DO NOT PUBLISH 10 incredible black women you should know about

It's easy to say. But while most grade school teachers agree that the experience and contributions of African-Americans are essential to understanding the nation's past, only about 9% of total class time -- about one or two lessons -- gets devoted to it, a 2015 study by the National Council for the Social Studies found.

Part of why, the study found, is that teachers often lack the confidence to teach black history and aren't sure "how and what content should be delivered."

Certainly worthy are these trailblazers, who excelled in fields that had been off-limits to black women.

This is who they are:

The first published poet

Phillis Wheatley -- originally a slave from West Africa -- was the first African American poet to publish a book. When she was nearly 8 years old, she was brought to New England as a slave.

The Wheatleys purchased and named the young girl, and after discovering her passion for writing (they caught her writing with chalk on a wall), tutored her in reading and writing. She studied English literature, Latin, Greek and The Bible. With the family's help, Wheatley traveled to London and published her first poems in 1773. Soon after, when she returned to America, she was given her freedom.

The first White House correspondent

Alice Dunnigan was mostly ignored in White House news conferences -- until John F. Kennedy became President. That year, Jet Magazine ran with the headline, "Kennedy In, Negro Reporter Gets First Answer in Two Years," according to Poynter.

Dunnigan was the daughter of a tenant farmer and laundress and began penning columns for the Owensboro Enterprise at just 13 years old. She graduated from Kentucky State University and taught for 18 years before moving to Washington DC and leading the Associated Negro Press. She was internationally recognized, and covered issues of injustice in South America, Haiti, Africa and the U.S. NEEDS A TIME MARKER SO WE KNOW WHEN SHE WAS ACTIVE

First Nobel Peace Prize winner

Kenyan ecologist Wangari Maathai became the first black woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004. An outspoken environmentalist, Maathai was honored for standing at the "front of the fight to promote ecologically viable social, economic and cultural development in Kenya and in Africa," according to the African American Registry.

She founded the Green Belt Movement, the largest tree-planting campaign in Africa, which has helped slow down deforestation. In 1998, she was voted Time Magazine's "Hero of the Planet."

First to refuse her seat

Claudette Colvin broke ground nearly 10 months before Rosa Parks. In March 1955, Colvin was arrested for violating Montgomery's ordinance, which required segregation on city buses, according to a Stanford University entry. Colvin, 15 at the time, went to jail without a chance to call her family, professor Nick Gier from the University of Idaho writes.

Colvin challenged the law in court, along with other women. But the NAACP thought Parks was a better icon for the movement. WHY? AND WHAT DID COLVIN GO ON TO DO?

The first college graduate

Mary Jane Patterson was 16 years old when her family moved to Ohio in efforts to send their children to college. (FROM WHERE DID THEY MOVE?) They belonged to a group of families in the area who were working towards the same goal. The daughter of a master mason, Patterson became the first black woman to graduate from an established American college in 1862.

Three years after her graduation from Oberlin College, she was appointed teacher assistant in the Female Department of the Institute of Colored Youth in Philadelphia, according to the African American Registry. She later taught at the Preparatory High School for Colored Youth -- renamed Dunbar High School -- serving as the school's first black principal in 1871 until 1874. (WAS THIS SCHOOL IN PHILLY TOO?)

First bank president

Maggie Lena Mitchell's mother was a former slave, who then served in Richmond, Virginia as an assistant cook in the Church Hill mansion of a Civil War spy. Young Mitchell earned her education in the city's public schools and later taught for three years until marrying Armstead Walker Jr.

Maggie Walker was on the local council of Independent Order of St. Luke when she was just a teenager, eventually rising to Right Worthy Grand Secretary in 1899, a position she held until she died in 1934.

In 1902, she founded the St. Luke Herald newspaper, and a year later, she founded the St. Luke Penny Savings bank, serving as the bank's first president -- becoming the first African American woman to charter a US bank, according to the National Park Service.

First nurse

Mary Eliza Mahoney first held jobs including cook, janitor and washerwoman when she first began working at he New England Hospital for Women and Children, according to Jacksonville University. When she was 33, she entered the hospital's 16-month nursing program and successfully received her certification.

Mahoney directed the Howard Orphan Asylum in Long Island, New York and was one of the original members of the Associated Alumnae of the United States and Canada -- later renamed the American Nurses Association.

After her retirement, she remained active in fighting for minority rights and soon became one of the first women to register to vote in Boston.

Fastest in the world

Wilma Rudolph was dubbed "the fastest woman in the world," and became the first American woman to win three gold medals in track and field at the same Olympic Game, according to the National Women's History Museum.

Rudolph was incredible when it came to running, but also took part in the fight for civil rights. When she returned home victorious, she refused to attend the segregated homecoming parade.

In 1961, she earned the Associated Press Female Athlete of the Year award, and in 1990, she became the first woman to receive the National Collegiate Athletic Association's Silver Anniversary Award.

First in space

Mae Jemison began studying in Stanford University when she was 16 years old. She went on to receive a degree in chemical engineering and later on a doctorate degree in medicine from Cornell University, in 1981.

In 1987, she joined NASA's astronaut program and worked on launch and computer software activities. She was a mission specialist on the STS-47 Spacelab-J, a mission between the US and Japan. Becoming the first black woman to travel in space, she orbited the Earth 126 times in an eight-day mission. She was afraid of heights, but that didn't stop her from getting into a rocket that shot thousands of miles upward.

First US trans politician

Andrea Jenkins became the first openly transgender person of color elected to public office in the US. By the time she was elected, she had more than 25 years of public service experience under her belt, working as a policy aid, non-profit executive director and consultant and employment specialist.

She's a writer, performance artist, poet and transgender activist. Jenkins campaigned on issues of police violence, combating climate change and sustainable living, voter suppression and affordable housing.

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