Mae Carol Jemison was born in Decatur, Alabama, on October 17, 1956.
Mae Carol Jemison was born on October 17, 1956, in Decatur, Alabama, to Charlie and Dorothy Jemison. When she was three years old, her family relocated to Chicago, Illinois, seeking better educational and economic opportunities, a common path for many African American families during the era known as the Second Great Migration.
From a young age, Jemison displayed an intense curiosity about science and the natural world, often citing her fascination with the Apollo missions and, notably, her frustration that no women were included among the astronauts she saw on television. She also drew inspiration from fictional portrayals of space travel, including the character Lieutenant Uhura on Star Trek, which suggested to her that a Black woman could indeed have a role in space exploration.
Her early life in Chicago, supported by a close-knit family that valued education, set the foundation for a remarkable career that would eventually break historic barriers in both medicine and space exploration. Jemison's birth marks the beginning of a life story that would come to symbolize possibility and achievement for generations of young women and people of color pursuing careers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM).