Benjamin Banneker was a largely self-educated mathematician, astronomer, compiler of almanacs, inventor and writer.
Bluford became the first African American to travel in space in 1983, as a mission specialist aboard the space shuttle Challenger.
Scientist George Carruthers created inventions, such as the ultraviolet camera, or spectograph, which was used by NASA in the 1972 Apollo 16 flight, revealing the mysteries of space and the Earth's atmosphere.
Ben Carson overcame his troubled youth in inner-city Detroit to become a gifted neurosurgeon famous for his work separating conjoined twins.
George Washington Carver was a prominent African-American scientist and inventor. Carver is best known for the many uses he devised for the peanut.
Astrophysicist Neil DeGrasse Tyson hosted NOVA ScienceNow and appeared on such shows as The Daily Show and Real Time with Bill Maher.
Charles Drew was an African-American surgeon who pioneered methods of storing blood plasma for transfusion and organized the first large-scale blood bank in the U.S.
Doctor Mae C. Jemison is the first African-American woman ever to be a U.S. astronaut. In 1992, she flew into space aboard the Endeavour.
Lonnie G. Johnson is an engineer and inventor who worked on the Cassini mission to Jupiter and invented the Super Soaker.
African-American chemist Percy Julian was a pioneer in the chemical synthesis of medicinal drugs such as cortisone, steroids and birth control pills.
Garrett Morgan blazed a trail for African-American inventors with his many patents, including those for a hair-straightening product, a breathing device, and an improved sewing machine and traffic signal.
James West is an American inventor who developed the foil electret microphone, now used in 90 percent of all contemporary microphones, in 1962.
Daniel Hale Williams was a physician who performed the first known open-heart surgery in the United States and who founded a hospital with an interracial staff.