Cheryl Browne was the 1st black contestant in the Miss America pageant, Miss Iowa, 1970.

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Jill E. Brown was the 1st black female pilot for a major commercial airline; Texas International Airlines, 1978.

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Tom Bradley was the 1st black elected mayor of Los Angeles, 1973.

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Doris A. Davis was the 1st black female mayor of a U.S. metropolitan city: Compton, California, 1973.

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Dr. James McCune Smith was the 1st formally trained black medical doctor, 1837.

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Ruth Simmons was the 1st black president of an Ivy League institution, Brown, 2001.

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Gracis Real de Santa Teresa de Mose was the 1st free black community, Florida, 1738.

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Harriet Wilson was the 1st black female novelist, Our Nig, or Sketches from the Life of a Free Black, 1859.

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Tarea Hall Pittman, civil rights activist, lobbied successfully for the California Fair Employment Practices Act in 1959 and subsequent laws in Arizona, Alaska, and Nevada.

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Elbert “Big Man” Howard was 1 of the 6 original founding members of the Black Panther Party at age 28, 1966.

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