About us
Louisa Jaggar
is the creator and coauthor of the Smithsonian’s Saving Stuff (Fireside 2005). Saving Stuff received national attention and was featured in Parade Magazine as a Parade Picks, The Washington Post, Real Simple, Country Living, on NPR’s All Things Considered and she served as lead writer on over fifteen national science curriculum guides for the Smithsonian, PBS, Chicago’s Field Museum, the United States Navy, and others. Jaggar won the 1994 Smithsonian award for Best in School Programs for her part in creating the Smithsonian Institution’s community-based educational program Learning is a Family Experience.
Pat Smith
is a national award-winning educator. She received the Oklahoma Christa McAuliffe Fellowship, providing her with the resources to design Explorer, a space shuttle simulation lab on wheels. Smith also served on the design team for the Smithsonian Institution's Voyage through the Universe. She was voted of the U.S.A. Today's All Star Teachers and is included in Teachers, a book which recognizes 50 national best educators. She developed National Geographic's Celebration of Flight program for Oklahoma's educator during the Centennial of Flight.
Jeantique Oriol
Graduate of Morehouse College. After spending a year in NYU's Graduate Acting program, he rejoined the cast of Layon Gray's "Black Angels Over Tuskegee" (off-Broadway show about the Tuskegee Airmen), where he was introduced to James Herman Banning and its creators. He is thrilled at the opportunity to bring this story to life alongside Louisa, Pat & cast mate, Lamar. He hopes this project reaches students in a place that will inspire them and generations to come.
Lamar K. Cheston
is a NY native that has performed on platforms all over the world. He is now starring in the award winning Off Broadway play "Black Angels over Tuskegee.” He has been featured on VH1s Hip Hop Honors, NBCs Americas Got Talent, Fox 5s Good Day New York and the Wendy Williams Show...in addition to stepping both nationally and internationally with the NYC A Team!
our story
Sometimes the start of a story comes from imagination and other times imagination is sparked by an tidbit from the past. The telling of James Herman Banning’s story was sparked by a small newspaper clipping buried in the bottom of an old beat-up box.
Pat Smith was born with an unquenchable thirst for information. While doing research for National Geographic on aviation heroes, she picked up a crumpled and yellowed newspaper clipping and read about the first African American to fly across the United States. Somehow this particular morsel of a story wouldn’t let her go. She asked people at various museums if they knew who James Herman Banning was, and she kept hearing, “Who?” This only increased her determination to find out who Herman Banning was and how he managed to become the first African American to fly across the country--particularly at a time when few opportunities were available in aviation and for African Americans.
Louisa Jaggar is a writer and educator with a talent for bringing stories to life. As Pat was combing dusty boxes in museums, Louisa welcomed her first grandson, Dylan, into the world. He’s African American and beautiful. She traveled to the local bookstore to begin picking out books for Dylan—books about African American men who had accomplished great feats. Mostly she found books on sports heroes and musicians and politicians. She was seeking stories about African American males who were explorers in their day, but she found few. The bookstore sellers bemoaned the lack of books on this topic, but they often added that these stories didn’t exist because they weren’t many great daredevils who were African American. Knowing this couldn’t be true, Louisa set out on her own quest to find role models for her grandson.
One day, Pat shared what she had read about James Herman Banning, and Louisa knew immediately this was a story that needed to be shared in as many ways as possible.
The odyssey began. Louisa and Pat quickly learned that to tell a story about someone who lived long ago requires becoming a detective of sorts. To find out about an African American in the early 1900’s requires becoming a super sleuth—so that is exactly what they did. As they dug, they started to unravel the hidden history of James Herman Banning. The more they learned, the more fascinated they became.
Words began landing on paper and the story of James Herman Banning began to emerge. They created a website on Banning, Living History Films, and then a traveling exhibition called Fly with Banning, that is small enough to fit into a school or library lobby. And that wasn’t enough. They also created a Living History Interactive play The Flying Hobos.
Along the way, many people have wondered why they worked so hard to tell this man’s story. Their answer? “Because it needed to be told!”
This is how Greatest Stories Never Told started. James Herman Banning is the first minority hero whose story is being told. Many more stories are on their way!