The Chico Mendes Biography: The Man Who Used Literacy to Save the Amazon. Chico Mendes began tapping rubber at nine years old and could not read until a communist exile hiding in the rainforest taught him at seventeen. He used that literacy to read newspapers, understand injustice, organise workers, invent a new form of conservation, … Read more
The Granville Woods Biography: The Man Who Beat Thomas Edison in Court Twice, Granville Woods left school at ten, taught himself electrical engineering from library books his friends checked out because Black people were excluded, invented the system that made railway communication possible, defeated Thomas Edison’s patent lawsuit twice, turned down Edison’s job offer, and … Read more
The Eric Moussambani Biography: He Could Not Swim Properly But Changed Olympics. Eric Moussambani trained three hours a week in a 13-metre hotel pool in Equatorial Guinea, had never seen a 50-metre Olympic pool, wore borrowed shorts and goggles on race day, nearly drowned completing his heat, and won it anyway when both opponents were … Read more
Alice Ball Biography: The 23 Year Old Who Solved Leprosy and Had No Credit. Alice Ball earned the first chemistry master’s degree given to a Black woman or any woman at the University of Hawaii. At 23 she solved a problem that had defeated medicine for centuries. She died at 24 before publishing her findings. … Read more
The Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti Biography: The Woman Who Led 10,000 Into a Palace. Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti dropped her English name in Britain as her first act of resistance. She led 10,000 women to a king’s palace, forced a monarch to abdicate, went to London as Nigeria’s only female delegate, met Mao Zedong, was accused of communism, had … Read more
The Nongqawuse Biography: A Girl, a River, a Prophecy. In April 1856, a fifteen-year-old Xhosa orphan went to chase birds from her uncle’s crops and came back with a message from the ancestors. What followed – 400,000 cattle slaughtered, 40,000 people dead, a nation broken – is one of history’s most debated events. Was she … Read more
The Yasuke Biography: The African Man Who Walked Into Japan. In 1579, an African man arrived in Japan with a Jesuit missionary. The crowd was so large to see him in Sakai that buildings were damaged. Oda Nobunaga scrubbed his skin trying to find the paint. Then he gave him a house, a sword, a … Read more
The Lozen Apache Biography – The Woman Who Fought For Forty Years. Lozen was born into a desert war. She rejected marriage at puberty, became an Apache warrior and prophet, crossed the Rio Grande on horseback under fire to lead women and children to safety, fought forty years against two governments, and died of tuberculosis … Read more
The Mary Seacole Biography: The Crying Woman of London Street. Mary Seacole was rejected by the War Office, rejected by the army medical department, rejected by Florence Nightingale’s team. She stood in a London street and cried. Then she funded her own passage to the Crimea, built a hotel two miles from the front line, … Read more
The Hector Pieterson Biography: The Boy Who Spike Black Revolution. Hector Pieterson was not supposed to join the march. He was too young. His sister was seventeen and had ironed her uniform the night before. He tagged along anyway. Sam Nzima took six photographs in the chaos. One of them ended apartheid. The night before … Read more