The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition. 2002.
Banneker, Benjamin
(BAN-i-kuhr) An African-American scientist of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Banneker taught himself calculus and trigonometry in order to make astronomical calculations for almanacs. He was hailed by abolitionists (seeabolitionism) for proving that “the powers of the mind are disconnected with the colour of the skin.”
