As a literary scholar and cultural historian who has spent a lifetime searching out African Americans' lost, forgotten and otherwise unheralded tales, I was honored to serve as a historical consultant on Steve McQueen's "12 Years a Slave," most certainly one of the most vivid and authentic portrayals of slavery ever captured in a feature film.

Madam C.J. Walker, the first black millionairess in America, invented the world's first hair-straightening formula.

Paul Cuffee, perhaps the wealthiest black American of his time, led a Back-to-Africa effort in the early 1800s.

Who was the Plessy in the Plessy v. Ferguson Supreme Court case that established the separate-but-equal policy for separating the races?

Henry Louis Gates, Jr. describes the man who inspired his 100 Amazing Facts About the Negro series.