Benjamin Banneker taught himself astronomy from a borrowed book. 

He was born free in Maryland in 1731. A rarity. 

He built a wooden clock at 22 that kept perfect time for 40 years. 

He studied the stars. Calculated eclipses. Published almanacs that farmers across the mid-Atlantic used to plant and harvest.

His calculations were precise. His knowledge of astronomy, recognized. 

1791. He was invited to survey the new federal capital. 

Banneker spent months in a tent on the Potomac, charting the ten-mile square that would become the future seat of American government.

When the chief surveyor quit and took his plans, Banneker reproduced the layout from memory.

A free Black man mapping the seat of government for a nation that held hundreds of thousands of Black people in bondage. 

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