Aviation

aviator, nurse, and nursing home proprietor, was born Janet Harmon in Griffin, Georgia, the daughter of Cordia Batts and Samuel Harmon, a brick contractor. The Batts family had long been established in Griffin. Janet's maternal grandfather was a freed slave of Spanish descent, and her maternal grandmother was a Cherokee. Janet's grandfather had built the house in which she and her siblings were born; her mother had been born in the same house. The youngest of seven children, Janet had a happy childhood, enjoying sports and games and excelling at school. In an interview conducted at the University of Arizona as part of a project called “African Americans in Aviation in Arizona,” Bragg reminisced: “We were a very happy family. We were not a rich family, only rich in love.”

Independence was encouraged in the Harmon household The children were allowed to attend any church they chose They were ...

Bragg, Janet (24 March 1907–11 April 1993), aviator, nurse, and nursing home proprietor, was born Janet Harmon in Griffin, Georgia, the daughter of Cordia Batts Harmon and Samuel Harmon, a brick contractor. The Batts family had long been established in Griffin. Bragg's maternal grandfather was a freed slave of Spanish descent, and her maternal grandmother was a Cherokee. Bragg's grandfather had built the house in which she and her siblings were born; her mother had been born in the same house. Bragg, the youngest of seven children, had a happy childhood, enjoying sports and games and excelling at school. In an interview conducted at the University of Arizona as part of a project called African Americans in Aviation in Arizona, Bragg reminisced: “We were a very happy family. We were not a rich family, only rich in love.”

Independence was encouraged in the Harmon household The children ...

athlete, dentist, and politician, was born in Topeka, Kansas, to Gary W. Cable, a teacher and postal worker, and Mary Ellen Montgomery Cable, a public school administrator and civil rights activist. In 1894 the family moved to Indianapolis, Indiana, where Cable attended public school and graduated from integrated Shortridge High School in 1908. He moved on to the exclusive Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire for the next school year and enrolled at Harvard University in 1909.

Cable had not participated in organized athletics in high school, but he tried out for the freshman track team at Harvard and caught the eye of Coach Pat Quinn. With Quinn's guidance, Cable developed rapidly. In the annual Harvard-Yale freshman meet, he won the hammer throw and he also performed well in the 220-yard hurdles and the broad jump (now the long jump) in intramural competitions.

He easily made ...

physician and aviation pioneer, was born in Nassau, Bahamas, one of six children of Horatio A. Forsythe, a civil engineer, and Maude Bynloss. During his childhood, the family lived in Jamaica, West Indies, where Forsythe received his early education. When he arrived in America in 1912 to attend Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, his original intention was to study architecture, but as a student of George Washington Carver, he switched his focus to a career in medicine. After graduating from Tuskegee, he attended McGill University Medical School in Montreal, Canada, and in 1930 he earned his medical degree as Doctor of Public Health. Forsythe performed his postgraduate work at Providence Hospital in Chicago, Seaview Sanatorium in New York, and Douglass Hospital in Philadelphia. He moved to Atlantic City, New Jersey, where he began to concentrate on flying airplanes, a dream he had harbored since childhood.

Forsythe took ...

Forsythe, Albert Edward (25 February 1897–04 May 1986), aviator and physician, was born in Nassau, the Bahamas, the son of Horatio Alexander Forsythe, a civil engineer, and Lillian Maud Byndloss Forsythe. When he was three, the family moved to Jamaica. His mother died of pneumonia while Forsythe was a child. His father soon remarried, eventually fathering thirteen children. The family was comfortably middle class, employing several servants. A gifted student, Forsythe attended the Titchfield School, where he excelled in mathematics. When he was fourteen, the headmaster of the school recommended that he be sent to England to complete his education. His father preferred to send him to Tuskegee Institute in Tuskegee, Alabama, an institution founded by Booker T. Washington to educate African Americans.

Arriving in the United States Forsythe was met in Miami by relatives who cautioned him about segregation in the South Blacks could not use ...

astronaut and physician, was born Mae Carol Jemison in Decatur, Alabama, the daughter of Charlie Jemison, a carpenter and roofer, and Dorothy Jemison, a teacher whose maiden name is unknown. After living the first three and a half years of her life in Alabama near the Marshall Space Flight Center, Jemison moved to Chicago with her parents and older siblings, Rickey and Ada Sue. When her family experienced trouble with local gangs, they moved to another section of the city, where Jemison immersed herself in her schoolwork. An avid reader, she also was inspired by role models in the media, such as Lieutenant Uhura, a black woman astronaut portrayed by the actress Nichelle Nichols in the 1960s television series Star Trek At a time when all astronauts were white and male even a fictional character such as Lieutenant Uhura had a positive impact on ...

astronaut and educator. Mae Jemison is best known as the first African American woman in space, but this simple statement does not speak adequately to the greatness of her attributes and skills. Born in 1956 in Decatur, Alabama, Jemison, with her mother, her father, and two older siblings, moved to Chicago in 1959. Jemison was deeply interested in science and nature. She cultivated that interest independently by reading evolutionary theory and astronomy, as well as in the classroom by taking classes in biology, chemistry, and physics. An honors student, Jemison graduated from Morgan Park High School in 1973. That fall she attended Stanford University on a National Achievements Scholarship. She earned both her BS in chemical engineering and a second bachelor's degree in Afro-American studies in 1977. Jemison then went to Cornell University Medical School, where she earned her MD in 1981 She completed her ...

The daughter of Charlie and Dorothy Jemison, a maintenance supervisor and schoolteacher in Decatur, Alabama, Mae Carol Jemison was raised in Chicago, Illinois. Graduating from Morgan Park High School in 1973 at the age of sixteen, she entered Stanford University on a National Achievement Scholarship. Jemison graduated in 1977 with two concurrent bachelor's degrees, in chemical engineering and African/Afro-American studies. She then entered Cornell Medical School, graduating in 1981 and interning in Los Angeles, California.

Jemison joined the Peace Corps in January 1983 and worked as a medical officer in West Africa through July 1985. In 1987 she was accepted by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) as an astronaut candidate, one of fifteen who were accepted from among 2,000 applicants. She completed a one-year training and evaluation program in August 1988 and became a science mission specialist helping prepare the space shuttles for ...

One such feat occurred on 12 September 1992, when she soared to new heights on the space shuttle Endeavor and became the first African American woman to venture into outer space.

The youngest of three children, Jemison was born in Decatur, Alabama, to Charlie and Dorothy Jemison, a maintenance supervisor at United Charities of Chicago and an elementary schoolteacher, respectively. From a young age Jemison dreamed of traveling into outer space, despite the fact that the astronaut corps did not accept American women until 1970 Determined to provide Jemison and her older sister and brother Ada and Charles with opportunities not afforded in the South her family moved to Chicago Illinois in search of a better quality of life At Morgan Park High School she was given the opportunity to explore a variety of areas that captivated her attention Jemison was academically intrigued and stimulated by ...

astronaut and medical doctor, was born Robert Lee Satcher Jr. in Hampton, Virginia, the eldest of four children of Marian and Robert Satcher. Satcher's father was a chemistry professor at Hampton University, and it was that science background—along with a professed love of the popular science-fiction films of the 1970s (George Lucas'sStar Wars chief among them)—that bequeathed to the young Satcher both an interest in science and a fascination with outer space.

Satcher attended local schools in Hampton, including Spratley Middle School and Denmark-Olar High School, from which he graduated in 1982. He matriculated at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and from that institution earned a bachelor's degree in chemical engineering in 1986. He stayed on at MIT and in 1993 earned a PhD in chemical engineering. A year later, 1994 he was attending Harvard Medical School from which he graduated with a degree in ...