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Black History Month Spotlight: Claudette Colvin


"Claudette Colvin is a civil rights activist who, before Rosa Parks, refused to give up her bus seat to a white passenger. She was arrested and became one of four plaintiffs in Browder v. Gayle, which ruled that Montgomery's segregated bus system was unconstitutional.


After her refusal to give up her seat, Colvin was arrested on several charges, including violating the city's segregation laws. For several hours, she sat in jail, completely terrified. "I was really afraid, because you just didn't know what white people might do at that time," Colvin later said."



Black History Month Spotlight: Lonnie G. Johnson


"African American engineer and inventor Lonnie Johnson earned his master's degree in nuclear engineering from Tuskegee University and went on to work for the U.S. Air Force and the NASA space program.


After tinkering with the invention of a high-powered water gun, Johnson's Super Soaker became a top-selling item by the early 1990s.


He has since been developing the Johnson Thermoelectric Energy Converter (JTEC), an engine that converts heat directly into electricity, which Johnson's sees as the path to low-cost solar power."



Black History Month Spotlight: Matthew Henson


"Famed African American explorer Matthew Henson was hired by explorer Robert Edwin Peary as his valet for expeditions. For more than two decades, they explored the Arctic, and on April 6, 1909, Peary, Henson and the rest of their team made history, becoming the first people to reach the North Pole — or at least they claimed to have.


Henson joined Peary again, for an expedition to Greenland. While there, Henson embraced the local Eskimo culture, learning the language and the natives' Arctic survival skills over the course of the next year."



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