Lift every voice and sing, till earth and heaven ring,Ring with the harmonies of liberty;Let our rejoicing rise, high as the list’ning skies,Let it resound loud as the rolling sea.Sing a song full of the faiththat the dark past has taught us,Sing a song full of the hopethat the present has brought us;Facing the rising sun of our new day begun,Let us march on till victory is won.

Stony the road we trod, bitter the chast’ning rod,Felt in the days when hope unborn had died;Yet with a steady beat, have not our weary feet,Come to the place for which our fathers sighed?We have come over a waythat with tears has been watered.We have come, treading our paththro’ the blood of the slaughtered,Out from a gloomy past, till now we stand at lastWhere the white gleamof our bright star is cast.

God of our weary years, God of our silent tears,Thou who has brought us thus far on the way;Thou who hast by thy might, led us into the light,Keep us forever in the path, we pray.Lest our feet stray from the placesOur God where we met Thee,Lest our hearts drunk with the wine of the worldwe forget Thee;Shadowed beneath Thy handMay we forever stand,True to our God,True to our native land

Lift Every Voice And Sing – “The Black National Anthem” is a song written as a poem by James Weldon Johnson and set to music by his brother John Rosamond Johnson in 1900.

Frederick Douglass, an African American born into slavery, is an icon in the history of both great Americans and great journalists. He was the founder of the North Star, an abolitionist newspaper. Douglass famously said, “Knowledge is the pathway from slavery to freedom.” Douglass’ book Life and Times of Frederick Douglass details accounts of what life was like as a slave. An advisor to both Presidents Lincoln and Johnson, as well as a United States Marshal, Douglass was at the forefront of the struggle to have this country live up to its promise of equity for all.

Born in Chelsea, Mass., Latimer learned mechanical drawing while working for a Boston patent attorney. He later invented an electric lamp and a carbon filament for light bulbs which he patented in 1882. Latimer was the only African-American member of Thomas Edison's engineering laboratory.

Born in Kentucky, Morgan invented a gas mask (patented 1914) that was used to protect soldiers from chlorine fumes during World War I. Morgan also received a patent (1923) for a traffic signal that featured automated STOP and GO signs. Morgan's invention was later replaced by traffic lights.

Born Sarah Breedlove (in 1906 she married a newspaper publisher named Christopher Joseph Walker), she was an African-American businesswoman, hair care entrepreneur and philanthropist. She made her fortune by developing and marketing a hugely successful line of beauty and hair products for black women under the company she founded, Madam C.J. Walker Manufacturing Company. Upon her death in 1919, she was considered to be the wealthiest African-American woman in America and known to be the first African-American woman millionaire.

Charles Drew was a pioneer researcher in blood plasma for transfusion and in the development of blood banks. Drew received his M.D. and Master of Surgery (C.M.) degree from McGill University in 1933. In 1943, Drew's distinction in his profession was recognized when he became the first black surgeon selected to serve as an examiner on the American Board of Surgery. The U.S. Postal Service issued a Commemorative Stamp with his portrait in 1981.

He was an American political scientist and diplomat who received the 1950 Nobel Peace Prize for his late 1940s mediation in Palestine. He was the first person of color to be so honored in the history of the Prize. He was involved in the formation and administration of the United Nations and in 1963, received the Medal of Freedom from President John F. Kennedy.

He was a clergyman, activist, and prominent leader in the African-American Civil Rights Movement. He is best known for his role in the advancement of civil rights in the United States and around the world using non-violent methods. King has become a national icon in the history of modern American liberalism.

The first Freedom Ride took place on May 4, 1961 when seven blacks and six whites left Washington, D.C., on two public buses bound for the Deep South. They intended to test the Supreme Court's ruling in Boynton v. Virginia (1960), which declared segregation in interstate bus and rail stations unconstitutional. In the first few days, the riders encountered only minor hostility, but in the second week the riders were severely beaten. Outside Anniston, Alabama, one of their buses was burned, and in Birmingham several dozen whites attacked the riders only two blocks from the sheriff's office. With the intervention of the U.S. Justice Department, most of CORE's Freedom Riders were evacuated from Birmingham, Alabama to New Orleans.

In 1962, he was the first African American student admitted to the segregated University of Mississippi, an event that was a flashpoint in the American civil rights movement. Motivated by President John F. Kennedy’s inaugural address, Meredith decided to exercise his constitutional rights and apply to the University of Mississippi. His goal was to put pressure on the Kennedy administration to enforce civil rights for African Americans.

He was the first African American popularly elected to the Senate in 1966. He served for two terms. Brooke would remain the only person of African heritage sent to the Senate in the 20th century until 1993.

He was the first African-American mayor serving as mayor of Springfield, Ohio. Henry was elected to Springfield's city commission in 1961, and began his term in January 1962. The commission then appointed him as the city's mayor in 1966. He was the mayor from 1966 to 1968.

He was an Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, serving from October 1967 until October 1991. Marshall was the Court's first African-American justice. Before becoming a judge, Marshall was a lawyer who was best remembered for his high success rate in arguing before the Supreme Court and for the victory in Brown v. Board of Education.

He was the first black male nominated for an Academy Award for best actor for his performance in The Defiant Ones. He was the first black male to win an Oscar for best actor in the film Lilies of the Field in 1963. In 1967 he became the first Black to have his hand and foot prints placed in front of Grauman’s Chinese Theater.

Doctor Patricia Bath, an ophthalmologist from New York, was the first African American female doctor to patent a medical invention. She developed the Cataract Laserphaco Probe. The probe, patented in 1988, was designed to use the power of a laser to quickly and painlessly vaporize cataracts, replacing the more common method of using a grinding, drill-like device to remove the afflictions. Dr. Patricia Bath was the first woman ophthalmologist to be appointed to the faculty of the University of California at Los Angeles School of Medicine Jules Stein Eye Institute.

Wilder was the first African American to be elected as governor of Virginia, and the first to serve as governor of a U.S. state. Wilder served as the 66th Governor of Virginia from 1990 to 1994. When earlier elected as Lieutenant Governor, he was the first African American elected to statewide office in Virginia. His most recent political office was Mayor of Richmond, Virginia, which he held from 2005 to 2009.

In 1987, Carson made medical history by being the first surgeon in the world to successfully separate siamese twins (the Binder twins) conjoined at the back of the head. Operations to separate twins joined in this way had always failed, resulting in the death of one or both of the infants. Carson agreed to undertake the operation. The 70-member surgical team, led by Carson, worked for 22 hours. At the end, the twins were successfully separated and can now survive independently.

He was the 16th Surgeon General of the United States, sworn in Feb. 13, 1998. He served as Director of the CDC from November15, 1993 until being sworn in as Surgeon General. While at the CDC, he increased childhood immunization rates from 55% in 1992 to 78% in 1996. He was the President of Meharry Medical College from 1982 to 1993. He was elected to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences in 1986.

A retired four-star general in the U.S. Army, he was the 65th Secretary of State, serving under President George W. Bush from 2001 to 2005. He was the first African-American to serve in that position. During his military career, Powell also served as Nation Security Advisor (1987–1989), as Commander of the U.S. Army Forces Command (1989) and as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (1989–1993), holding the latter position during the Gulf War. He was the first, and so far the only, African American to serve on the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Winfrey is best known for her self-titled, multi-award-winning talk show, which has become the highest-rated program of its kind in history and was nationally syndicated from 1986 to 2011.She has been ranked the richest African American of the 20th century, the greatest black philanthropist in American history, and was for a time the world's only black billionaire in 2004.

Rice was the first female African-American secretary of state (2005-2009). Rice was President Bush's National Security Advisor during his first term, making her the first woman to serve in that position. Before joining the Bush administration, she was a professor of political science at Stanford University where she served as Provost from 1993 to 1999.

Born Michelle LaVaughn Robinson, she is the first African-American First Lady of the United States (2008). She is the wife of the 44th

President, Barack Obama. Raised in Chicago, Michelle attended Princeton University and Harvard Law School and then returned to Chicago to work at the law firm Sidley Austin, where she met her future husband. As First Lady, she has become an advocate for poverty awareness, nutrition and healthy eating.

He is the 44th President of the United States and the first African American to hold the office. Obama previously served as a United States Senator from Illinois, from January 2005 until he resigned following his victory in the 2008 presidential election.

http://www.blackhistory.com/

http://www.afroamhistory.about.com/

http://www.britannica.com/blackhistory

http://www.mclibrary.duke.edu/hom/exhibits/blkhist/

http://www.f loridablackhistory.com/facts.cfm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_African-American_firsts

http://www.naacpcolliercounty.com/