Stokely Carmichael

Stokely Carmichael was born in the Port of Spain, Trinidad, on June 29th. He later moved to the United Utates in 1952 where he attended highschool in New York City. After highschool he attended Howard University in 1960. In college he joined the SNCC (Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committie).

In 1961 Carmichael became a “Freedom Rider”. In Jackson, Mississippi Carmichael was arrested and jailed for 49 days in the Parchman Penitentiary. He worked on the Freedom Summer Project and in 1966 he became chairman of the SNCC. On June 1966, James Meredith started a march to Jackson from Memphis but was killed by a sniper shortly after the march was started. In memory of James Carmichael and a few others like Dr. MLK and Floyd McKissick decided to make the march again.

In Greenwood Mississippi Carmichael was arrested again. This was the 27th time he had been arrested, and on June 16th, the day he was released, he made his famous “Black Power” speech. In 1967 Carmichael and a friend Charles Hamilton wrote a book together titled “Black Power”. When Carmichael denounced United States involvement in Vietnam War his passport was confiscated and held for ten months. When his passport was returned he moved with his wife, Miriam Makeba, to Guinea, West Africa where he wrote his book “Stokely Speaks: Black Power Back to Pan-Africanism” in 1971.

Carmichael adopted the name Kwame Ture, he helped establish the All-African Peoples Revolutionary Party and worked as and aid to Guinea’s prime minister, Sekou Toure. After the death of Toure in 1984 carmichael was arrested by the new military regime and charged with trying to overthrow the government, he only spent 3days in prison before being released. Stokley Charmichael died of cancer on November 15th, 1998.

Fred Shuttlesworth
Fred Shuttlesworth was born in Alabama on 18th March, 1922. After graduating fro Seima University and Alabama State College, he became a pastor of the Bethel Baptist Church in 1953. In May 1956 he established the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights (ACMHR). In December, 1956, the Supreme Court ruled that bus segregation was illegal in Montgomery. Immediately, he announced that the ACNHR would test segregation laws in Birmingham.
Fred’s civil rights activities made him a target of white racists and on the evening of December 25th, 1956, he survived a bomb blast that destroyed his house. The following year a white mob beat Shuttlesworth with whips and chains during an attempt to integrate an all-white public school. During this period Martin Luther King described Shuttlesworth as “the most courageous civil rights fighter in the South
In 1960 Shuttlesworth participated in the sit-in protests against segregated lunch counters and in 1961 helped Congress on Racial Equality (CORE) organize its Freedom Rides. He also led the mass demonstrations against segregation in Birmingham and this resulted in him being hospitalized in May, 1963, after being slammed against a wall by water from fire hoses.

Reverend Jesse Jackson, Sr. was born in Greensville, South Carolina on October 8, 1941. He went to school at Greenville Public Schools. Then he attended the University of Illinois on a football scholarship, and then he transferred to North Carolina A&T State University. He became active in the nascent civil rights movement in the South and led protests and sit-ins at local restaurants and other businesses. After he graduated, he moved to Chicago and devoted his energy to the civil rights movement.
Jesse Jackson did a lot of interesting things in his life. In 1956, he took his stepfather’s name and became Jesse Louis Jackson. In the spring of 1959, he graduated from Sterling High School in Greensville, South Carolina. In the fall of 1959 to the spring of 1960, he attended the University of Illinois. In the fall of 1961, he transferred to North Carolina Agricultural and Technical College. On December 31, 1962, he married Jacqueline Lavinia Brown. From April to June of 1963, he became a leader of civil rights demonstrations in Greensboro, North Carolina. On June 6, 1963, he was arrested in Greensboro for “inciting to riot and disturbing the peace and dignity of the state.” In May 1964, he graduated from North Carolina A & T. In September 1964, he entered the Chicago Theological Seminary.
After watching “Bloody Sunday” on television, he went to Selma, Alabama to meet Dr. King and asked him for a job, in March 1965. In the spring of 1966, he became head of Chicago’s chapter of SCLC’s Operation Breadbasket and launched the first economic boycott. In the summer of 1967, he became the national director of Operation Breadbasket. On April 4, 1968 Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee. On June 30, 1968, he became a minister. In December 1971, Jesse resigned from SCLC and started Operation PUSH. In 1977 he founded PUSH/Excel, which is a program to encourage inner-city kids in their schoolwork. In October 1983 he entered the 1984 Democratic presidential race. In Syria, in December, he freed U.S. pilot Robert Goodman. Then in 1984, He founded the National Rainbow Coalition.
In March 1988, with his victory in Michigan, he took the lead in popular votes and delegates in the 1988 Democratic Presidential primary. He eventually lost to Massachusetts Governor, Michael Dukakis. In 1989, he moved to Washington, D.C. In September 1991, he won the release of hundreds of foreign nationals who were being held in Kuwait by Saddam Hussein. Then in the fall of 1991, he announced that he will not run for President in 1992. In 1996, he returned to Operation PUSH in Chicago. In February 1997, he proposed an initiative to help close the learning gap between black and white children by emphasizing the role of parents. He asked 40,000 black parents to become more involved with their children’s education and planned meetings with school officials from 45 cities.
In December 1997, Jesse visited Kenya as President Clinton’s “special envoy for democracy” and spoke with Kenyan president, Daniel Arap Moi, to promote peaceful nations elections. In February 1998, he returned to Kenya to help defuse ethnic tensions and keep Kenya’s democratic reforms on track. On April 29, 1999, during the Kosovo war, he went to Belgrade to negotiate the release of three U.S. POW’s who were captured on the Macedonia border while patrolling with a UN peacekeeping unit. Then in May 1999, the Yugoslav President, Slobodan Milosevic released the three POW’s. After his meeting with Milosevic, he urged NATO officials to “Choose the bargaining table over the battlefield.”

Benjamin Banneker was born in Baltimore, Maryland on November 9, 1931. His father, Robert, was a slave who bought his freedom. His mother was also a freed slave, so Benjamin was unlike many African-Americans at the time: he was not born into slavery. Benjamin worked on the family’s tobacco plant when he was growing up, and learned how to read and write by his mother reading the Bible to him. A Quaker school opened up in the area, and Benjamin received an eighth-grade equivalent education. He learned to play the flute, violin, and learned simple elementary arithmetic. Benjamin attended school until he was 15 years old.

As Benjamin became more interested in mathematics and science, he started to develop plans for new inventions. He devised an irrigation system to control water coming from the springs near the tobacco farms. The Banneker farm prospered even in the worst droughts. In 1761, Benjamin borrowed a pocket watch from his friend, Josef Levi. He took the watch apart, took notes and made drawings of the parts, and successfully put the watch back together. He then carved large-scale pieces of the clock and made the first wooden clock. He also studied astronomy, and successfully predicted the solar eclipse that occurred on April 14, 1789.

In 1792, Banneker created his own almanac. He used his mathematic and science skills to predict eclipses, weather forecasts, and the hours of sunrise and sunset. The almanac was favorable to Benjamin Franklin’s Poor Richard’s Almanac, and it challenged the idea that African-Americans were intellectually inferior to whites. He sent a copy of his almanac to Thomas Jefferson, then Secretary of State, with a 12-page letter scolding him for his proslavery opinions and urged the abolishment of slavery. Jefferson and Banneker exchanged many letters over time, and when President Washington decided to move the Capital to Washington D.C, Jefferson encouraged Washington to put Banneker on his surveying team.

Benjamin Banneker published his last almanac in 1802, but not without making people realize that black and white Americans were intellectually and literary equal. On October 9, 1806, when on a walk with a friend, Benjamin complained of feeling ill. He went home to rest, and died later that day. Benjamin Banneker is considered the first African-American scientist by many professors today, and he will be known as an extremely competent mathematician and astronomer of his time.

Elijah Poole was born on October 12, 1897, near Sandersville, Georgia. Poole was one of three boys. His parents worked on a cotton plantation as sharecroppers. Poole’s father was also a Baptist preacher. As a child, Elijah worked in the fields and on the railroad. At the age of 16, Elijah traveled and settled in Detroit to work on a Chevy assembly line.

Later, Poole and his two brothers became early disciples of W.D. Fard. Fard was the founder of Islam. Fard said that Islam was the correct religion for African Americans, criticizing that Christianity was the religion for the slave masters. Fard later opened the Temple of Islam which featured anti-white criticism and reflected an unorthodox form of Islam. It promoted self-help and education. This movement developed quickly and Elijah became the top lieutenant to Frad and Elijah’s name was later changed to Elijah Muhammad.

The movement was disciplined and had very strict rules which relate to eating, smoking and drinking, dress and appearance, and different kinds of personal behaviors such as no dancing or music. In 1942, Muhammad was arrested with charges of sedition, conspiracy, and violation. Muhammad was accused of sympathizing with the Japanese during World War II and disobeying the draft laws. He encouraged his members to resist the military draft. Muhammad argued that the only war that African Americans would fight in would be the coming “Battle of Armageddon.” Muhammad was in federal prison at Milan, Michigan from 1942-1946 for his words and actions.

Elijah Muhammad died on February 25, 1975. His movement was then passed on to his son, Wallace Deen Muhammad. He renamed the movement the World Community of Al-Islam in the West and then the American Muslim Mission. Blacks began to be called “Bilalians,” after Bilal an American follower. Wallace made the movement more Islamic.

Charles Hamilton Houston
Charles Hamilton Houston, son of hairdresser Mary Ethel Hamilton Houston, and Lawyer William LePre Houston, was born on September 3, 1985. Charles was born in Washington D.C. and went to school at M Street High School or now known as Dunbar High School. It was the first school that was just for Blacks in the United States. Houston was a very smart student and graduated, at the age of 15, as valedictorian of his class. Afterwards he attended Amherst College in Amherst, Massachusetts and at the age of 19 he graduated magna cum laude as one of six valedictorians. After he left Massachusetts, Charles returned to Washington D.C. There he taught English at Howard University for two years.
In the segregated army Charles became second lieutenant in the artillery unit. After two years of being enlisted he returned and enlisted in Harvard Law School. He was known as the first black editor of the Harvard Law Review. Many of the Supreme Court Justice considered Charles as “one of the most brilliant students they ever taught.” After graduating from Harvard, Houston practiced law with his father, a well known lawyer. In his meantime he also worked at Howard Law School as vice-dean. There he trained a quarter of the nation’s black law student, such as Thurgood Marshall, William Hastie, James Nabrit, and Spotts Robinson. Thurgood Marshall, one of Houston’s students, became a Supreme Court Justice. Charles’s students had a lot of respect for him referred to Charles as “Iron Shoes and Cement Pants” because of how high his expectations were and how demanding his curriculum was.
Houston equipped his students with the right ambition and skills to correctly battle against segregation. Mr. Houston won 7 out of 8 cases. Most cases had to do with racial discrimination and discrimination to employees in the union work force. Charles was later appointed, by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, as a member of the Fair Employment Practices Committee. Later he resigned when the White House refused to outlaw racial discdrimination in public transit systems. After many acheivements the NAACP awarded Houston with the Spingarn Medal. Houston had to resign his spot as Chief Council of the NAACP due to his critical condition. Houston was later replaced by his student Thurgood Marshall. Houston died at age 54 on April 22, 1950. He was buried at Lincoln Memorial Cemetery in Washington. After his death a group of black lawyers created the Charles Houston Law Club in his honor. The club is still slowly growing today.

Myrlie Beasley was born on March 17, 1933, in Vicksburg, Mississippi. She went to college at Alcorn A&M, that is where she met her future husband Medgar Evers. He was an upperclassmen and an army veteran. They were married on Christmas Eve, 1951. A little on Medgar was named the Mississippi State for the NAACP in 1954. Myrlie became his secretary. They worked together trying to make it easier for African Americans to register to vote.

Myrlie Evers-Williams became a civil rights leader. In the future she became better known as the widow of Medgar Evers. He was the secretary for the NAACP. He was sniped down on his own driveway. Myrlie Evers-Williams saw him die on their front porch. That’s when she said her “life ended”.

After Medgar was shot down and killed the president, J.F.K. pleaded for racial harmony. Then announced his civil rights to legislation. Then Myrlie moved her family to California where she got her degree at Ponoma College. After obtaining her degree she married Walter Williams. She pursued a the assassination of her husband and finally for four years then finally a jury of eight black men found a 73 year old man guilty of murder. There he was sentenced to prison when he died in 2001. Myrlie Evers-Williams helped the world by pushing for voting and helped the civil rights movement pass.

Julian Bond
Julian Bond was born on January 14, 1940 in Nashville, Tennessee to Julia and Dr. Horace Bond. His father, the late Dr. Horace Bond, was the first president of Fort Valley State College in Georgia. Then in 1945 the family moved to Pennsylvania where his dad became the first black president of the country's oldest black private college, Lincoln University. Julian graduated in 1957 from George School, a co-educational school in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. He started Morehouse College in Atlanta that same year. Here he founded the Committee on Appeal for Human Rights, which was a civil rights organization that won integration of Atlanta's movie theaters, lunch counters, and parks. Bond also helped form the SNCC-(Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee) where he later became the communications director in charge of the SNCC newsletter, The Student Voice. In 1961 he left college just one semester short of graduation to join a new protest newspaper called The Atlanta Inquirer and became the managing editor. He later returned to Morehouse College and graduated with a B.A. in English.

After graduation Julian Bond was elected to the Georgia House of Representatives, however he was not allowed to take his seat in the House because of his outspoken comments against the Vietnam War. Then the Supreme Court later ruled in his favor and Bond served four terms as the Representative and six terms in the Georgia Senate. Bond was sponsor of more than 60 bills that became laws and he organized the Georgia Legislative Black caucus. After an unsuccessful congressional race in 1986 Bond was forced to not seek re-election to the Senate. He is the only black Georgian to be elected to public office more times than anyone else. During his years as a politician Bond was nominated as the first African American for Vice-President of the United States in 1968. He however withdrew his name because at only age 28 he felt he was too young.

Julian Bond stayed focused on his beliefs. He was the host of the T.V. show "America's Black Forum" from 1980 until 1997. He was also a commentator for the radio show "Byline" and has appeared on the "Today Show". He was the author on the newspaper column called Viewpoint. Bond has a collection of books entitled "A Time To Speak, A Time To Act" as well as another book called "Black Candidates Southern Campaign Experiences". He narrated the PBS show "Eyes on the Prize" which is about New York Congressman Adam Clayton Powell, and the 1994 Academy Award winning documentary "A Time for Justice". In 1998 he became a professor at the University of Virginia. Julian Bond is an African-American Civil rights activist and politician who projects the civil rights movements through his books, talk shows, movies, and speeches.

Today he still teaches in the history department at the University of Virginia and serves on the National Board of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, which is the nation's oldest and largest civil rights organization. Julian Bond has held many honorary degrees and served on the boards on many organizations working for social change. At age 68 Julian Bond has contributed alot to the civil rights movement.

Ella Baker was born on December 13th, 1903 in Norfolk, Virginia. Her whole life was devoted to the Civil Rights Movement and working for African American rights. Unlike most of the men leading the movement, she worked more behind the scenes. She believed in helping ordinary people work together and helping them to lead themselves opposed to the centralized authority that so many other people of her time believed in.

When she was a child, Baker grew up listening to stories about the slave revolts told by her grandmother who was a former slave herself. As a student at Shaw University in Raleigh, North Carolina, Baker began her life of justice by challenging any school policy she thought to be unfair. After graduating in 1927 as the valedictorian of her class, she moved to New York City and began at once to join social activist organizations.

In 1930, she joined the Young Negroes Cooperative League and many other women’s groups that worked for the rights of African Americans everywhere. In 1938, Baker began her extensive work with the NAACP. Half of each year she spent traveling the South to help build support for the local branches. She decided to decrease her responsibilities in the NAACP in 1946 so she could work more on integrating New York City public schools.

Ella Baker also helped to establish the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) in Atlanta, Georgia and drew Martin Luther King Jr. to it in 1957. She only served the organization for two years, though, because her ideas clashed with Martin Luther King’s. She felt as if he controlled too much and empowered his followers and others too little. Ella Baker once said, “Strong people don’t need strong leaders.”

When the Greensboro sit-ins began in 1960, Baker decided to take action and returned to her former school, Shaw University, to organize a meeting for student activists of the sit-ins. Through her work with the students founded the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) giving young blacks, women and the poor included, voice in the Civil Rights Movement. Even though she founded the SNCC, Ella Baker worked as a quiet leader instead of taking control of the organization by listening and encouraging the young activists. She wanted members to learn how to become leaders themselves instead of becoming a follower and believer of someone else’s thoughts. The students, in return, respected her greatly and referred to her as “Miss Baker.”

On December 13th, 1986, Ella Baker died on her 83rd birthday in New York City.

“I’m sick and tired of being sick and tired.” Strong words from a strong women, Fannie Lou Hamer, was a civil rights activist in the Civil Rights movement. Fannie Lou Hamer, granddaughter of a slave and the youngest of 20 children, grew up on a plantation in Montgomery County, Mississippi as a sharecropper. She began working with her sharecropper parents at age 6, and had to leave school during the sixth grade, at age 12, to work full-time in the cotton fields with her parents. She had Polio at about age six and had been limp since. When she came of age she married another sharecropper named Perry “Pap” Hamer.

On August 31, 1962, Mrs. Hamer decided to start her career as a civil rights activist. She and 17 others took a bus to the courthouse in Indianola, the county seat, to register to vote, on the way home their bus was stopped by a police man and they were told that their bus was the wrong color and Fannie Lou and the others were arrested and jailed. As a result of her efforts the plantation owner told Fannie Lou that if she insisted on voting, she would have to get off his land. She left the plantation after living there for 18 years. Ten days later, night riders fired 16 bullets into the home of that family with whom she had gone to stay with.

Fannie Lou began working on welfare and voter registration programs for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). In the SNCC Fannie Lou helped organized voter registration drive in Ruleville, Mississippi, which challenged the state’s laws that were designed to deny blacks the right to vote. She then assumed the position as a field secretary for the SNCC. Hamer and her activists were arrested and beaten by two other black inmates on the orders of the white police officers, forever damaging injuring her kidneys and causing her to have a blood clot in one of her eyes, rendering her sight forever.

In 1964, Hamer and other SNCC members established the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP). They sent delegates to the Democratic National Convention in Atlantic City. Here they argued that the state’s all-white delegation did not truly represent Mississippi. Hamer delivered her famous nationally televised speech to the convention’s Credentials Committee. She spoke of the violence and discrimination against herself and other activists. Her speech was effective and the party offered voting rights to two MFDP members; but Hamer refused them called the gesture “insufficient”. A year later, President Lyndon Baines Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act.


Fannie Lou Hamer passed away March 14, 1977. Fannie Lou Hamer was inducted into Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, as an honorary member and laid to rest on March 21 at Freedom Farms Cooperative, which she helped to found.

Whitney M. Young, Jr. was an African American rights leader. He was born in Lincoln Ridge, Kentucky on July 31,1921. This was where Young was raised and pretty much grew up all his life. He lived in a regular house on the university campus. He went to college at Kentucky State, the first fraternity for African Americans. Young’s father taught at the campus they lived on until he was a teenager. His mother was Laura Young, she was a postmaster in Kentucky and she was the first African American postmaster.

When Young graduated he had a bachelor of a science degree. Young got training in electrical engineering. He got hired on a job of road construction crew of black soldiers. Young wasn’t treated very good by his white officers. After that he decided to go into a career in race relations.

After World War 2 he met his wife Margaret at the University of Minnesota. At the University he got a masters degree in social work. He was then the president of the Urban Leagues Omaha, Nebraska branch. He helped African American get jobs that were meant for whites. He went then to Harvard University, and joined NAACP and wanted to become state president. On March 11, 1971 Whitney M. Young Jr. past away after drowning while swimming with his friends.

James Meredith
by: Nick Baird

There is not a lot of information known about James Meredith's early life. He did join the United States Air Force for four years after attending two years of college. He then, in 1962, went an applied several times to further his education at Mississippi State University. After being rejected every time he applied he filed a law suit claiming that the university was segregating. He went to court and won his case and then spent the next two years at Ole Miss.
After this he led a march during which he got shot. He was hospitalized. He rejoined his march about two months later.

James Meredith went on to further his education even more going to some colleges over seas. He became highly involved in the government.

He died of lupus some years after.

Frances Ellen Watkins Harper

Frances Ellen Watkins Harper was a good man. She was born free in the slave city of Baltimore, Maryland on 9-25-1825. She was never a slave but she sure as heck tried to abolish it.
She was educated at her uncle's school and worked in a book store. Afterwards, she started publishing books. She published her book called "Forest Leaves" in 1845, but no copies survived. She wrote several other books afterwards.
She travelled through New England, Upper Canada, Mordor, Ohio, Michigan, Endor, and Pennsylvania for her lecturing career.
She married Fenton Harper in 1860 and they stayed on a farm in Columbus. Four years later Mr. Harper died. They had one daughter and her name was Mary.
She became vice-president....... of the National Association of Coloured Women in 1896. She died on February 22, 1911 when she was 85,000 years old. She was buried in Eden Cemetery in Philedalphia and is believed to still be there and stuff.

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Andrew Young was born on March 12, 1932, in New Orleans, Louisiana. His dad was a dentist and his mom was a schoolteacher. In 1951, Young graduated from Howard University in Washington, D.C. with a bachelor of science degree in biology. He then went on to earn a degree from Hartford Theological Seminary in Connecticut. In 1955, he accepted the pastorate of Bethany Congregational Church in Thomasville, Georgia. While there, he put most of his time toward organizing voter registration drives and being active in the Civil Rights movement. He joined the staff of the National Council of Churches in 1957.

Andrew Young was a great Civil Rights leader. In 1961, he left his position as a pastor to work with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. This was a church-centered, Atlanta-based civil rights organization led by Martin Luther King Jr. During this time, Young assisted in the organization of “citizenship schools.” These were workshops that taught nonviolent organizing strategies to local people whom members of the organization thought could be potential leaders. These workshops were very successful. They educated many civic leaders and registered thousands of voters throughout the South. These workshops were also responsible for both the Civil Rights movement’s democratic ethos and its eventual success. After years of working with the SCLC, Young became the executive directorship of SCLC and was a trusted aide to Martin Luther King Jr. Young was with King when he was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee, on April 4, 1968.

The political career of Andrew Young was very successful. He became the first African American since Reconstruction to be elected to Congress from Georgia. Young was twice reelected to the House of Representatives. One of his greatest achievements was in 1977, when Jimmy Carter elected him as ambassador to the United Nations. In 1981, Young returned to Atlanta and was elected as the city’s mayor.

Young had four children with his first wife, Jean Childs, who died of cancer in 1994. He married his second wife, Carolyn, in 1996. Currently, Young is a professor at Georgia State University’s Andrew Young School of Policy Studies. He has remained active in Georgia’s civic affairs and served as co-chair of the Atlanta Committee for the 1996 Olympic Games.

Ida B. Wells was born in Holly Springs, Mississippi, the daughter of slaves, on July 16, 1862, just months before the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation. Ida was the oldest of eight children. In 1880 her parents died from yellow fever. Ida took it upon herself to support her younger sibling by becoming a teacher. To become a teacher she studied at Missouri Freedman’s School, and Rust University. After completing her studies at Rust University, she moved to Memphis, Tennessee in 1888 and began teaching.

Once in Memphis, Ida became an editor and co-owner of a local black newspaper called “The Free Speech and Headlight.” So no one knew her true identity she wrote under the pen name of “Iola.” When a friend of Wells was lynched in 1892, “Iola” used her articles to attack the evils of lynching and encouraged local blacks to move west. Wells moved to NYC, after her newspaper’s office was sacked, and again attacked the evils of lynching on the staff of the New York Age. Ida also took her crusade against lynching across the ocean to Great Britain.

In June of 1895, Ida married Ferdinand L. Barnett, a Chicago lawyer, public official, and publisher of the newspaper Conservator. Setting in Chicago, Ida Wells-Barnett limited her activities to Chicago until the birth of her second son, Herman. After Herman was born she devoted her time to raising her children. In 1909, Barnett was asked to become a member of the “Committee of 40,” which established the groundwork for the organization now known as the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People), the oldest civil rights organization in the country. Ida continued her endless crusade for equal rights for African-Americans until her death on March 25, 1931.

Robert F. Kennedy

Robert F. Kennedy was born November 20, 1925. His mom and dad are Joe and Rose Kennedy. The Kennedys’ were really wealthy. In fact by the time Robert was 4 years old he was already a millionaire. He attended Harvard University, but then left for the United States Navy during World War two. When the war ended he went back to Harvard to finish his classes, he graduated in 1948. After that he went the University of Virginia to study law he graduated from he in 1951.Once his schooling was finished he went to work for the U.S. Department of Justice but later quite to help his brother John F. Kennedy with his senatorial campaign.
Then after the campaign Robert decided to return to the government service as counsel to several Senate subcommittees. Then in 1960 is brother John ran for presidency, Robert again helped his brother through his campaign. John had Robert be his Attorney General and closest advisor. Robert had a very important role in the Cuban Missile Crisis. He was assigned the task of being a discussion person. Robert greatly helped in the Crisis resolution.
Robert was the second most important person on the American side of the Crisis. Robert resigned in 1964 to run for political office in New York. In 1968 Kennedy, which disagreed with President Lyndon Johnson’s polices campaigned for the democratic party. He also helped because he looked ahead. He always was seeing what was best for the future. Kennedy was shot by Jordanian Sirhan Bishara Sirhan. Kennedy then died the next day June 6, 1968. Robert gave people a new beginning and a revolution.

Walter White
Walter Francis White was born in Atlanta, Georgia, the day of July 1, 1893. He was a fair-skinned, blond, and blue-eyed, though part black. His father was a postman and his mother a school teacher. There was Jim Crow laws in Atlanta and as a child he attended African American schools and sat in the rear of buses. When he was 13, he experienced a race riot in Atlanta. After graduating in 1916 @ Atlanta, University, he worked for Standard life ( a large insurance company), then became a secretary of Atlanta branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). James Weldon Johnson offered him a full-time post @ the NAACP. Whites main task was to investigate lynching and race riots. In 1929, White was appointed chief executive of NAACP. In 1930 he designed the campaign that successfully blocked President Herbert Hoover’s nomination of John J. Parker to the U.S. Supreme Court. In 1935, White persuaded African-American lawyer, Charles Houston , to head the NAACP legal department, which led to the recruitment of Thurgood Marshall. In 1949 it was discovered that White was divorcing his African-American wife to marry a white woman named Poppy Cannon. He also offered to resign for medical reasons. As a lobbyist, White worked with Eleanor Roosevelt to end discrimination in military and government hiring and equalize education for blacks and whites. He headed the NAACP’s court case that forced the University of Missouri to accept blacks at its law school, and he helped lobby the US Senate to block John J. Parker, an outspoken opponent of voting rights for blacks. He remained NAACP’s executive secretary and most important public spokesperson until his death in 1955.

Benjamin Hooks
Benjamin Hooks was born in Memphis Tennessee, January 31, 1925. He was the fifth of seven children of Robert Hooks and Bessie Hooks. Robert was a photographer and he owned his own photography studio. Bessie did not work any were so they did not have a lot of money, and he had to wear hand me down clothes.
Benjamin Hooks studied at many different colleges that were LeMoyne College, Memphis, Howard University, Washington, D.C. De Paul University, Chicago, J.D where he studied in law. After he graduated he passed the Tennessee bar exam and set up his own law practice. At the Shelby County Fair he meant a science teacher, Frances Dancy, and got married in Memphis that same year.
On November 6, 1976, he became the 64-member board of directors of the NAACP. Dr. Hooks and his wife handled the NAACP’s business and helped to plan for its future for more than 15 years. In February of 1992, at the age of 67, he announced his resignation from the post. On March 24, 2001, Benjamin Hooks and Frances Dancy Hooks renewed their wedding vows for the third time, after nearly 50 years, in the Greater Middle Baptist Church in Memphis.

Moorefield Storey was born on March 19, 1845 in Roxbury Massachusetts. His family had many connections with the abolitionist movement. He basically grew up around it his entire life. In 1866 he graduated from Harvard law school. In 1867 he became the private secretary to the senator Charles Sumner. He worked for Sumner until about 1869. Later he established a very highly distinguished law firm in Boston Massachusetts. Shortly after he was elected president of the American Bar Exam. Which was very great honor. He was becoming a very influential man.

He supported the national democratic party. He was the speaker at the first Anti-imperialist meeting in 1898.. Later in his life he thought about running for president. Later on he decided against that because he thought it would be a bad discussion. He kept fighting for what he believed in even if he was not the president of the united states.

Throughout his life he had fought for all types of minorities civil rights. He fought for African Americans, American Indians, and all other foreign immigrants. Between 1909 to 1915 he was the president of the National association for the advancement of colored people.. He helped the NAACP get many victories for civil rights. He might not be as well known as some other civil right leaders but he was just as important to the cause. He fought politically behind the scenes of all the marches and boycotts. Unfortunately all great people must die. On October 24 1929 he died, at the age of 79.

Amiri Baraka was born in Newark New Jersey. He studied at Rutgers, Columbia, and Howard Universities, leaving without a degree, and at the New School for Social Research. Some of his major fields were philosophy and religion. He also severed 3 years in the U.S. Air Force as a gunner. He then went on to continue his studies at Columbia University, he then went on and taught at a number of universities.

In the 1950’s-1960’s he did accomplish many of things. In 1958 he began his career as a writer, activist, and advocate of black culture and political power. Then in 1958 he founded the Totem Press he also then established the Black Arts Repertory Theatre which presented poetry readings, concerts, and produced a number of plays. Then in 1968 he founded the Black Community Development and Defense Organization. After that he moved on to his play production.

He was mainly known for his poetry. In the year of 2002 he was appointed New Jerseys state poet laureate but then a year later when gov. James McGreevey eliminated the position. That move was prompted by public outrage over his poem “Someone Blew Up America.” I was written for the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. Which repeated an anti-semitic conspiracy theory that blamed the Jews and Israel for the attacks. His poem was condemned, and state lawmakers, unable to fire the poet, instead drafted legislation to officially eliminated his position.

Michael (Martin) Luther King Jr.
Michael Luther King Jr. was born on January 15, 1929. His actual name was Michael, but later changed his name to Martin. Martin attended segregated public schools in Atlanta, Georgia, where he graduated at the age of fifteen.
After graduating high school, he received the B.A. degree in 1948 from Morehouse College. This was a distinguished Negro institution of Atlanta from which his father and grandfather had graduated. Later, he then studied theology at Crozer Theological Seminary in Pennsylvania. There he was elected president of a predominantly white senior class. Finally, he graduated in 1951, but didn’t receive his degree until 1955.
In Boston, he met and married Correta Scott, who was a young woman artist. Together they raised two boys and two girls. Correta also wrote some books, one of them being My Life with Martin Luther King.
King first started by leading the black boycott in Montgomery and won a major victory when busses began to operate on a desegregated basis. He also organized the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). With his philosophy of nonviolent resistance led to many arrests in the late 50s and early 60s. In 1963, King began the March on Washington, which brought together more than 200,000 people. Then in 1964, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Not only was he the youngest man ever to receive his honor at the age of 35, he also donated all of his money to the Civil Rights movement. This cash total was $54,123.
On April 4, 1968, while standing on the balcony of his motel room in Memphis, Tennessee, Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated by James Earl Ray. He has made a big impact on this country. For all of his hard work, he has received a special day every year. He will always be remembered as one of the greatest civil rights member ever.

James Weldon Johnson was a writer, poet and a statesman. James was born in Jacksonville, Florida in 1871. James has a brother named J. Rosamond Johnson. James father was a head waiter at a resort hotel. His mother was born in the Bahamas and educated in New York, she was the first black woman to teach in a public school in Florida. James went to Atlanta University, and on his graduation he got asked to be princepal of Staton Grammer School in Jacksonville.
In 1900 he and his brother J. Rosamond Johnson wrote a song in celebration to be sang by childred. The song was called “Lift Every Voice and Sing”,the song became the Negro National Anthem. In 1927, James published the Book Of American Poetry. His autobiography is called Along his Way.
In 1916 James joined the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. James almost worked there for 15 years. James was the first black secretary for the NAACP. In 1930 James Weldon Johnson started teaching at Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee. James was a Professor of Creative Literature at this university. While there, he wrote his autobiography, “Along this Way.” On June 26, 1938, a car that Johnson was riding in was struck by a train during a heavy rainstorm.

Coretta Scott was born in Heiberger, Alabama on April 27, 1927, and raised on the farm of her parents Bernice McMurry Scott, and Obadiah Scott, in Perry County, Alabama. She walked five miles a day to attend the one-room Crossroad School in Marion, Alabama. She had an active interest in the nascent civil right movement, she joined the Antioch chapter of the NAACP,and the college's Race Relations and Civil Liberties Committiees. She graduated from Anitoch with a B.A. in music and education, she won a scholarship to study concert singing in New England.
In Boston she meet Martin Luther King Jr. They were married on June 18,1953. In September of 1954, the couple moved to Montgomery,Alabama, Martin Luther King Jr. was appointed to as pastor at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church. In 1957 Mr. and Mrs. King went to Africa to celebrate the independence of Ghana. In 1959 they made a pilgrimage to India to honor the memory of Mahatma Gandhi, who inspired them. In 1964 Mrs. King accompanied her husband when he traveled to Oslo, Norway to accept the Prize.
On April 4,1968, Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee. Channeling her grief, Mrs. King concentrated on fullfilling her husbands dreams. Mrs. King led the successful campaign to establish Dr. King's birthday, January 15, as a national holiday in the United States. After 27 years at the helm at the King Center,Mrs. King turned it over to her oldest son Dexter. In her remaining years Mrs. King devoted much of her energy to the AIDS education and curbing gun violence. At the age of 78 she died. She died on January 30,2006. She remains an inspirational figure to men and women around the world today.

William Edward Burghardt DuBois was born on February 23, 1868 in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. While in high school, he became the local correspondent for the New York Globe. While there he wrote publications reflecting upon the need of Black people to politicize themselves. Like others of his intellect, DuBois wished to attend Harvard University. Lack of funds, however, made this dream impossible. So instead, with scholarships and outside help, DuBois attended Fisk College in Tennessee to further his education. After graduating Fisk, DuBois, via scholarships, entered Harvard labeled as a Junior. His education at Harvard focused on philosophy centered in history. He received his bachelor's degree, he began working toward earning his master's and doctor's degree.

DuBois' beginnings were modest. After graduating Harvard, he taught for two years at Wilberforce in Ohio. Then, in 1896, DuBois was offered a fellowship at the University of Pennsylvania to conduct research in Philadelphia's seventh ward slums. DuBois believed the race problem was one of ignorance, which he could cure by uncovering the underlying prejudice. His studies were published as The Philadelphia Negro, and DuBois is acknowledged as the father of Social Science. At the end of the study, DuBois took a position as Atlanta University to further his teachings in sociology. For thirteen years he wrote of the morality, urbanization, Negroes in business, college-bred Negroes, the Negro church and Negro crime. During this time, controversy grew between Booker T. Washington and DuBois. DuBois was against the way Washington handled his power and his methods of public protest against racial violence and discrimination. Washington, however, wasn't the only one DuBois didn't agree with. DuBois and Marcus Garvey were often characterized by integration vs. separatism and the merits of elite vs. working class leadership. These differences caused personal and political antagonism that was formidable and long-standing.

In his lifetime, DuBois helped found the Niagara movement and in 1910 founded the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). For some 24 years he was the editor for The Crisis (NAACP's publication). During the last few years of his life, DuBois was active in Africa, creating the Pan-African Congress. Because of his growing radicalism, DuBois was subject to increasing governmental restrictions, including the loss of his passport. In 1961 DuBois moved permanently to Ghana, where he died peacefully in Accra in 1963. Not only was DuBois the first to study and publish social problems on a racial level, he influenced many other civil rights leaders during and after his time.

Shirley Chisholm, although not a major African-American rights activist, was a very important part to the civil rights movement. She would contribute to several “firsts” in her lifetime. However, like all of us famous or ignored, we all had humble beginnings.
Shirley St. Hill (later Chisholm) was born in Brooklyn New York. The date was November 30, 1942. She lived with her parents in Brooklyn until she was about three years old. She then went to live with her biological grandparents in Barbados. She received a good education in a British school. In 1934 she returned to New York and her parents. She finished her high school education at girls high school in Brooklyn. She graduated in 1942. She attended college at Brooklyn College in Brooklyn, of course. It was there that she first encountered racism. Brooklyn college denied admittance to a social club for blacks. In retaliation Shirley formed an alternative club.
In 1949 she married Conrad Chisholm, a Jamaican man. Conrad worked as a private investigator. In 1960 Shirley and her husband started the Unity Club. They tried to become involved in local politics. In the mean time, she also worked in the day care field.
In 1964 she made her first run at a governmental office seat. She was elected to the state assembly seat. She worked for founding schools an a per-pupil basis. She then ran for congress in 1968. Her campaign slogan was “Fighting Shirley Chisholm-- Unbought and Unbossed.” With it she won the election and became the first African-American woman to be elected to congress. She was far form being finished with excelling. She announced her candidacy for president on January 25, 1972. Although she did not win the nomination, she did earn 151 delegates. She made the statement that being a woman was more of an obstacle then being black.

John Fitzgerald Kenndy
John F. Kenndy was a strong advocate of the civil rights movement. At first Kenndy failed to put his promised legislation into act, but then in 1961 he sent 600 Federal marshals to Alabama to protect the Freedom Riders. The Federal marshals were used also to protect the rights of African American students at Mississippi University.
John F. Kenndy was one of the United States most finist presidents. But something had happened on 1963 that would change the world. He was shot as he and his party was driving thur the business district of Dallas. About 12:30 p.m. Kenndy entered Elm Street. Shots rang out. Kenndy was hit in the left shoulder and head. John Connally was hit in the back also. The Presidential limousine speeded away to the Parkland Memorial Hospital. Kenndy was taken into the emergency room. Kenndy was serouisly injured, with a mass head wound. At 1 p.m. John F. Kenndy was declared dead.
Within two hours of Kenndy’s death, a suspect was arrested. Lee Harvey Oswald. Throught his custy, Oswald kept to his story that we was not with the assassination. As Oswald was being transported by the Dallas police, he was shot dead by Jack Ruby.


By Mendell Rulla