Immerse Yourself in the Life and Times of the Nation's First Black Scientist Benjamin Banneker, celebrated today as the nation's first Black scientist and man of letters, was a largely self-taught mathematician, surveyor, and astronomer who came of age during America's revolutionary period. Silvio Bedini's acclaimed and definitive biography, The Life of Benjamin Banneker, is his story. Banneker was born a free Black in 1731 and quickly exhibited...