Pioneers & Explorers

Guion "Guy" Bluford, Jr. was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. His mother was a teacher and his father was a mechanical engineer. While in high school, he was given advice to learn a trade because he did not appear to be "college material." He ignored the advice and enrolled into Penn State University, receiving a B.S. in Aerospace Engineering. He also enrolled in ROTC and attended flight school.

Bluford was assigned to the 557th Tactical Fighter Squadron in Vietnam and flew 144 combat missions, of which nearly half were over North Vietnam. After Vietnam, he became a flight instructor in Texas. In 1972, he was assigned to the Air Force Flight Dynamics Laboratory in Ohio. There, he earned a Master's degree in Aerospace Engineering. He went on to earn his Ph.D. in the same subject in 1978.

In 1979, he was one of 35 astronaut candidates selected from a field of over 10,000. Bluford entered the Astronaut Training Program. On August 30, 1983, Bluford became the first African-American to go into space on the Space Shuttle Challenger. It was Challenger's third mission and the first mission with a night launch and night landing. He served on three more shuttle missions on board shuttles Challenger and Discovery.

Bluford was inducted into the International Space Hall of Fame in 1997 and the United States Astronaut Hall of Fame in 2010. Bluford served his country in time of war, excelled in academics and made an impact in the American space program. His service makes him a great American.

George Washington Bush was born around 1779. His father was a slave to an English merchant in Philadelphia. Bush's mother was an Irish maid. When the slave owner died, he left everything to George's parents and they suddenly had a small fortune. George was born as a free black and was raised as a Quaker.

George fought in the Battle of New Orleans with Major General Andrew Jackson during the War of 1812. He then served as a voyageur and trapper for several fur trading companies, including the Hudson's Bay Company. By 1830, George had settled in Clay County, Missouri and married a German woman named Isabella. They had five children.

Life in Missouri was hard because of the racism associated with the state's status as a slave state. So, the Bush family, along with four white families set out on the Oregon Trail to make a new life in the West. However, when the group reached Oregon in 1844, they found that the Oregon Territory had passed laws barring settlement of African-Americans. Therefore, the entire party headed north across the Columbia River and stayed the winter at the Hudson's Bay Company's Fort Vancouver.

Bush set out the next year to explore Puget Sound. After exploring the region, he staked out a 640-acre claim and opened the region's first gristmill and sawmill. He became a farmer of vegetables, fruit and grain. Due to a treaty in 1846, the Oregon Territory extended to the 49th parallel and the Bush family once again had to deal with the racism laws of the area. Fortunately, Congress passed a special act that allowed the Bush family to retain their property and land.

Bush became the first black settler of present-day Washington State. His hard work and effort helped start a thriving community in the Northwest. After his death, his family went on to make the business successful. His son served in the Washington State Legislature and helped found Washington State University. Bush, like many who braved the dangerous trip to settle the West, became a great American.

Elizabeth Coleman was born the 10th of 13 children in 1892 in Atlanta, Texas. Early in her childhood, they moved to Waxahachie, Texas to be sharecroppers. In 1901, her father, George, left the family for Oklahoma, leaving her mother to raise all of the children. By the age of 12, she enrolled in a Missionary Baptist Church for her education. She excelled in mathematics. After completing her schooling, she enrolled in the Oklahoma Colored Agricultural and Normal University in Langston, Oklahoma. She only completed one term because she ran out of money and was forced to return home.

When she was 23 years old, she moved to Chicago, Illinois as part of the Great Migration to live with her brothers and look for work. She found a job as a manicurist. When one of her brothers and others returned from World War I, she heard stories about the aviators in the war. She became so intrigued that she tried to apply to a flight school, but was denied because of her race and gender. However, a big break came her way when the publisher of the Chicago Defender, Robert S. Abbott, and a local banker, Jesse Binga, financed her way to study in Europe.

After taking a course in French in Chicago, Bessie left to study flying in France. She learned to fly a Nieuport Type 82 biplane in just seven months of a ten-month course. On June 15, 1921, she became the first American of any color to earn an international pilot’s license and the first woman of African-American descent. When she returned to the United States, she became a media sensation. However, she would not be able to earn a living flying a plane in America unless she could learn tricks for an air show. So she returned to France for further study. She travelled to Holland, France and Germany and took tours of airplane makers.

Three months later, Bessie returned to the United States to start her career barnstorming. The pressed dubbed her “Queen Bess.” Her first show was in September of 1922 at an event honoring an all-black regiment of World War I in Long Island, New York. She was billed as the “world’s greatest woman flier.” Six weeks later, she performed a dazzling display in Chicago. She was flamboyant and daring and never afraid to do a stunt. In 1923, she was severely injured in a plane crash in Los Angeles and was hospitalized for three months. She returned to Chicago and and found financial backing to start a new show in Texas. Her goal was to earn enough money to start her own flight school.

Unfortunately, tragedy struck on April 30, 1926 when she and her co-pilot will killed in a rehearsal accident over Orlando, Florida. Thousands attended her memorial services. In 1931, the Challenger Pilots’ Association of Chicago began annual flyovers of her grave in her honor. In 1977, women pilots of the Chicago area established the Bessie Coleman Aviators Club. In 1995, the United States Postal Service dedicated a stamp in her honor. She is considered an American heroine and a great America.

Mary Fields was born a slave in Hickman County, Tennessee sometime around 1832. During her childhood, Fields was taught to read and write, a rarity for any slave during that time. She grew to be a very imposing woman, standing six feet tall and weighing over 200 pounds. She gained her freedom after slavery was abolished in 1865, but chose to stay with the family that owned her, the Dunne family.

When Josephine Dunne died in 1883, Mary Fields took the five Dunne children to their aunt, Sister Mary Amadeus, in Toledo, Ohio. Sister Amadeus was the Mother Superior of a convent. In 1884, Sister Amadeus was sent to the Montana Territory to start a school for Native American girls. Mary Fields stayed behind. However, when he got word that Sister Amadeus was very ill, Fields rushed to Montana to help her friend back to health. Afterwards, she chose to stay and work at the school.

While working at the Mission school in Montana, Fields became the school's foreman and supervised in the repairs and maintenance of the buildings. One man refused to take orders from a black woman and knocked her down. When he went to draw his gun, Fields grabbed the gun and shot the man, killing him. For her actions, Fields was fired from the school.

Now around 60 years old, Mary Fields took a job with the United States Postal Service delivering mail from the town of Cascade, Montana to families in the surrounding areas. She proved to be the fastest applicant to hitch a team of six horses and to draw a gun. She was the first African-American woman ever to work for the Postal Service. She fought off robbers and attacking wolves. It was said that she once hiked 10 miles alone through the snow to deliver the mail because the horses could not get through the snow drifts.

Mary Fields rolled and crewed her own cigars. She wore a ten-gauge shotgun on her lap. She kept a six-shooter in one pocket and a flask of whiskey in the other. Despite a law in Montana forbidding women to enter saloons, she was said to be the only woman in the state to be given an exception. She earned the nickname "Stagecoach Mary" and became known as the toughest woman in the west. She loved baseball and supported the local team with flowers. She would take no backtalk off of any man and was known to get into numerous fights and win.

At the age of 70, she decided to "slow down" and she started a laundry business. The people of the town loved her and even closed schools on her birthday to celebrate the occasion. She broke all boundaries of race, gender and age. Her story is now one of legend in the west. Her life is one of a truly great American.

Henson was born in Nanjemoy, Maryland in 1866. While still a child, both of his parents died and his uncle took care of him and paid for his education. At the age of 12, his uncle died and he became a cabin boy on a merchant ship. There, he educated himself in navigation and sailed around the world many times.

After his captain died, Henson moved back to the Washington, DC area and became a store clerk until he met Robert E. Peary. Peary hired Henson as his valet, however upon learning more about his navigation skills, decided to have him as his colleague.

In 1891, Henson accompanied Peary on an expedition to Greenland. While he was there, Henson mastered the Inuit language and learned much about the local customs. Throughout the next decade, Henson and Peary made several expeditions to Greenland. They discovered three meteorites and sold them to the American Museum of Natural History to help finance future expeditions.

They made several attempts to reach the North Pole. In 1906, President Theodore Roosevelt backed their trip with a ice cutting vessel and they were able to sail within 175 miles of the Pole. Their final attempt to reach the pole took place in 1909. On April 6, Henson, Peary and four Eskimos reached the North Pole.

When the expedition returned, Peary received most of the accolades while Henson was mostly forgotten. Henson returned to the United States and spent the next thirty years as a clerk in a federal customs house in New York. In 1937, at the age of 70, Henson finally received recognition for his accomplishments as an explorer and the Explorers Club of New York accepted him as an honorary member. In 1938, Bradley Robinson wrote his biography, "Dark Companion." Finally, in 1944, Congress awarded Henson with a duplicate silver medal given to Peary for his accomplishments. He was honored by both President Truman and President Eisenhower. He died in 1955, however his body was exhumed and reburied at Arlington National Cemetery where he is honored.

Today, Henson is considered today was one of the world's greatest explorers. His contributions to science and exploration have finally been recognized. His achievements are finally being recognized as ones from a great American.

Mae Jemison was born in Decatur, Alabama in 1956. At the age of three, her family moved to Chicago, Illinois. Since she was little, Jemison was interested in science. She graduated from Morgan Park High School with honors and was accepted into Stanford University on a National Achievement Scholarship.

In 1977, Jemison received her Bachelor's of Science in both Chemical Engineering and African-American Studies. She was also heavily involved in dance, theater and served as the head of the Black Student Union. She then attended Cornell University Medical College in New York and graduated with her M.D. in 1981. She studied abroad in Cuba, Kenya and Thailand. Her internship was at Los Angeles County/University of Southern California Medical Center. In 1982, she joined the Peace Corps and served as a medical officer and teacher in Sierra Leone and Liberia. She became fluent in Russian, Japanese and Swahili.

When Jemison returned to the United States, she decided to apply for admission to NASA's astronaut training program. Her application was delayed due to the Challenger disaster of 1986, but was finally accepted a year later becoming a member of the first class of astronauts selected after the Challenger explosion. Jemison said that her inspiration for becoming an astronaut was actress Nichelle Nichols on the television show "Star Trek." Nichols played an African-American female officer on the fictional USS Enterprise spaceship. On September 12, 1992, she became the first African-American woman in space on the 50th Space Shuttle mission.

Jemison resigned from NASA in 1993 and started the Jemison Group Company, a firm that researches, develops and markets advanced technologies. She accepted a prestigious Montgomery teaching fellowship at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire. She co sponsored an annual International Science Camp for kids. She has served as the National School Literacy Advocate for the Bayer Corporation's program, "Making Science Make Sense." She authored a booked geared towards children grades seven through twelve.

Her career is far from over. She is the only real astronaut to ever act on the television series, "Star Trek: The Next Generation." She has received nine honorary doctorates in the areas of engineering, humanities, science, and letters. She has been inducted into the International Space Hall of Fame and the National Women's Hall of Fame. Her continuing accomplishments make her a great American.

Frank McWhorter was born sometime during 1777 in South Carolina as a slave. His mother was directly from Africa and it was believed that his father was his slave owner, George McWhorter. In 1795, McWhorter left South Carolina with Frank to settle in Kentucky. Frank met a fellow slave, Lucy, on a neighboring farm and they got married. Their union lasted 55 years.

Frank was leased out to neighboring farms as a laborer. It was during these times away from the plantation that Frank learned business and organizational skills. When his owner moved to Tennessee, Frank was left in Kentucky in charge of the farm. While running the day-to-day operations of the farm, Frank secretly ran a saltpeter operation from resources found in nearby caves. He sold the saltpeter during the War of 1812 and saved enough money to buy his freedom in 1819. Two years later, he purchased his wife’s freedom.

He now took on the name “Free Frank.” He continued his business and purchased land in Kentucky. However, as more whites moved into the region and he was faced with racial prejudice, McWhorter faced some hard decisions. He decided to sell his saltpeter business in order to purchase his son’s freedom. Young Frank was a fugitive who ran away to Canada. In 1830, he purchased a piece of land in the free state of Illinois that was set aside by the federal government for military veterans.

After making the journey to Illinois with the free members of his family, Free Frank set up a farm 20 miles from the Mississippi River. Over the next several years, he raised enough money to buy additional family members. He continually travelled back to Kentucky at great risk to retrieve them. By 1836, Free Frank also purchased an additional 80 acres of land adjacent to his farm. He petitioned the Illinois Legislature to change his last name to “McWorter” in order to protect his business holdings from his former master. Afterwards, he took his newly-purchased land and became the first African-American in the United States to formally incorporate it as a municipality. The name of the new town was New Philadelphia and it was settled by both whites and blacks.

Over the rest of his life, Free Frank continued to purchase the freedom of his relatives in Kentucky. His town, which thrived during his time, went into decline after his death due to it being bypassed by the railroad. Today, the townsite is on the National Registry of Historic Places and a location of much research by archeologists from various universities. A portion of Interstate Highway 72 is named in his honor. His foresight in creating a town for both blacks and whites to live together was the inspiration for the future creation of towns across the United States. Free Frank’s hard work and efforts made him a Great American.

York was born into slavery around 1770 in Virginia. He was owned by the Clark family and was the boyhood companion of William Clark. Not much is known about York’s early life except that he was willed to William Clark when his father, John Clark, died.

In 1804, William Clark and Meriwether Lewis were both commissioned to explore the newly acquired Louisiana Purchase. Lewis and Clark both assembled a Corps of Discovery made up of 29 men. Clark insisted that York accompany the Corps. With this decision, York became the first black man to cross the North American continent north of Mexico.

York worked alongside the other men doing equal work. Because he was one of the few men who could swim, York helped in gathering food. When Sergeant Charles Floyd fell ill and became the only member of the group to die on the expedition, York was principally his caretaker until he passed. Throughout the journey, William Clark was seldom without York, suggesting that they were close friends despite Clark’s ownership.

York was admired and respected by the many Native Americans that they met along the journey. He was instrumental in diplomatic negotiations between the Corps and the tribes that were encountered. Throughout the journey, Clark named newly discovered geographical features after the men on the expedition. York was no exception. When Clark named a group of islands after York, it became the first time a geographic location had been named in honor of an African-American. York saved William Clark several times during the journey, including incidents with a flash flood as well as a grizzly bear.

When the men reached the Pacific Ocean, Lewis and Clark permitted the men to vote on important matters concerning the Corps. York fully participated in the voting as an equal man among the group. Some consider him to be the first black man in America to have the right to vote. Unfortunately, when the Corps returned, York was once again a slave under the ownership of William Clark.

There are conflicting accounts as to the fate of York after the expedition. By some accounts, he was given his freedom 10 years after the expedition returned and that he worked in Kentucky until his death around 1822. Other accounts have him returning to the west and living among Crows in Wyoming in the 1830s.

In 2001, President Bill Clinton posthumously awarded York the rank of sergeant in the United States Army. Because of his strength, stamina and courage, York became instrumental in the success of the great Corps of Discovery. Without York, the Lewis & Clark Expedition would not have been a success. York was seen as an equal among the men of the Corps and his contribution to the expedition made him a great American.