Benjamin Banneker was a Black American scientist, astronomer and surveyor. Born free in 1731 to a mulatto mother and a formerly enslaved African father, Banneker received a private educated through the 8th grade and continued to be a self-taught scholar for the rest of his life. He created the first wooden clock in North America, successfully predicted the solar eclipse of 1789 and published a poplar almanac with reliable weather and medical information as well as poems and essays against slavery for more than a decade. Banneker was appointed by George Washington to assist in designing the blueprints for Washington D.C. as the Nation’s Capital. He corresponded with Thomas Jefferson to refute the future President’s position on the inferiority of Black people. "The color of the skin is in no way connected with the strength of the mind or intellectual powers." He wrote. Impressed, Jefferson shared Banneker’s work with the French Academy of Sciences in Paris.
https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/bannekerreno.htm
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Benjamin Banneker