ROLL OF HONOR

The Great, Near-Great and Fallen Get Their Due

By Earl A. Birkett

American civil rights symbol, writer and political advisor. Meredith was the first black student admitted to the racially segregated University of Mississippi, in 1962. An Air Force veteran, he remained a key figure in the Civil Rights Movement after graduation, especially in the area of voter registration, and at times at great risk to his life. He was a domestic advisor to Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.) from 1989 to 1991.

1978) American war hero and military officer. James was the first black to reach the rank of four-star general in the U.S. Air Force, in command of U.S. and Canadian strategic aerospace and defense. A native Floridian, he trained black pilots at Tuskegee Institute for the 99th Pursuit Squadron, the famed Tuskegee Airmen. James himself flew combat missions over Korea and Vietnam and has been decorated many times.

1950) American historian, writer and journalist. Woodson was the founder of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History. Called the “father of black history,” he was one of the first scholars to study the African diaspora. Woodson helped found The Journal of Negro History in 1916 and in February 1926 launched the celebration of what he called Negro History Week, the forerunner of Black History Month.

1946) This World War II U.S. Navy branch offered one of the rare opportunities for participation by African American women during the war. In 1944, Harriet Ida Pickens (l.) and Frances Wills (r.) were commissioned as the first black female officers in the WAVES.

American diplomat. Bunch helped found the United Nations and was instrumental in the decolonization of Africanpopulated countries after World War II. In 1950, he became the first African American and person of African descent to win the Nobel Peace Prize for his late 1940s mediation in Israel.

American statesman and military leader. Powell served as the first black chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff from 1989 to 1993 and the first black U.S. Secretary of State from 2001 to 2005. He was instrumental in conducting wartime operations in Kuwait, Afghanistan and Iraq.

Earl Birkett (1922-2014) American

engineer and businessman. Birkett was a pioneer in the nascent field of automation in the 1950s. A native of Harlem in New York City and the son of immigrants from Barbados, West Indies, Birkett was trained as a tool-and-die maker. In 1955, he invented the first machine to automate the assembly of ballpoint pens, thus revolutionizing the

pen industry. The holder of several patents for his inventions, he formed one of the first black-owned manufacturers, Birkett Automation Industries Ltd. He helped integrate the village of Lakeview on New York’s Long Island in the late 1950s. Birkett is the father of Earl A. Birkett, editor and publisher of BAVUAL.

American engineer. Woods was the first black mechanical and electrical engineer after the Civil War. Self-taught, he held more than 60 U.S. patents, mainly for his work on trains and streetcars. He invented a telegraph system for relaying messages between train stations and moving trains.

2005) American publisher and businessman. Johnson founded Johnson Publishing Company in Chicago, publisher of Ebony and Jet magazines, and Fashion Fair Cosmetics. He broke the Madison Avenue color bar to advertising in minority media and using minority talent.

American astronaut. Gregory became the first African American to command a space flight when space shuttle Orbiter Discovery was launched in 1989. The veteran Air Force pilot and engineer later served NASA in key posts, including deputy administrator and acting administrator.

American civil and human rights activist and educator. Few people today remember that the act of protesting for the rights of African Americans was once a dangerous activity. Beatings across the South were common. White supremacists resorted to murder when that didn’t work. Often at the forefront was Bob Moses, Harlemite and Harvard Ph.D., whose groundbreaking work on voter registration in Mississippi helped lead to adoption of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. He organized Freedom Summer in the state in 1964; three of his recruits were murdered by the Ku Klux Klan, which led to a massive FBI manhunt. Drafted during the Vietnam War, the anti-war Moses fled the U.S. until his pardon by President Jimmy Carter in 1977. He later won a coveted MacArthur Fellowship and developed the Algebra Project, which promoted math literacy for minority students.

1939) American civil rights icon. Gaines was the plaintiff in Gaines v. Canada (1938). He filed suit against the University of Missouri Law School after being denied admission on racial grounds. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in his favor, a key blow to the separate but equal doctrine.

American sailor and war hero. Miller served as a Navy cook aboard the battleship West Virginia, which was sunk at Pearl Harbor. He manned a tail gun and shot down several Japanese planes. Awarded the Navy Cross, the Navy’s second-highest medal after the Medal of Honor, Miller died in combat during World War II.

(1933-1996) American television actor. Morris was one of the first black performers to co-star in a TV network primetime series, as electronics genius Barney Collier on the CBS spy series Mission: Impossible (1966-1973).

Nichelle Nichols (b. 1932) American

television and film actress. Nichols gained lasting icon status when she was selected as a cast member on Star Trek (1966-1969), the NBC futuristic space travel series that has since become a pop-culture phenomenon. Nichols, a native Illinoisan, portrayed Lt. Nyota Uhura, African-born telecommunications officer aboard the USS Enterprise, a starship on a five-year voyage of intergalactic discovery. One of her biggest fans was Martin Luther King Jr., who persuaded her not to leave the series in its second season. A 1968 episode, “Plato’s Stepchildren,” featured the first interracial kiss on scripted TV and sparked viewer outrage in several Southern states.