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Social Activist/ Author
Also known as Gloria Jean Watkins.

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Born: September 25, 1952
Hopkinsville, Kentucky
African American activist, educator, and writer

Writer, professor, and social critic, bell hooks is undeniably one of the most successful "cross-over" academics of the late twentieth century. Her books look at the function of race and gender in today's culture.

Childhood

Born Gloria Jean Watkins on September 25, 1952, bell hooks was raised in Hopkinsville, Kentucky, a small, segregated (separated by race) town in rural Kentucky. She recalled her neighborhood as a "world where folks were content to get by on a little, where Baba, mama's mother, made soap, dug fishing worms, set traps for rabbits, made butter and wine, sewed quilts, and wrung the necks of chickens." She later explained how this community turned the hardships created by racism (the idea that one race is superior to another) into a source of strength. The neighborhood where she grew up provided young Gloria with her resistance to racism, but it also provided her with the negative and positive experiences that would shape her feminism (support of equal rights for women).

Gloria was one of six siblings: five sisters and a baby brother. Her father worked as a janitor, and her mother, Rosa Bell Oldham Watkins, worked as a maid in the homes of white families. As a student at segregated public schools, hooks was taught by a dedicated group of teachers, mostly single black women, who helped to shape the self-esteem (satisfaction with oneself) of children of color. But the late 1960s Kentucky schools became desegregated. By the time she was ten, hooks had begun writing her own poetry and soon developed a reputation for her ability to recite poetry.

Learned to "talk back"

Although hooks was supposed to become a quiet, well-behaved young woman, she became instead a woman who "talked back." This action, for which hooks eventually named a volume of essays, actually refers to the development of a strong sense of self that allows black women to speak out against racism and sexism.

Although young hooks continued to write poetry-some of which was published-she gained a reputation as a writer of critical essays on systems of domination. In order to do this work, she found that she needed to develop a different voice, a different name. She first used her pseudonym (assumed name)-her maternal great-grandmother's name-for a small book of poems. She decided not to capitalize her first and last names in an attempt to place the focus on her work, rather than her name.

Wrote first book at nineteen

After high school, hooks accepted a scholarship to Stanford University, in California. Despite her full-time studies she began Ain't I a Woman at the age of nineteen. She also took a job as a telephone operator. Finding time for her writing was a challenge, but hooks found that the job offered her something she did not have in school at the time-a community of working-class, black women.

The author went through several drafts of the manuscript over the next six years before she had one that satisfied her. It was at this moment that the persona of bell hooks truly rescued Gloria Watkins. At first hooks had considerable trouble publishing her work, and eventually she was directed to her future publisher, South End Press, while giving a talk at a feminist bookstore in San Francisco. Once published in 1981, Ain't I a Woman became a central book in discussions of racism and sexism. Eleven years later, Publishers Weekly ranked it among the "twenty most influential women's books of the previous twenty years."

A career in higher education

While Ain't I a Woman made bell hooks an important name in feminist debate, she continued her work. After obtaining a doctorate degree in English literature, she began her teaching career. It was in her role as a teacher that hooks felt she was doing her most important work. She knew that for a people historically and legally denied the right to education, teaching was one of the most substantial forms of political resistance she could choose.

After holding various positions at the University of California in Santa Cruz, California, in the early 1980s, hooks left for Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, when she had the opportunity to teach in African American Studies. In 1988 she joined the faculty at Oberlin College, in Ohio, where she would teach in Women's Studies, a program that now offered the critique of racism that was absent during her undergraduate years.

Taking a post with the City College of New York in 1995, hooks moved to the Henry Holt publishing company and came out with Killing Rage: Ending Racism, a book that calls for a more proactive approach (initiative) to solving the problem of racism in America.

Hooks lives in New York City and remains an important figure in the fight against racism and sexism in America. With the release of Communion: The Female Search for Love in 2002, hooks has more than twenty books to her name with more to come.

For More Information

Hooks, bell. Remembered Rapture: The Writer at Work. New York: Henry Holt, 1999.

Hooks, bell. Talking Back: Thinking Feminist, Thinking Black. Boston: South End Press, 1989.

Hooks, bell. Yearning: Race, Gender and Cultural Politics. Boston: South End Press, 1990.

Hooks, bell, and Cornel West. Breaking Bread: Insurgent Black Intellectual Life. Boston: South End Press, 1991.

Talking about a Revolution: Interviews with Michael Albert, Noam Chomsky, Barbara Ehrenreich, Bell Hooks, Peter Kwong, Winona LaDuke, Manning Marable, Urvashi Vaid, and Howard Zinn. Cambridge, MA: South End Press, 1998.

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Born: September 25, 1952 Hopkinsville, Kentucky African American activist, educator, and writer Writer, professor, and social critic, bell hooks is undeniably one of the most successful "cross-over" academics of the late twentieth century. Her books look at the function of race and gender in today's culture.

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Civil Rights Activist/ Educator/ Author/ Adviser

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Booker T. Washington's Parents and Early Life

Booker Taliaferro Washington was born on April 5, 1856 in a hut in Franklin County, Virginia. His mother was a cook for the plantation's owner. His father, a white man, was unknown to Washington. At the close of the Civil War, all the enslaved people owned by James and Elizabeth Burroughs-including 9-year-old Booker, his siblings, and his mother-were freed. Jane moved her family to Malden, West Virginia. Soon after, she married Washington Ferguson, a free Black man.

Booker T. Washington's Education

In Malden, Washington was only allowed to go to school after working from 4-9 AM each morning in a local salt works before class. It was at a second job in a local coalmine where he first heard two fellow workers discuss the Hampton Institute, a school for formerly enslaved people in southeastern Virginia founded in 1868 by Brigadier General Samuel Chapman. Chapman had been a leader of Black troops for the Union during the Civil War and was dedicated to improving educational opportunities for African Americans.

In 1872, Washington walked the 500 miles to Hampton, where he was an excellent student and received high grades. He went on to study at Wayland Seminary in Washington, D.C., but had so impressed Chapman that he was invited to return to Hampton as a teacher in 1879. It was Chapman who would refer Washington for a role as principal of a new school for African Americans in Tuskegee, Alabama: The Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute, today's Tuskegee University. Washington assumed the role in 1881 at age 25 and would work at The Tuskegee Institute until his death in 1915.

It was Washington who hired George Washington Carver to teach agriculture at Tuskegee in 1896. Carver would go on to be a celebrated figure in Black history in his own right, making huge advances in botany and farming technology.

Booker T. Washington Beliefs And Rivalry with W.E.B. Du Bois

Life in the post- Reconstruction era South was challenging for Black people. Discrimination was rife in the age of Jim Crow Laws. Exercising the right to vote under the 15 Amendment was dangerous, and access to jobs and education was severely limited. With the dawn of the Ku Klux Klan, the threat of retaliatory violence for advocating for civil rights was real.

In perhaps his most famous speech, given on September 18, 1895, Washington told a majority white audience in Atlanta that the way forward for African Americans was self-improvement through an attempt to "dignify and glorify common labor." He felt it was better to remain separate from whites than to attempt desegregation as long as whites granted their Black countrymen and women access to economic progress, education, and justice under U.S. courts:

"The wisest of my race understand that the agitation of questions of social equality is the extremest folly and that progress in the enjoyment of all the privileges that will come to us must be the result of severe and constant struggle rather than artificial forcing. The opportunity to earn a dollar in a factory just now is worth infinitely more than to spend a dollar in an opera house."

His speech was sharply criticized by W.E.B. Du Bois, who repudiated what he called "The Atlanta Compromise" in a chapter of his famous 1903 book, "The Souls of Black Folk." Opposition to Washington's views on race inspired the Niagara Movement (1905-1909). Du Bois would go on to found the NAACP in 1909.

Because of Washington's outsized stature in the Black community, dissenting views were strongly squashed. Du Bois and others criticized Washington's harsh treatment of rival Black newspapers and Black thinkers who dared to challenge his opinions and authority.

Books By Booker T. Washington

Washington, a famed public speaker known for his sense of humor, was also the author of five books:

· "The Story of My Life and Work" (1900)

· "Up From Slavery" (1901)

· "The Story of the Negro: The Rise of the Race from Slavery" (1909)

· "My Larger Education" (1911)

· "The Man Farthest Down" (1912)

Booker T. Washington: First African American in the White House

Booker T. Washington became the first African American to be invited to the White House in 1901, when President Theodore Roosevelt invited him to dine with him. It caused a huge uproar among white Americans-especially in the Jim Crow South-and in the press, and came on the heels of the publication of his autobiography, "Up From Slavery." But Roosevelt saw Washington as a brilliant advisor on racial matters, a practice his successor, President William Howard Taft, continued.

Booker T. Washington Death And Legacy

Booker T. Washington's legacy is complex. While he lived through an epic sea change in the lives of African Americans, his public views supporting segregation seem outdated today. His emphasis on economic self-determination over political and civil rights fell out of favor as the views of his largest critic, W.E.B. Du Bois, took root and inspired the civil rights movement. We now know that Washington secretly financed court cases that challenged segregation and wrote letters in code to defend against lynch mobs. His work in the field of education helped give access to new hope for thousands of African Americans.

By 1913, at the dawn of the administration of Woodrow Wilson, Washington had largely fallen out of favor. He remained at the Tuskegee Institute until congestive heart failure ended his life on November 14, 1915. He was 59.

Washington left behind a vastly improved Tuskegee Institute with over 1,500 students, a faculty of 200 and an endowment of nearly $2 million to continue to carry on its work.

Sources

Booker T. Washington. Biography.com
The Debate Between W.E.B. Du Bois and Booker T. Washington. Frontline.
Jim Crow Stories: Booker T. Washington. Thirteen.org.
Booker T. Washington. Britannica.

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Booker T. Washington - Biography, W.E.B. Dubois & Facts | HISTORY

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Booker T. Washington (1856-1915) was one of the most influential African-American intellectuals of the late 19th century. In 1881, he founded the Tuskegee Institute and later formed the National Negro Business League. Although Washington clashed with black leaders such as W. E. B.

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Civil Rights Activist/ Labor Leader

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Early Life and Work as a Community Organizer

Cesar Estrada Chavez was born in Yuma, Arizona, on March 31, 1927. In the late 1930s, after losing their homestead to foreclosure, he and his family joined more than 300,000 people who migrated to California during the Great Depression and became migrant farm workers.

Chavez dropped out of school after eighth grade and began working in the fields full time. In 1946, he joined the U.S. Navy, serving for two years in a segregated unit. After his service was over, he returned to farmwork and married Helen Fabela, with whom he would eventually have eight children (and later, 31 grandchildren).

In 1952, Chavez was working at a lumberyard in San Jose when he became a grassroots organizer for the Community Service Organization (CSO), a Latino civil rights group. Over the next decade, he worked to register new voters and fight racial and economic discrimination, and rose to become the CSO's national director.

Chavez resigned from the CSO in 1962, after other members refused to support his efforts to form a labor union for farm workers. That same year, he used his life savings to found the National Farm Workers Association (NFWA) in Delano, California.

Founding of National Farm Workers Association and the 1965 Grape Strike

Chavez knew firsthand the struggles of the nation's poorest and most powerless workers, who labored to put food on the nation's tables while often going hungry themselves. Not covered by minimum wage laws, many made as little as 40 cents an hour, and did not qualify for unemployment insurance.

Previous attempts to unionize farm workers had failed, as California's powerful agricultural industry fought back with all the weight of their wealth and political power.

Chavez was inspired by the nonviolent civil disobedience pioneered by Gandhi in India, and the example of St. Francis of Assisi, the 13th-century Italian nobleman who gave up his material wealth to live with and work on behalf of the poor.

Working doggedly to build the NFWA alongside fellow organizer Dolores Huerta, Chavez traveled around the San Joaquin and Imperial Valleys to recruit union members. Meanwhile, Helen Chavez worked in the fields to support the family, as they struggled to stay afloat.

In September 1965, the NFWA launched a strike against California's grape growers alongside the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee (AWOC), a Filipino-American labor group. The strike lasted five years and expanded into a nationwide boycott of California grapes. The boycott drew widespread support, thanks to the highly visible campaign headed by Chavez, who led a 340-mile march from Delano to Sacramento in 1966 and undertook a well-publicized 25-day hunger strike in 1968.

"I am convinced that the truest act of courage, the strongest act of manliness, is to sacrifice ourselves for others in a totally non-violent struggle for justice," Chavez declared, in a speech read on his behalf when his first hunger strike ended. "To be a man is to suffer for others. God help us be men."

The United Farm Workers and Chavez's Later Career

The grape strike and boycott ended in 1970, with the farm workers reaching a collective bargaining agreement with major grape growers that increased the workers' pay and gave them the right to unionize. The NWFA and AWOC had merged in 1966 to form the United Farm Workers Organizing Committee, which in 1971 became the United Farm Workers of America (UFW).

Throughout the 1970s, Chavez continued leading the union's efforts to win labor contracts for farm workers across the agricultural industry, employing the same nonviolent techniques of strikes and boycotts. In 1972, he went on a second hunger strike to protest an Arizona law banning farm workers from organizing and protesting.

Thanks to the UFW's efforts, California passed the landmark Agricultural Labor Relations Act in 1975, giving all farm workers the right to unionize and negotiate for better wages and working conditions.

In the mid-1980s, Chavez focused the UFW's efforts on a campaign to highlight the dangers of pesticides for farm workers and their children. In 1988, at the age of 61, he underwent his third hunger strike, which lasted for 36 days.

Chavez died in his sleep on April 23, 1993, at the age of 66. The following year, President Bill Clinton awarded him a posthumous Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian award. In a sign of the labor leader's enduring influence, Barack Obama borrowed a Chavez slogan- Si, se puede, or "Yes, we can"-during his successful run to become the first Black U.S. president in 2008.

Sources

Maureen Pao, "Cesar Chavez: The Life Behind A Legacy Of Farm Labor Rights." NPR, August 12, 2016.
Miriam Pawel, The Crusades of Cesar Chavez. (Bloomsbury Publishing, 2014)
California Hall of Fame: Cesar Chavez. California Museum.

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Cesar Chavez: Quotes, Death & Accomplishments - HISTORY

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Cesar Chavez, labor leader, civil rights activist and founder of the National Farm Workers Association, dedicated his life to the rights of farm workers.

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Civil Rights Activist/ Educator

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Clara Mae Luper was born in Okfuskee County, Oklahoma, to Ezell and Isabell Shepard on May 3, 1923. She attended all-black schools and was bussed several miles to Grayson High School where she graduated in a class of five. After graduating from the segregated Langston University, Luper became the first African American student to enroll in the history department at the University of Oklahoma, earning a master's degree in 1951.

Luper was one of the early leaders in the civil rights movement in Oklahoma during the 1950s. She taught history in various Oklahoma City public schools for forty-one years and became the sponsor of the Oklahoma City NAACP Youth Council. In 1958, working with this group, she led the earliest "sit-ins" in Oklahoma and some of the first in United States. Through these protests she and other civil rights activists succeeded in integrating many public facilities in Oklahoma City and across the state by 1964.

In 1957, Luper escorted her Dunjee High School students to New York City, New York to perform a play she had written, Brother President: The Story of Dr. Martin Luther King, for a national freedom rally. Inspired by non-violent activism, she and her students returned determined to end segregation in Oklahoma. They staged a sit-in at the Katz Drugstore counter in August 1958. This sit-in led to numerous other demonstrations at lunch counters, cafeterias, churches, and amusement parks, as well as marches, voter registration drives, and boycotts. She was arrested twenty-six times for her civil rights activities. The Oklahoma City Council responded with an ordinance ending racial discrimination shortly before the national 1964 Civil Rights Act. Luper participated, as well, in the civil rights marches with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., in Washington, D.C. and in Selma, Alabama.

Luper also fought for the integration of Oklahoma City schools and organized the Oklahoma City Sanitation Strike in 1969. She was a candidate for the U.S. Senate in 1972, and founded the Freedom Center, Inc. In 1979, she published her memoir, Behold the Walls, and later developed the Black Voices Magazine, now called America's Voices. Luper also hosted a radio talk show in Oklahoma City between 1960 and 1980. Luper continued to lecture on behalf of racial justice until illness forced her retirement in 2008.

Clara Luper received many honors in her later years. She was inducted into the Oklahoma Hall of Fame in 2007, a scholarship was established in her name at Oklahoma City University, and Oklahoma City named a street, the Clara Luper Corridor, in her honor. In 2009 she received the National Education Association's Rosa Parks Memorial Award. Upon her death on June 8, 2011, Oklahoma officials honored her by placing her casket to lie in repose in the rotunda of the state capitol building, and flying flags at half-staff. She is survived by a son, Calvin, and two daughters, Marilyn Hildreth and Chelle Wilson.

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Clara Mae Luper was born in Okfuskee County, Oklahoma, to Ezell and Isabell Shepard on May 3, 1923. She attended all-black schools and was bussed several miles to Grayson High School where she graduated in a class of five. After graduating from the segregated Langston ... Read MoreClara Luper (1923-2011)

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Civil Rights Activist/ Football Quarterback

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San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick says he refused to stand during the national anthem Friday because of his views on the country's treatment of racial minorities.

"I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color," Kaepernick told NFL Media after Friday's game. "To me, this is bigger than football and it would be selfish on my part to look the other way. There are bodies in the street and people getting paid leave and getting away with murder."

The 49ers acknowledged in a statement that Kaepernick sat on the team's bench during the national anthem before their game against the Green Bay Packers.

The Colin Kaepernick Saga
"The national anthem is and always will be a special part of the pregame ceremony," the statement said. "It is an opportunity to honor our country and reflect on the great liberties we are afforded as its citizens. In respecting such American principles as freedom of religion and freedom of expression, we recognize the right of an individual to choose to participate, or not, in our celebration of the national anthem."
Kaepernick told NFL Media that he did not tell the team he was planning to protest the national anthem.

"This is not something that I am going to run by anybody," he said. "I am not looking for approval. I have to stand up for people that are oppressed. ... If they take football away, my endorsements from me, I know that I stood up for what is right."

Kaepernick also refused to stand for the national anthem during the other preseason games, but he wasn't dressed for those contests because of tightness in his right shoulder.

The NFL said in a statement Saturday that "players are encouraged but not required to stand during the playing of the national anthem."

"I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color. To me, this is bigger than football and it would be selfish on my part to look the other way." - 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick, on his decision to sit during the national anthem

Pro Football Talk initially reported that Kaepernick did not stand during the anthem. He was not asked about his decision during his postgame news conference, which was held before the Pro Football Talk report.

Kaepernick, who is biracial, was adopted and raised by white parents. He has been outspoken on his Twitter account on civil rights issues and in support of the Black Lives Matter movement.

Numerous high-profile athletes have spoken out about civil rights issues in the wake of gun violence throughout the United States. In July, Dwyane Wade, LeBron James, Carmelo Anthony and Chris Paul opened the ESPYS with a call for social change and an end to violence, and WNBA players wore warm-up shirts to show solidarity after shootings in Minnesota and Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

Wade's cousin, Nykea Aldridge, was killed by gunfire in Chicago on Friday, a day after Wade participated in a series of panel discussions on gun violence hosted by The Undefeated on ESPN.

Kaepernick told NFL Media that he had thought about going public with his feelings for a while but that "I felt that I needed to understand the situation better."

Kaepernick joins team sports athletes including Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf and Carlos Delgado in refusing to participate during patriotic American songs. Abdul-Rauf was suspended one game by the NBA in 1996 for not standing during the national anthem, saying the United States had a history of tyranny and doing so would conflict with his Islamist beliefs. He later agreed to stand and pray silently during the song. Delgado would leave the field in 2004 during "God Bless America" in protest of the Iraq War.

Kaepernick made his preseason debut against the Packers. He went 2-for-6 for 14 yards and added 18 yards on four carries in the 49ers' 21-10 loss.
ESPN staff writer Nick Wagoner and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
This story is featured on ESPN.com

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Colin Kaepernick protests anthem over treatment of minorities

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San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick says he refused to stand during the national anthem Friday because of his views on the country's treatment of racial minorities. "I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color," Kaepernick told NFL Media after Friday's game.

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Human Rights Activist/ Author/ Educator/ Historian

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DR. IBRAM X. KENDI is one of the world's foremost historians and leading antiracist scholars. He is a National Book Award-winning author of sixteen books for adults and children, including ten New York Times bestsellers-five of which were #1 New York Times bestsellers. His books have been translated into multiple languages and republished throughout North America, South America, Africa, Europe, and Asia.

Dr. Kendi is the Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities and the Founding Director of the Boston University Center for Antiracist Research in the United States. Dr. Kendi is a contributing writer at The Atlantic and a CBS News Racial Justice Contributor. In 2020, Time magazine named him one of the 100 most influential people in the world. He was awarded a 2021 MacArthur Fellowship, popularly known as the "Genius Grant."

Dr. Kendi's first book, The Black Campus Movement, a history of Black student activism in the late 1960s and early 1970s, won the W.E.B. Du Bois Book Prize. His second book, Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America, won the National Book Award for Nonfiction in 2016. At 34 years old, Dr. Kendi was the youngest ever winner of the NBA for Nonfiction. He grew up dreaming about playing in the NBA (National Basketball Association), and ironically, he ended up joining the other NBA. The film adaptation came out on Netflix in 2023. Stamped from the Beginning debuted on the top 10 watched movies on Netflix and was honored on the Oscar shortlist for Documentary Feature Film. It was nominated for a NAACP Image Award and won the Best Documentary from the African American Film Critics Association.

In 2019, Dr. Kendi authored How to Be an Antiracist, a #1 New York Times bestseller and international bestseller. It made several Best Books of 2019 lists and was described in the New York Times as "the most courageous book to date on the problem of race in the Western mind." The next year, Dr. Kendi partnered with Jason Reynolds on a young adult remix of Stamped from the Beginning, which they titled Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You. Stamped Jr.-as they call it -was a #1 New York Times bestseller and won the GoodReads Choice Award and was a finalist for the Barnes & Noble Book of the Year, Jane Addams Children's Book Award, the Kirkus Prize, and a NAACP Image Award. In 2020, Dr. Kendi also authored the board book and picture book, Antiracist Baby. Illustrated by Ashley Lukashevsky, Antiracist Baby debuted at #1 on the New York Times bestseller list and became a widely popular introduction to antiracism for the youngest of people.

In 2021, Dr. Kendi edited with Dr. Keisha N. Blain, Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019. They assembled a Black community of 80 writers and 10 poets to write the history of a community. Four Hundred Souls debuted at #1 on the New York Times bestseller list and became a finalist for the prestigious Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction from the American Library Association. Months after Four Hundred Souls, Dr. Kendi, Jason Reynolds, and Dr. Sonja Cherry-Paul published Stamped for Kids. An adaptation of Stamped Jr. for middle graders that found to be "exhilarating, excellent, necessary," Stamped for Kids became a #1 New York Times bestseller.

In 2021, Dr. Kendi launched three major media projects. He hosted the first season of his action podcast Be Antiracist. He worked with his colleagues at the BU Center for Antiracist Research to found The Emancipator, a multimedia digital platform inspired by the first abolitionist newspaper in the 19th century that strives to reframe the conversation on racial justice and equity. Dr. Kendi also launched his production shingle, Maroon Visions, to produce film and television projects. The first project was Skin in the Game, a docuseries examining the intersection of race, sport, and society, co-produced by Religion of Sports and Andscape that debuted on ESPN+ in 2023.

In 2022, Dr. Kendi published two instant New York Times bestsellers: How to Raise an Antiracistand Goodnight Racism, a picture book illustrated by Cbabi Bayoc. An accessible and thoroughly researched book for parents, caregivers and educators, the Los Angeles Times praised How to Raise an Antiracist for combining "his personal experience as a parent with his scholarly expertise in showing how racism affects every step of a child's life." The San Francisco Book Review lauded Goodnight Racism as a "lovely goodnight prayer for children" while Kirkus Reviews called it "an inspiring read to help realize dreams for a better future for all."

That year, Dr. Kendi also published Magnolia Flower, a picture book illustrated by Loveis Wise, about an Afro-Indigenous girl who longs for freedom and love-and finds both. This is the first of a series of six children's books that Dr. Kendi is adapting based on the writings and collected folklore of the legendary Zora Neale Hurston. The second, The Making of Butterflies, illustrated by Kah Yangni, came out on March 7, 2023. This board book, which opens the imagination of babies about the work of creation and how the world came to be, is based on a fun folktale Hurston collected.

Weeks before The Making of Butterflies arrived, Dr. Kendi partnered with Nic Stone on a young adult adaption of How to Be an Antiracist. This book, How to Be a (Young) Antiracist, became an instant sensation, debuting on the New York Times bestseller list. Dr. Kendi and Stone also produced The (Young) Antiracist's Workbook for young changemakers, not unlike Be Antiracist, a workbook Dr. Kendi wrote for adults. In 2023, Kendi also published Stamped from the Beginning: A Graphic History of Racist Ideas in America, with cartoonist Joel Christian Gill, which was nominated for a NAACP Image Award.

Dr. Kendi has published fourteen academic essays in books and academic journals, including The Journal of African American History, Journal of Social History, Journal of Black Studies, Journal of African American Studies, and The Sixties: A Journal of History, Politics and Culture. He co-edits the Black Power Series at NYU Press with historian Ashley Farmer.

Dr. Kendi has published op-eds in numerous periodicals, including The Atlantic, The New York Times, The Guardian, Washington Post, London Review, Time, Salon, Diverse: Issues in Higher Education, Paris Review, Black Perspectives, Time, and The Chronicle of Higher Education. He commented on a series of international, national, and local media outlets, such as CNN, ABC, CBS, MSNBC, NPR, Al Jazeera, PBS, BBC, Democracy Now, OWN, BET, and Sirius XM. A sought after public speaker, Dr. Kendi has delivered thousands of addresses over the years at colleges and universities, bookstores, festivals, conferences, libraries, churches, museums, and other institutions in the United States and around the world.

Dr. Kendi enjoys joking it up with friends and family, partaking in African American culture, weight-lifting, reading provocative books, discussing the issues of the day with open-minded people, and hoping and pressing for the day the New York Knicks will win an NBA championship and for the day this nation and world will be ruled by the best of humanity.

In 2013, he changed his middle name from Henry to Xolani (meaning "Peace" in Zulu) and surname from Rogers to Kendi when he wed Dr. Sadiqa Kendi, a pediatric emergency physician. They chose their new name together and unveiled "Kendi," meaning "loved one" in Meru, to their family and friends at their wedding. Their wedding photos were featured in Essence Magazine, including the bride's stunningly beautiful gold dress.

Dr. Kendi was born in 1982 to parents who came of age during the Black power movement in New York City. They were activist Christians inspired by Black liberation theology. While Dr. Kendi was in high school, his family moved from Jamaica, Queens, to Manassas, Virginia. He traveled further south and attended Florida A&M University, where he majored in journalism. He initially aspired for a career in sports journalism, freelancing for several Florida newspapers, and interning at USA Today Sports Weekly, as well as in the sports sections of the Mobile Register and Atlanta Journal-Constitution. By the end of his tenure at FAMU, he had become alienated from sports journalism and increasingly became interested in engaging in racial justice work. He picked up a second major in African American Studies and graduated in 2004.

After interning for six months at The Virginian Pilot, Dr. Kendi pursued his graduate studies. At 27 years old, he earned his doctoral degree in African American Studies from Temple University in 2010.

Kendi has taught at SUNY Oneonta, SUNY Albany, the University of Florida, and American University. In 2017, he became a full professor, the highest professorial rank, at 34 years old. In 2020, Boston University awarded him an endowed professorship, the highest academic award a University can bestow on a faculty member. BU's endowed Andrew W. Mellon Professorship has been held by only one other person in the University's history: Elie Wiesel, the late Holocaust survivor and 1986 Nobel Peace Prize laureate who died in 2016.

Dr. Kendi has been visiting professor at Brown University, a 2013 National Academy of Education/Spencer Postdoctoral Fellow, and postdoctoral fellow at the Rutgers Center for Historical Analysis. He has also resided at The John W. Kluge Center at the Library of Congress as the American Historical Association's 2010-2011 J. Franklin Jameson Fellow in American History. In the summer of 2011, he lived in Chicago as a short-term fellow in African American Studies through the Black Metropolis Research Consortium. He has received research fellowships, grants, and visiting appointments from a variety of other universities, foundations, professional associations, and libraries, including the Lyndon B. Johnson Library & Museum, University of Chicago, Wayne State University, Emory University, Duke University, Princeton University, UCLA, Washington University, Wake Forest University, and the historical societies of Kentucky and Southern California. He was also the 2020-2021 Frances B. Cashin Fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for the Advanced Study at Harvard University.

100 listed him as the tenth most influential African American between the ages of 25 and 45 and the most influential college professor. Dr. Kendi was awarded the distinguished Guggenheim Fellowship. He was elected to the prestigious Society of American Historians and named a Young Global Leader, the World Economic Forum's annual class of the most promising leaders around the globe under the age of 40.

Kendi's newest book is an adaptation for young readers of Zora Neale Hurston's , which debuted as a New York Times Best Seller. Barracoon was Kendi's tenth best seller. He is one of the most widely read and esteemed authors in the world.

He lives in Boston, Massachusetts.

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DR. IBRAM X. KENDI is a National Book Award-winning author of thirteen books for adults and children, including nine New York Times bestsellers-five of which were #1 New York Times bestsellers. Dr. Kendi is the Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities at Boston University, and the director of th

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Human Rights Activist/ Cleric

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Bishop Desmond Tutu was born in 1931 in Klerksdorp, Transvaal. His father was a teacher, and he himself was educated at Johannesburg Bantu High School. After leaving school he trained first as a teacher at Pretoria Bantu Normal College and in 1954 he graduated from the University of South Africa. After three years as a high school teacher he began to study theology, being ordained as a priest in 1960. The years 1962-66 were devoted to further theological study in England leading up to a Master of Theology. From 1967 to 1972 he taught theology in South Africa before returning to England for three years as the assistant director of a theological institute in London. In 1975 he was appointed Dean of St. Mary's Cathedral in Johannesburg, the first black to hold that position. From 1976 to 1978 he was Bishop of Lesotho, and in 1978 became the first black General Secretary of the South African Council of Churches. Tutu is an honorary doctor of a number of leading universities in the USA, Britain and Germany.

Desmond Tutu has formulated his objective as "a democratic and just society without racial divisions", and has set forward the following points as minimum demands:

1. equal civil rights for all
2. the abolition of South Africa's passport laws
3. a common system of education
4. the cessation of forced deportation from South Africa to the so-called "homelands"

The South African Council of Churches is a contact organization for the churches of South Africa and functions as a national committee for the World Council of Churches. The Boer churches have disassociated themselves from the organization as a result of the unambiguous stand it has made against apartheid. Around 80 percent of its members are black, and they now dominate the leading positions.

Selected Bibliography

Crying in the Wilderness. The Struggle for Justice in South Africa. Edited by John Webster. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 1982. (Sermons, speeches, articles, press statements, 1978-1980.)

Hope and Suffering: Sermons and Speeches. Edited by John Webster. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 1984. (From the period 1976-1982.)

The Rainbow People of God: The Making of a Peaceful Revolution. Edited by John Allen. New York: Doubleday, 1994. (Speeches, letters and sermons from 1976 to 1994, woven together in narrative by his media secretary.)

du Boulay, Shirley. Tutu, Voice of the Voiceless. London: Penguin Books, 1989.

Sparks, Allister. The Mind of South Africa. New York: Knopf, 1990. (Historical interpretation by a distinguished South African journalist.)

This autobiography/biography was written at the time of the award and first published in the book series Les Prix Nobel. It was later edited and republished inNobel Lectures. To cite this document, always state the source as shown above.

Desmond Tutu died on 26 December 2021.

To cite this section
MLA style: Desmond Tutu - Biographical. NobelPrize.org. Nobel Prize Outreach AB 2022. Fri. 9 Dec 2022. <https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/1984/tutu/biographical/>

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Bishop Desmond Tutu was born in 1931 in Klerksdorp, Transvaal. His father was a teacher, and he himself was educated at Johannesburg Bantu High School. After leaving school he trained first as a teacher at Pretoria Bantu Normal College and in 1954 he graduated from the University of South Africa.

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Environmental Activist

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Greta Thunberg Is TIME's 2019 Person of the Year

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The climate activist has succeeded in turning vague anxieties about the planet into a worldwide movement calling for global change

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Human Rights Activist/ Former First Lady

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Contents

1. Eleanor Roosevelt's Early Years

2. Eleanor Roosevelt's Marriage and Family Life

3. Eleanor Roosevelt As First Lady

4. Eleanor Roosevelt on Human Rights

5. Eleanor Roosevelt's Marriage to Franklin Roosevelt

6. Eleanor Roosevelt After the White House

7. Eleanor Roosevelt's Death

First lady Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962), wife of Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882-1945), the U.S. president from 1933 to 1945, was a leader in her own right and involved in numerous humanitarian causes throughout her life. The niece of President Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919), Eleanor was born into a wealthy New York family. She married Franklin Roosevelt, her fifth cousin once removed, in 1905. By the 1920s, Roosevelt, who raised five children, was involved in Democratic Party politics and numerous social reform organizations. In the White House, she was one of the most active first ladies in history and worked for political, racial and social justice. After President Roosevelt's death, Eleanor was a delegate to the United Nations and continued to serve as an advocate for a wide range of human rights issues. She remained active in Democratic causes and was a prolific writer until her death at age 78.

Eleanor Roosevelt's Early Years

Anna Eleanor Roosevelt was born on October 11, 1884, in New York City. Her father, Elliott Roosevelt (1860-1894) was the younger brother of Theodore Roosevelt, and her mother, Anna Hall (1863-1892), was from a wealthy New York family. Roosevelt's father was an alcoholic and her parents' marriage was troubled. After her mother died of diphtheria in 1892 (her father died less than two years later), Roosevelt and her two younger brothers, Elliott Roosevelt Jr. (1889-1893) and Gracie Hall Roosevelt (1891-1941), lived with their grandmother, Mary Ludlow Hall (1843-1919), in Manhattan and Tivoli, New York.

Did you know? J. Edgar Hoover (1895-1972), the longtime director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, considered Eleanor Roosevelt's liberal views dangerous and believed she might be involved in communist activities. He ordered his agents to monitor Roosevelt and keep what became an extensive file on her.

Roosevelt, an awkward, serious child, was educated by private tutors until age 15, when she was sent to Allenswood Academy, a school for girls in England. She excelled under the mentorship of the school's headmistress, Marie Souvestre (1830-1905), who promoted social responsibility and independence for young women. Roosevelt's formal education ended at age 18, when she returned to New York City and made her social debut at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. She then became actively involved with social reform work, serving as a volunteer teacher for impoverished immigrant children at Manhattan's Rivington Street Settlement House and joining the National Consumers' League, whose mission was to end unsafe working conditions and labor practices in factories and other businesses.

Bachrach/Getty Images

Eleanor Roosevelt's Marriage and Family Life

On March 17, 1905, 20-year-old Eleanor married Franklin Roosevelt, a 22-year-old Harvard University student and her fifth cousin once removed. The two had met as children and became reacquainted after Eleanor returned from school in England. Their wedding took place at the home of one of Eleanor's relatives on Manhattan's Upper East Side, and the bride was escorted down the aisle by then-President Theodore Roosevelt. Franklin and Eleanor had six children, five of whom survived to adulthood: Anna (1906-1975), James (1907-1991), Elliott (1910-1990), Franklin Jr. (1914-1988) and John (1916-1981).

In 1910, Franklin Roosevelt began his political career when he was elected to the New York State Senate. Three years later, he was appointed assistant secretary of the U.S. Navy, a position he held until 1920, when he made an unsuccessful run for the U.S. vice presidency on a ticket headed by James Cox (1870-1957), an Ohio governor. In addition to raising her family during these years, Eleanor Roosevelt volunteered with the American Red Cross and in Navy hospitals during World War I (1914-1918). In the 1920s, she became active in Democratic Party politics and was also involved with such activist organizations as the Women's Union Trade League and the League of Women Voters. Additionally, she cofounded Val-Kill Industries, a nonprofit furniture factory in Hyde Park, New York (where the Roosevelt family estate, Springwood, was located), and taught American history and literature at the Todhunter School, a private Manhattan girls' school.

In 1921, Franklin Roosevelt was diagnosed with polio, which left him paralyzed from the waist down. Eleanor encouraged her husband's return to politics, and in 1928 he was elected governor of New York. Six years later, Roosevelt was elected to the White House.

Eleanor Roosevelt As First Lady

Eleanor Roosevelt was initially reluctant to step into the role of first lady, fearful about losing her hard-won autonomy and knowing she would have to give up her Todhunter teaching job and other activities and organizations she cared about. However, after Franklin Roosevelt was sworn in as president in March 1933, Eleanor began to transform the conventional role of first lady from social hostess to that of a more visible, active participant in her husband's administration.

The Roosevelts entered the White House in the midst of the Great Depression (which began in 1929 and lasted approximately a decade), and the president and Congress soon implemented a series of economic recovery initiatives known as the New Deal. As first lady, Eleanor traveled across the United States, acting as her husband's eyes and ears and reporting back to him after she visited government institutions and programs and numerous other facilities. She was an early champion of civil rights for African Americans as well as an advocate for American workers, the poor, young people and women during the Great Depression. She also supported government-funded programs for artists and writers.

Roosevelt encouraged her husband to appoint more women to federal positions, and she held hundreds of press conferences for female reporters only at a time when women were typically barred from White House press conferences. Additionally, Roosevelt wrote a syndicated newspaper column entitled "My Day" from December 1935 until shortly before her death in 1962. She used the column to share information about her activities and communicate her positions on a wide range of social and political issues.

During World War II (1939-1945), Roosevelt advocated on behalf of European refugees who wanted to come to the United States. She also promoted issues that were important to American troops, worked to boost soldiers' morale, encouraged volunteerism on the home front and championed women employed in the defense industry. She also pushed for the continuation of New Deal programs during the war, against the wishes of some of her husband's advisors.

The Roosevelts had one of the most notable political partnerships in American history, as well as a complex personal relationship. Early on in their marriage, in 1918, Eleanor discovered her husband was having an affair with her social secretary, Lucy Mercer (1891-1948). Eleanor offered Franklin a divorce; however, he chose to stay in the marriage for various reasons, including the fact that divorce carried a social stigma and would have hurt his political career. Experts have suggested that Roosevelt's infidelity prompted Eleanor to become increasingly independent and further devote herself to political and social causes. Although Franklin Roosevelt agreed never to see Mercer again, the two resumed contact, and she was with the president in Warm Springs, Georgia, when he died from a cerebral hemorrhage on April 12, 1945, at age 63. The previous November, Roosevelt had been elected to an unprecedented fourth term as president.

During World War II (1939-1945), Roosevelt advocated on behalf of European refugees who wanted to come to the United States. She also promoted issues that were important to American troops, worked to boost soldiers' morale, encouraged volunteerism on the home front and championed women employed in the defense industry. She also pushed for the continuation of New Deal programs during the war, against the wishes of some of her husband's advisors.

Her continued support of the civil rights movement and an anti-lynching bill earned her the ire of the Ku Klux Klan, who put a $25,000 bounty on her head in the 1960s.

Eleanor Roosevelt famously resigned from the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) when it barred African American singer Marian Anderson from performing at its Constitution Hall in Washington, D.C.

Eleanor Roosevelt on Human Rights

Eleanor Roosevelt's work on behalf of human rights was amplified by her work with the United Nations (U.N.), which was founded two months after the end of World War II. President Harry Truman appointed Eleanor Roosevelt to be part of the first U.S. delegation to the U.N., and she went on to chair the Human Rights Committee.

In September 1948, Eleanor Roosevelt delivered her most famous speech, "The Struggle for Human Rights," which urged U.N. members to vote to pass the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a now defining document on the global stage. Her speech read, in part, "The basic problem confronting the world today... is the preservation of human freedom for the individual and consequently for the society of which he is a part." The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was formally adopted on December 10, 1948.

Eleanor Roosevelt's Marriage to Franklin Roosevelt

The Roosevelts had one of the most notable political partnerships in American history, as well as a complex personal relationship. Early on in their marriage, in 1918, Eleanor discovered her husband was having an affair with her social secretary, Lucy Mercer (1891-1948). Eleanor offered Franklin a divorce; however, he chose to stay in the marriage for various reasons, including the fact that divorce carried a social stigma and would have hurt his political career.

Experts have suggested that Roosevelt's infidelity prompted Eleanor to become increasingly independent and further devote herself to political and social causes. Although Franklin Roosevelt agreed never to see Mercer again, the two resumed contact, and she was with the president in Warm Springs, Georgia, when he died from a cerebral hemorrhage on April 12, 1945, at age 63. The previous November, Roosevelt had been elected to an unprecedented fourth term as president.

Eleanor Roosevelt After the White House

After the president's death, Eleanor Roosevelt returned to New York, splitting her time between her Val-Kill cottage (the former furniture factory was turned into a home) in Hyde Park and an apartment in New York City. There was speculation she would run for public office; instead, she chose to remain highly active as a private citizen.

From 1946 to 1953, Roosevelt served as a U.S. delegate to the United Nations, where she oversaw the drafting and passage of the Universal Human Declaration of Rights. Roosevelt considered the document, which continues to serve as a model for how people and nations should treat each other, one of her most significant achievements. From 1961 until her death the following year, Roosevelt headed the first Presidential Commission on the Status of Women, at the request of President John Kennedy (1917-1963). She also served on the board of numerous organizations, including the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People ( NAACP) and the Advisory Council for the Peace Corps.

Roosevelt remained involved in Democratic Party activities during her post-White House years, campaigning for candidates around the country. Additionally, she hosted radio programs and a television news show, and continued to write her newspaper column and give lectures. Over the course of her life, Roosevelt wrote 27 books and more than 8,000 columns.

Eleanor Roosevelt's Death

Eleanor Roosevelt died at age 78 on November 7, 1962, in New York City from aplastic anemia, tuberculosis and heart failure. Her funeral was attended by President Kennedy and former presidents Harry Truman (1884-1972) and Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890-1969). She was buried next to her husband on the grounds of the Roosevelt estate in Hyde Park.

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Eleanor Roosevelt's Early Years Eleanor Roosevelt's Marriage and Family Life Eleanor Roosevelt As First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt on Human Rights Eleanor Roosevelt's Marriage to Franklin Roosevelt Eleanor Roosevelt After the White House Eleanor Roosevelt's Death First lady Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962), wife of Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882-1945), the U.S.

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Civil Rights Activist

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Emmett Till: Body, Death, Funeral & Face | HISTORY

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Emmett Till, a Black teenager, was brutally murdered in 1955 Mississippi. His death and funeral were catalysts for the civil rights and anti-lynching movements.

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Political Activist/ Former President of East Timor

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This article was most recently revised and updated by

José Ramos-Horta, (born December 26, 1949, Dili, East Timor), East Timorese political activist who, along with Bishop Carlos F.X. Belo, received the 1996 Nobel Prize for Peace for their efforts to bring peace and independence to East Timor, a former Portuguese possession that was under Indonesian control from 1975 to 1999. Ramos-Horta served as prime minister of East Timor from 2006 to 2007 and as president from 2007 to 2012.

Ramos-Horta's mother was a native Timorese, and his father was a Portuguese national who was deported to East Timor for participating in a revolt against the dictator António Salazar. After studying law in the United States, Ramos-Horta returned to East Timor (then under Portuguese rule) to participate in the independence movement. His activities brought the ire of the Portuguese rulers, and he was forced to flee to Mozambique in 1970. Returning in 1972, Ramos-Horta sided with the pro-independence Fretilin faction in the East Timor civil war. The Fretilin gained control of the government on November 28, 1975, and declared East Timor's independence; Ramos-Horta was named foreign minister. However, nine days later Indonesia invaded East Timor, and Ramos-Horta was again forced into exile.

Eventually settling in Sydney, Australia, Ramos-Horta joined the faculty of the University of New South Wales. From that position he became one of the primary voices for East Timor in the international arena, becoming East Timor's de facto ambassador to the United Nations (UN). He spoke out against human rights violations by the occupying Indonesian military forces and promoted a peace plan to end the violence in his country. After receiving the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1996, he gave the award and prize money to a program called Microcredit for the Poor. He returned home in 1999 after the UN Security Council established the UN Transition Administration in East Timor.

Ramos-Horta continued to urge forgiveness and reconciliation and was appointed East Timor's foreign minister in 2000; he continued in that office after East Timor achieved full sovereignty in 2002. In 2006 fighting erupted in the country after Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri fired hundreds of soldiers who had gone on strike to protest against discrimination. Criticized for his handling of the crisis, Alkatiri resigned and was replaced by Ramos-Horta, who took office in July 2006. In May 2007 Ramos-Horta was elected president, garnering nearly 70 percent of the vote. The following year he was seriously injured after being shot by rebels outside his home in Dili, East Timor. He recovered, and he served out the rest of his term. Ramos-Horta failed in his bid for a second term, however, when, in March 2012, he came in third in the first round of presidential voting. He was succeeded in May by former guerrilla leader and later East Timor military commander Taur Matan Ruak (José Maria Vasconcelos).

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awards and honors

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Jose Ramos-Horta, East Timorese political activist who, along with Bishop Carlos F.X. Belo, received the 1996 Nobel Prize for Peace for their efforts to bring peace and independence to East Timor. Ramos-Horta served as prime minister of East Timor from 2006 to 2007 and as president from 2007 to 2012.

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Civil Rights Activist/ Journalist/ Educator

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Civil Rights Activist/ Politician/ Statesman

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Who Was John Lewis?

John Lewis grew up in an era of racial segregation. Inspired by Martin Luther King Jr., he joined the burgeoning civil rights movement. Lewis was a Freedom Rider, spoke at 1963's March on Washington and led the demonstration that became known as "Bloody Sunday." He was elected to Congress in 1986 and received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2011.

Early Life

John Robert Lewis was born outside of Troy, Alabama, on February 21, 1940. Lewis had a happy childhood - though he needed to work hard to assist his sharecropper parents - but he chafed against the unfairness of segregation. He was particularly disappointed when the Supreme Court ruling in 1954's Brown v. The Board of Education didn't affect his school life. However, hearing King's sermons and news of the 1955-56 Montgomery bus boycott inspired Lewis to act for the changes he wanted to see.

Civil Rights Struggle

In 1957, Lewis left Alabama to attend the American Baptist Theological Seminary in Nashville, Tennessee. There, he learned about nonviolent protest and helped to organize sit-ins at segregated lunch counters. He was arrested during these demonstrations, which upset his mother, but Lewis was committed to the civil rights movement and went on to participate in the Freedom Rides of 1961.

Freedom Riders challenged the segregated facilities they encountered at interstate bus terminals in the South, which had been deemed illegal by the Supreme Court. It was dangerous work that resulted in arrests and beatings for many involved, including Lewis.

In 1963, Lewis became chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. That same year, as one of the "Big Six" leaders of the civil rights movement, he helped plan the March on Washington. Lewis - the youngest speaker at the event - had to alter his speech in order to please other organizers, but still delivered a powerful oration that declared, "We all recognize the fact that if any radical social, political and economic changes are to take place in our society, the people, the masses, must bring them about."

After the March on Washington, in 1964, the Civil Rights Act became law. However, this did not make it easier for African Americans to vote in the South. To bring attention to this struggle, Lewis and Hosea Williams led a march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, on March 7, 1965. After crossing the Edmund Pettus Bridge, the marchers were attacked by state troopers. Lewis was severely beaten once more, this time suffering a fractured skull.

The violent attacks were recorded and disseminated throughout the country, and the images proved too powerful to ignore. " Bloody Sunday," as the day was labeled, sped up the passage of 1965's Voting Rights Act.

U.S. Congressman

Lewis left the SNCC in 1966. Though devastated by the assassinations of King and Robert Kennedy in 1968, Lewis continued his work to enfranchise minorities. In 1970, he became director of the Voter Education Project. During his tenure, the VEP helped to register millions of minority voters.

Lewis ran for office himself in 1981, winning a seat on the Atlanta City Council. In 1986, he was elected to the House of Representatives. Representing Georgia's 5th District, he was one of the most respected members of Congress. Since entering office, he has called for healthcare reform, measures to fight poverty and improvements in education. Most importantly, he oversaw multiple renewals of the Voting Rights Act. When the Supreme Court struck down part of the law in 2013's Shelby County v. Holder, Lewis decried the decision as a "dagger into the heart" of voting rights.

In the wake of the mass shooting that took place on June 12, 2016, in Orlando, Florida, Lewis led a sit-in comprised of approximately 40 House Democrats on the floor of the House of Representatives on June 22nd in an attempt to bring attention and force Congress to address gun violence by taking definitive legislative action. "We have been too quiet for too long," Lewis said. "There comes a time when you have to say something. You have to make a little noise. You have to move your feet. This is the time."

The protest came just days after several measures including a bill regarding background checks and adding restrictions on the purchase of guns by people on the federal no-fly list, failed in the Senate. Senator Chris Murphy applauded the protest. Murphy had previously led a filibuster in the Senate which led to the subsequent vote.

Clashing With Donald Trump

Lewis also spoke out against the presidency of Donald Trump, who was elected on November 8, 2016. In an interview with Chuck Todd for NBC News' Meet the Press, which aired on January 15, 2017, Lewis said he didn't believe Trump was a "legitimate president" because of Russian interference in the election. "I think the Russians participated in helping this man get elected and they helped destroy the candidacy of Hillary Clinton," Lewis said in the interview. He also said he would not attend Trump's inauguration.

Trump responded on Twitter, criticizing Lewis' work as a congressman and tweeting that Lewis was "All talk, talk, talk - no action or results. Sad!" The president-elect's attack on Lewis came just days before the Martin Luther King holiday, and prompted vocal support of the civil rights icon across social media. Several Democratic lawmakers also joined in support of Lewis and boycotted Trump's inauguration.

Trump continued his war of words, tweeting: "John Lewis said about my inauguration, 'It will be the first one that I've missed.' WRONG (or lie)! He boycotted Bush 43 also because he...thought it would be hypocritical to attend Bush's swearing-in....he doesn't believe Bush is the true elected president. Sound familiar!"

A spokeswoman for Lewis confirmed that he had missed the inauguration of George W. Bush: "His absence at that time was also a form of dissent. He did not believe the outcome of that election, including the controversies around the results in Florida and the unprecedented intervention of the U.S. Supreme Court, reflected a free, fair and open democratic process."

Photo: Robert W. Kelley/The LIFE Picture Collection via Getty Images

Cancer Diagnosis and Death

In December 2019, Lewis announced that he had been diagnosed with Stage 4 pancreatic cancer.

Although he was "clear-eyed about the prognosis," Lewis said he felt encouraged that medical advancements had made this type of cancer treatable in many cases, adding that he intended to return to work as soon as possible.

Lewis passed away on July 17, 2020.

Legacy

Though the Supreme Court's decision about the Voting Rights Act was a blow to Lewis, he has been encouraged by the progress that has occurred in his lifetime. After Barack Obama won the presidency in 2008, Lewis stated that "When we were organizing voter-registration drives, going on the Freedom Rides, sitting in, coming here to Washington for the first time, getting arrested, going to jail, being beaten, I never thought - I never dreamed - of the possibility that an African American would one day be elected president of the United States."

In addition to his work in Congress, Lewis reached a younger generation by helping to create a series of graphic novels about his work in the civil rights movement. In 2016, he won the National Book Award for the third installment in the series March: Book Three, which marks the first time a graphic novel has received the honor.

He accepted the award with co-writer Andrew Aydin and illustrator Nate Powell and spoke of its significance in an emotional acceptance speech. "Some of you know I grew up in rural Alabama, very poor, very few books in our home," Lewis said. "I remember in 1956, when I was 16 years old, going to the public library to get library cards, and we were told the library was for whites only and not for coloreds. And to come here and receive this honor, it's too much."

He also spoke about the importance of books in his life. "I had a wonderful teacher in elementary school who told me: 'Read, my child, read', and I tried to read everything," he said. "I love books."

The civil rights icon has also been honored with numerous awards, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the NAACP's Spingarn Medal and the sole John F. Kennedy "Profile in Courage Award" for Lifetime Achievement.

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John Lewis grew up in an era of racial segregation. Inspired by Martin Luther King Jr., he joined the burgeoning civil rights movement. Lewis was a Freedom Rider, spoke at 1963's March on Washington and led the demonstration that became known as "Bloody Sunday."

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Civil Rights Activist/ Professional Baseball Athlete

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Human Rights Activist/ 39th President

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Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.), thirty-ninth president of the United States, was born Oct. 1, 1924, in the small farming town of Plains, Georgia, and grew up in the nearby community of Archery. His father, James Earl Carter, Sr., was a farmer and businessman; his mother, Lillian Gordy Carter, a registered nurse.

He was educated in the public school of Plains, attended Georgia Southwestern College and the Georgia Institute of Technology, and received a B.S. degree from the United States Naval Academy in 1946. In the Navy he became a submariner, serving in both the Atlantic and Pacific fleets and rising to the rank of lieutenant. Chosen by Admiral Hyman Rickover for the nuclear submarine program, he was assigned to Schenectady, New York, where he took graduate work at Union College in reactor technology and nuclear physics and served as senior officer of the pre-commissioning crew of the Seawolf, the second nuclear submarine.

On July 7, 1946, he married Rosalynn Smith of Plains. When his father died in 1953, he resigned his naval commission and returned with his family to Georgia. He took over the Carter farms, and he and Rosalynn operated Carter's Warehouse, a general-purpose seed and farm supply company in Plains. He quickly became a leader of the community, serving on county boards supervising education, the hospital authority, and the library. In 1962 he won election to the Georgia Senate. He lost his first gubernatorial campaign in 1966, but won the next election, becoming Georgia's 76th governor on January 12, 1971. He was the Democratic National Committee campaign chairman for the 1974 congressional and gubernatorial elections.

President Jimmy Carter
On December 12, 1974, he announced his candidacy for president of the United States. He won his party's nomination on the first ballot at the 1976 Democratic National Convention and was elected president on Nov. 2, 1976.

Jimmy Carter served as president from January 20, 1977 to January 20, 1981. Significant foreign policy accomplishments of his administration included the Panama Canal treaties, the Camp David Accords, the treaty of peace between Egypt and Israel, the SALT II treaty with the Soviet Union, and the establishment of U.S. diplomatic relations with the People's Republic of China. He championed human rights throughout the world. On the domestic side, the administration's achievements included a comprehensive energy program conducted by a new Department of Energy; deregulation in energy, transportation, communications, and finance; major educational programs under a new Department of Education; and major environmental protection legislation, including the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act.

Books & Accomplishments
Mr. Carter is the author of 32 books, many of which are now in revised editions: Why Not the Best? 1975, 1996; A Government as Good as Its People, 1977, 1996; Keeping Faith: Memoirs of a President, 1982, 1995; Negotiation: The Alternative to Hostility, 1984, 2003; The Blood of Abraham: Insights into the Middle East, 1985, 1993, 2007; Everything to Gain: Making the Most of the Rest of Your Life, written with Rosalynn Carter, 1987, 1995; An Outdoor Journal: Adventures and Reflections, 1988, 1994; Turning Point: A Candidate, a State, and a Nation Come of Age, 1992; Talking Peace: A Vision for the Next Generation, 1993, 1995; Always a Reckoning, and other Poems, 1995; The Little Baby Snoogle-Fleejer, illustrated by Amy Carter, 1995; Living Faith, 1996; Sources of Strength: Meditations on Scripture for a Living Faith, 1997; The Virtues of Aging, 1998; An Hour before Daylight: Memories of a Rural Boyhood, 2001; Christmas in Plains: Memories, 2001; The Nobel Peace Prize Lecture, 2002; The Hornet's Nest: A Novel of the Revolutionary War, 2003; Sharing Good Times, 2004; Our Endangered Values: America's Moral Crisis, 2005; Palestine Peace Not Apartheid, 2006, 2007; Beyond the White House: Waging Peace, Fighting Disease, Building Hope, 2007; A Remarkable Mother, 2008; We Can Have Peace in the Holy Land: A Plan That Will Work, 2009; White House Diary, 2010; Through the Year with Jimmy Carter: 366 Daily Meditations from the 39th President, 2011; as general editor, NIV Lessons from the Life Bible: Personal Reflections with Jimmy Carter, 2012; A Call to Action: Women, Religion, Violence, and Power, 2014; The Paintings of Jimmy Carter, 2014; A Full Life: Reflections at Ninety, 2015; The Craftsmanship of Jimmy Carter, 2018; and Faith: A Journey for All, 2018.

The Carter Center
In 1982, he became University Distinguished Professor at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, and founded The Carter Center. Actively guided by President Carter, the nonpartisan and nonprofit Center addresses national and international issues of public policy. Carter Center staff and associates join with President Carter in efforts to resolve conflict, promote democracy, protect human rights, and prevent disease and other afflictions. The Center has spearheaded the international effort to eradicate Guinea worm disease, which is poised to be the second human disease in history to be eradicated.

President Carter and The Carter Center have engaged in conflict mediation in Ethiopia and Eritrea (1989), North Korea (1994), Liberia (1994), Haiti (1994), Bosnia (1994), Sudan (1995), the Great Lakes region of Africa (1995-96), Sudan and Uganda (1999), Venezuela (2002-2003), Nepal (2004-2008), Ecuador and Colombia (2008), and the Middle East (2003-present). Under his leadership The Carter Center has sent 109 election-observation missions to the Americas, Africa, and Asia. These include Panama (1989), Nicaragua (1990), China (1997), Nigeria (1998), Indonesia (1999), East Timor (1999), Mexico (2000), Guatemala (2003), Venezuela (2004), Ethiopia (2005), the Democratic Republic of the Congo (2006), Nepal (2008), Lebanon (2009), Sudan (2010), Tunisia (2011), Egypt (2011-2012), Kenya (2013), Mozambique (2014), Guyana (2015), Myanmar (2016), and Liberia (2017).

The permanent facilities of The Carter Presidential Center were dedicated in October 1986, and include the Jimmy Carter Library and Museum, administered by the National Archives. Also open to visitors is the Jimmy Carter National Historic Site in Plains, administered by the National Park Service.

Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter volunteer one week a year for Habitat for Humanity, a nonprofit organization that helps needy people in the United States and in other countries renovate and build homes for themselves. Since 2007, President Carter also has served as a member of The Elders, a group of independent global leaders. He teaches Sunday school and is a deacon in the Maranatha Baptist Church of Plains. For recreation, he enjoys fly-fishing, woodworking, and swimming. The Carters have three sons, one daughter, nine grandsons (one deceased), three granddaughters, five great-grandsons, and nine great-granddaughters.

On December 10, 2002, the Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for 2002 to Mr. Carter "for his decades of untiring effort to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development."
Revised Nov. 6, 2019 by Steven H. Hochman.
Related Resources
Read about President Carter's exciting post-presidential work through The Carter Center Browse the Carters' Bookstore Check out the Carter Center's Latest News Explore Carter Center Health Programs Explore Carter Center Peace Programs How Your Support Helps High-definition Video Clips Explore Carter Center Photo Galleries

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Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.), 39th president of the United States, was born October 1, 1924, in the small farming town of Plains, Georgia. In 1982, Carter founded The Carter Center, a non-governmental and non-profit organization with the purpose of advancing human rights and alleviating human suffering, including helping improve the quality of life for people in more than 80 countries.

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LGBTQ+ Social Activist/ Artist

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June is Pride Month, where people all over the world come together to celebrate the LGBTQ+ community and raise awareness for inequalities that still stand today.

But this year, the global Black Lives Matter anti-racism protests have encouraged people to shine a special light on the impact of black gay and trans activists.

One person you may have heard about in recent days is Marsha P. Johnson.

Marsha P. Johnson was a trans-rights activist who played a big role in important moments for the LGBTQ+ movement, such as the Stonewall protests.

Who was Marsha P. Johnson?

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Marsha P. Johnson was an African-American gay man and drag artist - someone who dresses extravagantly and performs as a woman - from New Jersey, whose activism in the 1960s and 70s had a huge impact on the LGBTQ+ community.

At this time, being gay was classified as a mental illness in the United States. Gay people were regularly threatened and beaten by police, and were shunned by many in society.

Marsha said the "P" stood for "Pay it no mind" - a phrase they used when people commented negatively on their appearance or life choices.

LGBTQ+

LGBTQ+ stands for lesbian, gay, bi, trans and queer. The + is an inclusive symbol to mean 'and others' to include people of all identities.
Find out more about the riots that started the Pride movement

In June 1969, when Marsha was 23 years old, police raided a gay bar in New York called The Stonewall Inn.

The police forced over 200 people out of the bar and onto the streets, and then used excessive violence against them.

In 2019, the head of New York's Police Department apologised for their actions, saying, "the actions taken by the NYPD were wrong".

Marsha, who was living and working in New York at the time, was one of the key figures who stood up to the police during the raids.

Marsha resisted arrest, but in the following days, led a series of protests and riots demanding rights for gay people.

Much like the recent Black Lives Matter marches in the United States, news of these protests spread around the world, inspiring others to join protests and rights groups to fight for equality.

A month after the protests, the first openly gay march took place in New York - a pivotal moment for the gay and trans community everywhere.

What impact did she have?

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Even though the Stonewall riots kick-started this wave of support for the LGBTQ+ community, there was still a lot of discrimination against them.

It was common for young gay and trans people to be kicked out of their family homes by their parents.

Marsha and good friend Sylvia Rivera, who was also an activist , founded STAR - Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries - an organisation to support gay and trans individuals who had been left homeless.

Much of Marsha's life was dedicated to helping others, despite suffering several mental health issues.

Marsha was nicknamed the "Saint of Christopher Street" (where the Stonewall Inn is located), because of the generosity they had shown towards people in New York's LGBTQ+ community.

Marsha went missing in 1992 and six days later police found Marsha's body. They said nobody else had been responsible for the death. But many friends argued this ruling at the time, saying attacks on gay and trans people were common.

Others said they saw Marsha being harassed by a group of "thugs" a few days before they died.

Twenty years later, in 2012, campaigner Mariah Lopez was successful in getting the New York police department to reopen Marsha's case as a possible murder.

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After the NYPD reopened the case, the police reclassified Johnson's cause of death from "suicide" to undetermined.

Marsha's legacy lives on today in organisations such as the Marsha P. Johnson Institute, which says it "protects and defends the human rights of BLACK transgender people".

In February 2020, the Mayor of New York renamed the East River State Park in Brooklyn, The Marsha P. Johnson State Park and announced there will be a statue created in honour of Marsha, to be unveiled in 2021.

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Pride Month: Who was Marsha P. Johnson and why were they so important? - CBBC Newsround

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June is Pride Month, where people all over the world come together to celebrate the LGBTQ+ community and raise awareness for inequalities that still stand today. But this year, the global Black Lives Matter anti-racism protests have encouraged people to shine a special light on the impact of black gay and trans activists.

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Social and Political Activist/ Lawyer

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Who Was Mahatma Gandhi?

Mahatma Gandhi was the leader of India's non-violent independence movement against British rule and in South Africa who advocated for the civil rights of Indians. Born in Porbandar, India, Gandhi studied law and organized boycotts against British institutions in peaceful forms of civil disobedience. He was killed by a fanatic in 1948.

Photo: Central Press/Getty Images

Early Life and Education

Indian nationalist leader Gandhi (born Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi) was born on October 2, 1869, in Porbandar, Kathiawar, India, which was then part of the British Empire.

Gandhi's father, Karamchand Gandhi, served as a chief minister in Porbandar and other states in western India. His mother, Putlibai, was a deeply religious woman who fasted regularly.

Young Gandhi was a shy, unremarkable student who was so timid that he slept with the lights on even as a teenager. In the ensuing years, the teenager rebelled by smoking, eating meat and stealing change from household servants.

Although Gandhi was interested in becoming a doctor, his father hoped he would also become a government minister and steered him to enter the legal profession. In 1888, 18-year-old Gandhi sailed for London, England, to study law. The young Indian struggled with the transition to Western culture.

Upon returning to India in 1891, Gandhi learned that his mother had died just weeks earlier. He struggled to gain his footing as a lawyer. In his first courtroom case, a nervous Gandhi blanked when the time came to cross-examine a witness. He immediately fled the courtroom after reimbursing his client for his legal fees.

Gandhi's Religion and Beliefs

Gandhi grew up worshiping the Hindu god Vishnu and following Jainism, a morally rigorous ancient Indian religion that espoused non-violence, fasting, meditation and vegetarianism.

During Gandhi's first stay in London, from 1888 to 1891, he became more committed to a meatless diet, joining the executive committee of the London Vegetarian Society, and started to read a variety of sacred texts to learn more about world religions.

Living in South Africa, Gandhi continued to study world religions. "The religious spirit within me became a living force," he wrote of his time there. He immersed himself in sacred Hindu spiritual texts and adopted a life of simplicity, austerity, fasting and celibacy that was free of material goods.

Gandhi in South Africa

After struggling to find work as a lawyer in India, Gandhi obtained a one-year contract to perform legal services in South Africa. In April 1893, he sailed for Durban in the South African state of Natal.

When Gandhi arrived in South Africa, he was quickly appalled by the discrimination and racial segregation faced by Indian immigrants at the hands of white British and Boer authorities. Upon his first appearance in a Durban courtroom, Gandhi was asked to remove his turban. He refused and left the court instead. The Natal Advertiser mocked him in print as "an unwelcome visitor."

Nonviolent Civil Disobedience

A seminal moment occurred on June 7, 1893, during a train trip to Pretoria, South Africa, when a white man objected to Gandhi's presence in the first-class railway compartment, although he had a ticket. Refusing to move to the back of the train, Gandhi was forcibly removed and thrown off the train at a station in Pietermaritzburg.

Gandhi's act of civil disobedience awoke in him a determination to devote himself to fighting the "deep disease of color prejudice." He vowed that night to "try, if possible, to root out the disease and suffer hardships in the process."

From that night forward, the small, unassuming man would grow into a giant force for civil rights. Gandhi formed the Natal Indian Congress in 1894 to fight discrimination.

Gandhi prepared to return to India at the end of his year-long contract until he learned, at his farewell party, of a bill before the Natal Legislative Assembly that would deprive Indians of the right to vote. Fellow immigrants convinced Gandhi to stay and lead the fight against the legislation. Although Gandhi could not prevent the law's passage, he drew international attention to the injustice.

After a brief trip to India in late 1896 and early 1897, Gandhi returned to South Africa with his wife and children. Gandhi ran a thriving legal practice, and at the outbreak of the Boer War, he raised an all-Indian ambulance corps of 1,100 volunteers to support the British cause, arguing that if Indians expected to have full rights of citizenship in the British Empire, they also needed to shoulder their responsibilities.

Satyagraha

In 1906, Gandhi organized his first mass civil-disobedience campaign, which he called "Satyagraha" ("truth and firmness"), in reaction to the South African Transvaal government's new restrictions on the rights of Indians, including the refusal to recognize Hindu marriages.

After years of protests, the government imprisoned hundreds of Indians in 1913, including Gandhi. Under pressure, the South African government accepted a compromise negotiated by Gandhi and General Jan Christian Smuts that included recognition of Hindu marriages and the abolition of a poll tax for Indians.

Return to India

When Gandhi sailed from South Africa in 1914 to return home, Smuts wrote, "The saint has left our shores, I sincerely hope forever." At the outbreak of World War I, Gandhi spent several months in London.

In 1915 Gandhi founded an ashram in Ahmedabad, India, that was open to all castes. Wearing a simple loincloth and shawl, Gandhi lived an austere life devoted to prayer, fasting and meditation. He became known as "Mahatma," which means "great soul."

Opposition to British Rule in India

In 1919, with India still under the firm control of the British, Gandhi had a political reawakening when the newly enacted Rowlatt Act authorized British authorities to imprison people suspected of sedition without trial. In response, Gandhi called for a Satyagraha campaign of peaceful protests and strikes.

Violence broke out instead, which culminated on April 13, 1919, in the Massacre of Amritsar. Troops led by British Brigadier General Reginald Dyer fired machine guns into a crowd of unarmed demonstrators and killed nearly 400 people.

No longer able to pledge allegiance to the British government, Gandhi returned the medals he earned for his military service in South Africa and opposed Britain's mandatory military draft of Indians to serve in World War I.

Gandhi became a leading figure in the Indian home-rule movement. Calling for mass boycotts, he urged government officials to stop working for the Crown, students to stop attending government schools, soldiers to leave their posts and citizens to stop paying taxes and purchasing British goods.

Rather than buy British-manufactured clothes, he began to use a portable spinning wheel to produce his own cloth. The spinning wheel soon became a symbol of Indian independence and self-reliance.

Gandhi assumed the leadership of the Indian National Congress and advocated a policy of non-violence and non-cooperation to achieve home rule.

After British authorities arrested Gandhi in 1922, he pleaded guilty to three counts of sedition. Although sentenced to a six-year imprisonment, Gandhi was released in February 1924 after appendicitis surgery.

He discovered upon his release that relations between India's Hindus and Muslims devolved during his time in jail. When violence between the two religious groups flared again, Gandhi began a three-week fast in the autumn of 1924 to urge unity. He remained away from active politics during much of the latter 1920s.

Gandhi and the Salt March

Gandhi returned to active politics in 1930 to protest Britain's Salt Acts, which not only prohibited Indians from collecting or selling salt-a dietary staple-but imposed a heavy tax that hit the country's poorest particularly hard. Gandhi planned a new Satyagraha campaign, The Salt March, that entailed a 390-kilometer/240-mile march to the Arabian Sea, where he would collect salt in symbolic defiance of the government monopoly.

"My ambition is no less than to convert the British people through non-violence and thus make them see the wrong they have done to India," he wrote days before the march to the British viceroy, Lord Irwin.

Wearing a homespun white shawl and sandals and carrying a walking stick, Gandhi set out from his religious retreat in Sabarmati on March 12, 1930, with a few dozen followers. By the time he arrived 24 days later in the coastal town of Dandi, the ranks of the marchers swelled, and Gandhi broke the law by making salt from evaporated seawater.

The Salt March sparked similar protests, and mass civil disobedience swept across India. Approximately 60,000 Indians were jailed for breaking the Salt Acts, including Gandhi, who was imprisoned in May 1930.

Still, the protests against the Salt Acts elevated Gandhi into a transcendent figure around the world. He was named Time magazine's "Man of the Year" for 1930.

Gandhi was released from prison in January 1931, and two months later he made an agreement with Lord Irwin to end the Salt Satyagraha in exchange for concessions that included the release of thousands of political prisoners. The agreement, however, largely kept the Salt Acts intact. But it did give those who lived on the coasts the right to harvest salt from the sea.

Hoping that the agreement would be a stepping-stone to home rule, Gandhi attended the London Round Table Conference on Indian constitutional reform in August 1931 as the sole representative of the Indian National Congress. The conference, however, proved fruitless.

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Protesting "Untouchables" Segregation

Gandhi returned to India to find himself imprisoned once again in January 1932 during a crackdown by India's new viceroy, Lord Willingdon. He embarked on a six-day fast to protest the British decision to segregate the "untouchables," those on the lowest rung of India's caste system, by allotting them separate electorates. The public outcry forced the British to amend the proposal.

After his eventual release, Gandhi left the Indian National Congress in 1934, and leadership passed to his protégé Jawaharlal Nehru. He again stepped away from politics to focus on education, poverty and the problems afflicting India's rural areas.

India's Independence from Great Britain

As Great Britain found itself engulfed in World War II in 1942, Gandhi launched the "Quit India" movement that called for the immediate British withdrawal from the country. In August 1942, the British arrested Gandhi, his wife and other leaders of the Indian National Congress and detained them in the Aga Khan Palace in present-day Pune.

"I have not become the King's First Minister in order to preside at the liquidation of the British Empire," Prime Minister Winston Churchill told Parliament in support of the crackdown.

With his health failing, Gandhi was released after a 19-month detainment in 1944.

After the Labour Party defeated Churchill's Conservatives in the British general election of 1945, it began negotiations for Indian independence with the Indian National Congress and Mohammad Ali Jinnah's Muslim League. Gandhi played an active role in the negotiations, but he could not prevail in his hope for a unified India. Instead, the final plan called for the partition of the subcontinent along religious lines into two independent states-predominantly Hindu India and predominantly Muslim Pakistan.

Violence between Hindus and Muslims flared even before independence took effect on August 15, 1947. Afterwards, the killings multiplied. Gandhi toured riot-torn areas in an appeal for peace and fasted in an attempt to end the bloodshed. Some Hindus, however, increasingly viewed Gandhi as a traitor for expressing sympathy toward Muslims.

Gandhi's Wife and Kids

At the age of 13, Gandhi wed Kasturba Makanji, a merchant's daughter, in an arranged marriage. She died in Gandhi's arms in February 1944 at the age of 74.

In 1885, Gandhi endured the passing of his father and shortly after that the death of his young baby.

In 1888, Gandhi's wife gave birth to the first of four surviving sons. A second son was born in India 1893. Kasturba gave birth to two more sons while living in South Africa, one in 1897 and one in 1900.

Assassination of Mahatma Gandhi

On January 30, 1948, 78-year-old Gandhi was shot and killed by Hindu extremist Nathuram Godse, who was upset at Gandhi's tolerance of Muslims.

Weakened from repeated hunger strikes, Gandhi clung to his two grandnieces as they led him from his living quarters in New Delhi's Birla House to a late-afternoon prayer meeting. Godse knelt before the Mahatma before pulling out a semiautomatic pistol and shooting him three times at point-blank range. The violent act took the life of a pacifist who spent his life preaching nonviolence.

Godse and a co-conspirator were executed by hanging in November 1949. Additional conspirators were sentenced to life in prison.

Legacy

Even after Gandhi's assassination, his commitment to nonviolence and his belief in simple living - making his own clothes, eating a vegetarian diet and using fasts for self-purification as well as a means of protest - have been a beacon of hope for oppressed and marginalized people throughout the world.

Satyagraha remains one of the most potent philosophies in freedom struggles throughout the world today. Gandhi's actions inspired future human rights movements around the globe, including those of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. in the United States and Nelson Mandela in South Africa.

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Mahatma Gandhi was the leader of India's non-violent independence movement against British rule and in South Africa who advocated for the civil rights of Indians. Born in Porbandar, India, Gandhi studied law and organized boycotts against British institutions in peaceful forms of civil disobedience. He was killed by a fanatic in 1948.

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Social Activist/ Author

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When Marley Dias was 11 years old, she was a voracious reader. But she was sick of the books she was being given in school because, as she'll tell you, they were all about white boys and their dogs. And so, she set about changing that.

In November 2015, Dias launched a campaign called #1000BlackGirlBooks. Her goal was simple: collect and donate 1,000 books that feature black girls as the main character. Today, Dias has accumulated more than 9,000 books and has landed a book deal of her own.

At the annual Forbes' Women Summit in New York City Tuesday, Dias reflected on how she was able to turn her frustration by the books she was seeing in school -- stuff more along the lines of Shiloh than I Love My Hair -- into a genuine movement.

"Frustration is fuel that can lead to the development of an innovative and useful idea," she said, noting that only after she conducted some research did she realize just how few books had black girls or girls of color as their lead character, and how she might not be the only person frustrated by the lack of representation in children's books.

"I had a lot of choices about how I was going to address this problem. Option 1: focus on me, get myself more books; have my dad take me to Barnes and Noble and just be done, live my perfect life in suburban New Jersey. Option 2: find some authors, beg them to write more black girl books so I'd have some of my own, special editions, treat myself a bit," she said. "Or, option 3: start a campaign that collect books with black girls as the main characters, donate them to communities, develop a resource guide to find those books, talk to educators and legislators about how to increase the pipeline of diverse books, and lastly, write my own book, so that I can see black girl books collected and I can see my story reflected in the books I have to read."

Dias, of course, went with option 3, and her effort is much needed in the world of children's literature. According to an analysis from the Cooperative Children's Book Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, just 8.4% of 3,400 trade books published in the U.S. in 2016 had an African American main character. The numbers got even smaller when they looked for protagonists of Latino, American Indian or Asian/Pacific descent: just 55 books, or 1.6%, featured a Native American character in a starring role; 169, or roughly 5%, had a Latino protagonist; and 239, or 7%, were about a character of Asian/Pacific descent.

"This gaps hurts all of us," Dias said Tuesday. "I'm working to create a space where it feels easy to include and imagine black girls and make black girls like me the main characters of our lives."

Educators, advocates, and even Hollywood auteurs agree with Dias' assessment.

"In the history of storytelling, you always want that main character to be you," Wonder Woman director Patty Jenkins said in a conversation earlier in the day on Tuesday.

Or, as the CCBC put it in its analysis: "The more books there are, especially books created by authors and illustrators of color, the more opportunities librarians, teachers, and parents and other adults have of finding outstanding books for young readers and listeners that reflect dimensions of their lives, and give a broader understanding of who we are as a nation."

Dias' book, "Marley Dias Gets It Done -- And So Can You," will come out in January 2018. In the meantime, Dias will keep working to fill the gaps in children's books and taking inspiration from the stories she loves. Though, if the audience's enthusiastic response to her remarks Tuesday morning were any indication, the best inspiration comes from Dias herself.

"Innovation comes from, one, acknowledging yourself; two, studying and understanding the problem and three, finding a solution," she said. "It's a typical adventure in a hero story, which I now live today."

... Read More

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From Activist To Author: How 12-Year-Old Marley Dias Is Changing The Face Of Children's Literature

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At the annual Forbes' Women Summit in New York City Tuesday, 12-year-old founder of #1000BlackGirlBooks Marley Dias reflected on how she was able to turn her frustration by the books she was seeing in school -- stuff more along the lines of Shiloh than I Love My Hair -- into a genuine movement.

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Social and Political Activist/ Entrepreneur/ Philanthropist

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Table of Contents

1. Madam C.J. Walker's Early Life

2. The Walker System

3. Madam C.J. Walker Company

4. 'The first Black woman millionaire in America'

5. Madame C.J. Walker's Death And Legacy

Madam C. J. Walker (1867-1919) was "the first Black woman millionaire in America" and made her fortune thanks to her homemade line of hair care products for Black women. Born Sarah Breedlove to parents who had been enslaved, she was inspired to create her hair products after an experience with hair loss, which led to the creation of the "Walker system" of hair care.

A talented entrepreneur with a knack for self-promotion, Walker built a business empire, at first selling products directly to Black women, then employing "beauty culturalists" to hand-sell her wares. The self-made millionaire used her fortune to fund scholarships for women at the Tuskegee Institute and donated large parts of her wealth to the NAACP, the Black YMCA and other charities.

Madam C.J. Walker's Early Life

Madam C.J. Walker was born Sarah Breedlove on December 23, 1867. Her parents, Owen and Minerva, were Louisiana sharecroppers who had been born into slavery. Sarah, their fifth child, was the first in her family to be born free after the Emancipation Proclamation. Her early life was marked by hardship; she was orphaned at seven, married at 14 (to Moses McWilliams, with whom she had a daughter, A'Lelia, in 1885) and became a widow at 20.

Walker and 2-year-old A'Lelia moved to St. Louis, where Walker balanced working as a laundress with night school. She sang in the choir of the St. Paul African Methodist Episcopal Church and became active in the National Association of Colored Women. It was in St. Louis that she first met Charles J. Walker, the man who would become her second husband-and inspire the name of her eventual empire.

The Walker System

Walker was inspired to create haircare products for Black women after a scalp disorder caused her to lose much of her own hair. She came up with a treatment that would completely change the Black hair care industry.

Walker's method, known as the "Walker system," involved scalp preparation, lotions and iron combs. Her custom pomade was a wild success. While other products for Black hair (largely manufactured by white businesses) were on the market, she differentiated hers by emphasizing its attention to the health of the women who would use it. She sold her homemade products directly to Black women, using a personal approach that won her loyal customers. She went on to employ a fleet of saleswomen to sell the product whom she called "beauty culturalists."

Madam C.J. Walker Company

Walker moved to Denver, Colorado, in 1905, with just $1.05 in savings in her pocket. Her products like Wonderful Hair Grower, Glossine and Vegetable Shampoo began to gain a loyal following, changing her fortunes. Charles J. Walker moved to Denver in 1906 and they were married soon after. At first, her husband helped her with marketing, advertising and mail orders, but as the business grew, they grew apart and the two divorced.

In 1908, Walker opened a beauty school and factory in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania named after her daughter. In 1910, she moved her business headquarters in Indianapolis, a city with access to railroads for distribution and a large population of African American customers. She left the management of the Pittsburgh branch to A'Lelia. By the time of her death, the Madame C.J. Walker Company had employed some 40,000 people, largely Black women who sold Walker's products.

'The first Black woman millionaire in America'

Walker became one of the best-known African Americans and was embraced by the Black press. The success of her business enabled her to live in homes that were a far cry from the one she had grown up in; her Manhattan townhouse became a salon for members of the Harlem Renaissance when her daughter inherited it in the 1920s. Walker's country home, Villa Lewaro, in Irvington-on-Hudson, was designed by Black architect Vertner Tandy.

Walker's reputation as an entrepreneur was matched only by her reputation for philanthropy. She established clubs for her employees, encouraging them to give back to their communities and rewarding them with bonuses when they did. At a time when jobs for Black women were fairly limited, she promoted female talent, even stipulating in her company's charter that only a woman could serve as president. She donated generously to educational causes and Black charities, funding scholarships for women at Tuskegee Institute and donating to the NAACP, the Black YMCA, and dozens of other organizations that helped make Black history.

Madame C.J. Walker's Death And Legacy

Madam Walker died at her country home in Irvington-on-Hudson on May 25, 1919, at the age of fifty-one, of hypertension. Her plans for her Indianapolis headquarters, the Walker Building, were carried out after her death and completed in 1927. Today, she is remembered as a pioneering Black female entrepreneur who inspired many with her financial independence, business acumen and philanthropy.

Sources

Madam C.J. Walker. Biography.
Madam C.J. Walker. Britannica.
Meet Madam C.J. Walker. NPS.gov.
Madam Walker, the First Black American to Be a Self-Made Millionaire. PBS.

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Madam C.J. Walker's Early Life The Walker System Madam C.J. Walker Company 'The first Black woman millionaire in America' Madame C.J. Walker's Death And Legacy Madam C. J. Walker (1867-1919) was "the first Black woman millionaire in America" and made her fortune thanks to her homemade line of hair care products for Black women.

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Civil and Human Rights Activist/ Minister

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Malcolm X, (born May 19, 1925, Omaha, Nebraska, U.S.-died February 21, 1965, New York, New York), African American leader and prominent figure in the Nation of Islam who articulated concepts of race pride and Black nationalism in the early 1960s. After his assassination, the widespread distribution of his life story-The Autobiography of Malcolm X (1965)-made him an ideological hero, especially among Black youth.

Early years and conversion to Islam

Born in Nebraska, while an infant Malcolm moved with his family to Lansing, Michigan. When Malcolm was six years old, his father, the Rev. Earl Little, a Baptist minister and former supporter of the early Black nationalist leader Marcus Garvey, died after being hit by a streetcar, quite possibly the victim of murder by whites. The surviving family was so poor that Malcolm's mother, Louise Little, resorted to cooking dandelion greens from the street to feed her children. After she was committed to an insane asylum in 1939, Malcolm and his siblings were sent to foster homes or to live with family members.

Malcolm excelled in school, but after one of his eighth-grade teachers told him that he should become a carpenter instead of a lawyer, he lost interest and soon ended his formal education. As a rebellious youngster, Malcolm moved from the Michigan State Detention Home, a juvenile home in Mason, Michigan, to the Roxbury section of Boston to live with an older half sister, Ella, from his father's first marriage. There he became involved in petty criminal activities in his teenage years. Known as "Detroit Red" for the reddish tinge in his hair, he developed into a street hustler, drug dealer, and leader of a gang of thieves in Roxbury and Harlem (in New York City).

While in prison for robbery from 1946 to 1952, he underwent a conversion that eventually led him to join the Nation of Islam, an African American movement that combined elements of Islam with Black nationalism. His decision to join the Nation also was influenced by discussions with his brother Reginald, who had become a member in Detroit and who was incarcerated with Malcolm in the Norfolk Prison Colony in Massachusetts in 1948. Malcolm quit smoking and gambling and refused to eat pork in keeping with the Nation's dietary restrictions. In order to educate himself, he spent long hours reading books in the prison library, even memorizing a dictionary. He also sharpened his forensic skills by participating in debate classes. Following Nation tradition, he replaced his surname, "Little," with an "X," a custom among Nation of Islam followers who considered their family names to have originated with white slaveholders.

Malcolm X and the Nation of Islam

After his release from prison Malcolm helped to lead the Nation of Islam during the period of its greatest growth and influence. He met Elijah Muhammad in Chicago in 1952 and then began organizing temples for the Nation in New York, Philadelphia, and Boston and in cities in the South. He founded the Nation's newspaper, Muhammad Speaks, which he printed in the basement of his home, and initiated the practice of requiring every male member of the Nation to sell an assigned number of newspapers on the street as a recruiting and fund-raising technique. He also articulated the Nation's racial doctrines on the inherent evil of whites and the natural superiority of Blacks.

Malcolm rose rapidly to become the minister of Boston Temple No. 11, which he founded; he was later rewarded with the post of minister of Temple No. 7 in Harlem, the largest and most prestigious temple in the Nation after the Chicago headquarters. Recognizing his talent and ability, Elijah Muhammad, who had a special affection for Malcolm, named him the National Representative of the Nation of Islam, second in rank to Muhammad himself. Under Malcolm's lieutenancy, the Nation claimed a membership of 500,000. The actual number of members fluctuated, however, and the influence of the organization, refracted through the public persona of Malcolm X, always greatly exceeded its size.

An articulate public speaker, a charismatic personality, and an indefatigable organizer, Malcolm X expressed the pent-up anger, frustration, and bitterness of African Americans during the major phase of the civil rights movement from 1955 to 1965. He preached on the streets of Harlem and spoke at major universities such as Harvard University and the University of Oxford. His keen intellect, incisive wit, and ardent radicalism made him a formidable critic of American society. He also criticized the mainstream civil rights movement, challenging Martin Luther King, Jr.'s central notions of integration and nonviolence. Malcolm argued that more was at stake than the civil right to sit in a restaurant or even to vote-the most important issues were Black identity, integrity, and independence. In contrast to King's strategy of nonviolence, civil disobedience, and redemptive suffering, Malcolm urged his followers to defend themselves "by any means necessary." His biting critique of the "so-called Negro" provided the intellectual foundations for the Black Power and Black consciousness movements in the United States in the late 1960s and '70s ( see Black nationalism). Through the influence of the Nation of Islam, Malcolm X helped to change the terms used to refer to African Americans from "Negro" and "coloured" to "Black" and "Afro-American."

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Malcolm X | Biography, Nation of Islam, Assassination, & Facts

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Malcolm X, a prominent civil rights activist and advocate for Black empowerment, challenged societal norms with his powerful speeches and played a crucial role in the fight against racial injustice.

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Women's Rights Activist/ Author

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Mary Wollstonecraft (born April 27, 1759, London, England-died September 10, 1797, London) English writer and passionate advocate of educational and social equality for women. She outlined her beliefs in A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), considered a classic of feminism.

The daughter of a farmer, Wollstonecraft taught school and worked as a governess, experiences that inspired her views in Thoughts on the Education of Daughters (1787). In 1788 she began working as a translator for the London publisher Joseph Johnson, who published several of her works, including the novel Mary: A Fiction (1788). Her mature work on woman's place in society is A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), which calls for women and men to be educated equally.

In 1792 Wollstonecraft left England to observe the French Revolution in Paris, where she lived with an American, Captain Gilbert Imlay. In the spring of 1794 she gave birth to a daughter, Fanny. The following year, distraught over the breakdown of her relationship with Imlay, she attempted suicide.

Wollstonecraft returned to London to work again for Johnson and joined an influential radical group, which gathered at his home and included William Godwin, Thomas Paine, Thomas Holcroft, William Blake, and, after 1793, William Wordsworth. In 1796 she began a liaison with Godwin, and on March 29, 1797, Mary being pregnant, they were married. The marriage was happy but brief; Mary died 11 days after the birth of her second daughter, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, who became a novelist best known as the author of Frankenstein. Among Wollstonecraft's late notable works are Letters Written During a Short Residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark (1796), a travelogue with a sociological and philosophical bent, and Maria; or, The Wrongs of Woman (1798), a posthumously published unfinished work that is a novelistic sequel to A Vindication of the Rights of Woman.

A Vindication of the Rights of Woman is one of the trailblazing works of feminism. Published in 1792, Wollstonecraft's work argued that the educational system of her time deliberately trained women to be frivolous and incapable. She posited that an educational system that allowed girls the same advantages as boys would result in women who would be not only exceptional wives and mothers but also capable workers in many professions. Other early feminists had made similar pleas for improved education for women, but Wollstonecraft's work was unique in suggesting that the betterment of women's status be effected through such political change as the radical reform of national educational systems. Such change, she concluded, would benefit all society.

The publication of Vindication caused considerable controversy but failed to bring about any immediate reforms. From the 1840s, however, members of the incipient American and European women's movements resurrected some of the book's principles. It was a particular influence on American women's rights pioneers such as Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Margaret Fuller.

The life of Wollstonecraft has been the subject of several biographies, beginning with her husband's Memoirs of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1798, reissued 2001, in an edition edited by Pamela Clemit and Gina Luria Walker). Those written in the 19th century tended to emphasize the scandalous aspects of her life and not her work. With the renewed interest in women's rights beginning in the later 20th century, she again became the subject of several books, including The Collected Letters of Mary Wollstonecraft (2003), assembled by Janet Todd, and Romantic Outlaws: The Extraordinary Lives of Mary Wollstonecraft and Mary Shelley (2015), by Charlotte Gordon.

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Mary Wollstonecraft | Biography, Beliefs, Books, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, & Facts

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Mary Wollstonecraft was an English writer and passionate advocate of educational and social equality for women. Her A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792) is considered a trailblazing work of feminism. Her daughter, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, was a noted writer best known for the novel Frankenstein.

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Social and Political Activist/ Former President of South Africa

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Social and Political Activist/Entrepreneur/ Economist

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This article was most recently revised and updated by

Muhammad Yunus, (born June 28, 1940, Chittagong, East Bengal [now Bangladesh]), Bangladeshi economist and founder of the Grameen Bank, an institution that provides microcredit (small loans to poor people possessing no collateral) to help its clients establish creditworthiness and financial self-sufficiency. In 2006 Yunus and Grameen received the Nobel Prize for Peace.

After teaching economics at Chittagong University from 1961 to 1965, Yunus won a Fulbright scholarship. He studied and taught at Vanderbilt University from 1965 to 1972, earning a Ph.D. in economics in 1969. He returned to Chittagong University as head of the economics department in 1972 and began studying the economic aspects of poverty in 1974 as famine swept through Bangladesh. Yunus even asked students to assist farmers in the fields, but he concluded that agricultural training alone would not benefit the large population of landless poor who had no assets. What the poor needed, he believed, was access to money that would help them build small businesses; traditional moneylenders charged usurious interest. In 1976 Yunus began a program of "micro" loans, a credit system designed to meet the needs of the poor in Bangladesh. Borrowers, whose loans may be little more than $25, join lending groups. Support from group members (in addition to peer pressure) coaxes borrowers to repay their loans. The Bangladesh government made the Grameen Bank Project an independent bank in 1983, with the government owning a minority stake. The Grameen model has spurred other forms of microlending around the world.

In February 2007 Yunus entered the Bangladeshi political arena by forming a political party, Nagorik Shakti (Citizen Power), and announcing his intention to contest the upcoming election. His announcement came during a state of emergency and severe conflict between the country's two major parties, the Awami League and the Bangladesh National Party. Yunus promised his movement would seek to restore good governance and eliminate corruption. In May 2007, however, Yunus dropped his efforts to establish the party, citing a lack of support.

In 2010 Yunus and the Grameen Bank came under scrutiny after the release of the documentary film Caught in Micro Debt. In addition to being critical of microloans, the film alleged that Yunus and the bank had misappropriated funds donated by Norway. Although both were later cleared by Norwegian officials, the Bangladesh government began an investigation. In 2011 the country's central bank dismissed Yunus as managing director of Grameen, citing a mandatory retirement age of 60. Yunus, who had turned 60 in 2000, immediately launched a legal challenge to the decision. However, Bangladesh's courts subsequently upheld his removal.

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Yunus wrote several books, including Building Social Business: The New Kind of Capitalism That Serves Humanity's Most Pressing Needs (2010) and A World of Three Zeroes: The New Economics of Zero Poverty, Zero Unemployment, and Zero Net Carbon Emissions (2017). His honours include Bangladesh's prestigious Independence Day Award (1987), the World Food Prize (United States, 1994), and the U.S. Presidential Medal of Freedom (2009). He was the first recipient of the King Hussein Humanitarian Award (Jordan, 2000).

Amy Tikkanen, Corrections Manager.

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This article was most recently revised and updated by Muhammad Yunus, (born June 28, 1940, Chittagong, East Bengal [now Bangladesh]), Bangladeshi economist and founder of the Grameen Bank, an institution that provides microcredit (small loans to poor people possessing no collateral) to help its clients establish creditworthiness and financial self-sufficiency.

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Civil Rights Activist/ Minister

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When Was Martin Luther King Born?

Martin Luther King Jr. was born on January 15, 1929, in Atlanta, Georgia, the second child of Martin Luther King Sr., a pastor, and Alberta Williams King, a former schoolteacher.

Along with his older sister Christine and younger brother Alfred Daniel Williams, he grew up in the city's Sweet Auburn neighborhood, then home to some of the most prominent and prosperous African Americans in the country.

Did you know? The final section of Martin Luther King Jr.'s eloquent and iconic "I Have a Dream" speech is believed to have been largely improvised.

A gifted student, King attended segregated public schools and at the age of 15 was admitted to Morehouse College, the alma mater of both his father and maternal grandfather, where he studied medicine and law.

Although he had not intended to follow in his father's footsteps by joining the ministry, he changed his mind under the mentorship of Morehouse's president, Dr. Benjamin Mays, an influential theologian and outspoken advocate for racial equality. After graduating in 1948, King entered Crozer Theological Seminary in Pennsylvania, where he earned a Bachelor of Divinity degree, won a prestigious fellowship and was elected president of his predominantly white senior class.

King then enrolled in a graduate program at Boston University, completing his coursework in 1953 and earning a doctorate in systematic theology two years later. While in Boston he met Coretta Scott, a young singer from Alabama who was studying at the New England Conservatory of Music. The couple wed in 1953 and settled in Montgomery, Alabama, where King became pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church.

The Kings had four children: Yolanda Denise King, Martin Luther King III, Dexter Scott King and Bernice Albertine King.

Montgomery Bus Boycott

The King family had been living in Montgomery for less than a year when the highly segregated city became the epicenter of the burgeoning struggle for civil rights in America, galvanized by the landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision of 1954.

On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, secretary of the local chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People ( NAACP), refused to give up her seat to a white passenger on a Montgomery bus and was arrested. Activists coordinated a bus boycott that would continue for 381 days. The Montgomery Bus Boycott placed a severe economic strain on the public transit system and downtown business owners. They chose Martin Luther King Jr. as the protest's leader and official spokesman.

By the time the Supreme Court ruled segregated seating on public buses unconstitutional in November 1956, King-heavily influenced by Mahatma Gandhi and the activist Bayard Rustin -had entered the national spotlight as an inspirational proponent of organized, nonviolent resistance.

King had also become a target for white supremacists, who firebombed his family home that January.

On September 20, 1958, Izola Ware Curry walked into a Harlem department store where King was signing books and asked, "Are you Martin Luther King?" When he replied "yes," she stabbed him in the chest with a knife. King survived, and the attempted assassination only reinforced his dedication to nonviolence: "The experience of these last few days has deepened my faith in the relevance of the spirit of nonviolence if necessary social change is peacefully to take place."

Southern Christian Leadership Conference

Emboldened by the success of the Montgomery Bus Boycott, in 1957 he and other civil rights activists-most of them fellow ministers-founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), a group committed to achieving full equality for African Americans through nonviolent protest.

The SCLC motto was "Not one hair of one head of one person should be harmed." King would remain at the helm of this influential organization until his death.

In his role as SCLC president, Martin Luther King Jr. traveled across the country and around the world, giving lectures on nonviolent protest and civil rights as well as meeting with religious figures, activists and political leaders.

During a month-long trip to India in 1959, he had the opportunity to meet family members and followers of Gandhi, the man he described in his autobiography as "the guiding light of our technique of nonviolent social change." King also authored several books and articles during this time.

Letter from Birmingham Jail

In 1960 King and his family moved to Atlanta, his native city, where he joined his father as co-pastor of the Ebenezer Baptist Church. This new position did not stop King and his SCLC colleagues from becoming key players in many of the most significant civil rights battles of the 1960s.

Their philosophy of nonviolence was put to a particularly severe test during the Birmingham campaign of 1963, in which activists used a boycott, sit-ins and marches to protest segregation, unfair hiring practices and other injustices in one of America's most racially divided cities.

Arrested for his involvement on April 12, King penned the civil rights manifesto known as the " Letter from Birmingham Jail," an eloquent defense of civil disobedience addressed to a group of white clergymen who had criticized his tactics.

March on Washington

Later that year, Martin Luther King Jr. worked with a number of civil rights and religious groups to organize the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, a peaceful political rally designed to shed light on the injustices Black Americans continued to face across the country.

Held on August 28 and attended by some 200,000 to 300,000 participants, the event is widely regarded as a watershed moment in the history of the American civil rights movement and a factor in the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

"I Have a Dream" Speech

The March on Washington culminated in King's most famous address, known as the "I Have a Dream" speech, a spirited call for peace and equality that many consider a masterpiece of rhetoric.

Standing on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial -a monument to the president who a century earlier had brought down the institution of slavery in the United States-he shared his vision of a future in which "this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: 'We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.'"

The speech and march cemented King's reputation at home and abroad; later that year he was named "Man of the Year" by TIME magazine and in 1964 became, at the time, the youngest person ever awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

In the spring of 1965, King's elevated profile drew international attention to the violence that erupted between white segregationists and peaceful demonstrators in Selma, Alabama, where the SCLC and Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) had organized a voter registration campaign.

Captured on television, the brutal scene outraged many Americans and inspired supporters from across the country to gather in Alabama and take part in the Selma to Montgomery march led by King and supported by President Lyndon B. Johnson, who sent in federal troops to keep the peace.

That August, Congress passed the Voting Rights Act, which guaranteed the right to vote-first awarded by the 15th Amendment-to all African Americans.

Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.

The events in Selma deepened a growing rift between Martin Luther King Jr. and young radicals who repudiated his nonviolent methods and commitment to working within the established political framework.

As more militant Black leaders such as Stokely Carmichael rose to prominence, King broadened the scope of his activism to address issues such as the Vietnam War and poverty among Americans of all races. In 1967, King and the SCLC embarked on an ambitious program known as the Poor People's Campaign, which was to include a massive march on the capital.

On the evening of April 4, 1968, Martin Luther King was assassinated. He was fatally shot while standing on the balcony of a motel in Memphis, where King had traveled to support a sanitation workers' strike. In the wake of his death, a wave of riots swept major cities across the country, while President Johnson declared a national day of mourning.

James Earl Ray, an escaped convict and known racist, pleaded guilty to the murder and was sentenced to 99 years in prison. He later recanted his confession and gained some unlikely advocates, including members of the King family, before his death in 1998.

MLK Day

After years of campaigning by activists, members of Congress and Coretta Scott King, among others, in 1983 President Ronald Reagan signed a bill creating a U.S. federal holiday in honor of King.

Observed on the third Monday of January, Martin Luther King Day was first celebrated in 1986.

Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes

While his "I Have a Dream" speech is the most well-known piece of his writing, Martin Luther King Jr. was the author of multiple books, include "Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story," "Why We Can't Wait," "Strength to Love," "Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community?" and the posthumously published "Trumpet of Conscience" with a foreword by Coretta Scott King. Here are some of the most famous Martin Luther King Jr. quotes:

"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."

"Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that."

"The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy."

"Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed."

"The time is always right to do what is right."

"True peace is not merely the absence of tension; it is the presence of justice."

"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter."

"Free at last, Free at last, Thank God almighty we are free at last."

"Faith is taking the first step even when you don't see the whole staircase."

"In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends."

"I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant."

"I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear."

"Be a bush if you can't be a tree. If you can't be a highway, just be a trail. If you can't be a sun, be a star. For it isn't by size that you win or fail. Be the best of whatever you are."

"Life's most persistent and urgent question is, 'What are you doing for others?'"

HISTORY Vault: Voices of Civil Rights

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Martin Luther King Jr: Day, Death, Quotes | HISTORY

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Martin Luther King Jr. was a social activist and Baptist minister who played a key role in the American Civil Rights Movement until his assassination in 1968.

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Civil Rights Activist/ Author

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Prior to the start of World War II, Angelou moved back in with her mother, who at this time was living in Oakland, California. She attended George Washington High School and took dance and drama courses at the California Labor School.

When war broke out, Angelou applied to join the Women's Army Corps. However, her application was rejected because of her involvement in the California Labor School, which was said to have Communist ties. Determined to gain employment, despite being only 15 years old, she decided to apply for the position of a streetcar conductor. Many men had left their jobs to join the services, enabling women to fill them. However, Angelou was barred from applying at first because of her race. But she was undeterred. Every day for three weeks, she requested a job application, but was denied. Finally, the company relented and handed her an application. Because she was under the legal working age, she wrote that she was 19. She was accepted for the position and became the first African American woman to work as a streetcar conductor in San Francisco. Angelou was employed for a semester but then decided to return to school. She graduated from Mission High School in the summer of 1944 and soon after gave birth to her only child, Clyde Bailey (Guy) Johnson.

In 1969, Angelou published I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, an autobiography of her early life. Her tale of personal strength amid childhood trauma and racism resonated with readers and was nominated for the National Book Award. Many schools sought to ban the book for its frank depiction of sexual abuse, but it is credited with helping other abuse survivors tell their stories. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings has been translated into numerous languages and has sold over a million copies worldwide. Angelou eventually published six more autobiographies, culminating in 2013's Mom & Me & Mom.

Angelou carried out a wide variety of activities on stage and screen as a writer, actor, director, and producer. In 1972, she became the first African American woman to have her screen play turned into a film with the production of Kunta Kinte's grandmother in the television miniseries Georgia, Georgia. Angelou earned a Tony nomination in 1973 for her supporting role in Jerome Kitty's play Roots in 1977. Look Away, and portrayed

Angelou died on May 28, 2014. Several memorials were held in her honor, including ones at Wake Forest University and Glide Memorial Church in San Francisco. To honor her legacy, the US Postal Service issued a stamp with her likeness on it in 2015. (The US Postal Service mistakenly included a quote on the stamp that has long been associated with Angelou but was actually first written by Joan Walsh Anglund

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Poet, dancer, singer, activist, and scholar Maya Angelou is a celebrated author best known for her unique and pioneering autobiographical writing style.

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Women's and Human Rights Activist/ Executive Director

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Meet the young woman who helped end child marriage in Tanzania

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Rebeca Gyumi didn't agree with a law that allowed girls as young as 14 to be married. So she set about changing it.

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Social and Political Activist/ Former President of Costa Rica

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Óscar Arias Sánchez, (born September 13, 1941, Heredia, Costa Rica), Costa Rican politician who served as president of Costa Rica (1986-90, 2006-10) and was the recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1987 for his Central American peace plan.

Born into one of the wealthiest coffee-growing families in Costa Rica, Arias studied economics at the University of Costa Rica and earned a Ph.D. in political science from the University of Essex in England. In the 1960s he began working for the social-democratic National Liberation Party (Partido Liberación Nacional; PLN), and in 1972 he was appointed minister of planning in the government of Pres. José Figueres Ferrer, a post he held until 1977. He was elected secretary-general of the PLN in 1979, and in 1986 he won the general election to become president of Costa Rica.

As president, Arias took measures to cope with Costa Rica's heavy foreign indebtedness and other economic problems, but his main interest was in trying to restore peace and political stability to the strife-torn countries of Central America. He took office in the midst of the Contra war, in which rebel forces (the " Contras"), supported by the United States but based primarily in Honduras, attempted to bring down the Sandinista government of neighbouring Nicaragua. Though harshly critical of the Sandinistas, he forbade that regime's guerrilla opponents from operating militarily on Costa Rican soil, despite pressure from the United States. In February 1987 he proposed a regional peace plan for the Central American countries that would set a date for cease-fires between government and rebel forces, ensure amnesty for political prisoners, and schedule free and democratic elections in those countries. Arias and the leaders of Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, and Nicaragua signed this plan in August 1987; although signed, the plan was never fully implemented, partly because of opposition from the United States.

In October 1987 Arias was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace in recognition of his efforts to achieve the beginnings of peace in the region. In 1988 Arias used his Nobel Prize money to establish the Arias Foundation for Peace and Human Progress, which promoted peace and equality throughout the world. Arias also was active in various global nongovernmental organizations that focused their efforts on promoting peace and rooting out corruption.

Though several of his successors were linked to corruption (two were jailed briefly in 2004), Arias was untainted by scandal during his tenure as president, and he was recruited to run for the presidency of Costa Rica again in 2006. Pledging to invest in education and housing and to sign the Central America-Dominican Republic Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA-DR) with the United States (Costa Rica had been the only Central American country not to join the pact), Arias won a narrow victory. In 2007 Costa Rican citizens voted in favour of CAFTA-DR by a slim margin in the country's first national referendum.

In July 2009 Arias began mediating the political crisis in Honduras, which had begun that June with the ouster of Honduran Pres. Manuel Zelaya by that country's military. Arias's proposed solutions, however, were rebuffed by Zelaya and the interim leader of Honduras. Arias, who supported the demilitarization of Central America, contended that the coup was just one result of the region's "reckless military spending." Ineligible to run for a consecutive term, Arias was succeeded as president in May 2010 by Laura Chinchilla, a fellow member of the PLN. ( See also Sidebar: Lessons of the 20th Century.)

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Oscar Arias Sanchez, Costa Rican politician who served as president of Costa Rica (1986-90, 2006-10). For his Central American peace plan, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1987; the plan, though signed, was never implemented. Learn more about Arias's life and career.

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Civil Rights Activist/ Mother of the Freedom Movement

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Rosa Parks' Early Life

Rosa Louise McCauley was born in Tuskegee, Alabama, on February 4, 1913. She moved with her parents, James and Leona McCauley, to Pine Level, Alabama, at age 2 to reside with Leona's parents. Her brother, Sylvester, was born in 1915, and shortly after that her parents separated.

Did you know? When Rosa Parks refused to give up her bus seat in 1955, it wasn't the first time she'd clashed with driver James Blake. Parks stepped onto his very crowded bus on a chilly day 12 years earlier, paid her fare at the front, then resisted the rule in place for Black people to disembark and re-enter through the back door. She stood her ground until Blake pulled her coat sleeve, enraged, to demand her cooperation. Parks left the bus rather than give in.

Rosa's mother was a teacher, and the family valued education. Rosa moved to Montgomery, Alabama, at age 11 and eventually attended high school there, a laboratory school at the Alabama State Teachers' College for Negroes. She left at 16, early in 11th grade, because she needed to care for her dying grandmother and, shortly thereafter, her chronically ill mother. In 1932, at 19, she married Raymond Parks, a self-educated man 10 years her senior who worked as a barber and was a long-time member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People ( NAACP). He supported Rosa in her efforts to earn her high-school diploma, which she ultimately did the following year.

Rosa Parks: Roots of Activism

Raymond and Rosa, who worked as a seamstress, became respected members of Montgomery's large African American community. Co-existing with white people in a city governed by " Jim Crow " (segregation) laws, however, was fraught with daily frustrations: Black people could attend only certain (inferior) schools, could drink only from specified water fountains and could borrow books only from the "Black" library, among other restrictions.

Although Raymond had previously discouraged her out of fear for her safety, in December 1943, Rosa also joined the Montgomery chapter of the NAACP and became chapter secretary. She worked closely with chapter president Edgar Daniel (E.D.) Nixon. Nixon was a railroad porter known in the city as an advocate for Black people who wanted to register to vote, and also as president of the local branch of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters union.

December 1, 1955: Rosa Parks Is Arrested

On Thursday, December 1, 1955, the 42-year-old Rosa Parks was commuting home from a long day of work at the Montgomery Fair department store by bus. Black residents of Montgomery often avoided municipal buses if possible because they found the Negroes-in-back policy so demeaning. Nonetheless, 70 percent or more riders on a typical day were Black, and on this day Rosa Parks was one of them.

Segregation was written into law; the front of a Montgomery bus was reserved for white citizens, and the seats behind them for Black citizens. However, it was only by custom that bus drivers had the authority to ask a Black person to give up a seat for a white rider. There were contradictory Montgomery laws on the books: One said segregation must be enforced, but another, largely ignored, said no person (white or Black) could be asked to give up a seat even if there were no other seat on the bus available.

Nonetheless, at one point on the route, a white man had no seat because all the seats in the designated "white" section were taken. So the driver told the riders in the four seats of the first row of the "colored" section to stand, in effect adding another row to the "white" section. The three others obeyed. Parks did not.

"People always say that I didn't give up my seat because I was tired," wrote Parks in her autobiography, "but that isn't true. I was not tired physically... No, the only tired I was, was tired of giving in."

Eventually, two police officers approached the stopped bus, assessed the situation and placed Parks in custody.

Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus Boycott

Although Parks used her one phone call to contact her husband, word of her arrest had spread quickly and E.D. Nixon was there when Parks was released on bail later that evening. Nixon had hoped for years to find a courageous Black person of unquestioned honesty and integrity to become the plaintiff in a case that might become the test of the validity of segregation laws. Sitting in Parks' home, Nixon convinced Parks-and her husband and mother-that Parks was that plaintiff. Another idea arose as well: The Black population of Montgomery would boycott the buses on the day of Parks' trial, Monday, December 5. By midnight, 35,000 flyers were being mimeographed to be sent home with Black schoolchildren, informing their parents of the planned boycott.

On December 5, Parks was found guilty of violating segregation laws, given a suspended sentence and fined $10 plus $4 in court costs. Meanwhile, Black participation in the boycott was much larger than even optimists in the community had anticipated. Nixon and some ministers decided to take advantage of the momentum, forming the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA) to manage the boycott, and they elected Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.-new to Montgomery and just 26 years old-as the MIA's president.

As appeals and related lawsuits wended their way through the courts, all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court, the Montgomery Bus Boycott engendered anger in much of Montgomery's white population as well as some violence, and Nixon's and Dr. King's homes were bombed. The violence didn't deter the boycotters or their leaders, however, and the drama in Montgomery continued to gain attention from the national and international press.

On November 13, 1956, the Supreme Court ruled that bus segregation was unconstitutional; the boycott ended December 20, a day after the Court's written order arrived in Montgomery. Parks-who had lost her job and experienced harassment all year-became known as "the mother of the civil rights movement."

Rosa Parks's Life After the Boycott

Facing continued harassment and threats in the wake of the boycott, Parks, along with her husband and mother, eventually decided to move to Detroit, where Parks' brother resided. Parks became an administrative aide in the Detroit office of Congressman John Conyers Jr. in 1965, a post she held until her 1988 retirement. Her husband, brother and mother all died of cancer between 1977 and 1979. In 1987, she co-founded the Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute for Self-Development, to serve Detroit's youth.

In the years following her retirement, she traveled to lend her support to civil-rights events and causes and wrote an autobiography, Rosa Parks: My Story. In 1999, Parks was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal, the highest honor the United States bestows on a civilian. (Other recipients have included George Washington, Thomas Edison, Betty Ford and Mother Teresa.) When she died at age 92 on October 24, 2005, she became the first woman in the nation's history to lie in honor at the U.S. Capitol.

HISTORY Vault: Black History

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Rosa Parks: Bus Boycott, Civil Rights & Facts | HISTORY

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Rosa Parks (1913-2005) helped initiate the civil rights movement in the United States when she refused to give up her seat to a white man on a Montgomery, Alabama bus in 1955. Her actions inspired the leaders of the local Black community to organize the Montgomery Bus Boycott.

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Women's and Civil Rights Activist

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MLA - Michals, Debra. "Sojourner Truth." National Women's History Museum. National Women's History Museum, 2015. Date accessed.

Chicago - Michals, Debra. "Sojourner Truth." National Women's History Museum. 2015. www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/sojourner-truth.

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A former slave, Sojourner Truth became an outspoken advocate for abolition, temperance, and civil and women's rights in the nineteenth century. Learn more at womenshistory.org.

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Civil Rights Activist

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MLA - Michals, Debra. "Ruby Bridges." National Women's History Museum. National Women's History Museum, 2015. Date accessed.

Chicago - Michals, Debra. "Ruby Bridges." National Women's History Museum." 2015. www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/ruby-bridges.

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Trailblazer Ruby Bridges was only six when she advanced the cause of civil rights in November 1960 when she became the first African American student to integrate an elementary school in the South. Learn more about her on womenshistory.org.

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Women's Rights Activist

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Champion of temperance, abolition, the rights of labor, and equal pay for equal work, Susan Brownell Anthony became one of the most visible leaders of the women's suffrage movement. Along with Elizabeth Cady Stanton, she traveled around the country delivering speeches in favor of women's suffrage.

Susan B. Anthony was born on February 15, 1820 in Adams, Massachusetts. Her father, Daniel, was a farmer and later a cotton mill owner and manager and was raised as a Quaker. Her mother, Lucy, came from a family that fought in the American Revolution and served in the Massachusetts state government. From an early age, Anthony was inspired by the Quaker belief that everyone was equal under God. That idea guided her throughout her life. She had seven brothers and sisters, many of whom became activists for justice and emancipation of slaves.

After many years of teaching, Anthony returned to her family who had moved to New York State. There she met William Lloyd Garrison and Frederick Douglass, who were friends of her father. Listening to them moved Susan to want to do more to help end slavery. She became an abolition activist, even though most people thought it was improper for women to give speeches in public. Anthony made many passionate speeches against slavery.

In 1848, a group of women held a convention at Seneca Falls , New York. It was the first Women's Rights Convention in the United States and began the Suffrage movement. Her mother and sister attended the convention but Anthony did not. In 1851, Anthony met Elizabeth Cady Stanton. The two women became good friends and worked together for over 50 years fighting for women's rights. They traveled the country and Anthony gave speeches demanding that women be given the right to vote. At times, she risked being arrested for sharing her ideas in public.

Anthony was good at strategy. Her discipline, energy, and ability to organize made her a strong and successful leader. Anthony and Stanton co-founded the American Equal Rights Association. In 1868 they became editors of the Association's newspaper, The Revolution, which helped to spread the ideas of equality and rights for women. Anthony began to lecture to raise money for publishing the newspaper and to support the suffrage movement. She became famous throughout the county. Many people admired her, yet others hated her ideas.

When Congress passed the which give voting rights to African American men, Anthony and Stanton were angry and opposed the legislation because it did not include the right to vote for women. Their belief led them to split from other suffragists. They thought the amendments should also have given women the right to vote. They formed the National Woman Suffrage Association , to push for a constitutional amendment giving women the right to vote.

In 1872, Anthony was arrested for voting. She was tried and fined $100 for her crime. This made many people angry and brought national attention to the suffrage movement. In 1876, she led a protest at the 1876 Centennial of our nation's independence. She gave a speech-"Declaration of Rights"-written by Stanton and another suffragist, Matilda Joslyn Gage.

"Men, their rights, and nothing more; women, their rights, and nothing less."

Anthony spent her life working for women's rights. In 1888, she helped to merge the two largest suffrage associations into one, the National American Women's Suffrage Association. She led the group until 1900. She traveled around the country giving speeches, gathering thousands of signatures on petitions, and lobbying Congress every year for women. Anthony died in 1906, 14 years before women were given the right to vote with the passage of the in 1920.

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Champion of temperance, abolition, the rights of labor, and equal pay for equal work, Susan Brownell Anthony became one of the most visible leaders of the women's suffrage movement. Along with Elizabeth Cady Stanton, she traveled around the country delive

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Civil Rights Activist/ Sociologist/ Author

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W.E.B. Du Bois' Childhood

Born in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, on February 23, 1868, Du Bois' birth certificate has his name as "William E. Duboise." Two years after his birth his father, Alfred Du Bois, left his mother, Mary Silvina Burghardt.

Du Bois became the first person in his extended family to attend high school, and did so at his mother's insistence. In 1883, Du Bois began to write articles for papers like the New York Globe and the Freeman.

Education of W.E.B. Dubois

Du Bois initially attended Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee, a school for Black students. His tuition was paid by several churches in Great Barrington. Du Bois became an editor for the Herald, the student magazine.

After graduation, Du Bois attended Harvard University, starting in 1888 and eventually receiving advanced degrees in history. In 1892, Du Bois worked towards a Ph.D. at the University of Berlin until his funding ran out.

He returned to the United States without his doctorate but later received one from Harvard while teaching classics at Wilberforce University in Ohio. There, he married Nina Gomer, one of his students, in 1896.

His doctoral thesis, "The Suppression of the African Slave Trade to the United States of America, 1638-1870," became his first book and a standard in American education covering slavery.

The Philadelphia Negro

Du Bois took a position at the University of Pennsylvania in 1896 conducting a study of the city's Seventh Ward, published in 1899 as The Philadelphia Negro. The work took up so much of his time that he missed the birth of his first son in Great Barrington.

The study is considered one of the earliest examples of statistical work being used for sociological purposes, with extensive fieldwork resulting in hundreds of interviews conducted door-to-door by Du Bois.

Mapping out the Seventh Ward and carefully documenting familial and work structures, Du Bois concluded that the Black community's greatest challenges were poverty, crime, lack of education and distrust of those outside the community.

W.E.B. Du Bois' Sociological Studies

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics offered Du Bois a job in 1897, leading to several groundbreaking studies on Black Southern households in Farmville, Virginia, that uncovered how slavery still affected the personal lives of African Americans. Du Bois would do four more studies for the bureau, two in Alabama and two in Georgia.

These studies were considered radical at the time when sociology existed in pure theoretical forms. Du Bois was pivotal in making investigation and data analysis crucial to sociological study.

During the same period, Du Bois wrote "The Strivings of the Negro People" for the Atlantic Monthly, a groundbreaking essay that explained to white readers how it feels to be a victim of racism. It is considered the general public's introduction to Du Bois.

'The Souls of Black Folk'

Du Bois and family moved to Atlanta University, where he taught sociology and worked on his additional Bureau of Labor Statistics studies.

Among the books written during this period was The Souls of Black Folk, a collection of sociological essays examining the Black experience in America. Partially derived from his Atlantic article, it embraced Du Bois' personal history in his arguments.

The book also introduced the idea of "double consciousness," in which African Americans are required to consider not only their view of themselves but also the view that the world, particularly whites, has on them during all parts of life. It also expressly differentiated Du Bois from more conservative Black voices like Booker T. Washington.

In 1899, Du Bois' son Burghardt contracted diphtheria and died after Du Bois spent the night looking for one of three Black doctors in Atlanta, since no white doctor would treat the child. A resulting essay, "The Passing of the First Born," appeared in The Souls of Black Folk.

The Niagara Movement And Booker T. Washington

In 1903, Du Bois taught summer school at Booker T. Washington's Tuskegee University, but friction between the two men led to Du Bois joining Washington's rivals in the Niagara Movement, charged with seeking justice and equality for African Americans.

That group failed, partly due to opposition from Washington, but during its existence Du Bois published The Moon Illustrated Weekly, the first weekly magazine for African Americans, producing a total of 34 issues before folding in 1906. He followed this up briefly with the journal Horizon.
READ MORE: The Niagara Movement
NAACP

In 1910, Du Bois accepted the directorship of the recently-formed NAACP. He moved to New York City and served as the editor of the organization's monthly magazine The Crisis.

The magazine was a huge success and became very influential, covering race relations and black culture with Du Bois' forthright style. The magazine stood out for its continual endorsement and coverage of women's suffrage. Du Bois worked for the NAACP for 24 years, during which time he published his first novel, The Quest of the Silver Fleece.

After a brief second stint at Atlanta University, Du Bois returned to the NAACP as director of special research in 1944 and represented the organization at the first meeting of the United Nations.

Du Bois also became more interested in communism and international issues, and became an open supporter of progressive and left-wing groups, which created problems with NAACP leadership. He left the organization again in 1948.

W.E.B. Du Bois and Communism

Du Bois' radicalism continued in the public sphere, running as the Progressive Party's candidate for Senate in 1950 and losing. He and other members of the Peace Information Center were charged as agents of a foreign principal, inspired by the organization's Soviet leanings, but were acquitted in a trial in 1951.

Following the death of his wife in 1950, Du Bois married Shirley Graham the following year. Graham's interest led Du Bois further into exploring communism, delving into the American Communist community and becoming known for his apologetic view of Joseph Stalin.

In 1961 Du Bois officially joined the American Communist Party before leaving the country to live in Ghana at the invitation of its president and becoming a citizen there.

Encyclopedia Africana

Du Bois first conceived of the Encyclopedia Africana in 1908 as a compendium of history and achievement of people of African descent designed to bring a sense of unity to the African diaspora. Unable to raise the needed funds, Du Bois wasn't able to revisit the project until 1935, but it was disrupted by professional battles.

Du Bois published some entries from the proposed encyclopedia and even editions of research material, but it wasn't until 1962 that a further promise was made to complete the encyclopedia.

After Du Bois was invited to move to Ghana, he pledged to finally publish the work, but it was never realized before his death. Du Bois died on August 27, 1963 in Ghana and was given a state funeral.
READ MORE: Black History Milestones: A Timeline
Sources

W. E. B. Du Bois Research Institute. Harvard University.

DuBoisopedia. University of Massachusetts.

Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience. Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Kwame Anthony Appiah, eds.

W.E.B. Du Bois: Biography of a Race 1868 - 1919. David Levering Lewis.

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W. E. B. Du Bois - Beliefs, Niagara Movement & NAACP | HISTORY

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W.E.B. Du Bois (1868-1963) was a civil rights activist who led the Niagara Movement and later helped form the NAACP.

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Political and Civil Rights Activist

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Of the 3,498 service members who have received the Medal of Honor throughout U.S. history, only 88 have been black.

In recognition of African American History Month, we're sharing the stories of the brave men who so gallantly risked and gave their lives for others, even in times when others weren't willing to do the same in return.

We'll start with the first black recipient of the award: Army Sgt. William H. Carney, who earned the honor for protecting one of the United States' greatest symbols during the Civil War -- the American flag.

Born Into Slavery

Carney was born into slavery in Norfolk, Virginia, in 1840. His family was eventually granted freedom and moved to Massachusetts, where Carney was eager to learn and secretly got involved in academics, despite laws and restrictions that banned blacks from learning to read and write.

Carney had wanted to pursue a career in the church, but when the Civil War broke out, he decided the best way he could serve God was by serving in the military to help free the oppressed.

In March 1863, Carney joined the Union Army and was attached to Company C, 54th Massachusetts Colored Infantry Regiment, the first official black unit recruited for the Union in the north. Forty other black men served with him, including two of famed abolitionist Frederick Douglass' sons.

Within a few months, Carney's training would be put to the ultimate test during the unit's first major combat mission in Charleston, South Carolina.

Charge on Fort Wagner

On July 18, 1863, the soldiers of Carney's regiment led the charge on Fort Wagner. During the battle, the unit's color guard was shot. Carney, who was just a few feet away, saw the dying man stumble, and he scrambled to catch the falling flag.

Despite suffering several serious gunshot wounds himself, Carney kept the symbol of the Union held high as he crawled up the hill to the walls of Fort Wagner, urging his fellow troops to follow him. He planted the flag in the sand at the base of the fort and held it upright until his near-lifeless body was rescued.

Even then, though, he didn't give it up. Many witnesses said Carney refused to give the flag to his rescuers, holding onto it tighter until, with assistance, he made it to the Union's temporary barracks.

Promoted for His Actions

Carney lost a lot of blood and nearly lost his life, but not once did he allow the flag to touch the ground. His heroics inspired other soldiers that day and were crucial to the North securing victory at Fort Wagner. Carney was promoted to the rank of sergeant for his actions.

For his bravery, Carney was awarded the Medal of Honor on May 23, 1900.

Carney's legacy serves as a shining example of the patriotism that Americans felt at that time, despite the color of their skin.

As for the 54th Massachusetts Colored Infantry Regiment in which Carney served? It was disestablished long ago but reactivated in 2008. It now serves as a National Guard ceremonial unit that renders honorary funerals and state functions. It was even invited to march in President Barack Obama's inaugural parade.
Related Links: Army.mil: North America News

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Meet Sgt. William Carney: The first African-American Medal of Honor recipient

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Of the 3,498 service members who have received the Medal of Honor throughout U.S. history, only 88 have been black.

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Civil Rights Activist/ Former Associate Justice of the Supreme Court

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Education

Thurgood Marshall was born on July 2, 1908, in Baltimore, Maryland. His father, William Marshall, was a railroad porter, and his mother, Norma, was a teacher.

After he completed high school in 1925, Marshall attended Lincoln University in Chester County, Pennsylvania. Just before he graduated, he married his first wife, Vivian "Buster" Burey.

Marshall decided to attend Howard University Law School, where he became a protégé of the well-known dean, Charles Hamilton Houston, who encouraged students to use the law as a means for social transformation.

In 1933, Marshall received his law degree and was ranked first in his class. After graduation from Howard, Marshall opened a private practice law firm in Baltimore.

Did you know? Thurgood Marshall argued thirty-two cases before the U.S. Supreme Court, more than anyone else in history.

Life as a Lawyer

In 1935, Marshall's first major court victory came in Murray v. Pearson, when he, alongside his mentor Houston, successfully sued the University of Maryland for denying a Black applicant admission to its law school because of his race.

Shortly after this legal success, Marshall became a staff lawyer for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People ( NAACP) and was eventually named chief of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund.

Throughout the 1940s and 1950s, Marshall was recognized as a one of the top attorneys in the United States, winning 29 of the 32 cases he argued before the Supreme Court.

Some of Marshall's notable cases included:

Chambers v. Florida (1940): Marshall successfully defended four convicted Black men who were coerced by police into confessing to murder.

Smith v. Allwright (1944): In this decision, the Supreme Court overturned a Texas state law that authorized the use of whites-only primary elections in certain Southern states.

Shelley v. Kraemer (1948): The Supreme Court struck down the legality of racially restrictive housing covenants.

Sweatt v. Painter (1950): This case challenged the "separate but equal" doctrine of racial segregation that was put in place in the Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) case and set the stage for future legislation. The court sided with Heman Marion Sweatt, a Black man who was denied admission to the University of Texas School of Law due to his race even though he had the option of "separate but equal" facilities.

Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (1954): This landmark case was considered Marshall's greatest victory as a civil-rights lawyer. A group of Black parents whose children were required to attend segregated schools filed a class-action lawsuit. The Supreme Court unanimously ruled that "separate educational facilities are inherently unequal."

Marriage

Personally, Marshall suffered a great loss when Vivian, his wife of 25 years, died of cancer in 1955. Shortly after her death, Marshall married Cecilia Suyat, and the couple went on to have two sons together.

Supreme Court Appointment

In 1961, President John F. Kennedy appointed Marshall to the U.S. Court of Appeals, and in 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson made him the first Black Solicitor General. It was clear the successful attorney was well on his way to making a case for a Supreme Court nomination.

In 1967, following the retirement of Justice Tom C. Clark, President Johnson appointed Marshall, the first Black justice, to the U.S. Supreme Court, proclaiming it was "the right thing to do, the right time to do it, and the right man and the right place."

At this time, the court consisted of a liberal majority, and Marshall's views were generally welcomed and accepted. His ideology aligned closely with Justice William J. Brennan, and the two often casted similar votes.

Throughout his historic tenure as justice, Marshall developed a reputation as a passionate member of the court who supported expanding civil rights, enacting affirmative action laws and limiting criminal punishment.

In the case of Furman v. Georgia (1972), Marshall and Brennan argued that the death penalty was unconstitutional in all circumstances.

The justice was also part of the majority vote that ruled in favor of abortion in the landmark (1973) case. Toward the end of Marshall's term, the court had shifted to conservative control, and his influence waned.

In 1991, Marshall retired from the Supreme Court because of his declining health. President George H. W. Bush appointed his replacement, Justice Clarence Thomas.

Thurgood Marshall Quotes

Some of Marshall's best-known quotes include:

"In recognizing the humanity of our fellow beings, we pay ourselves the highest tribute."

"To protest against injustice is the foundation of all our American democracy."

"You do what you think is right and let the law catch up."

"History teaches that grave threats to liberty often come in times of urgency, when constitutional rights seem too extravagant to endure."

"Racism separates, but it never liberates. Hatred generates fear, and fear once given a foothold binds, consumes and imprisons. Nothing is gained from prejudice. No one benefits from racism."

"The measure of a country's greatness is its ability to retain compassion in times of crisis."

"None of us got where we are solely by pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps. We got here because somebody - a parent, a teacher, an Ivy League crony or a few nuns - bent down and helped us pick up our boots."

Death and Legacy

In 1993, Marshall died of heart failure at the age of 84.

As a tribute to the judge, the law school of Texas Southern University, which was renamed and recognized as the Thurgood Marshall School of Law in 1978, continues to educate and train minority law students. Each year, the school ranks in the nation's top five for the number of Black law graduates.

Additionally, the Thurgood Marshall College Fund, which was established in 1987, supports nearly 300,000 students who attend schools at historically Black colleges, universities, medical schools and law schools.

Movie: 'Marshall'

In 2017, " Marshall," a biographical drama that recounted the early cases of the first Black Supreme Court justice's career, was released. The film brought renewed public interest to the life and work of Marshall.

Today, the esteemed judge is celebrated for helping to put an end to racial segregation and promoting various types of human rights. Ultimately, Marshall's steadfast push for equality forever shaped the American justice system.

Sources

Thurgood Marshall. Oyez at Cornell.
Thurgood Marshall. Thurgoodmarshall.com.
Thurgood Marshall's unique Supreme Court legacy. National Constitution Center.

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Thurgood Marshall was a successful civil rights attorney, the first African American Supreme Court justice and a prominent advocate for racial equality.

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Social, Political, and Environmental Activist

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Wangari Maathai | Biography, Nobel Peace Prize, Books, Green Belt Movement, & Facts

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Wangari Maathai, Kenyan politician and environmental activist who was the first Black African woman to win a Nobel Prize (2004 Peace Prize). Her work was often considered both unwelcome and subversive in her own country, where her outspokenness constituted stepping far outside traditional gender rol…