Civil rights pioneer: Daisy Bates‏

Daisy Bates was a pivotal civil rights activist and the guide, mentor, and advisor for the Little Rock Nine.  She was also the president of the state of Arkansas’s NAACP branch and helped her husband run a weekly newspaper, the Arkansas State Press, which chronicled the ongoing battle for civil rights…

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Mary Seacole: healthcare pioneer

Mary Seacole helped to combat racial prejudices within the Crimean war. Using herbal medicines that she acquired form her Jamaican roots, she helped the wounded soldiers from the battlefields. A forgotten treasure to our history, Mary Seacole is the nurse that has paved the way for many black women that…

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Matthew Gaines—a pioneer in education

Matthew Gaines was a former slave, black senator and Baptist preacher. He was born on August 4, 1840, on a plantation. He learned to read by candlelight from books smuggled to him by another child, who happened to be white, who lived on the same plantation. Gaines escaped to freedom…

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