Black Mail: Leaders Leave Their Mark With Stamps
Robert Taylor is the latest to be honored by the USPS.
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Harriet Tubman - Initiated in 1978, the United States Postal Service has recognized the achievements of prominent African-Americans through their Black Heritage Stamp Series. Thirty-six years later the USPS continues to highlight Black leaders with the recently announced 2014 stamp of Shirley Chisholm, the first Black woman ever elected to Congress. In the following pages BET.com highlights all of the heritage stamps, starting with Harriet Tubman.The Harriet Tubman Black Heritage stamp was issued on Feb. 1, 1978, and was designed by Jerry Pickney. Tubman is most known for her work as an activist leading over 300 fugitive slaves through the Underground Railroad to Canada. (Photo: United States Postal Service)
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Martin Luther King, Jr. - The Martin Luther King Jr. stamp was issued on January 13, 1970, and was designed by Jerry Pickney. King graduated from Morehouse College at age 15 and became an instrumental force in the civil rights movement throughout the 1960s. He was assassinated in 1968. (Photo: United States Postal Service)
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Benjamin Banneker - The Benjamin Banneker stamp was issued on Feb. 15, 1980, and was designed by Jerry Pickney. Banneker was an esteemed astronomer, scientist and mathematician. (Photo: United States Postal Service)
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Whitney M. Young - The Whitney Moore Young stamp was designed by Jerry Pickney and was issued on Jan. 30, 1981, in New York. The social and civil rights advocate was appointed Dean of Atlanta University School of Social Work and in 1961 he became executive director of the National Urban League. He died in 1971 in a swimming accident. (Photo: United States Postal Service)
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Jackie Robinson - The Jackie Robinson stamp was also created by Jerry Pickney and issued on Aug. 2, 1982, in Cooperstown, New York. In 1945 he began his professional baseball career and in 1947 he became the first African-American in major league baseball when he became a member of the Brooklyn Dodgers. (Photo: United States Postal Service)
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Scott Joplin - The Scott Joplin Black heritage stamp was issued on June 9, 1983, in Sedalia, Missouri, and was created by Jerry Pickney. A native of Arkansas, Joplin learned to play the piano as a child and is most known for his compositions including "Sugar Cane Rag" and "The Entertainer," composed in 1902. In 1976 he was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for his many compositions.(Photo: United States Postal Service)
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Carter G. Woodson - Carter Goodwin Woodson's Black Heritage stamp was issued on Feb. 1, 1984, in Washington D.C. and was designed by Jerry Pickney. Woodson founded the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History in 1915 and the Journal of Negro History in 1916. In his later years he spent time editing the six volume Encyclopedia Africana.(Photo: United States Postal Service)
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Mary McLeod Bethune - The Mary McLeod Bethune stamp was created by Jerry Pickney and was issued on March 5, 1985, in Washington D.C. Bethune taught at several southern schools and served as president of Bethune-Cookman College until 1942. In 1935 she founded the National Council for Negro Women. (Photo: United States Postal Service)
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Sojourner Truth - The Sojourner Truth Black Heritage stamp was issued on Feb. 4, 1986, in New Platz, New York, and was created by Jerry Pickney. Truth is most known for her work as an abolitionist and orator.(Photo: United States Postal Service)
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Jean Baptiste Pointe Du Sable - The Jean Baptiste Pointe Du Sable stamp was created by Thomas Blackshear and issued on February 20, 1987, in Chicago. In 1779 Du Sable departed to an area called Eschikagou and decided to settle on the land, which he discovered. Today that land is named Chicago. (Photo: United States Postal Service)
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James Weldon Johnson - The James W. Johnson stamp was created by Thomas Blackshear and issued in Nashville, Tennessee, on Feb. 2, 1988. Johnson co-wrote the national Black anthem and became the first African-American to be admitted to the Florida Bar in 1897.(Photo: United States Postal Service)
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Asa Philip Randolph - The Asa Philip Randolph Black Heritage stamp was created by Thomas Blackshear and was issued Feb. 3, 1989, in New York. In 1947 Randolph formed the League for nonviolent Civil Disobedience and was instrumental in establishing the Fair Employment Practice Committee and the Civil Rights Act of 1964. (Photo: United States Postal Service)
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Ida B. Wells - The Ida B. Wells Black Heritage stamp was created by Thomas Blackshear and was issued on Feb. 1, 1990, in Chicago. Wells helped to found the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in 1909. Her efforts helped to fight against discriminatory Jim Crow laws in the 1950s and 1960s. (Photo: United States Postal Service)
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Jan Ernst Matzeliger - The Jan Ernst Matzeliger stamp was designed by Higgins Bond and issued on Sept. 15, 1991, in Lynn, Massachusetts. In 1883 he patented his machine called the Lasting Machine, which was able to turn out 200 to 600 pairs of shoes a day, compared to the manual rate of 50 shoes per day. (Photo: United States Postal Service)
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W.E.B. DuBois - The William Edward Burghardt DuBois stamp was created by Higgins Bond and issued by the USPS on Jan. 31, 1992, in Atlanta, Georgia. Du Bois received his doctorate degree from Harvard University in 1895. In 1903 he published a collection of essays called The Souls of Black Folk, which described the experience of Black people and in 1909 he helped to found the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).(Photo: United States Postal Service)
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Percy Lavon Julian - The Percy Lavon Julian stamp was issued on Jan. 29, 1993, in Chicago. It was designed by Higgins Bond. In 1927 Julian became the head of the chemistry department at Howard University. The hormones that he helped to produce are used to prevent miscarriages in pregnant women and are used to fight cancer. (Photo: United States Postal Service)
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William Allison Davis - The Dr. William Allison Davis stamp was issued on Feb. 1, 1994, in Williamstown, Maryland. It was created by Chris Calle. Davis received a masters in English from Harvard University in 1925 and a masters in anthropology from Harvard in 1932. In 1967 he became the first person from the field of education to be elected into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.(Photo: United States Postal Service)
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Bessie Coleman - The Bessie Coleman stamp was issued on April 17, 1955, in Chicago. It was created by Chris Calle. Coleman became the first woman to earn an International Aeronautics license on June 15, 1921.(Photo: United States Postal Service)
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Ernest E. Just - The Ernest Everett Just stamp was issued on Feb. 1, 1996, in Washington, D.C., and was created by Richard Sheaff. Just founded Omega Psi Phi fraternity and served as the head of Howard University's Department of Physiology. He was a renowned Marine Biologist.(Photo: United States Postal Service)
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Benjamin O. Davis Sr. - The Gen. Benjamin Oliver Davis, Sr. stamp was designed by Richard Sheaff and was issued on Jan. 28, 1997, in Washington D.C. Davis was the U.S. armed forces' first Black general officer and a key figure in the eventual integration of the armed forces. (Photo: United States Postal Service)
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Madam C.J. Walker - The Madam C.J. Walker stamp was issued on Jan. 28, 1998. A hair and beauty-care pioneer, Madam C.J. Walker became the first female African-American millionaire. Orphaned at the age of seven and a widowed laundress at the age of 20, Walker worked hard to achieve her success.(Photo: United States Postal Service)
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Malcolm X - The Malcolm X stamp was issued on January 20, 1999. A courageous advocate for the rights of African-Americans, Malcolm X was a civil rights activist, public speaker and Muslim minister. He was assassinated in 1965 when speaking in New York City.(Photo: United States Postal Service)
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Patricia Harris - The Patricia Roberts Harris stamp was issued on Jan. 27, 2000. Harris was the first African-American woman to serve as ambassador and the first to be a member of a presidential cabinet. She served as United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, and United States Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare in the administration of President Jimmy Carter.(Photo: United States Postal Service)
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Roy Wilkins - The Roy Wilkins stamp was issued on Jan. 24, 2001. The civil rights leader was an officer of the NAACP for 46 years, including 12 years as its executive director. Wilkins was awarded the Spingarn Medal in 1964 and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1969.(Photo: United States Postal Service)
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Langston Hughes - The Langston Hughes stamp was issued on Feb. 1, 2002. Considered one of the most important American writers of the 20th century, Hughes created innovative poetry that combined jazz, blues and the black vernacular with the traditions of poetry in English.(Photo: United States Postal Service)
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Thurgood Marshall - The Thurgood Marshall stamp was issued on Jan. 7, 2003. Thurgood Marshall worked as a civil rights lawyer before becoming the first African-American to serve as solicitor general of the United States. In 1967, he became an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, the first African-American to serve on the court.(Photo: United States Postal Service)
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Paul Robeson - The Paul Robeson stamp was issued on Jan. 20, 2004, and designed by Albert Slark. A world-renowned actor, singer, activist and athlete, Robeson was a man ahead of his time. Whether performing spirituals and folk songs or interpreting Shakespeare's Othello, Robeson infused his life and work with his principled stand against racism and his outspoken commitment to social justice.(Photo: United States Postal Service)
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Marion Anderson - The Marion Anderson stamp was issued on Jan. 27, 2005, and was designed by Albert Slark. Anderson was one of the greatest classically trained singers of the 20th century and a central figure in the struggle of Black Americans for racial equality. She performed internationally, singing a varied repertoire in her rich contralto.(Photo: United States Postal Service)
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Hattie McDaniel - The Hattie McDaniel stamp was issued on Jan. 25, 2006, and designed by Tim O'Brian. McDaniel entertained America as a movie actress, singer and radio and television performer. With her role in the 1939 film Gone With the Wind, she became the first African-American to win an Academy Award.(Photo: United States Postal Service)
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Ella Fitzgerald - The Ella Fitzgerald stamp was issued on Jan. 10, 2007, after being designed by Paul Davis. Fitzgerald was widely known as "the first lady of song." Her extraordinary vocal range and flexibility, combined with her gift for pitch, rhythmic sense and flawless diction, made her one of America's most distinctive singers of jazz and popular tunes.(Photo: United States Postal Service)
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Charles Chesnutt - The Charles Chesnutt stamp was issued on Jan. 31, 2008, after being designed by Kazuhiko Sano. Chesnutt is recognized today as a major innovator among turn-of-the-century literary realists. In novels such as The Marrow of Tradition and short stories such as those collected in The Conjure Woman, he probed the color line in American life.(Photo: United States Postal Service)
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Anna Julia Cooper - The Anna Julia Cooper stamp was designed by Kadir Nelson and issued on June 11, 2009. Cooper was an educator, author and activist who challenged biased notions of racial and gender inferiority. Cooper fought for social justice and civil rights for African-American women, young people and the poor through her scholarship, community outreach and innovative educational leadership.(Photo: United States Postal Service)
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Oscar Micheaux - The Oscar Micheaux stamp was designed by Gary Kelley and issued on June 22, 2010. The pioneering filmmaker wrote, directed, produced and distributed more than 40 movies during the first half of the 20th century. Micheaux thrived at a time when African-American filmmakers were rare, venues for their work were scarce and support from the industry did not exist.(Photo: United States Postal Service)
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John H. Johnson - In July, the USPS announced that it will honor John H. Johnson as the 2012 Black Heritage postage stamp. Johnson overcame poverty and racism to become the founder of the preeminent media company Johnson Publishing Company, which publishes EBONY and JET magazines and also owns Fashion Fair Cosmetics.(Photo: United States Postal Service)
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Barbara Jordan - The Barbara Jordan stamp was issued Sept. 16, 2011. Jordan was the first African-American woman elected to the Texas legislature. She also was the first African-American elected to the Texas State Senate since 1883, and the first African-American woman elected from the South to the U.S. Congress, where she served three terms, sponsoring and supporting numerous pieces of legislation extending federal protection of civil rights.In 1976, Jordan gained national acclaim when she became the first woman and the first African-American to deliver a keynote address to the Democratic National Convention. Jordan’s speech resonated throughout the country as she described Americans as “a people in search of a national community … attempting to fulfill our national purpose, to create and sustain a society in which all of us are equal.”(Photo: United States Postal Service)
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Althea Gibson - The Althea Gibson stamp was issued on Aug. 23, 2013, and was designed by Derry Noyes. Gibson helped integrate tennis during the civil rights movement by becoming the first Black Wimbledon champion in 1956. She was a two-time winner of the Wimbledon tournament, won the U.S. Open and in 1957 she became the top-ranked player in the world. (Photo: United States Postal Service)
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Shirley Chisholm - On Jan. 31, 2014, the postal service government honored Shirley Chisholm, the politician who shattered race and gender barriers when she became the first Black woman elected to Congress in 1972. The stamp uses a portrait of Chisholm by artist Robert Shetterly from a series of paintings titled Americans Who Tell the Truth. (Photo: United States Postal Service)