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History > 20th century > USA > Civil rights > Other civil rights activists > Timeline

 

 

 

Fred D. Gray,

a longtime civil rights lawyer,

at his office in Tuskegee, Ala.

 

The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

called him “the chief counsel for the protest movement.”

 

Photograph:

Nicole Craine for The New York Times

 

For a Civil Rights Hero, 90, a New Battle Unfolds on His Childhood Street

Before he defended Rosa Parks and became a leading legal force,

Fred Gray grew up on an avenue named for Jefferson Davis in Montgomery, Ala.

Now a push is underway for a new name for the street: Mr. Gray’s.

NYT

Dec. 25, 2020    1:40 p.m. ET

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/25/
us/politics/fred-gray-rosa-parks-montgomery.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fred Gray

 

he defended Rosa Parks

and became a leading legal force

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/25/
us/politics/fred-gray-rosa-parks-montgomery.html

 

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/25/
us/politics/fred-gray-rosa-parks-montgomery.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wyatt Tee Walker

 

The Rev.

Wyatt Tee Walker

served as chief of staff

for the Rev. Dr.

Martin Luther King Jr.

from 1960 to 1964

and spent nearly

four decades

as the pastor

of Canaan Baptist

Church of Christ,

in Harlem.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/projects/cp/national/
unpublished-black-history/reverend-wyatt-tee-walker-pastor-of-canaan-baptist-church-in-harlem

 

 

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/projects/cp/national/
unpublished-black-history/reverend-wyatt-tee-walker-pastor-of-canaan-baptist-church-in-harlem
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Grace Lee Boggs

 

Grace Lee Boggs

(...)

spent much of her life

advocating for civil rights

and labor rights,

became such a noted figure

in Detroit's

Black Power movement

that people assumed

she must be partially black.

 

In some

of her FBI files,

Boggs, who is

Chinese-American,

was described as

"probably

Afro Chinese."

 

(...)

 

A few years later,

in the 1940s,

she moved to Detroit

to help edit

the radical newsletter

Correspondence.

 

There,

she met a charismatic

auto worker and activist

named James Boggs.

 

Grace and James Boggs

married in 1953.

 

"When he rose

to speak his mind,

he would speak

with such passion,

challenging all

within hearing

to stretch their humanity

... he would often

bring down the house,"

Boggs wrote in 1998

in her autobiography,

Living For Change.

 

They married in 1953.

 

Together,

the couple became

two of the city's

most noted activists,

tackling issues related

to labor and civil rights,

feminism, Black Power,

Asian Americans

and the environment.

 

In 1974,

they wrote Revolution

And Evolution

In The Twentieth Century;

 

in 1998,

she published

an autobiography,

Living For Change;

and in 2011,

she co-wrote

The Next American Revolution:

Sustainable Activism

For The Twenty-First Century

with Scott Kurashige,

a professor and author.

https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2015/06/27/
417175523/grace-lee-boggs-activist-and-american-revolutionary-turns-100

 

 

https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2015/06/27/
417175523/grace-lee-boggs-activist-and-american-revolutionary-turns-100

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jesse Jackson

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

John Lewis    1940-2020

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cordy Tindell Vivian    1924-2020

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Richard Barry Sobol    1937-2020

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Joseph Lowery    1921-2020

 

 

 

The Rev. Joseph E. Lowery, second from left,

helped lead a 1970 march in Atlanta

against war and racial oppression.

 

Also present was Coretta Scott King,

fourth from left.

 

Photograph: Associated Press

 

Rev. Joseph E. Lowery, Civil Rights Leader and Aide to King, Dies at 98

A lieutenant to the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Mr. Lowery

helped organize the Montgomery bus boycott

and gave the benediction

at President Barack Obama’s inauguration.

NYT

March 28, 2020

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/28/us/joseph-lowery-dead.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Reverend helped start

the influential

Southern Christian

Leadership Conference

with Martin Luther King Jr

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/mar/28/
joseph-lowery-american-civil-rights-leader-dies-at-98

 

 

https://www.npr.org/2020/03/28/
517545662/hold-hold-hold-rev-joseph-lowery-dean-of-the-civil-rights-movement-dies-at-age

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/28/
us/joseph-lowery-dead.html

 

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/mar/28/
joseph-lowery-american-civil-rights-leader-dies-at-98

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hunter Pitts O’Dell    1923-2019

 

By mid-1963,

Jack O’Dell

had been working

for the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

at the Southern Christian

Leadership Conference

for about 18 months,

raising funds

and helping

to register voters.

 

He brought

a diverse résumé

to the job,

having worked

as a merchant seaman,

union activist

and insurance salesman.

 

But he had also been

a member

of the Communist Party,

which alarmed

President John F. Kennedy

and the director of the F.B.I.,

J. Edgar Hoover.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/19/
us/jack-odell-dead.html

 

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/19/
us/jack-odell-dead.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Theresa Burroughs    ? - 2019

 

Voting rights activist

 

 

https://www.npr.org/2019/05/24/
726284767/theresa-burroughs-voting-rights-activist-dies-at-89-in-alabama

 

https://storycorps.org/stories/
theresa-burroughs-and-toni-love/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Samuel Moon Snipes    1919-2019

 

white lawyer

who held off

a mob

of protesters

while representing

the first black family

to move into

the all-white

development

of Levittown, Pa.

 

(...)

 

Mr. Snipes

represented

Daisy and Bill Myers

when they

and their three

young children

moved into Levittown

in 1957.

 

He handled the closing

on the home purchase

and informed the police

that an African-American

family would be moving

into the development,

knowing that controversy

would follow,

said David Kushner,

the author

of the 2009 book

“Levittown,”

which explored

the family’s ordeal.

 

“He felt

they had every right

to live there,”

Mr. Kushner said.

 

The Myers family’s

arrival

on Aug. 13, 1957,

sparked

weeks of unrest,

harassment

and cross burnings.

 

Threats were made

by phone, by mail

and by screaming,

spitting protesters

outside

the family’s home.

 

At one point,

Mr. Snipes

held off a mob

until the police

arrived.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/10/
obituaries/samuel-snipes-dead.html

 

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/10/
obituaries/samuel-snipes-dead.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rosanell Eaton (born Johnson)    1921-2018

 

resolute

African-American woman

who was hailed

by President

Barack Obama

as a beacon

of civil rights

for her role

as a lead plaintiff

in a lawsuit against

a restrictive

North Carolina

voting law

that reached

the Supreme Court

in 2016.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/09/
obituaries/rosanell-eaton-dies.html

 

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/09/
obituaries/rosanell-eaton-dies.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dorothy Cotton    1930-2018

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dovey Johnson Roundtree (born Dovey Mae Johnson)        1914-2018

 

 

 

Ms. Roundtree, right foreground,

on the steps of the Supreme Court in 1955.

 

Standing behind her is her first law partner,

Julius Winfield Robertson.

 

Photograph: via Dovey Johnson Roundtree

 

Dovey Johnson Roundtree, Barrier-Breaking Lawyer, Dies at 104

NYT

May 21, 2018

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/21/
obituaries/dovey-johnson-roundtree-dead.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ms. Roundtree graduated

from law school in 1950.

 

Admitted

to the District of Columbia

bar the next year,

she went into practice

with a classmate,

Julius Winfield Robertson.

 

In 1962,

despite

a storm of protest

from its members,

she became

the first African-American

admitted to the Women’s

Bar Association

of the District of Columbia.

 

There was little

remunerative work

for Robertson & Roundtree

at first.

 

Committed to helping

disenfranchised clients,

the partners

were often paid,

Ms. Roundtree

recalled

in a 1994 interview,

with “two dozen eggs,

a bag of greens

and leftover poundcake.”

 

Mr. Robertson

moonlighted

on the night shift

at the post office.

 

Ms. Roundtree

served as

an Army recruiter

in Ohio

during World War II.

 

She was one

of the first 40 black women

selected for officer training

in the newly created Women’s

Army Auxiliary Corps.

 

Then, in 1952,

they took on a case

that would quietly

become a landmark:

Sarah Keys

v.

Carolina Coach Company.

 

Sarah Louise Keys

was a young black private

in the Women’s Army Corps.

 

Earlier that year,

in uniform,

she had traveled by bus

from Fort Dix,

in New Jersey,

to her home

in North Carolina.

 

In Roanoke Rapids, N.C.,

a new driver

ordered her

to give up her seat

to a white Marine,

just as Ms. Roundtree

had been told to do

years before.

 

Ms. Keys demurred

and was arrested

and jailed

for disorderly conduct.

 

Ms. Keys’s

lawsuit sought

to challenge

the country’s

longstanding

“separate but equal”

doctrine.

 

Confirmed

by the Supreme Court

in Plessy v. Ferguson

— a seminal

decision of 1896

that has long

been considered

one of the court’s

least felicitous —

the doctrine enfranchised

the separation of the races

in public facilities.

 

In early 1953,

the United States

District Court

for the District of Columbia

dismissed the Keys suit

on jurisdictional grounds.

 

But because

Ms. Keys’s journey

had involved

the crossing

of state lines,

Ms. Roundtree

and Mr. Robertson

realized that

they might profitably

plead the case

before the Interstate

Commerce Commission.

 

A federal agency,

the commission

was charged

with regulating railroads,

buses and the like.

 

In 1954,

the commission

rejected their case.

 

But by then,

the Supreme Court’s ruling

in Brown

v. Board of Education of Topeka,

handed down that year,

had outlawed segregation

in public schools.

 

Ms. Roundtree

and Mr. Robertson

approached

the commission again,

arguing

that the Brown decision

should apply equally

to transportation.

 

On Nov. 7, 1955,

the commission

issued its decision,

banning segregation

on interstate bus travel.

 

Though the ruling

would not be enforced

for six years — in 1961,

amid the violence

against Freedom Riders

in the South,

the United States

attorney general,

Robert F. Kennedy,

pressured

the commission

to do so —

it was a civil rights

watershed.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/21/
obituaries/dovey-johnson-roundtree-dead.html

 

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/21/
obituaries/dovey-johnson-roundtree-dead.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Velvalea Hortense Rodgers        1923-2018

 

 

 

 Ms. Phillips and her husband, Dale,

after they learned she had been elected

national Democratic committeewoman in 1958.

 

They had been law students together.

 

Photograph:

 Gene Herrick/Associated Press

 

Vel Phillips, Housing Rights Champion in the ′60s, Is Dead at 95

NYT

By RICHARD SANDOMIR        APRIL 25, 2018

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/25/
obituaries/vel-phillips-housing-rights-champion-in-the-60s-dies-at-95.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Ms. Phillips, second from left,

joined an antiwar protest in Washington in January 1968.

 

The demonstrators argued

that the war was diverting attention

from pressing domestic social issues.

 

Photograph: Associated Press

 

Vel Phillips, Housing Rights Champion in the ′60s, Is Dead at 95

NYT

APRIL 25, 2018

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/25/
obituaries/vel-phillips-housing-rights-champion-in-the-60s-dies-at-95.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

barrier-breaking

African-American

lawmaker

from Milwaukee

who became

an influential voice

in the national movement

for fair housing

during the 1960s

 

(...)

 

Ms. Phillips

— the first African-American

to serve on the city’s

Common Council

and the first woman

elected to it —

began introducing

open-housing bills

in 1962,

two years after

championing civil rights

at the Democratic

National Convention

that nominated

Senator John F. Kennedy

for president.

 

The city legislation’s aim

was to end

practices by landlords

and real estate agents

that had made it

nearly impossible

for blacks

to find housing

beyond Milwaukee’s

so-called inner core,

a run-down section

where nearly

all the city’s

black population lived.

 

But she faced

repeated opposition

from the other members

of the council,

all of them white and male.

 

Several times

her bills were defeated,

18-1.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/25/
obituaries/vel-phillips-housing-rights-champion-in-the-60s-dies-at-95.html

 

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/25/
obituaries/vel-phillips-housing-rights-champion-in-the-60s-dies-at-95.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wyatt Tee Walker    1929-2018

 

 

 

 The Rev. Wyatt Tee Walker, center, in 1961

with the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

and another King aide,

the Rev. Ralph Abernathy,

in Montgomery, Ala.

 

Photograph: Getty Images

 

Wyatt Tee Walker, Dr. King’s Strategist and a Harlem Leader, Dies at 88

NYT

JAN. 23, 2018

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/23/
obituaries/wyatt-tee-walker-dead.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Rev. Wyatt Tee Walker

(...) was chief of staff

to the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

and a key strategist

behind civil rights protests

that turned the tide

against racial injustice

in the Jim Crow South

of the 1960s

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/23/
obituaries/wyatt-tee-walker-dead.html

 

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/23/
obituaries/wyatt-tee-walker-dead.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Recy Taylor    1919-2017

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Daniel James Charles    1938-2017

 

first black photographer

to be hired

by The New York Times,

and (...) drew acclaim

for his evocative shots

of the civil rights movement

and everyday life in New York

 

(...)

 

In more than

four decades

at The Times,

Mr. Charles

photographed

a wide range

of subjects,

from local hangouts

to celebrities

to fashion

to the United Nations.

 

But he may be

best remembered

for the work

that earned him

early acclaim:

his photographs

of key moments

and figures

of the civil rights era.

 

In 1964, he took

a now-famous

photograph,

for Ebony magazine,

of Malcolm X

holding a rifle

as he peered out

of the window

of his Queens home.

 

In 1968,

for The Times,

he photographed

Coretta Scott King,

her gaze fixed

in the distance,

at the funeral

of her husband,

the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/25/
obituaries/don-hogan-charles-dead.html

 

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/25/
obituaries/don-hogan-charles-dead.html

 

https://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2017/12/25/
us/the-photographs-of-don-hogan-charles/s/26xp-charles-ss-slide-3FRP.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Richard Claxton Gregory    1932-2017

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Samuel D. Cook    1928-2017

 

 

 

 Dr. Cook in 1966 at Duke,

where he taught political science until 1974.

 

Photograph: Duke University Archives

 

Samuel D. Cook, Educator Who Pierced Campus Color Barriers, Dies at 88

By SAM ROBERTS        NYT        JUNE 8, 2017

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/08/
us/samuel-dubois-cook-dead-educator-racial-pioneer.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

lifelong educator

who was widely saluted

as the first tenure-track

black professor

appointed by

a predominantly

white university

in the South

since Reconstruction

 

(...)

 

In 1973,

he also became

the first black president

of the Southern Political

Science Association.

 

President Jimmy Carter

later named him

to the National Council

on the Humanities.

 

A political scientist

by training,

Dr. Cook

was a staunch defender

of all-black colleges

and a crusader

for interracial harmony,

especially between

blacks and Jews.

 

(...)

 

The summer

after high school,

Samuel Cook

and his friend

Martin Luther King Jr.

were sent by their fathers,

both preachers,

to work in Connecticut’s

tobacco fields

to earn money

for college.

 

That fall,

as precocious

15-year-old freshmen,

they entered Morehouse

under an early-admissions

program aimed at

filling classrooms emptied

by students drafted

for World War II.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/08/us/
samuel-dubois-cook-dead-educator-racial-pioneer.html

 

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/08/
us/samuel-dubois-cook-dead-educator-racial-pioneer.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Roger Wilkins    1932-2017

 

Roger Wilkins

(...)

championed civil rights

for black Americans

for five decades

as an official

in the Kennedy

and Johnson

administrations,

a foundation executive,

a journalist,

an author

and a university professor

 

(...)

 

A black lawyer

in the corridors of power,

Mr. Wilkins was an assistant

United States attorney general,

ran domestic programs

for the Ford Foundation,

wrote editorials

for The Washington Post

and The New York Times,

taught history

at George Mason University

for nearly 20 years

and was close to leading lights

of literature, music, politics,

journalism and civil rights.

 

Roy Wilkins,

who led the N.A.A.C.P.

from 1955 to 1977,

was his uncle.

 

Roger Wilkins’s

early mentor

was Thurgood Marshall,

the renowned

civil rights lawyer

who became

the Supreme Court’s

first black associate justice.

 

And he organized

Nelson Mandela’s

triumphant eight-city visit

to the United States in 1990

as millions turned out to see

that living symbol

of resistance to apartheid

after his release

from 27 years in prison

in South Africa.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/27/us/roger-wilkins-died-civil-rights-advocate.html

 

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/27/
us/roger-wilkins-died-civil-rights-advocate.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Leonard Burke Solomon    1928-2016

 

a federal judge

in New York

who presided

over a 27-year landmark case

in which he found

that city officials in Yonkers

had intentionally segregated

public housing and schools

along racial lines

 

(...)

The Yonkers case,

which received

national attention,

was hardly the only lawsuit

in which local governments

in the Northeast

had been charged

with racial discrimination,

but it was one

of the most bitterly

contested.

 

The charges against Yonkers

were brought in a lawsuit

that the Justice Department

filed in 1980

in Federal District Court

in Manhattan.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/05/nyregion/judge-leonard-sand-dead-yonkers-housing.html

 

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/05/nyregion/
judge-leonard-sand-dead-yonkers-housing.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thomas Emmet Hayden    1939-2016

 

Tom Hayden (...)

burst out

of the 1960s counterculture

as a radical leader

of America’s civil rights

and antiwar movements,

but rocked the boat

more gently later in life

with a progressive

political agenda

as an author

and California state

legislator

 

(...)

 

During the racial unrest

and antiwar protests

of the ’60s and early ’70s,

Mr. Hayden

was one of the nation’s

most visible radicals.

 

He was a founder

of Students

for a Democratic Society,

a defendant

in the Chicago Seven trial

after riots at the 1968

Democratic National Convention,

and a peace activist

who married Jane Fonda,

went to Hanoi and escorted

American prisoners of war

home from Vietnam.

 

As a civil rights worker,

he was beaten in Mississippi

and jailed in Georgia.

 

In his cell

he began writing

what became

the Port Huron Statement,

the political manifesto

of S.D.S. and the New Left

that envisioned

an alliance of college students

in a peaceful crusade

to overcome what it called

repressive government,

corporate greed and racism.

 

Its aim was to create

a multiracial, egalitarian

society.

 

Like his allies

the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

and Senator Robert F. Kennedy,

who were assassinated in 1968,

Mr. Hayden opposed violent protests

but backed militant demonstrations,

like the occupation

of Columbia University

campus buildings by students

and the burning of draft cards.

 

He also helped

plan protests

that, as it happened,

turned into clashes

with the Chicago police

outside

the Democratic convention.

 

In 1974,

with the Vietnam War

in its final stages

after American military

involvement

had all but ended,

Mr. Hayden and Ms. Fonda,

who were by then married,

traveled across Vietnam,

talking to people

about their lives after years of war,

and produced a documentary film,

“Introduction to the Enemy.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/25/us/tom-hayden-dead.html

 

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/25/us/
tom-hayden-dead.html

 

http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/10/24/
499130324/longtime-progressive-activist-tom-hayden-dies-at-76

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jack Greenberg    1924-2016

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

James Haughton Jr.    1929-2016

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Robert Melvin Adelman    1930-2016

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Quentin David Young    1923-2016

 

 

 

Dr. Quentin D. Young

at Cook County Hospital in Chicago in the 1970s.

 

Dr. Quentin D. Young, Public Health and Civil Rights Advocate, Dies at 92

NYT

MARCH 17, 2016

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/18/us/
dr-quentin-d-young-public-health-and-civil-rights-advocate-dies-at-92.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

tenacious advocate

for public health care

and social justice,

and a personal physician

to the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

and Barack Obama

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/18/us/
dr-quentin-d-young-public-health-and-civil-rights-advocate-dies-at-92.html

 

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/18/us/
dr-quentin-d-young-public-health-and-civil-rights-advocate-dies-at-92.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Claude Fox Sitton    1925-2015

 

son of the South

whose unwavering coverage

of the civil rights movement

for The New York Times

through most

of that tumultuous era

was hailed as a benchmark

of 20th-century journalism

 

(...)



In later years

Mr. Sitton

won a Pulitzer Prize

as a columnist

for The News & Observer

in Raleigh, N.C.,

where he was also

the editor.

 

But it was in the crucible

of the Jim Crow South

that he forged

his most enduring legacy.

 

Roaming the region

as a reporter

from May 1958

to October 1964,

Mr. Sitton

was an eyewitness

to one of the most

wrenching

but consequential

episodes

in American history,

often spending weeks

on the road,

flying home to Atlanta

for a night,

then heading out again

the next day.

 

By the end

of those six

and a half years

he had written

almost 900 articles,

some analytical

and steeped

in his knowledge

of the South,

many drawn

from on-the-scene

reporting.

 

They recounted

the strategizing

by civil rights leaders

in the courts

and on the ground,

explored the political

dynamics of race

in the statehouses

and at the White House,

and opened readers’ eyes

to the violence

with which the movement

was often met

— the beatings, bombings

and church burnings.

 

He often portrayed

the struggle

through the individuals

who gave it flesh:

the demonstrators,

freedom riders

and ordinary

Southern blacks

who braved

white mobs,

brutal police officers

and segregationist

public officials

simply to get

an education

or to vote.

https://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/11/us/
claude-sitton-times-reporter-who-covered-south-in-civil-rights-era-dies-at-89.html

 

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/04/us/
unpublished-black-history-claude-sitton-civil-rights.html

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/11/us/
claude-sitton-excerpt-an-eyewitness-account.html

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/11/us/
claude-sitton-times-reporter-who-covered-south-in-civil-rights-era-dies-at-89.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Charles Leon Aurthello Bibb    1922-2015

 

actor

turned folk singer

whose powerful,

elegant baritone voice

made him

a prominent figure

in the folk-music revival

and a stirring performer

at the landmark

civil rights demonstrations

of the 1960s,

including

the third march

from Selma

to Montgomery, Ala.,

in 1965

 

(...)

 

Mr. Bibb

became involved

in the civil rights

movement early on,

taking part

in voter-registration

drives in the South

and performing

at the 1963 March

on Washington.

 

In 1965

he performed

in front of the statehouse

in Montgomery

with Joan Baez,

Oscar Brand

and Harry Belafonte,

whom he had known

since their acting days

at the American Negro Theater

in Harlem.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/27/
arts/music/leon-bibb-actor-folk-singer-and-civil-rights-activist-dies-at-93.html

 

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/27/
arts/music/leon-bibb-actor-folk-singer-and-civil-rights-activist-dies-at-93.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

William Donlon Edwards    1915-2015

 

former president

of the California

Young Republicans

who became

one of the most liberal

Democrats in Congress,

drafting every civil rights bill

in the House for two decades

 

(...)

 

Mr. Edwards,

an F.B.I. agent in the 1940s,

was also an early opponent

of the Vietnam War

and a champion of civil liberties

who took on the F.B.I.

on domestic surveillance

and budget issues.

 

He entered Congress

in 1963,

in time to vote

for the Civil Rights Act of 1964

and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

 

After becoming chairman

of the Judiciary Committee’s

subcommittee on civil

and constitutional rights,

he managed

the Equal Rights Amendment

on the House floor in 1971

and was the floor manager

for all other civil rights bills.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/03/us/
politics/don-edwards-congressman-who-championed-civil-rights-dies-at-100.html

 

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/03/us/
politics/don-edwards-congressman-who-championed-civil-rights-dies-at-100.html 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

William Henry Grier    1926-2015

 

psychiatrist

whose book “Black Rage,”

written with his colleague

Price M. Cobbs,

drew widespread attention

to the psychic damage

inflicted by racism

and the causes of black anger,

a topic of intense interest

in the aftermath

of the assassination

of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/13/
books/william-h-grier-psychiatrist-who-delved-into-black-rage-in-1960s-dies-at-89.html

 

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/13/
books/william-h-grier-psychiatrist-
who-delved-into-black-rage-in-1960s-dies-at-89.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mary Lynn Jones    1946-2015

 

lawyer

who was deeply involved

in a wide spectrum

of civil rights cases and causes,

including capital punishment,

race relations

and employment discrimination

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/07/us/
lynn-walker-huntley-lawyer-in-prominent-civil-rights-issues-dies-at-69.html

 

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/07/us/
lynn-walker-huntley-lawyer-in-prominent-civil-rights-issues-dies-at-69.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Amelia Boynton Robinson    1911-2015

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Horace Julian Bond    1940-2015

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

D’Army Bailey    1941-2015

 

lifelong civil rights crusader

who successfully campaigned

to transform the forlorn motel

where the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

was assassinated in 1968

into a civil rights museum

 

(...)


By 1982,

Dr. King’s legacy

had been honored

in shrines and street signs

across the country.

 

But Mr. Bailey considered

the derelict Lorraine Motel

in Memphis singularly sacred.

 

Calling the motel

“the site of the crucifixion,”

Mr. Bailey said

the National Civil Rights Museum

would “signal to the world

that Memphis has come to grip

with the tragedy

of Dr. King’s death here,

and has drawn from it the tools

to mold a unique educational tool.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/14/us/
darmy-bailey-73-activist-who-founded-museum-where-dr-king-was-shot-dies.html

 

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/14/us/
darmy-bailey-73-activist-who-founded-museum-where-dr-king-was-shot-dies.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Arthur Louis Powell    1937-2015

 

star receiver

for the New York Titans

and the Oakland Raiders

of the American Football

League in the 1960s

and a persistent voice

protesting the segregation

encountered by

the pro football players

of his time

 

(...)

 

After

his rookie season

in 1959,

when he was

a reserve defensive back

and a kick returner

for the Philadelphia Eagles

of the N.F.L.,

Powell refused to play

in a 1960 preseason game

against

the Washington Redskins

in Norfolk, Va.,

upon learning that

the Eagles’ black players

would not be given rooms

at the team’s hotel.

 

Because Powell’s

black teammates

did not join in his boycott,

he feared that

it would effectively

end his N.F.L. career.

 

Soon afterward,

he signed with

the A.F.L.’s Titans,

the predecessors of the Jets,

and teamed with Don Maynard

in a brilliant pass-catching

combination.

 

When the Titans

faced the Houston Oilers

in a 1961 preseason game

in Greenville, S.C.,

and housed their black players

at a run-down hotel

in a black neighborhood,

Powell again staged

a one-man boycott.

 

After he joined

the Raiders in 1963,

racial issues arose

once more.

 

The Raiders

scheduled a preseason game

with the Jets in Mobile, Ala.,

where the seating

would be segregated,

and Powell

and three black teammates

raised objections with Al Davis,

the team’s coach

and general manager.

 

He moved the game

to Oakland.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/16/
sports/art-powell-78-receiver-who-fought-racism-dies.html

 

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/16/
sports/art-powell-78-receiver-who-fought-racism-dies.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Evelyn Virginia Starks    1922-2015

 

Evelyn Starks Hardy (...)

founded

the Original Gospel

Harmonettes,

a pioneering all-female

black singing group

that performed

at Carnegie Hall

and the Apollo

and made its voice heard

in the civil rights movement

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/06/
arts/music/evelyn-starks-hardy-founder-of-the-gospel-harmonettes-dies-at-92.html

 

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/06/
arts/music/evelyn-starks-hardy-founder-
of-the-gospel-harmonettes-dies-at-92.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Willie Beatrice Taplin / Rev. Willie T. Barrow    1924-2015

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edward William Brooke III    1919-2015

 

Edward W. Brooke III

(...)

in 1966

became

the first African-American

elected to

the United States Senate

by popular vote,

winning as a Republican

in overwhelmingly

Democratic Massachusetts

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/04/us/
edward-brooke-pioneering-us-senator-in-massachusetts-dies-at-95.html

 

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/04/us/
edward-brooke-pioneering-us-senator-in-massachusetts-dies-at-95.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Norward Roussell    1934-2014

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Robert James Mangum    1921-2014

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

George Edward Barrett    1927-2014

 

tenacious

Nashville lawyer

who represented

unions, consumers,

a strip club

and the Democratic Party

but was best known

for his victorious

38-year campaign

to desegregate

Tennessee universities

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/31/us/
george-e-barrett-a-tennessee-lawyer-who-fought-for-desegregation-dies-at-86.html

 

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/31/us/
george-e-barrett-a-tennessee-lawyer-
who-fought-for-desegregation-dies-at-86.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ruby Dee (born Ruby Ann Wallace)    1922-2014

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Vincent Gordon Harding        1931-2014

 

 

 

Vincent Harding

wrote a key anti-Vietnam War speech

for the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

 

Photograph:

Joe Amon/The Denver Post

 

Vincent Harding, 82, Civil Rights Author and Associate of Dr. King, Dies

By MARGALIT FOX        NYT        MAY 21, 2014

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/22/us/
vincent-harding-civil-rights-author-and-associate-of-dr-king-dies-at-82.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

historian,

author and activist

who wrote one

of the most polarizing

speeches ever given

by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.,

in which Dr. King expressed

ardent opposition

to the Vietnam War

 

(...)

 

For more than half a century,

Dr. Harding worked

at the nexus of race, religion

and social responsibility.

 

Though he was not

as high-profile a figure

as some of his contemporaries

— he preferred to work largely

behind the scenes —

he was widely considered

a central figure

in the civil rights movement.

 

A friend, adviser

and sometime

speechwriter to Dr. King,

Dr. Harding

was a member

of the cohort

that helped carry on

his mission

after his assassination

in 1968.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/22/us/
vincent-harding-civil-rights-author-and-associate-of-dr-king-dies-at-82.html

 

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/22/us/
vincent-harding-civil-rights-author-and-associate-of-dr-king-dies-at-82.html

 

https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/
beyond-vietnam

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lee Lorch        1915-2014

 

 

 

Lee Lorch, 95,

a leader of an effort 60 years ago

to desegregate Stuyvesant Town,

at his home in Toronto.

 

Photograph:

Steve Payne for The New York Timez

 

Lee Lorch, Desegregation Activist Who Led Stuyvesant Town Effort, Dies at 98

By DAVID MARGOLICK        NYT        MARCH 1, 2014

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/02/nyregion/
lee-lorch-desegregation-activist-who-led-stuyvesant-town-effort-dies-at-98.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

soft-spoken

mathematician

whose leadership

in the campaign

to desegregate

Stuyvesant Town,

the gargantuan

housing development

on the Lower East Side

of Manhattan,

helped make

housing discrimination

illegal nationwide

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/02/nyregion/
lee-lorch-desegregation-activist-who-led-stuyvesant-town-effort-dies-at-98.html

 

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/02/nyregion/
lee-lorch-desegregation-activist-who-led-stuyvesant-town-effort-dies-at-98.html

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/22/nyregion/22stuyvesant.html

 

http://www.nytimes.com/video/nyregion/1248069152993/
a-conversation-with-lee-lorch.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Franklin Eugene McCain    1941-2014

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Theodore Judson Jemison    1918, in Selma, Ala. - 2013

 

civil rights pioneer

who organized

a 1953 bus boycott

in Baton Rouge, La.,

that foreshadowed

the one set off

by Rosa Parks

in Montgomery, Ala.,

and who went on

to lead

the nation’s largest black

Baptist organization

into liberal political

activism (...)

 

Mr. Jemison

was one

of a handful

of black clergymen

recognized as a leader

of the first generation

of the civil rights

movement.

 

He was a founding member

of the Southern Christian

Leadership Conference,

along with

the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.,

the Rev. Ralph Abernathy

and the Rev. Fred L. Shuttlesworth.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/23/us/rev-t-j-jemison-civil-rights-pioneer-dies-at-95.html

 

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/23/us/
rev-t-j-jemison-civil-rights-pioneer-dies-at-95.html
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Julius LeVonne Chambers    1936-2013

 

civil rights lawyer

who endured firebombings

of his house, office and car

in winning case after case

against racial segregation,

including one that led

to a landmark

Supreme Court decision

allowing forced busing

 

(...)

 

In 1965,

his second year

in private practice,

Mr. Chambers

was working alongside

the legal defense fund

when he took on

35 school desegregation suits

and 20 suits charging discrimination

in public accommodations.

 

One court victory that year

barred the Shrine Bowl

of the Carolinas,

a charity football game,

from excluding black players.

 

Another,

far-reaching 1965 case

was filed on behalf

of a 6-year-old, James Swann,

and nine other families alleging

that school district policies

had put black students

in segregated schools.

 

Mr. Chambers

and the legal defense fund

persuaded a federal judge,

James B. McMillan,

to order busing to promote

integration of public schools.

 

The case went

to the Supreme Court, and in 1971,

in Swann v. Charlotte-

Mecklenburg Board of Education,

the justices upheld

the judge’s ruling,

granting federal courts

the power to order busing

to force racial integration.

 

The ruling had the effect

of ending government-

sanctioned segregation

in Southern schools.

 

In 2002,

the Supreme Court

allowed Charlotte,

like many other cities,

to end busing as a means

to achieve integration,

saying the goal

had been achieved.

 

Mr. Chambers

opposed the ruling,

arguing that blacks

continued to receive

an inferior education

in racially imbalanced

schools.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/07/us/
julius-chambers-a-fighter-for-civil-rights-dies-at-76.html

 

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/07/us/
julius-chambers-a-fighter-for-civil-rights-dies-at-76.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Will Davis Campbell    1924-2013

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Leo Branton Jr.    1922-2013

 

California lawyer

whose moving

closing argument

in a racially and politically

charged murder trial

in 1972

helped persuade

an all-white jury

to acquit

a black communist,

the activist and academic

Angela Davis

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/28/us/leo-branton-jr-who-defended-angela-davis-dies-at-91.html

 

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/28/us/
leo-branton-jr-who-defended-angela-davis-dies-at-91.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

James Madison Nabrit III    1932-2013

 

civil rights lawyer

who fought school segregation

before the Supreme Court

and helped ensure

that the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s

1965 march

from Selma to Montgomery, Ala.,

was allowed to go forward

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/28/us/james-m-nabrit-a-fighter-for-civil-rights-dies-at-80.html

 

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/28/us/
james-m-nabrit-a-fighter-for-civil-rights-dies-at-80.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Eugene Corbett Patterson    1923-2013

 

Pulitzer Prize-winning editor

of The Atlanta Constitution

during the civil rights

conflicts of the 1960s

and later the managing editor

of The Washington Post

and editor

of The St. Petersburg Times

in Florida

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/14/us/
eugene-c-patterson-editor-and-civil-rights-crusader-dies-at-89.html

 

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/14/us/
eugene-c-patterson-editor-and-civil-rights-crusader-dies-at-89.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lawrence Thomas Guyot Jr.    1939-2012

 

Lawrence Guyot (...)

in the early 1960s

endured savage beatings

as a young civil rights worker

in Mississippi

fighting laws and practices

that kept blacks

from registering to vote

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/27/us/
lawrence-guyot-civil-rights-activist-who-bore-the-fights-scars-dies-at-73.html

 

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/27/us/
lawrence-guyot-civil-rights-activist-who-bore-the-fights-scars-dies-at-73.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mervyn Malcolm Dymally    1926-2012

 

 Mervyn M. Dymally (...)

broke barriers

as a black lawmaker

in California

and in Congress

after moving

to the United States

from his native Trinidad

at age 19

 

(...)

 

Mr. Dymally

became California’s

first black state assemblyman

when he was elected in 1962,

its first black state senator

four years later

and, in 1974,

its first black

lieutenant governor.

 

In 1980

he became one

of the first

foreign-born blacks

elected to

the House of Representatives,

where he served six terms

representing Compton

and other heavily black,

low-income areas.

 

He also led

the Congressional

Black Caucus for a time.

 

His success

in winning office

was rooted

in his work organizing

a new black Democratic base

in areas around Los Angeles

beginning

in the 1950s and 1960s.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/09/us/
mervyn-dymally-who-broke-racial-barriers-in-california-dies-at-86.html

 

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/09/us/
mervyn-dymally-who-broke-racial-barriers-in-california-dies-at-86.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Carroll Frye Johnson    1913-2012

 

Southern-born educator

who was one

of the first superintendents

to voluntarily use busing

to integrate

an urban school district,

doing so in White Plains

in the 1960s

 

(...)


Dr. Johnson’s commitment

to equal educational

opportunities for minorities

took root

in the Jim Crow South of 1941,

his son said.

 

At the time,

Dr. Johnson had just received

a master’s degree in education

from the University of Georgia

when he watched

as Gov. Eugene Talmadge

stacked its board of regents with allies

to force the ouster of Walter Cocking,

the dean of the education school.

 

The governor

said Dr. Cocking

needed to be removed

because he planned to create

an integrated demonstration school.

 

The firing

drew national attention,

and it was not far from his mind,

his son said,

when he went

to Westchester County in 1954

to run the White Plains schools.

 

The Supreme Court

had just issued its Brown v.

Board of Education decision,

ending legal segregation

in the public schools.

 

The White Plains system’s

student body

was about 20 percent black then,

with black students

largely concentrated

in a few neighborhood schools

because of housing patterns.

 

Dr. Johnson saw this

as de facto school segregation,

and he tried to redress it

through a number of remedies,

including building schools

with special amenities

to attract both white

and black children.

 

By 1964, however,

he had decided

that the effort was too piecemeal

and that black and white students

remained largely isolated

from one another.

 

He put together what he called

the White Plains Racial Balance Plan,

which essentially called for

busing hundreds of children

so that no school had less

than 10 percent minority enrollment

or more than 30 percent.

 

He also closed one school

that had been overwhelmingly

black.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/07/nyregion/
carroll-f-johnson-schools-integrator-dies-at-99.html

 

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/07/nyregion/
carroll-f-johnson-schools-integrator-dies-at-99.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thelma McWilliams    1916-2012

 

the last surviving member

of a black women’s group

that in 1955 organized

a yearlong bus boycott

in Montgomery, Ala.,

after the arrest of Rosa Parks

for refusing

to give up her seat

on a bus to a white man

 

(...)

 

Ms. Glass,

a professor of geography

at Alabama State University,

was the secretary

of the Women’s

Political Council,

which leapt to action

within hours

of Ms. Parks’s arrest

on Dec. 1, 1955.

 

The women’s group,

realizing

that three-quarters

of the bus riders

in Montgomery

were black,

called on blacks

to boycott the buses

to put pressure

on the city, the state

and the bus company

to stop forcing them

to ride in the back

and surrender their seats

to white passengers.

 

The group urged people

to walk or car-pool

instead of taking the bus,

and Ms. Glass

was among those

who drove others to work

and helped pass out fliers

to alert the community

to the boycott.

 

By Monday, Dec. 5,

the buses were empty.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/28/us/
thelma-glass-organizer-of-alabama-bus-protests-dies-at-96.html

 

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/28/us/
thelma-glass-organizer-of-alabama-bus-protests-dies-at-96.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Louis Heilprin Pollak    1922-2012

 

Federal judge

and former dean

of two prestigious law schools

who played a significant role

in major civil rights cases

before the Supreme Court,

including the landmark

Brown v. Board of Education

desegregation case

 

(...)

 

For 28 years,

before President Jimmy Carter

appointed him

to the United States District Court

for the Eastern District

of Pennsylvania,

Judge Pollak

had volunteered his services

to the NAACP Legal Defens

and Educational Fund.

 

He did so even

during his tenures

as dean of the Yale

and University of Pennsylvania

law schools.

 

Recruited in 1950

by the defense fund’s

director,

Thurgood Marshall,

who later became

an associate justice

of the Supreme Court,

Mr. Pollak was a member

of the legal team

that spent several years

preparing the plaintiff’s briefs

for Brown v. Board of Education.

 

The Supreme Court’s

unanimous decision in that case,

handed down in May 1954,

stated that

“separate educational facilities

are inherently unequal”

and a violation

of the 14th Amendment.

 

The decision,

overturning Plessy v. Ferguson,

the 1896 ruling that permitted

state-sponsored segregation,

is considered a cornerstone

of the modern civil rights

movement.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/13/us/louis-pollak-judge-and-civil-rights-advocate-dies-at-89.html

 

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/13/us/
louis-pollak-judge-and-civil-rights-advocate-dies-at-89.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nicholas deBelleville Katzenbach    1922-2012

 

Nicholas deB. Katzenbach (...)

helped shape

the political history

of the 1960s,

facing down

segregationists,

riding herd on historic

civil rights legislation

and helping to map

Vietnam War strategy

as a central player

in both the Kennedy

and Johnson

administrations

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/10/us/
nicholas-katzenbach-1960s-political-shaper-dies-at-90.html

 

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/10/us/
nicholas-katzenbach-1960s-political-shaper-dies-at-90.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Gilbert Edward Noble    1932-2012

 

television journalist

who hosted “Like It Is,”

an award-winning Sunday

morning public affairs program

in New York,

one of the longest-running

in the country

dedicated to showcasing

black leadership

and the African-American

experience

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/06/
business/media/gil-noble-host-of-show-on-black-issues-dies-at-80.html

 

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/06/
business/media/gil-noble-host-of-show-on-black-issues-dies-at-80.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Robert Lee Carter    1917-2012

 

as a lawyer,

Robert Lee Carter

was a leading strategist

and a persuasive voice

in the legal assault

on racial segregation

in 20th-century America

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/04/nyregion/
robert-l-carter-judge-and-desegregation-strategist-dies-at-94.html

 

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/04/nyregion/
robert-l-carter-judge-and-desegregation-strategist-dies-at-94.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fred Shuttlesworth / Freddie Lee Robinson    1922-2011

 

 

Baptist minister

and civil rights leader

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/oct/07/the-rev-fred-shuttlesworth-obituary

 

 

 

storied civil rights leader

who survived

beatings and bombings

in Alabama a half-century ago

as he fought against racial injustice

alongside

the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/06/us/rev-fred-l-shuttlesworth-civil-rights-leader-dies-at-89.html

 

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/07/
opinion/fred-shuttlesworth-marching-in-kings-shadow.html

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/06/us/
rev-fred-l-shuttlesworth-civil-rights-leader-dies-at-89.html

 

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/oct/07/
the-rev-fred-shuttlesworth-obituary

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

David Marshall French    1924-2011

 

Dr. David M. French

helped found

an organization of doctors

that provided medical care

to marchers

during the civil rights era

and later organized

health care programs

in 20 African nations

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/06/us/06french.html

 

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/06/us/
06french.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

William Manning Marable    1950-2011

 

leading scholar of black history

and a leftist critic of American

social institutions and race relations,

who wrote a biography of Malcolm X

 

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/02/
arts/manning-marable-60-historian-and-social-critic.html

 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/apr/04/
manning-marable-obituary

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

John Logan Cashin Jr.    1928-2011

 

civil rights campaigner

who was the first

black candidate

for governor of Alabama

since Reconstruction,

mounting an unsuccessful

challenge in 1970

to the arch-segregationist

George C. Wallace

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/27/us/politics/27cashin.html

 

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/27/us/
politics/27cashin.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Juanita W. Goggins    1935-2010

 

Trailblazer of US civil rights

 

 

http://www.bvblackspin.com/2010/03/11/
juanita-goggins-found-frozen/

 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/mar/12/
juanita-goggins-frozen-death-southcarolina

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Charles Lee Moore    1931-2010

 

photographer

who braved physical peril

to capture searing images

— including lawmen

using dogs

and fire hoses

against defenseless

demonstrators —

that many credit

with helping to propel

landmark civil rights

legislation

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/16/arts/16moore.html

 

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/16/
arts/16moore.html

http://www.npr.org/blogs/pictureshow/2010/03/
charles_moore.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/greenslade/2010/mar/16/
charles-moore-civil-rights

https://everyday-i-show.livejournal.com/136142.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Benjamin Lawson Hooks    1925-2010

 

civil rights leader

 

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/16/us/
16hooks.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dorothy Irene Height    1912-2010

 

African-American

and women’s rights

movements leader

 

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/30/us/
politics/30height.html

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/30/us/
politics/30height-text.html

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/21/us/
21height.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lena Calhoun Horne    1917-2010

 

First black performer

to be signed

to a long-term contract

by a major

Hollywood studio

 

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/10/
arts/music/10horne.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Raymond Victor Haysbert    1920-2010

 

Baltimore civic leader

and businessman

 

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/29/
business/29haysbert.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

John Woolman Douglas    1921-2010

 

champion of civil and human rights

 

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/06/us/
politics/06douglas.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ronald William Walters    1938-2010

 

Ronald W. Walters

organized

one of the nation’s

first lunch-counter sit-ins

to protest segregation

as a young man

and went on to become

a leading scholar

of the politics of race

 

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/15/us/
15walters.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Michael Aloysius Tabor    1946-2010

 

one of 13

Black Panther Party members

acquitted in 1971

of conspiring to bomb

public buildings

and murder police officers

in New York City

 

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/24/nyregion/
24tabor.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The President’s RoundTable

 

a Baltimore-based

networking organization

of African-American

chief executives

and other leaders

 

 

http://www.presidentsroundtable.net/index.html

 

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/29/
business/29haysbert.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Margaret Taylor Burroughs    1915-2010

 

a founder

of the DuSable Museum

of African American

History in Chicago,

one of the first museums

devoted

to black history and culture

in the United States

 

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/28/
arts/28burroughs.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Odetta Holmes    1930-2008

 

singer

whose resonant voice

wove together

the strongest songs

of American folk music

and the civil rights

movement

 

(...)

 

Rosa Parks,

whose refusal

to give up her seat

to a white passenger

led to the boycott

of segregated buses

in Montgomery, Ala.,

was once asked

which songs

meant the most

to her.

 

“All of the songs

Odetta sings,”

she replied.

 

One of those songs

was “I’m on My Way,”

sung during the pivotal

civil-rights March

on Washington

on Aug. 28, 1963.

 

In a videotaped interview

with The New York Times

in 2007

for its online feature

“The Last Word,”

Odetta recalled

the sentiments

of another song

she performed that day,

“Oh Freedom,”

which is rooted

in slavery:

 

“Oh freedom,

Oh freedom,

Oh freedom over me/

And before I’d be a slave,

I’d be buried in my grave/

And go home to my Lord

and be free.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/03/arts/music/03odetta.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/24/
books/review-odetta-biography-ian-zack-one-grain-of-sand-matthew-frye-jacobson.html

 

 

 

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/03/
arts/music/03odetta.html

 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2008/dec/04/
odetta-film-folk-music-obituary

 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/dec/05/
odetta-singer-civil-rights-activist

 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2008/dec/04/
folk-jazz

 

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2008/dec/03/
american-folk-singer-odetta-dies

 

https://www.npr.org/2008/12/04/
97826793/mountain-stage-remembers-odetta

 

https://www.npr.org/templates/story/
story.php?storyId=97800151 - December 4, 2008

 

https://www.npr.org/templates/story/
story.php?storyId=97740390 - December 3, 2008

 

https://www.npr.org/templates/story/
story.php?storyId=97770489 - December 3, 2008

 

https://www.npr.org/templates/story/
story.php?storyId=97752726 - December 3, 2008

 

https://www.npr.org/templates/story/
story.php?storyId=5074594 - December 30, 2005

 

https://www.npr.org/templates/story/
story.php?storyId=5072278 - December 28, 2005

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rev. Abraham Lincoln Woods Jr.    1928-2008

 

civil rights

campaigner

who in the days

of crowd-throttling

fire-hosings

and snarling police dogs

led the first

lunch-counter sit-ins

in Birmingham, Ala.,

and three decades later

played a pivotal role

confronting

racial discrimination

by country clubs

 

(...)

 

Mr. Woods

attended Morehouse

with Dr. King

in the late 1940s.

 

He later received

a bachelor’s degree

in theology

from Birmingham

Baptist College;

a bachelor’s

in sociology

from Miles College,

in Birmingham;

and a master’s

in American history

from the University

of Alabama.

 

In the 1950s,

he helped organize

voter registration drives

in Alabama.

 

Then,

in the spring of 1963,

he led the first black demonstration

at a whites-only lunch counter,

at Newberry’s department store

in downtown Birmingham.

 

During the demonstrations

that followed,

Dr. King arrived in the city

to confront the tactics

of its public safety

commissioner,

Bull Connor,

who had turned dogs

and fire hoses on protesters.

 

Dr. King, Mr. Woods,

other civil rights leaders

and hundreds

of additional protesters

were arrested.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/13/us/13woods.html

 

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/13/us/
13woods.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mildred Delores Loving    1940-2008

 

black woman

whose anger

over being banished

from Virginia

for marrying

a white man

led to a landmark

Supreme Court ruling

overturning

state miscegenation laws

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/06/us/06loving.html

 

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/06/us/
06loving.html

 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/may/07/usa.
humanrights

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Irene Morgan Kirkaldy    1917-2007

 

Irene Morgan Kirkaldy ('s)

defiance of white supremacy

while traveling through

the Upper South

in the summer of 1944

led to a Supreme Court decision

outlawing segregated seating

on interstate bus lines

 

(...)

 

Mrs. Morgan,

a worker in a plant

that made

World War II bombers

and the mother

of two small children,

was returning

to her home in Baltimore

aboard a Greyhound bus

in July 1944

after a visit to her mother

in Gloucester County, Va.

 

When the bus

grew crowded,

the driver told her

to give her seat

to a white person.

 

Mrs. Morgan refused,

and when a sheriff’s deputy

tried to take her off the bus

in Saluda, Va., she resisted.

 

(...)

 

Mrs. Morgan

was arrested

and pleaded guilty

the next October

to resisting arrest,

paying a $100 fine.

 

But she refused

to pay a $10 fine

for violating

a Virginia law requiring

segregated seating

in public transportation.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/13/us/13kirkaldy.html

 

 

https://www.thirteen.org/wnet/jimcrow/stories_

 

 

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=12819237  - August 15, 2007

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/13/us/13kirkaldy.html 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ernest C. Withers    1922-2007

 

one of the most

celebrated photographers

of the civil rights era

- and a paid F.B.I. informer

 

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/14/us/
14photographer.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Shirley Anita Chisholm    1924-2005

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Joanne Grant Rabinowitz    1930-2005

 

Reporter

and participant

in the US civil rights

struggle

 

 

Reporting

from the perspective

of ordinary people

breaking down

the barriers of segregation,

Joanne Grant

(...)

covered

the American

civil rights movement

of the 1960s

for the old-leftist

New York weekly,

National Guardian.

 

She was not just

at mass demonstrations,

she was there

in isolated communities

where black students,

conducting

voter registration drives,

were often rewarded

with bloody beatings.

 

Grant visited small towns

in rural Alabama,

Mississippi and Georgia

in the early 1960s,

at a time when assaults,

killings and lynchings

were common.

 

As a black reporter

this took courage,

but Grant faced

those dangers,

filed her dispatches,

got herself arrested,

and became a member

of the most militant

of the civil rights groups,

the Student Nonviolent

Coordinating Committee

(SNCC).

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2005/jan/26/pressandpublishing.usnews

 

 

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2005/jan/26/
pressandpublishing.usnews

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Claiborne Paul Ellis    1927-2005

 

A reformed white racist,

he fought for black workers

 

The remarkable journey

of CP Ellis,

(...)

took him from leadership

within the Ku Klux Klan

to lifelong friendship

with an African-American activist

and welfare mother,

who once took a knife to him

after hearing

his racial obscenities.

 

His relationship

with Ann Atwater,

who attended his funeral,

became the subject of a book

and a documentary film,

and was the favourite

of all the interviews

conducted by Studs Terkel.

 

Terkel included

his discussion with Ellis

in two of his books,

describing it

as confirmation

of his optimism

about the human condition.

 

"It showed

we can change our minds,"

he said.

http://www.theguardian.com/news/2005/nov/18/guardianobituaries.usa

 

 

http://www.theguardian.com/news/2005/nov/18/
guardianobituaries.usa

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Shirley Anita St Hill Chisholm    1924-2005

 

The first black woman

elected to Congress,

she was an outspoken advocate

against discrimination

http://www.theguardian.com/news/2005/jan/04/
guardianobituaries.haroldjackson

 

 

 

Mrs. Chisholm

was an outspoken,

steely educator-turned-politician

who shattered racial

and gender barriers

as she became

a national symbol

of liberal politics

in the 1960's and 1970's.

 

Over the years,

she also had a way

of making statements

that angered the establishment,

as in 1974,

when she asserted that

"there is an undercurrent

of resistance"

to integration

"among many blacks

in areas of concentrated

poverty and discrimination"

- including in her own district

in Brooklyn.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/03/obituaries/03chisholm.html?_r=0

 

 

http://www.theguardian.com/news/2005/jan/04/
guardianobituaries.haroldjackson

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/03/
obituaries/03chisholm.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rosa Parks    1913-2005

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ossie Davis    1917-2005

 

 

prominent figure

in the U.S. civil rights movement

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

https://www.npr.org/series/4486027/ossie-davis-an-appreciation

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Constance Baker Motley    1921-2005

 

lawyer and judge

 

 

 

[ Constance Baker Motley and ] James Meredith

face pickets on their way to court in New Orleans in 1962

 

Constance Baker Motley

Pioneering black woman lawyer

at the forefront of the civil rights struggle in America

Godfrey Hodgson

The Guardian        p. 33        Saturday October 1, 2005

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2005/oct/01/
guardianobituaries.usa 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2005/oct/01/
guardianobituaries.usa  

 

https://www.npr.org/templates/story/
story.php?storyId=4928808
- September 29, 2005

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Vivian Malone Jones    1942-2005

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Kenneth Bancroft Clark    1914-2005

 

When, in 1954,

the US supreme court

ruled unlawful the notion

of "separate but equal"

education

- thus officially ending

segregation

in American schools -

the judges not only cited

psychological research

by Kenneth Clark,

(...),

but borrowed

his language.

 

Clark's classic

"doll study"

was reflected

in Chief Justice

Earl Warren's opinion

that separating

black and white children

"solely because of their race

generates

a feeling of inferiority

as to their status

in the community

that may affect

their hearts and minds

in a way unlikely ever

to be undone".

http://www.theguardian.com/news/2005/may/06/guardianobituaries.usa

 

 

http://www.theguardian.com/news/2005/may/06/
guardianobituaries.usa

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

James Forman    1928-2005

 

civil rights pioneer

who brought

a fiercely revolutionary vision

and masterly organizational skills

to virtually every major

civil rights battleground

in the 1960's

 

(...)

 

As executive secretary

of the Student Nonviolent

Coordinating Committee

from 1961 to 1966,

Mr. Forman

was at the barricades

of the civil rights movement

from Selma to Birmingham

to the Mississippi Delta

to the March on Washington.

 

Few outside the movement

knew the extent

to which he choreographed

the now-legendary demonstrations

and campaigns.

 

Known by its initials SNCC,

pronounced "snick,"

the group viewed itself

as the shock troops

of the civil rights movement.

 

In many Southern towns,

its field organizers

were the first professional

civil rights workers

to arrive.

 

Mr. Forman's job

was to keep

a haphazard organization

of idealistic young leftists

functioning.

 

He raised money,

paid the bills,

mapped strategy

and insisted

on keeping records.

 

Mr. Forman set up

a research department

and a print shop

in the group's office

and made the decision

to move the office

to Jackson, Miss.,

in the summer of 1964,

the "freedom summer"

when volunteers

went to Mississippi

to campaign

for voting rights for blacks.

 

He and Bob Moses,

another SNCC organizer,

were the principal organizers

of the operation.

https://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/12/
obituaries/james-forman-dies-at-76-was-pioneer-in-civil-rights.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2005/jan/14/
guardianobituaries.usa

 

https://www.npr.org/templates/story/
story.php?storyId=4280225 - January 12, 2005

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/12/
obituaries/james-forman-dies-at-76-was-pioneer-in-civil-rights.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Black radio stations

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

http://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2016/02/27/
467854020/google-cultural-institute-expands-black-radio-history-collection

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nina Simone (born Eunice Waymon)    1933-2003

 

singer

whose distinctively

emotional style

blended elements

of jazz, gospel, blues,

European art song

and other influences

 

(...)

 

Ms. Simone

had only

one Top 20 hit

in her long career

— her very first single,

"I Loves You, Porgy,"

released in 1959 —

but her following

was large and loyal

and her impact

deep and lasting.

 

Aretha Franklin,

Roberta Flack

and Laura Nyro

were among the singers

who were influenced

by her.

 

(...)

 

Ms. Simone

was as famous

for her social

consciousness

as she was

for her music.

 

In the 1960's

no musical performer

was more closely

identified

with the civil rights

movement.

 

Though

she was best known

as an interpreter

of other people's music,

she eloquently

expressed her feelings

about racism

and black pride

in those years

in a number

of memorable songs

she wrote herself.

 

"Mississippi Goddam"

was an angry response

to the killing

of the civil rights advocate

Medgar Evers.

 

"Young, Gifted and Black,"

written with the keyboardist

Weldon Irvine Jr.,

became something

of an anthem,

recorded by

Aretha Franklin

and many others.

 

"Four Women"

painted a subtle

but stinging picture

of the suffering

and the strength

of African-American

women.

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/22/obituaries/22SIMO.html

 

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/22/
obituaries/22SIMO.html

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8Lq_yasEgo

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

James Farmer    1920-1999

 

civil rights leader

 

 

http://www.nytimes.com/1999/07/10/us/
james-farmer-civil-rights-giant-in-the-50-s-and-60-s-is-dead-at-79.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Stokely Carmichael  Carmichael    1941-1998

 

Black Power activist

 

 

http://www.time.com/time/photoessays/2006/martin_luther_king/5.html 

http://www.pbs.org/hueypnewton/people/people_carmichael.html

http://www.cnn.com/US/9811/15/carmichael.obit/

https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/carmichael-stokely

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lawrence Reddick    1910-1995

 

On 5 December 1955,

Lawrence Reddick

attended

the first mass meeting

of the Montgomery

bus boycott.

 

Although he recalled

feeling ‘‘baffled’’

by what was taking place,

he did ‘‘realize that something

socially significant was happening’’

and began to take copious notes

(Reddick, 235).

 

Throughout 1956 and 1957,

as his notes materialized

into a manuscript for a book,

Reddick became friends

with Martin Luther King, Jr.,

while conducting interviews

with the bus boycott leader.

 

In his biography of King,

Crusader without Violence

(1959),

Reddick called King

a ‘‘national asset,’’

claiming that King

‘‘symbolizes an idea that meets

a fundamental need of our times.

 

His way is needed

in the painful transition

through which the South

is presently passing,

and his way is needed

by the American nation

in a divided world’’

(Reddick, 233–234).

 

For more than a decade,

Reddick

chronicled the events

of the civil rights movement

and assisted King

in writing many

of his public statements

and speeches.

https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/
reddick-lawrence-dunbar

 

https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/
reddick-lawrence-dunbar

 

 

http://www.nytimes.com/1995/08/16/
obituaries/lawrence-reddick-85-historian-and-writer.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Barbara Rose Johns Powell    1935-1991

 

Barbara Johns

in a high school graduation photo from 1952.

 

Overlooked No More: Barbara Johns,

Who Defied Segregation in Schools

NYT

May 8, 2019

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/08/
obituaries/barbara-johns-overlooked.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

At 16,

Johns led a strike

by the student body

that ultimately became

one of five court cases

consolidated into

Brown

v.

Board of Education.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/08/
obituaries/barbara-johns-overlooked.html

 

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/08/
obituaries/barbara-johns-overlooked.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ralph Abernathy    1926-1990

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

James Arthur Baldwin    1924-1987

 

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2017/apr/07/
i-am-not-your-negro-review-james-baldwin-raoul-peck-documentary

 

www.npr.org/2017/02/02/
511860933/james-baldwin-in-his-own-searing-revelatory-words-i-am-not-your-negro

 

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/projects/cp/national/unpublished-black-history/
author-james-baldwin-photographed-at-his-apartment-137-west-71st-street

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Richard Durham    1917-1984

 

Just after

the Second World War,

at a time when segregation

remained firmly ensconced

in the U.S.,

African-American writer

Richard Durham

was taking on racism,

inequality and social justice

— and he was doing it all

on the radio.

 

From 1948

through 1950,

Durham

and a small troupe

of black and white actors

produced elaborate

radio dramas

that helped undermine

the stereotypes of the day.

 

Every Sunday morning at 10,

on Chicago's WMAQ,

listeners of Destination Freedom

would get to hear about figures

like Louis Armstrong,

Harriet Tubman,

Ida B. Wells

and Jackie Robinson.

http://www.npr.org/2015/10/10/
447524363/with-dramas-on-the-dial-freedom-made-history-by-teaching-it

 

 

http://www.npr.org/2015/10/10/
447524363/with-dramas-on-the-dial-freedom-made-history-by-teaching-it

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bayard Rustin    1912-1987

 

adviser

to Martin Luther King Jr.

and the organizer

behind the 1963 March

on Washington.

https://www.npr.org/2019/01/06/
682598649/in-newly-found-audio-a-forgotten-civil-rights-leader-says-coming-out-was-an-abso

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Why A Gay, Black Civil Rights Hero Opposed Affirmative Action        NYT        28 February 2019

 

 

 

 

Why A Gay, Black Civil Rights Hero Opposed Affirmative Action        Video        NYT Opinion        The New York Times        28 February 2019

 

Bayard Rustin

was a chief organizer of the 1963 March on Washington

and thought reparations,

and even separate African-American studies departments,

were a bad idea.

 

Many of his beliefs

would be antithetical to today’s social justice advocates.

 

In the video above,

Coleman Hughes argues that by cherry-picking our heroes,

and focusing on small parts of their legacy,

we are merely paying lip service to their mission.

 

YouTube

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

https://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=fybq5UQn8M8 - NYT - 28 February 2019

 

https://www.npr.org/2019/01/06/
682598649/in-newly-found-audio-a-forgotten-civil-rights-leader-says-coming-out-was-an-abso

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

William Moore McCulloch    1901-1980

 

there is a good case to be made

that the Civil Rights Act of 1964

would not have become law

without him.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/20/opinion/keller-an-unsung-hero-of-civil-rights.html

 

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/20/
opinion/keller-an-unsung-hero-of-civil-rights.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ashton Bryan Jones    1896-1979

 

American Quaker minister

active from the 1930s to 1970s

as an advocate of Civil Rights

for African Americans

in the United States.

 

Though White

and from the deeply

segregated state of Georgia,

Jones was arrested

dozens of times

throughout

the American South

for preaching equality

between all people.

 

He was a close associate

of Civil Rights leader

Martin Luther King Jr.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashton_Jones

 

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashton_Jones

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Marion Palfi        GER / USA        1907-1978

 

Ms. Palfi

set out to document

racism and segregation

in Irwinton, Ga.,

the small town

where Caleb Hill,

in the first reported

lynching of 1949,

was murdered.

 

Later that year,

Ms. Palfi spent

two weeks in Irwinton

documenting its residents,

both black and white.

http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/09/17/
a-meditation-on-race-in-shades-of-white/

 

 

http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/09/17/
a-meditation-on-race-in-shades-of-white/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fannie Lou Hamer    1917-1977

 

 

 

 The voting-rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer

in 1965.

 

She established a communal farm

in hopes of helping black Mississippians

gain self-sufficiency.

 

Photograph:

William J. Smith/Associated Press

 

The Resistance Is Hungry

NYT

OCT. 5, 2017

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/05/
opinion/puerto-rico-resistance-trump-food.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fannie Lou Hamer

speaks as a Mississippi Freedom Democratic party delegate

prior to the formal meeting of the Democratic national convention

in August 1964.

 

Photograph: Bettmann Archive

 

Jailed. Beaten.

Yet 1960s activist Fannie Lou Hamer stood up to white supremacy – comic

G

Fri 12 Jun 2020    11.00 BST

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jun/12/
fannie-lou-hamer-right-to-vote-comic

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

voting-rights activist

(who) established

a communal farm

in hopes

of helping black

Mississippians

gain self-sufficiency

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/05/
opinion/puerto-rico-resistance-trump-food.html

 

 

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jun/12/
fannie-lou-hamer-right-to-vote-comic

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/05/
opinion/puerto-rico-resistance-trump-food.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

John Wesley Carlos

 

The man who raised

a black power salute

at the 1968 Olympic Games

 

When John Carlos

raised his fist

in a black power salute

at the 1968 Olympics,

it changed

20th-century history

– and his own life –

for ever.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/mar/30/black-power-salute-1968-olympics

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/mar/30/
black-power-salute-1968-olympics

 

http://www.npr.org/2011/12/07/
143271325/olympian-john-carlos-no-regrets-on-olympic-salute

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=95792545
Updated July 15, 2011 1:11 AM ET
Published October 16, 2008 9:00 AM ET

 

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=130647618
Updated October 18, 2010 3:44 PM ET
Published October 18, 2010 12:00 PM ET

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/october/17/
newsid_3535000/3535348.stm

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Martin Luther King Jr.    1929-1968

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Malcolm X    1925 - February 22, 1965

 

 

 

Malcolm X

by Gordon Parks

1963

Kodak legend

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

civil rights workers

James Chaney,

Andrew Goodman

and Michael Schwerner

are murdered by KKK members

- June 21, 1964

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Ku Klux Klan's

May 2, 1964,

abduction and slayings

of Henry Hezekiah Dee

and Charles Eddie Moore

 

Klansman James Seale

 

 

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-01-24
-miss-deputy-arrest_x.htm

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Anna Julia Haywood Cooper    1858-1964

 

Cooper was one

of the first black women

in the country

to earn a Ph.D.

 

Before that,

she headed

the first public

high school

for black students

in the District of Columbia

— Washington Colored

High School.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/ed/2015/03/12/
385176497/a-child-of-slavery-who-taught-a-generation

 

 

http://www.npr.org/blogs/ed/2015/03/12/
385176497/a-child-of-slavery-who-taught-a-generation

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"The Lonesome Death

of Hattie Carroll"

is a topical song written

by the American musician

Bob Dylan.

 

Recorded

on October 23, 1963,

the song was released

on Dylan's 1964 album

'The Times They Are a-Changin'

and gives a generally

factual account

of the killing

of 51-year-old

barmaid Hattie Carroll

by the wealthy

young tobacco farmer

from Charles County, Maryland,

William Devereux "Billy" Zantzinger

(whom the song

calls "William Zanzinger"),

and his subsequent sentence

to six months in a county jail.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lonesome_Death_of_Hattie_Carroll

 

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lonesome_Death_of_Hattie_Carroll

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Actor Sidney Poitier and singer Harry Belafonte

 

 

 

(L-R)

Actor Sidney Poitier and singer Harry Belafonte

chatting during the March on Washington for Jobs & Freedom.

 

Location: Washington, DC, US

Date taken: August 28, 1963

 

Photographer: Francis Miller

Life Images

http://images.google.com/hosted/life/0b61fef0f1baca44.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/packages/html/movies/
bestpictures/heat-ar.html 

https://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/
sidney-poitier-about-sidney-poitier/682/

 

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/13/
arts/harry-belafonte-archives-schomburg.html

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/03/nyregion/
harry-belafonte.html

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/23/
books/review/my-song-by-harry-belafonte-
with-michael-shnayerson-book-review.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Medgar Wiley Evers    1925-June 12,1963

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

James Alexander Hood    1942-2013

 

James A. Hood

(...)

integrated

the University of Alabama

in 1963 together with

his fellow student

Vivian Malone

after Gov. George C. Wallace

capitulated

to the federal government

in a signature moment

of the civil rights movement

known as the “stand in

the schoolhouse door”

 

(...)

 

On the morning

of June 11, 1963,

Mr. Hood

and Ms. Malone,

backed by

a federal court order,

sought to become

the first blacks

to successfully

pursue a degree

at Alabama.

 

A black woman,

Autherine Lucy,

had been admitted

in 1956

but was suspended

three days later,

ostensibly for her safety,

when the university

was hit by riots.

 

She was later expelled.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/21/us/
james-hood-dies-at-70-integrated-university-of-alabama.html

 

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/21/us/
james-hood-dies-at-70-integrated-university-of-alabama.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edwin Pratt    1930-1969

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

https://www.npr.org/2019/03/22/
705440081/her-dad-was-a-civil-rights-leader-she-remembers-his-assassination

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

28 May 1963

 

Hunter Gray is attacked at a civil rights protest in Jackson, Mississippi

 

 

 

Hunter Gray, seated left.

 

Photograph:

Wisc Hist/Everett/Rex Features

 

That’s me in the picture:

Hunter Gray is attacked at a civil rights protest

in Jackson, Mississippi, 28 May 1963

G

Friday 27 March 2015        16.00 GMT

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2015/mar/27/
hunter-gray-1963-jackson-mississippi-sit-in 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

William Edward Burghardt DuBois    1868-1963

 

writer and sociologist,

co-founder

of The National Association

for The Advancement

of Colored People

http://www.pbs.org/blackpress/news_bios/newbios/nwsppr/Biogrphs/webdubois/webdubois.html

 

 

 

Author, journalist,

social reformer,

activist, poet, philosopher,

and educator W.E.B. Du Bois

wielded one of the most

influential pens

in African-American history.

 

For sixty-six years

he functioned not only

as a mentor, model,

and spokesman

for generations

of black Americans

but also as the conscience

of black and white Americans alike

who yearned for racial equality

and social justice.

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/ihas/icon/dubois.html - broken link

 

 

https://www.thirteen.org/wnet/jimcrow/
stories_people_dubois.html 

 

 

http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/03/07/
emory-acquires-w-e-b-duboiss-copy-of-rare-early-abolitionist-appeal/

 

http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/bday/0223.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1962

 

University of Mississippi / Ole Miss

 

James Meredith

 

So a new historical marker now

serves as the physical reminder

of the night of Sept. 30, 1962,

when hundreds

of federal marshals

and thousands of Army

and National Guard troops

met a violent mob

of segregationists

from all over the South

and the campus became

a battleground.

 

Two people were killed,

hundreds were wounded

and the vicious realities

of a racist society

were broadcast

around the world.

 

The following morning,

James Meredith

enrolled in classes,

and Ole Miss

was racially integrated.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/01/us/university-of-mississippi-commemorates-integration.html

 

 

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/aaohtml/exhibit/aopart9.html

 

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/01/us/
university-of-mississippi-commemorates-integration.html

 

http://www.nytimes.com/1988/07/26/
obituaries/james-w-silver-81-a-professor-who-fought-for-racial-equality.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Freedom riders    1961

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In November 1960,

six-year-old Ruby Bridges Hall

became the first African American child

to desegregate an elementary school.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Elizabeth Eckford        1957

 

 

 

Black students like Elizabeth Eckford

faced hatred to integrate Central High

in Little Rock, Ark., in 1957.

 

Today white school board members

are supporting an embattled black superintendent.

 

50 Years Later, Little Rock Can’t Escape Race

NYT

8.5.2007

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/08/us/08deseg.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

http://www.cnn.com/2004/LAW/05/17/
eckford.transcript/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

George Washington Lee    1903 - May 7, 1955

 

For most

of his 51 years,

George Lee kept

a low profile

outside church;

he is believed

to have sat for only

one photograph

in his lifetime.

 

But sometime

in the early 1950s,

he decided

to register to vote

— no small undertaking

for a black man

in the South back then,

especially in the Delta.

 

Somehow,

he succeeded;

then he managed

to get his wife,

Rosebud,

registered.

 

And then

he went out

and got other

African-Americans

in Belzoni

and Humphreys County

registered, too

— nearly 100 of them.

 

(...)

 

Lee,

(...),

also co-founded

the local chapter

of the N.A.A.C.P.

and served

as vice president

of the Regional Council

of Negro Leadership.

 

In April 1955,

he spoke before

a crowd of thousands

at the council’s

annual meeting,

urging everyone present

to register and vote.

 

The crowd,

Jet magazine reported,

was “electrified.”

 

Local whites were,

too, though not

in a good way.

 

(...)

 

“the white leadership

in the town and county”

converged upon

Reverend Lee’s

house — twice.

 

“They basically said,

‘stop trying to register

people to vote,

and we’ll leave you

and your wife alone,’”

(...).

 

“He didn’t go for the deal.”

 

On May 7, 1955,

as Lee was driving home

on Church Street,

just a block from Green Grove,

a car pulled up alongside his;

someone fired several shots,

one at the minister’s tires

and the rest at his head,

blasting away his jawbone

and part of his face.

 

Mortally wounded,

he crashed his car

into a house.

 

There were eyewitnesses,

but the white sheriff

refused to investigate,

much less arrest anyone,

calling it a car accident

and going so far as to declare

that the lead pellets extracted

from the victim’s head

were actually dental fillings

that had gotten knocked loose

in the crash.

 

According to Jet,

in an attempt to keep news

of the slaying contained,

“Belzoni telephone operators

refused to take

long-distance calls

from Negroes.”

 

It didn’t work.

Word spread;

more than 2,000 people

showed up

for Reverend Lee’s

funeral,

which was held

at Green Grove

because White Star

was too small

to accommodate them.

 

Rosebud Lee

insisted

her husband

have an open casket.

 

“She wanted

people to see,”

(...),

“what they had done

to her husband.”

 

Jet published

a photo of it

— three months

before Emmett Till

was murdered.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/10/
travel/mississippi-freedom-trail.html

 

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/10/
travel/mississippi-freedom-trail.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mary Jane McLeod Bethune    1875-1955

 

Mary McLeod

(later Bethune)

was the daughter

of former slaves,

born into a family

of seventeen children.

 

She graduated

from Scotia Seminary

(now Barber-Scotia College)

in Concord, North Carolina,

in 1893

and from the Moody Bible Institute

in Chicago in 1895.

 

She married

Albertus L. Bethune in 1898,

and taught in a succession

of small Southern schools,

one of which

was the Haines School,

run by Lucy Laney.

 

In 1904 Bethune,

who had moved to Florida,

decided to open her own school

on the east coast of that state.

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/jimcrow/stories_people_beth.html

 

 

https://www.thirteen.org/wnet/jimcrow/
stories_people_beth.html

 

https://www.loc.gov/item/today-in-history/
may-18/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On 2 March 1955

—nine months

before the arrest

of Rosa Parks

sparked

the Montgomery

bus boycott —

a fifteen-year-old,

high-school student

named Claudette Colvin

challenged

bus segregation

in Montgomery.

 

Shortly after

Colvin boarded a bus

across the street

from Martin Luther King Jr.’s

Dexter Avenue Baptist Church,

the driver asked her

to relinquish her seat

to a white passenger.

 

When Colvin refused,

the police removed

her from the bus

and arrested her for assault,

disorderly conduct,

and violating

segregation laws.

 

Despite early support

from the Women’s

Political Council (WPC)

and the local branch

of the National Association

for the Advancement

of Colored People (NAACP),

Colvin’s case failed

to unite the black community

in the early struggle

against segregation.

http://mlk-kpp01.stanford.edu/index.php/encyclopedia/encyclopedia/
enc_colvin_claudette_1939/ - broken link

 

 

 

Few people know

the story of Claudette Colvin:

 

When she was 15,

she refused to move

to the back of the bus

and give up her seat

to a white person

— nine months

before Rosa Parks

did the very same thing.

 

Most people

know about Parks

and the Montgomery, Ala.,

bus boycott

that began in 1955,

but few know

that there were

a number of women

who refused

to give up their seats

on the same bus system.

 

Most of the women

were quietly fined,

and no one heard

much more.

 

Colvin was the first

to really challenge the law.

 

Now a 69-year-old retiree,

Colvin lives in the Bronx.

 

She remembers

taking the bus home

from high school

on March 2, 1955,

as clear as if it were

yesterday.

 

The bus driver ordered her

to get up and she refused,

saying she'd paid her fare

and it was

her constitutional right.

 

Two police officers

put her in handcuffs

and arrested her.

 

Her school books

went flying off her lap.

 

"All I remember is that

I was not going

to walk off the bus

voluntarily,"

Colvin says.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=101719889

 

 

https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/
claudette-colvin-arrested-king-jo-ann-robinson-and-rosa-parks-meet-montgomery-officials

 

 

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/
story.php?storyId=101719889
Updated March 17, 2009 1:10 PM ET
Published March 15, 2009 12:46 AM ET

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/26/
books/26colvin.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mary Church Terrell    1863-1954

 

 

 

Mary Church Terrell,

who led a successful fight to end segregation in restaurants in Washington, D.C.,

gazes at viewers of this photograph as if taking their measure.

 

Photograph: Library of Congress

 

For Black Suffragists, the Lens Was a Mighty Sword

Photographs of generations of Black suffragists

offer invaluable documents about their thwarted and central roles

in the history of women’s rights.

NYT

Aug. 12, 2020

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/12/
arts/19th-amendment-black-womens-suffrage-photos.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Terrell

was the first President of the landmark

National Association of Colored Women,

and led a successful fight

to end segregation in restaurants

in Washington, D.C.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/12/
arts/19th-amendment-black-womens-suffrage-photos.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

November 1948

 

Teacher Robert Mallard

is shot to death by white men

 

 

https://books.google.fr/books
?id=hEoEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA35&lpg=PA35&dq=&redir_esc=y&hl=fr#v=onepage&q&f=false

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

April 10, 1947

 

Jack Roosevelt Robinson

breaks the color barrier

in major league baseball

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ida Bell Wells        1862-1931

 

 

 

Portrait of Ida B Wells, 1920.

‘I consider her my spiritual grandmother,’

said journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones,

who covers civil rights.

 

Photograph:

Chicago History Museum/Getty Images

 

Ida B Wells:

the unsung heroine of the civil rights movement

The pioneering African American reporter

counted, investigated and reported

lynchings in America as no one had done before

G

Fri 27 Apr 2018        07.00 BST

Last modified on Fri 27 Apr 2018        07.02 BST

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/apr/27/
ida-b-wells-civil-rights-movement-reporter

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The pioneering

African American reporter

counted, investigated

and reported

lynchings in America

as no one had done before

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/apr/27/
ida-b-wells-civil-rights-movement-reporter

 

 

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/apr/27/
ida-b-wells-civil-rights-movement-reporter

 

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/apr/27/
ida-b-wells-barnett-national-negro-conference-chicago-speech

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Related > Anglonautes > History

 

20th century > USA > Civil rights

 

 

17th, 18th, 19th, 20th century

English America, America, USA

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Abolition, Civil war,

Abraham Lincoln

 

 

17th, 18th, 19th century

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Related > Anglonautes > Vocapedia

 

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apartheid

 

 

 

 

 

Anglonautes > Arts > Photography > Photographers > 20th century > USA

 

Fred Baldwin

 

 

Doy Gorton

 

 

Matt Herron    1931-2020

 

 

Ernest C. Withers    1922-2007

 

 

Gordon Parks    1912-2006

 

 

James "Spider" Martin    1939-2003

 

 

Grey Villet    1927-2000

 

 

Ed Clark    1911-2000

 

 

 

 

 

Related > Anglonautes > Arts > Books > 20th century > USA

 

James Arthur Baldwin    1924-1987

 

 

 

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