*We do honor a lot of African Americans for Black History Month but there are a lot of men and women out there that get cast in their shadow.

We, however, believe that there are some people who aren’t just making history but are also teaching us that it is never too late to work in order to achieve our dreams.

They broke the stereotypes revolving around disability, gender, age and of course, race.

Let’s not waste another word and begin our salute to those unsung heroes with Black inspirational stories of people who made it after 50. Here they are:

1.     Carla Hightower M.D, 52

Carla was a former anesthesiologist and had taken up health coaching as a side career when she was 52. She had done so after she had witnessed first-hand how the outcomes of chronic diseases like cancer, heart disease, and diabetes were disappointing.

This is when Carla began teaching people about the underlying causes of their conditions and how they could use food as an effective replacement of medicine. Her project is called Living Health Works and she took all her knowledge about evidence-based nutrition to tap into the person’s own ability to restore their health.

2.     Estella Pyfoam, 72

Estella had kickstarted Estella’s Brilliant Bus which was a mobile form of a learning lab that had dozen of computer stations installed inside. This bus was meant to travel to under-resourced and underserved communities in Palm Beach County in Florida in or to provide families and children with education training and access to technology. The nonprofit organization was started with $900,000 which was almost all of Estella’s retirement savings.

3.     Vivian Stancil, 71

Vivian had quite a rough childhood when she had ended up in foster care while also losing her vision at the young age of 19. She had later managed to become the first-ever blind teacher in California’s Long Beach. This wasn’t the achievement we were going to celebrate here though.

At the age of 50, Vivian had learned how to swim and thereby managed to lose almost 100 pounds. This is also when she went on to become an accomplished athlete for the National Senior Games and already has hundreds of medals. She even launched her own foundation called the Vivian Stancil Olympian Foundation which was meant to help at-risk youth and seniors to take part in fitness and sports.

While it’s time for us to sign off, the list is far from over. We still have to make honorable mentions for the likes of Cassandra Spratling – who biked through a historic route, or Curtis Lipscomb – the first Black ED of LGBT Detroit or even Mary K. Clark – who embarked on a 10 state motorcycle expedition.

The more you look into it, the more you will realize that at 50, you’re just getting started in making a difference!

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