America is a work in progress. We celebrate the heroes of the past, not for their glory but for their inspiration, with the firm belief that any individual in America can do anything if he or she has the talent and the determination. No one is limited by class, gender, birth, or skin color. While important American leaders have included Washington, Jefferson, Madison, and Lincoln, they have also included Booker T. Washington and W. E. B. Du Bois, Dorothea Dix, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Martin Luther King Jr. We celebrate the courage of Daniel Inouye, Jackie Robinson, Tecumseh, Muhammad Ali, and Ida Wells. We celebrate the humanity of Will Rogers, Jane Addams, Oprah Winfrey, and Bill and Melinda Gates. We are inspired by the achievements of Andrew Carnegie, Wilma Mankiller, Gloria Steinem, Duke Ellington, and Steven Spielberg, along with the dedicated public service of Thurgood Marshall, Margaret Sanger, Jaime Escalante, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Cesar Chavez. In American Heroes, Martin Feess allows these and other American heroes to speak for themselves in their deeds and their own words.