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Legends.

The names you should know like family.

§ LEGENDS

She Trained Barefoot and Won the Gold

Alice Coachman had no access to training facilities, so she ran on dirt roads and jumped over rope tied between sticks. In 1948 she became the first Black woman from any country to win an Olympic gold medal.

§ LEGENDS

He Built the Blood Bank, Then Quit Over It

§ LEGENDS

She Went to Register and Lost Everything

§ LEGENDS

He Bought a Camera at a Pawn Shop

Gordon Parks called it his choice of weapons. He used it to become the first Black photographer at Life, then the first Black man to direct a major Hollywood studio film, and he never had a lesson.

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§ LEGENDS

He Stole a Confederate Ship and Sailed It to Freedom

In 1862 Robert Smalls, enslaved and working as a ship's pilot, waited for the white officers to go ashore, dressed in the captain's hat, and sailed past five Confederate forts with his family aboard.

§ LEGENDS

She Was Fifteen, and She Was First

Nine months before Rosa Parks, Claudette Colvin refused to give up her seat in Montgomery and was arrested. She was one of four plaintiffs in the case that actually ended bus segregation.

§ LEGENDS

She Learned French to Get a Pilot's License

§ LEGENDS

Ray Charles Asked for His Masters. In 1959.

§ LEGENDS

The Man Who Made the Street Wait Its Turn

Garrett Morgan saw two crashes coming, one on the road and one underground, and invented the answer to both. A sixth-grade education, and a patent General Electric paid 40,000 dollars for.

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§ LEGENDS

Born in a Cabin. Died a Millionaire.

Madam C.J. Walker built America's blueprint for turning a skill into an empire, and she took thousands of Black women up with her. The system, not the shampoo, was the invention.