Free African American Firsts Cheat Sheets

Help your kids discover more than 125 moments in history with these Free African American Firsts Cheat Sheets. They can find out who the first African American missionary was, who the first African American to serve as governor of a U.S. state was, and much more. 

The events in these Free African American Firsts Cheat Sheets range from the 1700s to today. Students can find who was the: 

• first known African American published author (1760)
• first African American missionary (1782)
• first African American to formally practice medicine in the U.S. (1783)
• first African American captain to sail a whaleship with an all-black crew (1822)
• first African American field officer in the U.S. Army (1865)
• first African American baseball player in organized professional baseball (1878)
• first African American to sing at Carnegie Hall (1892)
• first African American professional basketball player (1902)
• first African American serviceman to become a colonel in the U.S. Army (1916)
• first African American police officer killed in the line of duty (NYPD) (1917)
• first African American woman to become an aviation pilot and first to hold an international pilot’s license (1921)
• first African American to be portrayed on a U.S. postage stamp (1940)
• first African American soloist to sing with the Metropolitan Opera of New York City (1955)
• first African American U.S. Secret Service agent (1956)
• first African American Cabinet member (1966)
• first African American appointed to the Supreme Court of the United States (1967)
• first African American woman to be appointed National Security Advisor (2001)
• first African American woman to be nominated as a brigadier general in the U.S. Marine Corps (2018)
• and more than 100 other firsts! 

There are two sets of cheat sheets in this set. The first organizes the events chronologically while the second organizes the famous Americans in alphabetical order. FREE to download at the bottom of the post!

If you would like a matching game about famous African American firsts, please jump over to our Black Heros post listed below: