”
—Ashley Jones, recipient of the Rona Jaffe Foundation Writer’s Award and author of the award-winning poetry collections Magic City Gospel and dark // thing
“Monique Jones strikes the balance of fun and learning with her fantastic debut. The Book of Awesome Black Americans gives us an upbeat but necessary lesson on our unsung heroes.”
—Joi Childs, brand marketer and film/TV critic
Scientific Pioneers, Trailblazing Entrepreneurs, Barrier-Breaking Activists and Afro-Futurists
Monique L. Jones
Mango Publishing
Coral Gables
Copyright © 2020 Monique L. Jones
Published by Mango Publishing, a division of Mango Media Inc.
Cover and Interior Design: Jermaine Lau
Cover photos courtesy of Olga Besnard, Albert H. Teich, and Debby Wong. Interior photos from Shutterstock.
Mango is an active supporter of authors’ rights to free speech and artistic expression in their books. The purpose of copyright is to encourage authors to produce exceptional works that enrich our culture and our open society. Uploading or distributing photos, scans or any content from this book without prior permission is theft of the author’s intellectual property. Please honor the author’s work as you would your own. Thank you in advance for respecting our authors’ rights.
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2850 Douglas Road, 2nd Floor
Coral Gables, FL 33134 USA
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The Book of Awesome Black Americans: Scientific Pioneers, Trailblazing Entrepreneurs, Barrier-Breaking Activists and Afro-Futurists
Library of Congress Cataloging
ISBN: (p) 978-1-64250-147-6 (e) 978-1-64250-148-3
BISAC: YAN038110, YOUNG ADULT NONFICTION / People & Places / United States / African American
LCCN: 2019948836
Printed in the United States of America
Please note some names have been changed to protect the privacy of individuals.
To everyone important in my life; you know who you are.
To W.E.B. DuBois who came up with the idea for an encyclopedia of African diasporic excellence. To Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Kwame Anthony Appiah for following through with that idea by creating Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African-American Experience. Your work inspired and educated me as a child, and I hope this book passes on that same spirit of learning and pride.
Table of Contents
Little-Known Civil Rights Leaders
Chapter 4
Black Liberal Arts
Chapter 5
Beautiful Blackness
Chapter 6
Black American Environmentalists
Chapter 7
Black STEM
Chapter 8
Black Athleticism
Epilogue
Bibliography
About the Author
Who Is an Awesome black american to You?
Black history. It’s a topic the country revisits every