Intentional, place-based, evidence-first

Jason Muse created Black Muze Initiative because school-aged children of color deserve to encounter extraordinary historical people whose ingenuity, scholarship, creativity, care and leadership are too often missing from the stories they learn.

The goal is discovery: histories children never knew they always wanted to learn about, possibilities seen in people and places connected to their own lives, and practice in the thinking behind each achievement. This first Black collection is one strand of a wider BIPOC educational vision.

Founded by Jason Muse, in partnership with Black Muze Global Network (BMGN), Obsidian Solutions and Pedagogy Muse. Intended future address: initiative.bmgn.net.

Selection weighs four things together: identity, place, discipline, and evidence. The edition holds 36 figures — 18 women and 18 men — across STEM, the humanities, and both, starting from San Francisco's Bayview–Hunters Point and widening to California and the nation.

Stories center what people built, discovered, made and led. The collection avoids oppression-only narratives and deficit stereotypes, and does not suggest that extraordinary accomplishment is what confers dignity. Identities are recorded as sources describe them — for example, Arturo Alfonso Schomburg's Afro-Puerto Rican identity and Edmonia Lewis's Black and Indigenous heritage.

The collection connects with Disciplinary Analytical Pedagogy (DAP), Jason Muse’s developing approach to learning through the thinking practices of each discipline — how a chemist tests, how an archivist gathers evidence, how a designer communicates. The inquiry and making prompts in each article invite learners into those practices.

Each article draws on institutional and primary sources — national parks, museums, universities, libraries and scholarly organizations. Every source in a record lists the specific claim it supports, and articles cite those sources inline and in a reference list with a last-reviewed date.

Uncertain facts stay uncertain: disputed birthplaces (such as Mary Ellen Pleasant's and Biddy Mason's), source-dependent dates (Sargent Claude Johnson, Charlotta Bass) and approximate years are labeled, never smoothed over. Articles are curated, not openly editable, and have not been independently scholar-reviewed.

Enter a five-digit U.S. ZIP code and the collection ranks by approximate straight-line miles from that ZIP's listed postal point to the nearest documented birthplace, roots/education, or work place for each figure. The matched place and relationship are always shown.

Approximate straight-line distances between representative area points—not driving distances or exact historical addresses. County-level matches have additional uncertainty. Global impact, broad regions, disputed origins, and unlocated foreign places must not create numeric distances. Formula: Haversine great-circle distance, earth mean radius 3958.7613 miles.

ZIP coordinates: GeoNames postal-code data (United States and Puerto Rico), CC BY 4.0, modified into a lookup table bundled with this site. Not every valid ZIP may be present; missing ones show a clear “not in dataset” message. Place points: U.S. Census Bureau, 2026 Gazetteer Files, except San Francisco, which uses the GeoNames populated-city point (CC BY 4.0) because the Census point for San Francisco's municipal territory falls offshore. A proximity match does not prove a connection to any particular neighborhood.

Spotted an error or a better source? Corrections are reviewed by the editorial team against primary and institutional sources, then applied to the versioned master file with an updated revision note and review date on the affected article.

A public correction form isn't available in this preview edition. Please share corrections through your existing contact with Jason Muse or the partner organizations, including the record ID shown at the bottom of each article.

No accounts — including no child accounts — no advertising, and no tracking by default. Distances are calculated in your browser. Your ZIP appears in this page’s address, so it is included if you share or bookmark the link. Your precise location is never requested. If you tick “Remember this ZIP”, it is also saved in this browser's local storage and can be cleared by unticking the box.

Edition 1.0 · reviewed 2026-11-08 · Research edition for website build. See Credits & rights.