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What is the Pauli Murray Center for History & Social Justice?

The Pauli Murray Center for History and Social Justice lifts up the life and legacy of Rev. Dr. Pauli Murray, a twentieth-century human rights activist, legal scholar, feminist, poet, Episcopal priest, labor organizer, and multiracial Black, LGBTQ+ community member of transmasculine experience. Center programming in history, education, arts, and activism seeks to advance democracy, justice, non-violence, and equity for all.

The Pauli Murray Center welcomes everyone. Exhibits, community dialogues, visual and performing arts, activism, and writing workshops at the Center connect history to contemporary human rights issues. Murray's story inspires us all to rise up and speak out for our principles.

Pauli Murray's childhood home, built in 1898 by her Fitzgerald grandparents, anchors our historic site and was designated a National Treasure in 2015 and a National Historic Landmark in 2016.

""True emancipation lies in the acceptance of the whole past, in deriving strength from all my roots, in facing up to the degradation as well as the dignity of my ancestors."
"

- Pauli Murray, Proud Shoes: The Story of an American Family

Why is it important to know about Pauli Murray?

Pauli Murray's vision for a just and equitable world is a beacon of hope during troubled times. Her social justice tactics, legal strategies, speeches, letters, books, sermons, and poetry are models for our ongoing activism aimed at dismantling the oppression s/he faced and we continue to face because of white supremacy, sexism and oppression based on sexual orientation, gender identity and gender expression.

Pauli Murray lived one of the most remarkable lives of the twentieth century. She was the first Black person to earn a JSD (Doctor of the Science of Law) degree from Yale Law School, a founder of the National Organization for Women and the first Black woman to be ordained an Episcopal priest.

Pauli Murray's legal arguments and interpretation of the US Constitution were winning strategies for public school desegregation, women's rights in the workplace, and an extension of rights to LGBTQ+ people based on Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

Pauli Murray crafted a broad vision of justice, equity, and human rights using words as her primary tool in the fight for liberation. Pauli resisted categories of race, class, gender, and sexual orientation, wrestling with issues raised by her own racial identity, economic struggles, and sexual and gender identity. She aspired to an integrated body, mind, and spirit that aligned with a holistic sense of self.

The Pauli Murray Center invites you to visit the site to see our outdoor educational installation about the life of Pauli Murray and the history of the house. All other events are currently virtual.

Join the effort to establish an impactful and welcoming Pauli Murray Center for History and Social Justice that will activate visitors of all ages to be inspired by Pauli's legacy stand up and speak out for peace, equity, and justice. Our world needs this now more than ever.

"It may be that when historians look back at 20th century American history, all roads will lead to Pauli Murray . . . Civil rights, feminism, religion, literature, law, sexuality - no matter what the subject, there is Pauli Murray."

- Susan Ware, editor, Notable American Women: a biographical dictionary completing the twentieth Century.

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The Pauli Murray Center welcomes everyone. Exhibits, community dialogues, visual and performing arts, activism, and writing workshops at the Center connect history to contemporary human rights issues. Murray's story inspires us all to rise up and speak out for our principles.

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On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, a black seamstress, was arrested in Montgomery, Alabama for refusing to give up her bus seat so that white passengers could sit in it.

Rosa Parks's arrest sparked the Montgomery Bus Boycott, during which the black citizens of Montgomery refused to ride the city's buses in protest over the bus system's policy of racial segregation. It was the first mass-action of the modern civil rights era, and served as an inspiration to other civil rights activists across the nation.

Martin Luther King, Jr., a Baptist minister who endorsed nonviolent civil disobedience, emerged as leader of the Boycott.

Following a November 1956 ruling by the Supreme Court that segregation on public buses was unconstitutional, the bus boycott ended successfully. It had lasted 381 days.

Rosa Parks's arrest

Rosa Parks was arrested on December 1, 1955, in Montgomery, Alabama for failing to give up her bus seat-so that it would be available for white passengers-when instructed to do so by the bus's driver.

Parks was arrested at a time in American history when, under Jim Crow laws, African Americans faced discrimination and segregation across the South. Jim Crow bus laws in Montgomery at the time of Parks' arrest established a section for whites at the front of the bus, and a section for blacks in the back. The law required that when the white section filled, black passengers in the "colored section" give up their seats and move further back.

Rosa Parks was forty-two years old, married, regularly attended church, and worked as a seamstress in a downtown department store. She had also been active in her local chapter of the NAACP for more than a decade. Four days before her arrest she had attended a large meeting at which the August 1955 murder of Emmett Till had been discussed by a member of the Regional Council of Negro Leadership. She later recounted that Emmett Till was on her mind the evening of her arrest.

Origins of the bus boycott

Martin Luther King, Jr., a little-known, twenty-six year old Baptist minister with a doctorate from Boston University, led the boycott. During the boycott he began his rise to national and international prominence in the US Civil Rights Movement. Drawing on his study of nonviolent civil disobedience in the teachings of Henry David Thoreau and Mahatma Gandhi, King delivered a message of nonviolent protest against racial injustice in eloquent, powerful sermons and speeches. On the boycott's first day, speaking before a crowd of more than 5,000 black citizens, he said:

The boycott succeeds

African American men, women, and children stopped taking the bus, and instead carpooled or walked to their destinations. Most bus riders had been African American, and with the precipitous decline in ridership, bus company revenues collapsed. The boycott became major news as the nation's television networks, newspapers, and major news magazines covered it.

The leaders of the boycott brought suit, demanding the end of segregation on public buses in Montgomery. The suit took months to make its way through the judicial system, but by mid-November 1956 the US Supreme Court-basing its decision on the 14th Amendment's guarantee of equal protection under the law-ruled that segregated public buses were unconstitutional. The boycott was a success.

Many of the elements in the Montgomery Bus Boycott-organization, community solidarity, nonviolence, and the intervention of the federal government-proved to be the groundwork on which the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s would be based.

What do you think?

Why did the boycott succeed? Were the actions of both the citizens of Montgomery as well as those of the US Supreme Court necessary for its success?

How do you think people around the world who looked to the United States as a beacon of freedom might have felt and thought when they read about the boycott and the laws and practices that led to it?

What do you think led Rosa Parks to decide to take a stand against discrimination and segregation?

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The Montgomery Bus Boycott (article) | Khan Academy

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Learn for free about math, art, computer programming, economics, physics, chemistry, biology, medicine, finance, history, and more. Khan Academy is a nonprofit with the mission of providing a free, world-class education for anyone, anywhere.

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Chisholm became an expert on early education and child welfare. She served as director of New York City's Hamilton-Madison Child Care Center from 1953 to 1959. She then moved to the city's bureau of child welfare. She worked as an educational consultant in the day-care division. In 1964 Chisholm won a seat in the New York state legislature. She served in that post until 1968, when she was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives.

In Congress, Chisholm became a champion of causes associated with women's rights and with minority voters. She was a founding member of the Congressional Black Caucus and the National Women's Political Caucus. She retired from Congress in 1983.

Chisholm wrote two books about her life, Unbought and Unbossed (1970) and The Good Fight (1973). She was a professor at Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, Massachusetts, from 1983 to 1987. Chisholm died on January 1, 2005, in Ormond Beach, Florida. She was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2015.

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Chisholm became an expert on early education and child welfare. She served as director of New York City's Hamilton-Madison Child Care Center from 1953 to 1959. She then moved to the city's bureau of child welfare. She worked as an educational consultant in the day-care division.

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Shirley Anita St. Hill Chisholm (November 30, 1924 - January 1, 2005) was an American politician, educator, and writer. She was a member of the Democratic Party.

Chisholm was born in Brooklyn, New York City. She studied at Brooklyn College.

She was a member of the United States House of Representatives for New York's 2nd district. She served as a representative from 1969 to 1983.

She ran for President of the United States in 1972 as a Democrat. She lost the primary to George McGovern. Chisholm became the first major-party black candidate for President of the United States.

Shirley Anita St. Hill was born in Brooklyn, New York, of immigrant parents. Her father, Charles Christopher St. Hill, was born in British Guiana and arrived in the United States via Antilla, Cuba, on April 10, 1923, aboard the S.S. Munamar in New York City. Her mother, Ruby Seale, was born in Christ Church, Barbados, and arrived in New York City aboard the S.S. Pocone on March 8, 1921. At age three, Chisholm was sent to Barbados to live with her maternal grandmother, Emaline Seale, in Christ Church; where she attended the Vauxhall Primary School. She did not return until roughly seven years later when she arrived in New York City on May 19, 1934, aboard the S.S. Narissa. In her 1970 autobiography Unbought and Unbossed, she wrote: "Years later I would know what an important gift my parents had given me by seeing to it that I had my early education in the strict, traditional, British-style schools of Barbados. If I speak and write easily now, that early education is the main reason." Chisholm is an alumna of Girls' High School, she earned her BA from Brooklyn College in 1946 and later earned her MA from Columbia University in elementary education in 1952. She was a member of the Delta Sigma Theta Sorority.

From 1953 to 1959, she was director of the Hamilton-Madison Child Care Center. From 1959 to 1964, she was an educational consultant for the Division of Day Care.

In 1964, Chisholm ran for and was elected to the New York State Legislature. In 1968, she ran as the Democratic candidate for New York's 12th District congressional seat, and was elected to the House of Representatives. Defeating Republican candidate James Farmer, Chisholm became the first black woman elected to Congress. Chisholm joined the Congressional Black Caucus in 1971 as one of its founding members.

As a fresh black woman, Chisholm was assigned to the House Agricultural Committee. Given her urban district, she felt the placement was irrelevant to her constituents and shocked many by asking for reassignment. She was then placed on the Veterans' Affairs Committee. Soon after, she voted for Hale Boggs as House Majority Leader over John Conyers. As a reward for her support, Boggs assigned her to the much-prized Education and Labor Committee, which was her preferred committee. She was the third highest-ranking member of this committee when she retired from Congress.

All those Chisholm hired for her office were women, half of them black. Chisholm said that during her New York legislative career, she had faced much more discrimination because she was a woman than because she was black.

In the 1972 U.S. presidential election, she made a bid for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination. She survived three assassination attempts during the campaign. She campaigned in 12 states and won the Louisiana, Mississippi, and New Jersey primaries earning 152 delegates. However, she lost the hotly contested primaries to George McGovern at the convention in Miami Beach, Florida. At the 1972 Democratic National Convention, as a symbolic gesture, McGovern opponent Hubert H. Humphrey released his black delegates to Chisholm, giving her a total of 152 first-ballot votes for the nomination. Chisholm's base of support was ethnically diverse and included the National Organization for Women.

Chisholm said she ran for the office "in spite of hopeless odds... to demonstrate the sheer will and refusal to accept the status quo." Among the volunteers who were inspired by her campaign was Barbara Lee, who continued to be politically active and was elected as a congresswoman 25 years later. Betty Friedan and Gloria Steinem attempted to run as Chisholm delegates in New York.

Chisholm created controversy when she visited rival and ideological opposite George Wallace in the hospital soon after his shooting in May 1972, during the 1972 presidential primary campaign. Several years later, when Chisholm worked on a bill to give domestic workers the right to a minimum wage, Wallace helped gain votes of enough Southern congressmen to push the legislation through the House.

From 1977 to 1981, during the 95th Congress and 96th Congress, Chisholm was elected to a position in the House Democratic leadership, as Secretary of the House Democratic Caucus.

Throughout her tenure in Congress, Chisholm worked to improve opportunities for inner-city residents. She was a vocal opponent of the draft and supported spending increases for education, health care and other social services, and reductions in military spending.

In 1970, she authored a child care bill. The bill passed the House and the Senate, but was vetoed by President Richard Nixon, who called it "the Sovietization of American children".

In the area of national security and foreign policy, Chisholm worked for the revocation of Internal Security Act of 1950. She opposed the American involvement in the Vietnam War and the expansion of weapon developments. During the Jimmy Carter administration, she called for better treatment of Haitian refugees.

Personal life

Chisholm was married to Conrad Chisholm, a Jamaican private investigator from 1949 to 1977. In 1978, she married Arthur Hardwick, Jr., a Buffalo businessman who died in 1986. Chisholm had no children and moved to Florida when she retired.

Retirement and death

Chisholm announced her retirement from Congress in 1982. Her seat was won by a fellow Democrat, Major Owens, in 1983.

After retirement she resumed her career in education, teaching politics and women's studies and being named to the Purington Chair at Mount Holyoke College from 1983 to 1987. In 1985 she was a visiting scholar at Spelman College. In 1984 and 1988, she campaigned for Jesse Jackson for the presidential elections. In 1990, Chisholm, along with 15 other African-American women and men, formed the African-American Women for Reproductive Freedom. In 1993, then-President Bill Clinton nominated her to the ambassadorship to Jamaica, but she could not serve due to poor health. In the same year she was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame.

Chisholm retired to Florida and died on January 1, 2005, in Ormond Beach near Daytona Beach. She was buried in Forest Lawn Cemetery in Buffalo, New York.

In February 2005, Shirley Chisholm '72: Unbought and Unbossed, a documentary film, aired on U.S public television. It chronicled Chisholm's 1972 bid for the Democratic presidential nomination. It was directed and produced by independent, African-American filmmaker Shola Lynch. The film was featured at the Sundance Film Festival in 2004. On April 9, 2006, the film was announced as a winner of a Peabody Award.

In 1975, Chisholm was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Laws degree by Smith College.

In 1993, she was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame.

In 2002, scholar Molefi Kete Asante listed Shirley Chisholm on his list of 100 Greatest African Americans.

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Shirley Anita St. Hill Chisholm (November 30, 1924 - January 1, 2005) was an American politician, educator, and writer. She was a member of the Democratic Party. Chisholm was born in Brooklyn, New York City. She studied at Brooklyn College. She was a member of the United States House of Representatives for New York's 2nd district.

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Born on November 30, 1924, Shirley Chisholm was the first African-American woman to serve in the United States Congress. An early education expert from New York City, Chisholm began working with local political organizations and in 1964 won a seat on the New York state legislature, representing her Brooklyn neighborhood. Four years later, she was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives.

Chisholm was outspoken and brave. Instead of accepting her seat on the Agriculture Committee-even though she represented people from a city-she complained to leaders until they reassigned her to an education committee. When she was blocked from television debates after she decided to run for president (the first African-American woman to do so), she sued. She fought for equal rights for women, minorities, immigrants, and the poor.

Serving seven terms (14 years) in Congress, Chisholm helped open up opportunities for people like President Barack Obama and Senator Elizabeth Warren. But she said she didn't want to be remembered as the first woman or African American to do something. She wanted to be remembered as someone who "had guts." She died on January 1, 2005.

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Born on November 30, 1924, Shirley Chisholm was the first African-American woman to serve in the United States Congress. An early education expert from New York City, Chisholm began working with local political organizations and in 1964 won a seat on the New York state legislature, representing her Brooklyn neighborhood.

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Representative John Lewis, longtime congressman for Georgia, died on Friday after a battle with pancreatic cancer. He was 80 years old. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi confirmed Lewis's death in a statement on Monday. "Today, America mourns the loss of one of the greatest heroes of American history," she said.

Lewis devoted his life to fighting for equality for all Americans. He served in the United States Congress for more than 30 years, and he was one of the last living leaders of the civil rights movement. He marched beside Martin Luther King Jr. in the 1960s, and he used what he learned to promote activism among generations of young people.

Civil Rights Leader

Lewis was born in Troy, Alabama, in 1940. At the time, the South was segregated. Laws were in place that made Black people second-class citizens. "I had grown up in rural Alabama very, very poor," he wrote in TIME. "I saw signs that said 'White' and 'Colored' . . . And I would ask my mother, my father, my grandparents, 'Why? Why is that?' And they'd say, 'That's the way it is.'"

Lewis could not accept that answer. At 18, he heard King speak on the radio. It spurred him to action. He took part in sit-ins at segregated lunch counters in Tennessee. In 1961, he joined the first Freedom Riders. These demonstrators, Black and white, traveled by bus through the South to challenge segregation at bus terminals.

Lewis was one of the organizers of the March on Washington, in 1963. That's where King made his "I Have a Dream" speech. Lewis also spoke at the event. "How long can we be patient?" he asked the hundreds of thousands who'd gathered in the nation's capital. "We want our freedom, and we want it now."

A few years later, Lewis led another of the most famous marches in American history. In March 1965, he and 600 people walked from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, to push for voting rights for Black people. At Selma's Edmund Pettus Bridge, they were met by police, who ordered them to turn back. The protesters refused, and were beaten by police. Television coverage of the violence outraged the nation and drew support for the Voting Rights Act. On August 6, President Lyndon Johnson signed it into law.

On to Congress

In 1986, Lewis started his career as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives. He became known as "the conscience of Congress," earning respect from leaders in both parties. In 2016, a shooting in Orlando, Florida, left 49 dead. Lewis led memebers of Congress in a 25-hour sit-in to force the House to vote on gun control.

This June, George Floyd was killed by police in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Lewis viewed the protests that followed as a continuation of his work. Speaking to CBS This Morning, he said, "It was very moving, very moving to see hundreds of thousands of people from all over America and around the world take to the streets-to speak up, to speak out, to get into what I call 'good trouble.' . . . There will be no turning back."

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Representative John Lewis, longtime congressman for Georgia, died on Friday after a battle with pancreatic cancer. He was 80 years old. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi confirmed Lewis's death in a statement on Monday. "Today, America mourns the loss of one...

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Growing up in the South during a time when Black people did not have the same rights as white people, John Lewis faced racial discrimination-and he did not like it. He fought for equality during the civil rights movement, marching with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., against oppression and risking his life for justice. Through grit and determination, he went from sitting on bus seats as an act of civil disobedience during the Freedom Rides to sitting in the halls of Congress as a champion for civil liberties.

Lewis was born on February 21, 1940, in rural Alabama. His parents were sharecroppers who worked on a farm picking cotton for landowners. As a young boy, Lewis also picked cotton and did other farm duties with his family. It was hard work, but he enjoyed being with the chickens. Lewis wanted to be a pastor, so he would preach to his feathered flock in the chicken coop while tending to the hens and counting their eggs. His inspiration was King, whose words Lewis listened to on the radio.

Lewis studied at the American Baptist Theological Seminary in Nashville and helped organize lunch sit-ins against segregated restaurants, where Black and white people could not eat together, Sometimes he'd be arrested for his actions, but Lewis accepted being thrown in jail for fighting for what is right, or "good trouble," as he'd later call it. For instance, he was one of 13 original Freedom Riders, who travelled by bus to test laws that were supposed to protect Black people. But he was beaten and jailed several times on his journey.

Lewis's most memorable act of "good trouble" occurred on March 7, 1965, when he led a group of 600 people across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, on what would be known as "Bloody Sunday."

Lewis, who was then only 25 years old, marched across the bridge in the fight for equal voting rights for Black people. In his bag he carried just a toothbrush, toothpaste, two books, an orange, and an apple. But he and the other peaceful protesters were met by police officers carrying batons. The police fired tear gas onto the crowd and attacked them, leaving many bloody and wounded. Lewis was knocked unconscious.

The events of Bloody Sunday were caught on camera and televised to the country. They attracted more protests. King joined Lewis and thousands of other protesters to march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama. Their efforts eventually led to the signing of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which outlawed the discriminatory practices that prevented many Black Americans from voting.

Lewis eventually became a congressman from Georgia in 1987, serving until his death from pancreatic cancer at the age of 80 on July 17, 2020. During his time in Congress he continued his work for civil rights and encouraged young people do the hard work necessary to change the country by getting into "good trouble."

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How this congressman used 'good trouble' to fight for civil rights

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John Robert Lewis (February 21, 1940 - July 17, 2020) was an American politician and civil rights leader. He was the U.S. Representative for GA's 5th congressional district from 1987 until his death in 2020. He was the dean of the Georgia congressional delegation. He was a member of the Democratic Party.

Lewis, who as chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) was one of the "Big Six" leaders of groups who organized the 1963 March on Washington.

John Lewis was born in 1940 in Troy, Alabama to Eddie Lewis and Willie Mae Lewis (née Carter), who were sharecroppers in Pike County, Alabama. Sharecroppers were people who were allowed to rent a part of a piece of land for return of a share of the crops they harvested. He was the third of ten children.

He experienced segregation as a young boy in the Southern United States. When he went to visit relatives in the Northern US, he learned that places there were integrated and served Black people and white people equally.

Personal Life

Lewis married Lilian Miles in 1968. They had a son, John-Miles. Lillian died on December 31, 2012.

In December 2019, Lewis was diagnosed with stage IV pancreatic cancer. He died in Atlanta, Georgia on July 17, 2020 from the disease, aged 80.

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John Lewis (civil rights leader) for Kids

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John Robert Lewis (February 21, 1940 - July 17, 2020) was an American politician and civil rights leader. He was the U.S. Representative for GA's 5th congressional district from 1987 until his death in 2020. He was the dean of the Georgia congressional delegation. He was a member of the Democratic Party.

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Lewis attended Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee. He became active in the civil rights movement and organized sit-ins at lunch counters and other segregated public places. He also participated in the 1961 Freedom Rides, when whites and blacks rode buses together into the South to protest segregation. In 1963 he was elected chairman of SNCC. That year Lewis helped organize and spoke at the historic March on Washington, where King delivered his famous "I Have a Dream" speech. Although Lewis was still only in his early 20s, he was recognized as one of the Big Six leaders of the civil rights movement.

In 1965 Lewis led more than 600 peaceful protestors across a bridge in Selma, Alabama, in response to local violence against civil rights activists. The protestors were attacked by law officers, and more than 50 people, including Lewis, were hospitalized. The day became known as "Bloody Sunday." The event helped pass the Voting Rights Act, which outlawed the many ways used to prevent African Americans from voting.

After leaving SNCC in 1966, Lewis remained active in the civil rights movement. He became director of the Voter Education Project. In 1977 President Jimmy Carter put Lewis in charge of a federal volunteer agency that included the Peace Corps. In 1981 Lewis was elected to the Atlanta city council. Five years later he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives for the first time.

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Lewis attended Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee. He became active in the civil rights movement and organized sit-ins at lunch counters and other segregated public places. He also participated in the 1961 Freedom Rides, when whites and blacks rode buses together into the South to protest segregation.

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His brilliant speaking and writing made Frederick Douglass a leader of the movement to abolish slavery. Douglass was once enslaved himself. He was the first African American...

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Frederick Douglass (born Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey; c. February 1818 - February 20, 1895) was an American social reformer, abolitionist (someone who wanted to end slavery), orator, writer, and statesman.

After escaping from slavery in Maryland, he became a national leader of the abolitionist movement in Massachusetts and New York, becoming famous for his speaches and antislavery writings.

Douglass wrote several autobiographies, describing his experiences as a slave in his Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave (1845), which became a bestseller, and was influential in promoting the cause of abolition, as was his second book, My Bondage and My Freedom (1855).

Following the Civil War, Douglass remained an active campaigner against slavery and wrote his last autobiography, Life and Times of Frederick Douglass. The book covers events both during and after the Civil War.

Douglass also actively supported women's suffrage, and held several public offices.

Without his approval, Douglass became the first African-American nominated for Vice President of the United States as the running mate and Vice Presidential nominee of Victoria Woodhull, on the Equal Rights Party ticket.

Douglass was a firm believer in the equality of all peoples, be they white, black, female, Native American, or Chinese immigrants.

On February 20, 1895, Douglass attended a meeting of the National Council of Women in Washington, D.C. During that meeting, he was brought to the platform and received a standing ovation. Shortly after he returned home, Douglass died of a massive heart attack. He was 77.

His funeral was held at the Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church. Thousands of people passed by his coffin to show their respect. Although Douglass had attended several churches in the nation's capital, he had a pew here and donated two standing candelabras when this church had moved to a new building in 1886. He also gave many lectures there, including his last major speech, "The Lesson of the Hour."

Douglass' coffin was transported back to Rochester, New York, where he had lived for 25 years, longer than anywhere else in his life. He was buried next to Anna in the Douglass family plot of Mount Hope Cemetery, and Helen joined them in 1903.

Legacy and honors

In 1899, a statue of Frederick Douglass was unveiled in Rochester, New York, making Douglass the first African-American to be so memorialized in the country.

In 1921, members of the Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity (the first African-American intercollegiate fraternity) designated Frederick Douglass as an honorary member. Douglass thus became the only man to receive an honorary membership posthumously.

The Frederick Douglass Memorial Bridge, sometimes referred to as the South Capitol Street Bridge, just south of the US Capitol in Washington DC, was built in 1950 and named in his honor.

In 1962, his home in Anacostia (Washington, DC) became part of the National Park System, and in 1988 was designated the Frederick Douglass National Historic Site.

In 1965, the U.S. Postal Service honored Douglass with a stamp in the Prominent Americans series.

In 1999, Yale University established the Frederick Douglass Book Prize for works in the history of slavery and abolition, in his honor. The annual $25,000 prize is administered by the Gilder Lehrman Institute for American History and the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition at Yale.

In 2002, scholar Molefi Kete Asante named Frederick Douglass to his list of 100 Greatest African Americans.

In 2003, Douglass Place, the rental housing units that Douglass built in Baltimore in 1892 for blacks, was listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

In 2007, the former Troup-Howell bridge, which carried Interstate 490 over the Genesee River in Rochester, was redesigned and renamed the Frederick Douglass - Susan B. Anthony Memorial Bridge.

In 2010, the Frederick Douglass Memorial was unveiled at Frederick Douglass Circle at the northwest corner of Central Park in New York City.

Also in 2010, the New York Writers Hall of Fame inducted Douglass in its inaugural class.

On June 12, 2011, Talbot County, Maryland, honored Douglass by installing a seven-foot bronze statue of Douglass on the lawn of the county courthouse in Easton, Maryland.

On June 19, 2013, a statue of Douglass by Maryland artist Steven Weitzman was unveiled in the United States Capitol Visitor Center as part of the National Statuary Hall Collection, the first statue representing the District of Columbia.

On September 15, 2014, under the leadership of Governor Martin O'Malley a portrait of Frederick Douglass was unveiled at his official residence in Annapolis, MD. This painting, by artist Simmie Knox, is the first African-American portrait to grace the walls of Government House. Commissioned by Eddie C. Brown, founder of Brown Capital Management, LLC, the painting was presented at a reception by the Governor.

On January 7, 2015, as a parting gift in honor of Governor Martin O'Malley's last Board of Public Works a portrait of Frederick Douglass was gifted to him by Peter Franchot. Two editions of this artwork, by artist Benjamin Jancewicz, were purchased from Galerie Myrtis by Peter Franchot and his wife Ann both as a gift for the Governor as well as to add to their own collection. The Governor's edition now hangs in his office.

In November 2015, the University of Maryland dedicated Frederick Douglass Plaza, an outdoor space where visitors can read quotes and see a bronze statue of Douglass.

On February 1, 2016, Google celebrated him with a Google Doodle.

On October 18, 2016, the Council of the District of Columbia voted that the city's new name as a State is to be "Washington, D.C.", and that "D.C." is to stand for "Douglass Commonwealth."

On April 3, 2017, the U.S. Mint began issuing quarters with an image of Frederick Douglass on the reverse, with the Frederick Douglass National Historic Site in the background. The coin is part of the America the Beautiful Quarters series.

On May 20, 2018, Douglass was awarded an honorary law degree from the University of Rochester. The degree, which was accepted by Douglass' great-great-great-grandson, was the first posthumous honorary degree that the university had granted.

His final public lecture took place on February 1, 1895 at West Chester University. This was only 19 days before his death. Today, there is a statue of him on the universities campus commemorating this event. The Frederick Douglass Institute has a West Chester University program for advancing multicultural studies across the curriculum and for deepening the intellectual heritage of Douglass.

In New York State there is the "Let's Have Tea" sculpture of Douglass and Susan B. Anthony.

On September 30, 2019, Newcastle University opened the 'Frederick Douglass Centre', a key teaching component for their School of Computing and Business School. Frederick Douglass stayed in Newcastle upon Tyne in 1846 on a street adjacent to the new University campus.

A statue of Douglass located in Rochester, New York's Maplewood Park was vandalized and torn down over the weekend of July 4, 2020.

In 2020, Douglas Park in Chicago, which was named for U.S. Senator Stephen A. Douglas, was renamed to Douglass Park, in honor of Frederick and Anna Douglass. In the 1850s the senator was a proponent of letting each state decide whether or not to allow slavery. The name change was the result of a multi-year student-led campaign to rename the park.

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Frederick Douglass (born Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey; c. February 1818 - February 20, 1895) was an American social reformer, abolitionist (someone who wanted to end slavery), orator, writer, and statesman. After escaping from slavery in Maryland, he became a national leader of the abolitionist movement in Massachusetts and New York, becoming famous for his speaches and antislavery writings.

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In the years leading up to the Civil War, Frederick Douglass (February 1818—February 20, 1895) was the most powerful speaker and writer of the abolitionist movement. Frederick Douglass was born into slavery in Talbot County, Maryland. He was raised by…

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Kids learn about the biography of Frederick Douglass an enslaved person who taught himself to read and then became a leader in fighting for the civil rights of African-Americans and women.

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William Edward Burghardt "W.E.B" Du Bois was a prominent civil rights activist, journalist and sociologist who co-founded the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. He supported Pan-Africanism and opposed Booker T. Washington's Atlanta Compromise. Du Bois was the first African-American to earn a PhD from Harvard University.
See the fact file below for more information on W.E.B Du Bois or alternatively, you can download our comprehensive worksheet pack to utilise within the classroom or home environment.
Early Life

On February 23, 1868, W.E.B Du Bois was born in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. He was the son of Alfred and Mary Silvina, both descendants of mixed-race.

Young William grew up in a European-American community.

He considered himself a mulatto yet he received education from white teachers.

In 1885, Du Bois saw the manifestation of Jim Crow laws when he attended Fisk University, in Nashville Tennessee. From there, he began to see racism in America.

In 1888, he entered Harvard University for his bachelor's degree and graduated cum laude in 1890.

Upon earning his bachelor's degree, he pursued graduate studies in history and economics at the University of Berlin in 1892 under a study-abroad program by the Slater Fund fellowship.

In 1895, Du Bois became the first African-American to earn a PhD at Harvard University. His dissertation The Suppression of the African Slave Trade to the United States of America, 1638-1870, became the leading publication in Harvard Historical Series.

Decades later, he was awarded with an honorary doctoral degree from Humboldt-Universitat, formerly known as Friedrich-Wilhelms Universitat.

By 1896, he worked as an instructor at the University of Pennsylvania and pioneered sociological studies in urban communities. One of his first publications was The Philadelphia Negro: A Social Study.

Du Bois' Beliefs and Activism

In 1905, Du Bois founded the Niagara Movement, a protest group comprising African-American scholars and professionals. He also created and edited the Moon (1906) and Horizon (1907-10), as organs of the movement.

In 1909, he became one of the co-founders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and served as its publicity and research director until 1934.

In addition, Du Bois was the editor of NAACP's monthly magazine, The Crisis. It became one of the leading protest magazines that featured young African-American writers.

With his idea of Pan-Africanism, DuBois attended the First Universal Races Congress in London with black intellectuals from West Indies and Africa. Since then, pan-African congresses were held around the world. A number of resolutions were passed condemning African oppression.

Du Bois gained his national prominence when he publicly opposed Booker T. Washington's "Atlanta Compromise." While he was working as a professor at Atlanta University, Du Bois believed that Washington was not demanding equality for African-Americans.

In 1947, Du Bois wrote the famous "Appeal to the World" while serving as a consultant to the UN founding convention. He used his skills in writing to place African-American grievances before the United Nations.

After a year, he became the co-chairman of the Council of African Affairs. As a socialist, Du Bois attended peace conferences and travelled to China and Russia. By 1961, he joined the Communist Party in the United States.

In 1961, Ghana's president, Kwame Nkrumah, requested Du Bois be the director of the Encyclopedia Africana.

Death and Lasting Legacy

On August 27, 1963, on the eve of the March on Washington, Du Bois died in Accra, Ghana, at the age of 95.

He was regarded as a proponent of modern pan-Africanism. Moreover, Du Bois was credited with organizing congresses aiming to free African colonies from European rule.

Some of his most significant works include 21 books and over 100 published essays and articles. Furthermore, he edited and co-edited annual publications such as The Negro

Business, The Negro Artisan, The Negro Church, Economic Cooperation among Negro Americans, and The Negro American Family.

In 1911 and 1928, he wrote the novels The Quest of the Silver Fleece and Dark Princess: A Romance.

In 1935, he published Black Reconstruction in America, 1860-1880, which became one of his most significant works yet was highly criticized because of the Marxist concepts used to attack American historiography.

In 1951, he was awarded the Lenin Peace Prize by the USSR.

W.E.B Du Bois Worksheets

This is a double bundle addition which includes over 20 ready-to-use W.E.B Du Bois worksheets that are perfect for students to learn about William Edward Burghardt "W.E.B" Du Bois who was a prominent civil rights activist, journalist and sociologist who co-founded the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
Worksheet Collection 1:

W.E.B Du Bois Facts

Biography: A Scholar's Life

The Missing Link

Person Puzzles

Du Bois v. Washington

Years of Du Bois

Towards Pan-Africanism

The Souls of Black Folk

Quotable Lines

Visual Diary

Write Like Du Bois

Worksheet Collection 2:

W.E.B. Du Bois Facts

W.E.B. Of Facts

Make It Right

Word Search

Niagara Members

Event Research

Book Description

Clash Of Two Minds

Magazine Match

Passage Interpretation

My Encyclopedia

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W.E.B Du Bois Facts, Worksheets, Beliefs, Legacy & Biography For Kids

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Not ready to purchase a subscription? Click to download the free sample version Download sample William Edward Burghardt "W.E.B" Du Bois was a prominent civil rights activist, journalist and sociologist who co-founded the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. He supported Pan-Africanism and opposed Booker T. Washington's Atlanta Compromise.

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W.E.B. Du Bois was an early leader of the civil rights movement in the United States. His goal was to win equal rights for African Americans.

William Edward Burghardt Du Bois was born on February 23, 1868, in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. He went to Fisk University and to Harvard University. He earned a doctoral degree at Harvard in 1895.

Du Bois became a professor who studied and wrote about Black life in the United States. Du Bois believed that white people would think more highly of Black people if they knew more about them.

Du Bois disagreed with Booker T. Washington, another important African American leader. Washington opposed protest as a way to change society. Du Bois believed that Blacks could achieve racial equality only through protest. His most famous book, The Souls of Black Folk, encouraged Blacks to fight inequality.

In 1905 Du Bois began organizing groups to demand equal rights for Blacks. In 1909 he helped form the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).

Late in life Du Bois lost hope that the United States could solve its racial problems. He joined the Communist Party in 1961 and moved to Ghana, in West Africa. He became a citizen of Ghana in 1963. He died there on August 27, 1963.

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W.E.B. Du Bois was an early leader of the civil rights movement in the United States. His goal was to win equal rights for African Americans. William Edward Burghardt Du Bois was born on February 23, 1868, in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. He went to Fisk University and to Harvard University.

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Harriet Tubman cautiously watched the shore from one of three gunboats on the Combahee River. She and several hundred Union soldiers were preparing a raid to free hundreds of enslaved people from plantations in South Carolina, part of the Confederate states that were fighting against the Union during the Civil War of 1861 to 1865. Enemy soldiers were hiding nearby-success was far from guaranteed.

Harriet Tubman is well known for risking her life as a "conductor" in the Underground Railroad, which led escaped enslaved people to freedom in the North. But the former enslaved woman also served as a spy for the Union during the Civil War. Tubman decided to help the Union Army because she wanted freedom for all of the people who were forced into slavery, not just the few she could help on the Underground Railroad. And she convinced many other brave African Americans to join her as spies-even at the risk of being hanged if they were caught.

A SECRET MISSION

The Civil War was a time when women were usually restricted to traditional roles like cooking and nursing. Tubman did jobs like that, but as a spy she worked side-by-side with men, says Tom Allen, author of the Nat Geo book Harriet Tubman, Secret Agent.

In one of her most dramatic and dangerous roles, Tubman helped Colonel James Montgomery plan a raid to free enslaved people from plantations along the Combahee (pronounced "KUM-bee") River in South Carolina. Early on the morning of June 1, 1863, three gunboats carrying several hundred male soldiers along with Tubman set out on their mission.

Tubman had gathered key information from her scouts about the Confederate positions. She knew where they were hiding along the shore. She also found out where they had placed torpedoes, or barrels filled with gunpowder, in the water.

As the early morning fog lifted on some of the South's most important rice plantations, the Union expedition hit hard. The raiders set fire to buildings and destroyed bridges so they couldn't be used by the Confederate Army. They also freed about 750 enslaved people-men, women, children, and babies-and did not lose one soldier in the attack.

A WRITER'S QUEST

To gather the facts, Allen searched libraries and the internet, and even walked in Tubman's footsteps. "I went on the river just south of the area where the raid took place," he says. "You're in that kind of country she would have known, with plenty of mosquitoes and snakes, and dirt roads are still there today-so you get a feeling of what it was like."

Allen says his most exciting moment came when a librarian led him to written accounts by people who actually saw Tubman and the raiders in action.

"She was five feet two inches (157 centimeters) tall, born a slave, had a debilitating illness, and was unable to read or write. Yet here was this tough woman who could take charge and lead men," Allen says. "I got to like her pretty quickly because of her strength and her spirit."

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You might know her as a conductor for the Underground Railroad. She was also a spy.

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History for kids - Free history network for kids

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Harriet Tubman

Harriet Tubman was born into northern slavery in Maryland in 1820 and her sense of independence led her to escape in 1849.

She devoted her life to helping to rescue other slaves, including her own family and non-family members.

She worked with the 'Underground Railroad' which included hidden routes and homes to let escaped slaves move from location to location, offering food, shelter, and clothes as they headed to freedom.

Tubman played a major role in the abolitionist movement to allow Black Americans their freedom.

Harriet Tubman Facts for Kids

Harriet was born into slavery in Maryland.

She escaped and became a conductor on the Underground Railroad.

She helped over 300 slaves escape to freedom.

During the Civil War, she worked as a nurse and spy.

Harriet was the first woman to lead an armed expedition.

She donated land to build a home for the elderly.

Harriet Tubman is remembered as a hero and icon.

Traumatic Childhood as a Slave

As part of a slave family, Harriet witnessed and experienced a lot of violence as well as the separation of her various family members as they were sold into slavery to other plantations.

The violence that she experienced caused her to have severe seizures and headaches for the rest of her life, based on a head injury she received when she refused to help a slave owner capture another slave.

What Was The Underground Railroad

The Underground Railroad was not an actual railroad, but a secret network of people who helped slaves escape to freedom.

Harriet Tubman was a leader in this network, risking her life to help hundreds of slaves escape to the North.

Escaping and Leading the Underground Railroad

Tubman escaped slavery in 1849 and headed to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, using the Underground Railroad for her escape.

Once she was there, she set about a personal mission to help other members of her family to escape, which eventually became a mission for all other slaves.

She was given the title of 'Conductor' of the Underground Railroad and was so successful that many called her "General Tubman" as well as "Moses" for her leadership qualities.

Underground Railroad Route to Canada

By 1850, there was a passage of the "Fugitive Slaves Law" which allowed punishment for anyone who assisted in the escape of a slave and allowed slaves that escaped to the north to be captured and returned to their owners.

The change in dynamics meant a change in the ways that they had to help in freeing slaves.

Tubman changed the route of the Underground Railroad so that it was moved to Canada, where slavery was against the law.

Harriet Tubman's Allies: Douglass and Brown

During her time as an abolitionist, Harriet became friends with other members such as Frederick Douglass, who was also known to help in the Underground Railroad effort.

John Brown was another abolitionist that she came to know, although he promoted more violent methods for freedom than Tubman.

Harriet Tubman: Civil War Hero, Abolitionist, and Caretaker

Harriet helped in the Civil War effort as a cook and a nurse and helped by being an armed scout and spy for the Northern troops.

Tubman was the first woman to be the leader of an armed expedition and she led a group in the Combahee River Raid which freed over 700 South Carolina slaves.

Although Harriet became a famous voice for the abolitionist movement, she never did well financially. In 1859, Senator William H. Seward, also an abolitionist, sold Tubman some land in the country area of Auburn, New York.

The home became the haven for her family and friends as she cared for as many people as she could.

Generosity, National Recognition, and Commemoration

When author and admirer, Sarah H. Bradford, wrote Tubman's biography "Scenes in the Life of Harriet Tubman", the proceeds when to Harriet and her family.

Even with her poor economic condition, Tubman freely gave to those in need. In 1903 she donated a piece of her land to the African Methodist Episcopal Church and in 1908 The Harriet Tubman Home for the Aged was opened on the site.

In a survey taken near the end of the 20th Century, Tubman was listed as one of the most famous civilians in pre-Civil War American history.

The first two were Betsy Ross and Paul Revere. When Tubman passed away she was buried with full military honors at Auburn's Fort Hill Cemetery.

There are dozens of schools across the country that bear her name along with the Harriet Tubman Home in Auburn and the Harriet Tubman Museum in Cambridge.

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Harriet Tubman was born into northern slavery in Maryland in 1820 and her sense of independence led her to escape in 1849. She devoted her life to helping to rescue other slaves, including her own family and non-family members.

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Harriet Tubman (born Araminta Ross; c. 1820 or 1821 - March 10, 1913) was an African-American anti-slavery worker, and humanitarian. She was also a Union spy and the first black woman to lead an American mission during the American Civil War. She was born into slavery but she escaped. During her life, made 13 missions to rescue approximately 70 slaves, including family and friends. She used the Underground Railroad.

When Tubman was a child in Dorchester County, Maryland, she was whipped and beaten by many different masters. When she was very young, an angry overseer threw a heavy metal weight at another slave. The weight accidentally hit Tubman's head. That caused seizures, headaches, visions, and vivid dreams. She had those issues all her life. Tubman believed the visions and vivid dreams came from God.

In 1849, Tubman escaped to Philadelphia. Slaves were free there. She later returned to Maryland to rescue her family. She eventually guided dozens of other slaves to freedom. Slave owners offered large rewards for the return of their slaves. Tubman was never caught because nobody knew she was freeing the slaves.

When the American Civil War began, Tubman worked for the Union Army. She worked first as a cook and nurse. Later she was an armed (carrying weapons) scout and spy. She was the first woman to lead an armed group in the war. She guided the Combahee River Raid, which freed more than 700 slaves in South Carolina. After the war, she moved to her family home in Auburn, New York. There she cared for her aging parents. She became active in the women's suffrage movement in New York until she became ill. Near the end of her life, she lived in a home for elderly African Americans. Years earlier, she had helped create that home.

Early life and education

Tubman's mother Rit (whose father might have been a white man) was a cook. Her father Ben was a woodsman who did the timber work on a plantation. Ben and Rit married around 1808. According to court records, they had nine children together. Linah was born in 1808, Mariah Ritty in 1811, Soph in 1813, Robert in 1816, Minty (Harriet) in 1821, Ben in 1823, Rachel in 1825, Henry in 1830, and Moses in 1832.

Tubman's mother was owned by Mary Pattison Brodess and later her son, Edward. Rit was assigned to "the big house" as a cook and had very little time to be with her family. Harriet took care of a younger brother and a baby. This was typical in large families. When she was five or six years old, Brodess hired her out as a nursemaid to a woman named "Miss Susan." Tubman was ordered to watch the baby. Whenever the baby woke up and cried, Tubman was whipped. She later talked about a day when she was whipped five times before breakfast. She had the scars for the rest of her life. She found ways to resist such as running away for five days, wearing layers of clothing as protection against beatings, and fighting back.

As a child, Tubman also worked at the home of a planter named James Cook. She had to check muskrat traps in nearby marshes. She did that work even after she got measles. She became so ill that Cook sent her back to Brodess. After Harriet's mother nursed her back to health, Brodess hired her out again. Tubman spoke later of the intense homesickness she experienced as a child. She compared herself to "the boy on the Swanee River" (referring to Stephen Foster's song "Old Folks at Home"). When she was older and stronger, she did field and forest work, driving oxen, plowing, and hauling logs.

Head injury

One day when she was an adolescent, Tubman was sent to a dry-goods store for supplies. There she met a slave owned by another family. That slave had left the fields without permission. His overseer was angry and demanded that Tubman help restrain the young man. Tubman refused. As the slave ran away, the overseer threw a two-pound weight at him. The weight hit Tubman instead. Tubman said the weight "broke my skull." She later explained her belief that her hair - which "had never been combed and ... stood out like a bushel basket" - might have saved her life. Bleeding and unconscious, Tubman was returned to her owner's house and laid on the seat of a loom. She had no medical care for two days. She was sent back into the fields, "with blood and sweat rolling down my face until I couldn't see." She began having seizures and seemed to fall unconscious. She later said she was aware of her surroundings while appearing to be asleep. These episodes were frightening to her family. They couldn't wake her when she fell asleep suddenly and without warning. This condition remained with Tubman for the rest of her life. She may have suffered from temporal lobe epilepsy because of the injury.

Family and marriage

Around 1844, Tubman married a free black man named John Tubman. Little is known about him or their time together. Their marriage was complicated because she was a slave. Since children from the marriage would have the status of the mother, any children born to Harriet and John would become slaves. By this time, half the black population on the Eastern Shore of Maryland was free. Marriages between free people and enslaved people were common. Most African-American families had both free and enslaved members. It is possible that the couple might have planned to buy Tubman's freedom.

Escape from slavery

In 1849, Harriet became ill again. This reduced her value when Edward Brodess tried to sell her. Edward could not sell her and died shortly thereafter. Edward's wife, Eliza began working to sell the family's slaves. Tubman did not wait to be sold, but escaped with two of her brothers, Ben and Henry. Later, the two men had second thoughts about escaping and made Harriet return with them.

Soon afterward, Tubman escaped again, this time without her brothers. She later explained, "I had reasoned this out in my mind; there was one of two things I had a right to, liberty or death; if I could not have one, I would have the other."

John Brown and Harpers Ferry

In April of 1958, Tubman was introduced to the abolitionist John Brown. Harriet did not agree that violence should be used against white people as John Brown did, but she did help him by sharing her knowledge of support networks and resources in the border states. Brown asked Tubman, who he called "General Tubman," to gather former slaves who might be willing to join his fighting force.

On May 8, 1958, Bown held a meeting where he shared his plan for a raid on Harpers Ferry, Virginia (now West Virginia) Tubman helped with the plans, but when it was time for the attack, Tubman could not be contacted.

The raid failed; Brown was convicted of treason, murder, and inciting (starting) a slave rebellion. He was hanged in December.

In early 1859, abolitionist Republican U.S. Senator William H. Seward sold Tubman a small piece of land on the outskirts of Auburn, New York, for $1,200 ($36,191 in 2023). Her land in Auburn became a haven for Tubman's family and friends. For years, she took in relatives and boarders, offering a safe place for black Americans seeking a better life in the North.

American Civil War

When the Civil War broke out in 1861, Tubman saw a Union victory as a key step toward the abolition of slavery. Harriet hoped to offer her own expertise and skills to the Union cause, too, and soon she joined a group of abolitionists who helped fugitives.

Tubman served as a nurse in Port Royal, making medicines from local plants and helping soldiers suffering from dysentery. She helped men with smallpox and miraculously did not get the disease.

Scouting and the Combahee River Raid

When Lincoln finally issued the Emancipation Proclamation in January 1863, Tubman thought it was an important step toward the goal of freeing all black people from slavery. She began leading a band of scouts in land that was similar to where she grew up. She put her knowledge of how to travel secretly to good use and was able to give Colonel James Montgomery important information that helped in his capture of Jacksonville, Florida.

Later that year, Tubman helped Montgomery again. She became the first woman to lead an armed assault during the Civil War. Tubman guided three steamboats around Confederate mines in the waters that led to the shore. As Montgomery and his troops set fire to several plantations, the steamboats sounded their whistles, slaves throughout the area ran to the boats. Confederate troops were too late to stop the steamboats that were packed full of slaves, and the boats took off toward Beaufort, South Carolina.

More than 750 slaves were rescued in the Combahee River Raid. For two more years, Tubman worked for the Union, helping the newly freed slaves, scouting into Confederate territory, and nursing wounded soldiers in Virginia. She also made some trips back to Auburn to visit her family and care for her parents. After the Confederacy surrendered in April of 1865, Tubman served for several more months and headed home to Auburn.

Even though Harriet Tubman served the U.S. government for years, she did not receive a regular salary. Tubman spent her last years in Auburn, tending to her family and other people in need. She worked various jobs to support her elderly parents and took in boarders to help pay the bills. Her friends and supporters from her earlier abolition days help raise funds to support her.

Suffragist activism

In her later years, Tubman worked to advance the cause of women's suffrage. She worked with other women such as Susan B. Anthony and Emily Howland. Harriet traveled to cities to speak out in favor of women's voting rights. She described her actions during and after the Civil War and used the sacrifices of countless women throughout modern history as proof of women's equality with men.

AME Zion Church, illness, and death

At the turn of the 20th century, Tubman became involved with the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church in Auburn. In 1903, she donated a piece she owned to the church, under the instruction that it be made into a home for "aged and indigent (poor) colored people." The home opened five years later. Tubman was upset that the church ordered residents to pay a $100 entrance fee. She wished that people would not have to pay anything to live there.

In the late 1890s, Harriet had brain surgery to help with the seizures and headaches that continued to plague her. The surgery helped her for a time. By 1911, Tubman began living in the rest home she began, the Harriet Tubman Home for the Aged. She died of pneumonia in 1913 and was buried with semi-military honors at Fort Hill Cemetery in Auburn.

Tubman has had many museums and historical sites named after her. She is the subject of works of art including songs, novels, sculptures, paintings, movies, and theatrical productions.

Harriet Tubman quotes

"I said to the Lord, 'I'm going to hold steady on to you, and I know you will see me through.'"

"I would make a home for them in the North, and the Lord helping me, I would bring them all here."

"If a person would send another into bondage, he would, it appears to me, be bad enough to send him into hell if he could."

"I ain't got no heart to go and see the sufferings of my people played on the stage."

"I was the conductor of the Underground Railroad for eight years, and I can say what most conductors can't say; I never ran my train off the track and I never lost a passenger."

"I looked at my hands to see if I was the same person now that I was free."

Interesting facts about Harriet Tubman

When Harriet was helping slaves to freedom, her code name was "Moses" and she was known as the "black ghost."

She used spirituals and songs as coded messages for her followers.

When she had brain surgery to help with her seizures and headaches, she did not receive anesthesia for the procedure. Instead, she bit down on a bullet as she had seen Civil War soldiers do.

Harriet Tubman has two National Park sites dedicated to her: the Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad National Historical Park in Dorchester County, Maryland, and the Harriet Tubman National Historical Park in Auburn, New York.

Images for kids

Notice in the Cambridge Democrat newspaper offering a reward of US$100 ($3,260 in 2023) for the capture and return of "Minty" (Harriet Tubman) and her brothers Henry and Ben, after they escaped on September 17, 1849

Frederick Douglass, who worked for slavery's abolition alongside Tubman, praised her in print.

Tubman's great-niece, Eva Stewart Northrup, launching the SS Harriet Tubman in 1944.

In Spanish: Harriet Tubman para niños

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Kids learn about the biography of Harriet Tubman, leader in the Underground Railroad who led many of the enslaved to freedom.

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Sojourner Truth

Truth was born Isabella Baumfree in 17971 and born into a slave family in New York. She was sold at 11 years old along with a herd of sheep for $100. She suffered abuse as a slave and escaped to freedom, taking her infant daughter with her. She became an avid voice for the freedom of slaves and women's rights and this was unusual during a time when neither Black Americans, but especially not Black American women spoke up. She decided to take the self-given name of Sojourner Truth in 1843.

Sojourner's life as a young woman and a slave didn't allow her to marry the man, also a slave that she loved. Instead, her owner made her marry another slave. Truth was one of the most powerful people in the abolitionist movement and when the State of New York freed all of the slaves in 1827, she became a vocal member to carry the message of freedom. When she found out that her son, whom she had left behind, had been sold to another slave owner, she became the first Black woman to take the case to court and eventually secured the release of her son.

Truth joined organizations in 1844 that supported both abolitionist's beliefs and women's rights, including the Northampton Association of Education and Industry in Massachusetts. All of the members lived in a self-sufficient community on 500 acres. During this time, Truth also met other leading abolitionist leaders including Frederick Douglass, William Lloyd Garrison and David Ruggles. Garrison, who published the activist newspaper, published Truth's memoirs in 1850 with the title: "The Narrative of Sojourner Truth: A Northern Slave". Since she could not read or write, she dictated the story to a writer.

During this same time, Sojourner began touring at speaking engagements, including the first National Women's Rights Conventions in Massachusetts and accompanied abolitionist George Thompson, where they spoke to large groups of people on human rights and slavery. Truth became one of the few well-known former slaves to rise to popularity along with Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass, who spoke out on the topic of enslaved people.

It was in 1851 that Truth attended the Ohio Women's Rights Convention in Akron and gave her famous speech "Ain't I a Woman?". The speech was published in a number of anti-slavery publications, but without the famous title itself. She became a well-known individual during this time and made use of it when the Civil War took over the attention of the country, acting to recruit Black Americans to fight for the cause of freedom for the North.

She contributed to the National Freedman's Relief Association in Washington, D.C. and met with President Lincoln on at least one occasion, sharing her experiences and beliefs. Even after the Emancipation Proclamation was enacted by President Lincoln, Sojourner continued to call to action the belief that all Americans should have the right to own property and the desegregation methods that were needed in public transportation.

Truth spent her life committed to the concept of freedom for all and became one of the most outspoken women for women's rights as well as prison reform.

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Truth was born Isabella Baumfree in 17971 and born into a slave family in New York. She was sold at 11 years old along with a herd of sheep for $100. She suffered abuse as a slave and escaped to freedom, taking her infant daughter with her.

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Kids learn about the biography of Sojourner Truth, an enslaved person who escaped, fought for her son in the courts, and then became an abolitionist working for the freedom of all of the enslaved.

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Sojourner Truth spoke out against slavery and for women’s rights in the 1800s. Her courage and powerful way of speaking helped the causes of both African Americans and women…

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Courtesy Carolina Digital Library and Archives (P2-M983-P327)

Pauli Murray was born on November 20, 1910 in Baltimore, Maryland, the daughter of Agnes and William Murray. Her father, a Howard University graduate, taught in the Baltimore public schools. Both of Murray's parents died when she was a child. Her mother suffered from a brain hemorrhage and died in 1914. Her father was the victim of typhoid fever and died in 1923.

Despite such heartbreaking tragedy, Murray pursued her life goals. In 1933 she graduated from Hunter College in New York City, New York. Despite a stellar academic record, Murray in 1938 was denied admission into the University of North Carolina Law School in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. She later enrolled in the Howard University Law School in Washington, D.C. and graduated in 1944. Not long afterwards, Murray sought admission to Harvard University Law School in Cambridge, Massachusetts for an advanced law degree but was denied admission because of her gender. She enrolled at the University of California at Berkeley where she received a master of law degree in 1945. Twenty years later, in 1965, she became the first African American awarded a J.S.D. (a law doctorate) from Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. Her degree was based on her dissertation, "Roots of the Racial Crisis: Prologue to Policy."

Murray argued that her experiences encountering and overcoming racial and gender discrimination gave her special insight into the nature of racial and sexual hierarchies in the U.S. and wrote about its various manifestations in America's legal history. Murray coined the term "Jane Crow and Jim Crow" to describe the impact of dual discrimination. She also joined both the civil rights movement and the feminist movement. In 1966 Murray was one of the founders of the National Organization for Women (NOW) with feminist icon Betty Friedan.

Murray's life took an abrupt turn when at the age of 62 she entered a seminary and became in 1977 the first black female priest ordained by the Episcopal Church. On July 1, 1985, cancer claimed the life of Pauli Murray in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Her autobiography Song in a Weary Throat: an American Pilgrimage was published posthumously in 1987.

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Pauli Murray was born on November 20, 1910 in Baltimore, Maryland, the daughter of Agnes and William Murray. Her father, a Howard University graduate, taught in the Baltimore public schools. Both of Murray's parents died when she was a child. Her mother suffered from a ... Read MorePauli Murray (1910-1985)

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was born in Baltimore, Maryland on November 20, 1910, the fourth of six children to Agnes Fitzgerald and William Murray. Tragically, Agnes Fitzgerald Murray died of a cerebral hemorrhage in 1914. William Murray, a graduate of Howard University, was a teacher and later a principal in the Baltimore public school system. He suffered from depression exacerbated by the long-term effects of typhoid fever and was eventually confined to Crownsville State Hospital where he was murdered by a white guard in 1923. Orphaned at a young age, Murray went to live with her aunt and namesake, Pauline Fitzgerald Dame, and her grandparents, Robert George and Cornelia Smith Fitzgerald, in Durham, North Carolina.

After graduating from Hillside High School in 1926 with a certificate of distinction, Murray moved to New York City. S/he* attended Hunter College and financed their* studies with various jobs, ultimately graduating in 1933 with a degree in English Literature. It was at this time and throughout the 1930s that Murray's struggles with gender-and their resulting expansive view of gender itself-became central to their life. S/he changed their birth name from "Anna Pauline" to "Pauli." A photo album from this era, The Life and Times of an American Called Pauli Murray, included early "selfies" captioned "The Dude," "The Vagabond," "The Acrobat," "The Crusader," and "The Imp," among others. It was at this point in their life that Murray pursued gender-affirming treatments, including hormone therapy, which s/he was denied. At the same time, Murray worked for the Works Projects Administration (WPA) and as a teacher at the New York City Remedial Reading Project. S/he wrote fervently; Pauli's articles and poems were published in various magazines including Common Sense and The Crisis, a publication of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).

Murray quickly became involved in the civil rights movement. In 1938, s/he began a campaign to enter graduate school at the all-white University of North Carolina. Despite a lack of support from the NAACP, Murray's own media campaign received national publicity. During this campaign, Murray developed a life-long friendship and correspondence with the first lady at the time, Eleanor Roosevelt.

A member of the Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR), Murray worked to end segregation on public transport. In March 1940, s/he was arrested and imprisoned for refusing to sit at the back of a bus in Richmond, Virginia. In 1941, Murray enrolled at the law school at Howard University with the intention of becoming a civil rights lawyer. The following year s/he joined George Houser, James Farmer, and Bayard Rustin to form the nonviolence-focused Congress of Racial Equality (CORE).

Pauli Murray's writing continued to influence and shift the movement for justice. In 1943, Murray published two important essays on civil rights: "Negroes Are Fed Up" in Common Sense, and an article about the Harlem race riot in the socialist newspaper, New York Call. Their most famous poem, Dark Testament, was also written in that year. The poem was published as a part of a larger collection of his work in 1970 by Silvermine Press, which was republished in 2018 by W.W. Norton as Dark Testament and Other Poems.

In 1944, Pauli Murray graduated at the top of their law school class from Howard University. It was at Howard that s/he also became acutely aware of the oppression s/he faced as a woman**, coining the term "Jane Crow," to describe their experience. The Rosenwald Fellowship was awarded to the valedictorian, and previous top graduates had used the fellowship to attend Harvard University. Despite winning the fellowship, Murray was rejected from Harvard Law School due to her gender-echoing previous rejections based on race, sex, sexual orientation and gender identity that Murray experienced. Instead, Murray went to the University of California Boalt School of Law where s/he received an LLM (Master of Laws) degree. Their master's thesis was titled The Right to Equal Opportunity in Employment.

After graduation, Murray returned to New York City and provided support to the growing civil rights movement. Her book, States' Laws on Race and Color, was published in 1951 thanks to the United Methodist Women who commissioned this work as a service to the movement and part of their Charters for Racial Justice. Thurgood Marshall, head of the legal department at the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), described the book as the "Bible" for civil rights litigators.

In the early 1950s, Murray, like many Black citizens involved in the civil rights movement, was suppressed by McCarthyism. In 1952, she lost a US State Department post at Cornell University because the people who had supplied her references ( Eleanor Roosevelt, Thurgood Marshall, and A. Philip Randolph) were considered too radical. She was told in a letter that they decided to give "one hundred per cent protection" to the university "in view of the troublous times in which we live."

In 1956, Murray published Proud Shoes: The Story of an American Family, a biography of how white supremacy and anti-Blackness oppressed her grandparents and their efforts of racial uplift, and a poignant portrayal of her hometown of Durham. Shortly after the book came out, Murray was offered a job in the litigation department at a new law firm, Paul, Weiss, Rifkin, Wharton, and Garrison. While working there, Murray met her partner Irene Barlow, the office manager at the firm.

In 1960, Murray travelled to Ghana to explore their African cultural roots and teach law. While there, she co-authored a book, The Constitution and Government of Ghana, with Leslie Rubin. When Murray returned, she enrolled at Yale Law School where she studied for the JSD degree and mentored several young women activists, including Marian Wright Edelman, Eleanor Holmes Norton, and Patricia Roberts Harris who all became leaders in their own right.

President John F. Kennedy appointed Pauli Murray to the Committee on Civil and Political Rights as a part of his Presidential Commission on the Status of Women. In the early 1960s, Murray worked closely with A. Philip Randolph, Bayard Rustin, and Martin Luther King but was critical of the way that men dominated the leadership of these civil rights organizations. In August 1963, she wrote to Randolph and asserted that she had "been increasingly perturbed over the blatant disparity between the major role which Negro women have played and are playing in the crucial grass-roots levels of our struggle and the minor role of leadership they have been assigned in the national policy-making decisions."

Pauli Murray joined Betty Friedan and others to found the National Organization for Women (NOW) in 1966, but later moved away from a leading role because she did not believe that NOW appropriately addressed the issues of Black and working-class women.

From 1968 to 1973, Dr. Pauli Murray served as a faculty member at Brandeis University teaching an early American Studies program. In 1973, following the death of her longtime partner Irene Barlow, Murray left her tenured position to become a candidate for ordination at General Theological Seminary.

In 1977, Pauli Murray became the first African American woman in the US to become an Episcopal priest after the church changed its policy. Pauli Murray died of cancer in Pittsburgh on July 1, 1985. Her autobiography, Song in a Weary Throat: An American Pilgrimage, was published posthumously in 1987. The book was re-released as Pauli Murray: The Autobiography of a Black Activist, Feminist, Lawyer, Priest and Poet in 1987, and was republished under its original title with a new introduction by Patricia Bell-Scott in 2018. Her book of poetry, Dark Testament and other poems with a new introduction by Elizabeth Alexander, originally published in 1970 has also, like the autobiography, been reissued by Liveright Publishing, an imprint of W.W. Norton. Perhaps Murray's most recognized work, Proud Shoes: The Story of an American Family, has been in print since its original publication in 1956.

Since her death, additional books have been published about Murray's life and work:

Pauli Murray's life and work is also recognized in national publications like The New Yorker and Salon.com.

Pronouns and Pauli Murray

When the Rev. Dr. Pauli Murray lived, language and terminology around LGBTQ+ communities, gender expression, and gender identities was different than it is today. We don't know how Pauli Murray would identify if s/he were living today or which pronouns Pauli would use for self-expression. Pauli chose a gender neutral name over their birth name. Murray actively used the phrase "he/she personality" in correspondence with family members during the early years of their life. Later in journals, essays, letters and autobiographical works, Pauli employed "she/her/hers'' pronouns.

Several scholars have explored Murray's personal journals and writings, bringing to light that Pauli identified at different parts of their life as a man and as a woman. We would identify this now as gender fluidity. In their work, these scholars have used "he/him/his" pronouns (Simmons-Thorne), "they/them/theirs" pronouns (Keaveney), "s/he" pronouns (Fisher) and "she/her/hers" pronouns (Rosenberg, Cooper, Drury).

During the 20th century, being openly queer in the United States was illegal and dangerous. In efforts to survive and maintain employment and housing, many queer, transgender, and gender nonconforming people were forced to repress or conceal their identities. Respectability politics, widespread homophobia and transphobia, and federal and state policies likely constrained Pauli's ability to publicly and thoroughly explore their gender identity and expression. When Pauli Murray attempted to receive gender-affirming medical care, including hormone therapy, they were repeatedly denied.

Dr. Brittany Cooper explores the untenable position Pauli Murray grappled with in regards to respectability politics, race, gender and sexuality. Cooper observed that,

"at exactly the same moment that she named Jane Crow as a form of sexist discrimination that she experienced as a woman, she was frequently being hospitalized for depression related to her struggle with her gender identity. . . She always resisted a strict feminine gender performance but she did come to identify as a woman. In this way, her strategies of negotiation and survival constitute a form of disidentification with the dominant gender norms she encountered during the 1930s and 1940s." [1]

Pauli also actively defied categorization in her theology making these issues more central to her world view. Scholar Doreen Drury challenges us to understand Pauli through a complex lens:

"We do more justice to the rich and deeply felt life that Murray lived when, as we consider her gender and sexuality, we attend to her race and class context and to her particular family history. Outing her as a lesbian or as a transgender person, or as a person with no apparent sexuality, as scholars have variously done, fails to illuminate the complex politics of the mid-twentieth century and of particular life. [2]

This is an ongoing discussion among leadership at the Pauli Murray Center.

After reviewing the scholarly discussion represented in the literature listed below, we have chosen to use s/he and they/them pronouns when discussing Pauli's early life and she/her/hers when discussing Pauli's later years. When discussing Pauli Murray in general, we use all or no pronouns. We hope this strategy will encourage the reader to embrace the complexity of the concepts of gender, gender identity, and gender expression. Our goal is to be open to these questions of pronouns and gendered language as an evolving issue and to continue to re-examine our choices with the understanding that they could change in the future.

Cooper, Brittany C. 2017. Beyond Respectability: The Intellectual Thought of Race Women. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. [Chapter 3: Queering Jane Crow: Pauli Murray's Quest for an Unhyphenated Identity]

Drury, Doreen M. 2009. "Love, Ambition, and "Invisible Footnotes: in the Life and Writing of Pauli Murray". Souls 11 (3): 295-309. New York: Columbia University

Fisher, Simon D. Elin. 2019. "Challenging Dissemblance in Pauli Murray Historiography, Sketching a History of the Trans New Negro." Journal of African American History Spring 2019

Keaveney, Hiroki Kimiko. 2016. "Christian, Queer and Interracial: The Story of Pauli Murray and Irene Barlow ." MA Thesis, San Francisco State University

Rosenberg, Rosalind. 2017. Jane Crow: The Life of Pauli Murray . Oxford University Press

Simmons-Thorne, Naomi. 2019. "Pauli Murray and the Pronomial Problem: a De-essentialist Trans Historiography ". Activist History Review

[1] Cooper, Brittany, Beyond Respectability, page 100

[2] Drury, Doreen. "Love, Ambition, and 'Invisible Footnotes' in the life and Writing of Pauli Murray."

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Who Is Pauli Murray? - Pauli Murray Center

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was born in Baltimore, Maryland on November 20, 1910, the fourth of six children to Agnes Fitzgerald and William Murray. Tragically, Agnes Fitzgerald Murray died of a cerebral hemorrhage in 1914. William Murray, a graduate of Howard University, was a teacher and later a principal in the Baltimore public school system.

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(1910-85). U.S. civil rights activist, lawyer, and writer Pauli Murray refused to allow others to let her race or gender stop her from accomplishing her goals. After years of working for equal rights for women, she became the first female Episcopalian priest in 1977. ( See also feminism.)

Anna Pauline Murray was born on Nov. 20, 1910, in Baltimore, Md. Both her mother and father died when she was young, so relatives raised Murray in Durham, N.C. After graduating from high school, Murray moved to New York City and attended Hunter College until her graduation with a degree in English in 1933. During the later 1930s she worked for the Works Progress Administration, which was a government program that provided useful work for millions of victims of the Great Depression. Also during this time she began to publish her poems and prose and became involved in the civil rights movement.

After being denied admission into the University of North Carolina in 1938 because she was African American, Murray from 1941 to 1944 attended law school at Howard University. She attempted to gain a further degree from Harvard University, but she was refused admission because she was a woman. Murray instead received her master's degree in law from the University of California at Berkeley in 1945, after which she practiced law in California and New York City. In 1965 she received her doctorate in law from Yale University.

Murray continued her involvement as a civil rights activist, publishing works on equal opportunity, states' laws regarding race, and the struggle that her grandparents faced with racial prejudice. In 1966, along with other feminists including Betty Friedan, she was a founding member of the National Organization for Women. The next year Murray became the vice president of Benedict College in South Carolina, and she served as a law professor at Brandeis University in Massachusetts from 1968 to 1973. She then entered the seminary and earned a master's degree in divinity in 1976. She was ordained as an Episcopal priest the next year, becoming the first woman to hold such a position. Murray died on July 1, 1985, in Pittsburgh, Pa.

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(1910-85). U.S. civil rights activist, lawyer, and writer Pauli Murray refused to allow others to let her race or gender stop her from accomplishing her goals. After years of working for equal rights for women, she became the first female Episcopalian priest in 1977. ( See also feminism.)

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Ruby Bridges was a child who played an important part in the civil rights movement. She was one of several African American children chosen to attend formerly all-white…

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Ruby Nell Bridges Hall (born September 8, 1954) is an American activist. She is known for being the first black child to attend an all- white elementary school in the South. She went to William Frantz Elementary School.

Ruby Bridges was born in Tylertown, Mississippi, to Abon and Lucille Bridges. When she was 4 years old, the family moved to New Orleans, Louisiana. In 1960, when she was 6 years old, her parents responded to a request from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Her father was hesitant, but her parents allowed her to participate in the integration of the New Orleans school system.

Integration

In a 1954 decision, Brown v. Board of Education, the U.S. Supreme Court made Racial segregation against the law. Ruby, who was born the year the law passed, was chosen to attend the all-white William Frantz Elementary School. The school board said that black children could attend the first grade if they passed a test. Bridges passed the test. As soon as Bridges entered the school, many white parents pulled their children out. Only one person agreed to teach Bridges, and that was Barbara Henry from Boston, Massachusetts. For over a year Henry taught her alone, "as if she were teaching a whole class."

On her first day of school, four U.S. Marshals had to go with her to school. Angry crowds of parents shouted threats at her and parents did not let their children go to school. There was such chaos that first day that Ruby could not make it to her classroom. For the next six months, the marshals took her to and from her school. Former United States Deputy Marshal Charles Burks later recalled, "She showed a lot of courage. She never cried. She didn't whimper. She just marched along like a little soldier, and we're all very very proud of her."

On the second day of school, the boycott broke. After this, more people started sending their children to school again. This does not mean that all of the trouble was over, however. People tried to hurt her family. Her father lost his job and her grandparents were thrown off their farm in Georgia. Ruby never missed a day of school that year. The story of her going to a white school is the subject of a Norman Rockwell painting called The Problem We All Live With.

Ruby finished elementary school and graduated from high school. Bridges went on to become a travel agent for American Express. Mrs. Ruby Bridges Hall is married and has four sons. She still lives in New Orleans. In 1999, she wrote a children's book, Through My Eyes, telling her story. The same year she started the Ruby Bridges Foundation to promote "the values of tolerance, respect, and appreciation of all differences." She travels and talks to children all over the country.

On January 8, 2001, President Bill Clinton awarded Ruby Bridges the Presidential Citizens Medal. She was one of 28 to receive the medal that day.

Ruby Bridges quotes

"Don't follow the path. Go where there is no path and begin the trail. When you start a new trail equipped with courage, strength and conviction, the only thing that can stop you is you!"

"I now know that experience comes to us for a purpose, and if we follow the guidance of the spirit within us, we will probably find that the purpose is a good one."

"Racism is a grown-up disease and we must stop using our children to spread it."

Interesting Facts About Ruby Bridges

Ruby enjoyed jumping rope, climbing trees, and playing softball when she was young.

On November 14, her first day at William Frantz Elementary School, she was the only student there.

Barbara Henry was the only teacher who agreed to teach Ruby. She began teaching Ruby on her second day of school.

Ruby's courageous story can be read to children from the book The Story of Ruby Bridges by Robert Coles.

Ruby was one of only six children who passed the entrance test, which was designed to be difficult.

Awards and honors

In September 1995, Bridges and Robert Coles were awarded honorary degrees from Connecticut College and appeared together in public for the first time to accept the awards.

Bridges' Through My Eyes won the Carter G. Woodson Book Award in 2000.

On August 10, 2000, the 40 year anniversary of her walk into William Frantz Elementary School, Deputy Attorney General Eric Holder made Ruby Bridges an Honorary Deputy U.S. Marshal.

On January 8, 2001, Bridges was awarded the Presidential Citizens Medal by President Bill Clinton.

In November 2006, Bridges was honored as a "Hero Against Racism" at the 12th annual Anti-Defamation League "Concert Against Hate" with the National Symphony Orchestra, held at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC.

On May 19, 2012, Bridges received an Honorary Degree from Tulane University at the annual graduation ceremony at the Superdome.

Two elementary schools are named after Bridges: one in Alameda, California, and another in Woodinville, Washington. A statue of Bridges stands in the courtyard of William Frantz Elementary School.

Images for kids

Ruby Bridges speaking at Texas A&M University-Commerce in February 2015

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Ruby Nell Bridges Hall (born September 8, 1954) is an American activist. She is known for being the first black child to attend an all- white elementary school in the South. She went to William Frantz Elementary School. Ruby Bridges was born in Tylertown, Mississippi, to Abon and Lucille Bridges.

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In 1960, Ruby Bridges (September 8, 1954-present) walked through the doors of William Frantz Elementary School, in New Orleans, Louisiana. By doing so, she became the first African-American student to attend an all-white elementary school in the Southern United States.

On November 14, 1960, Ruby Bridges became a symbol of the U.S. civil rights movement. She was just 6 years old. Her simple act of going to an all-white school marked the beginning of integration for U.S. public schools.

Bridges was born in Tylertown, Mississippi, on September 8, 1954. A few months before her birth, the Supreme Court-the nation's highest court -had issued a ruling on five combined cases that would impact not only Bridges's life, but also change the course of American history.

In Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, the prosecution wanted to end the idea of "separate but equal schools." In many places in the U.S., black students and white students could not attend the same school. On May 17, 1954, the Supreme Court ruled that segregation in U.S. public schools was against the constitution. In his opinion, Chief Justice Earl Warren stated that "in the field of public education the of 'separate but equal' has no place. Separate educational facilities are unequal . . ."

Although it was illegal to have segregated schools, some states-especially in the South-did not follow the ruling. The Supreme Court was aware of the resistance and took action. A year after the ruling, the court declared that the desegregation of public schools should advance with "all deliberate speed." Five years later, little Ruby would become the first student to a Southern elementary school.

A Promising Student

When Bridges was 4, the family moved from Mississippi to New Orleans, Louisiana. Her parents hoped a new city would offer better job opportunities. Her father, Abon, found a job working as a gas station attendant and her mother, Lucille, worked nights to help support their growing family.

Bridges attended kindergarten in a segregated school in New Orleans. But in 1960, a federal court ordered that Louisiana all of its public schools. Bridges was a good student. She was chosen to be part of a small group of black students who would take an exam given by the school district. The exam determined which students would attend the all-white schools. Bridges was one of six black children who passed the exam. She enrolled in William Frantz Elementary School. It was just blocks from her home.

At first, Bridges's father refused to enroll his daughter in the all-white school. He feared some would seek revenge on the family. However, her mother convinced him that it was the right decision. She believed their daughter would get a better education at an all-white school. Bridges's parents were unable to read or write. On November 14, federal marshals escorted Bridges and her mother to her new school.

School of One

In a 1997 interview with PBS NewsHour, Bridges recalled preparing to leave for her new school. She remembered looking out the window of a car driven by a U.S. marshal. "Driving up, I could see the crowd," she said, "but living in New Orleans, I actually thought it was Mardi Gras."

The angry crowd chanted, "Two, four, six, eight, we don't want to integrate." They tried to block the entrance to the school. While Bridges and her mother sat in the principal's office, hundreds of parents entered the school and removed their children from their classrooms. "They didn't see a child," Bridges later said in the PBS special series The African Americans. "They saw change and what they thought was being taken from them."

The next day, Bridges was led past the screaming crowd and into the school by four marshals. When she arrived at her classroom, she found a teacher but no students. Her teacher, Barbara Henry, was a Boston, Massachusetts, native who had moved to the South hoping to help schools integrate. She was the only teacher willing to teach Bridges. "She would greet me, take me to my classroom, and it was just her and I," said Bridges. Although Bridges and Henry remained in the classroom alone, neither missed a single day of school that year.

A Lasting Legacy

The following school year, Bridges attended second grade at William Frantz. This time, the crowds had disappeared, and her classroom was full of students. In 1963, she was immortalized in a now-iconic painting called The Problem We All Live With, by artist Norman Rockwell.

In 1999, Bridges established the Ruby Bridges Foundation to teach tolerance to students. The following year, she was made an honorary deputy federal marshal in Washington, D.C. "I am so proud to have received such an honor," she said. "Deputy U.S. marshals are peacemakers and advocates of justice."

In 2014-54 years after she attended her first day of school at William Frantz-a bronze statue of 6-year-old Ruby Bridges was unveiled in the school's courtyard. "We need to honor the power of children," she said at the ceremony. "We need to encourage them that they can do extraordinary things."

Today, Bridges is an author, activist, and public speaker. She continues her work helping people learn to be more accepting of others.

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In 1960, Ruby Bridges (September 8, 1954-present) walked through the doors of William Frantz Elementary School, in New Orleans, Louisiana. By doing so, she became the first African-American student to attend an all-white elementary school in the Southern United States....

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Introduction
(1925-65). A Black militant, Malcolm X championed the rights of African Americans and urged them to develop racial unity. He was known for his association first with the Nation of Islam, sometimes known as the Black Muslims, and later with the Organization of Afro-American Unity, which he founded after breaking with the Nation of Islam.

Malcolm Little was born in Omaha, Nebraska, on May 19, 1925, the 7th of 11 children. The family soon moved to Lansing, Michigan. There they were harassed by whites who resented the Black nationalist views of the father, Earl Little, an organizer for Marcus Garvey 's "back-to-Africa" movement.

When Malcolm was six years old his father was murdered. His mother later suffered from mental health issues and was sent to an institution. The family was separated by welfare agencies. Later in his life Malcolm came to believe that white people had destroyed his family.

Placed in a series of schools and boardinghouses, Malcolm became a fine student and dreamed of becoming a lawyer. A teacher, however, told him that because he was Black he should learn carpentry instead. Discouraged, he left school after the eighth grade to live with a relative in Boston, Massachusetts.

Malcolm shined shoes and worked at a soda fountain, in a restaurant, and on a railroad kitchen crew. In 1942 he moved to the Black Harlem section of New York City. He lived as a hustler, cheating to make money. He was wary of the police. A pusher, he sold drugs and became an addict himself. Pursued by a rival hustler, he went back to Boston, where he organized a burglary ring. In 1946 he was sent to prison for burglary.

Nation of Islam
While serving in prison Malcolm sought to educate himself. He spent long hours reading books in the prison library, even memorizing a dictionary. During this time he adopted the form of Islam practiced by an African American group that later became known as the Nation of Islam. It combined some elements of Islam with a movement to empower Black people. It taught that Black people were superior to whites and that whites were evil by nature.

Released from prison in 1952, Malcolm joined his younger brother in Detroit, Michigan. Malcolm replaced his last name with an X to symbolize his lost "true African family name." This was a custom among Nation of Islam followers who considered their family names to have originated with white slaveholders.

Malcolm X soon became an active participant in the Nation of Islam. He assisted the national leader, Elijah Muhammad, by starting many new Nation of Islam groups throughout the United States. Malcolm X's success as a recruiter was a result of his skill as a speaker, as he worked to instill racial pride in his Black listeners and recounted the sufferings of Blacks under white domination. In 1954 he returned to New York to become minister of the important Harlem temple. In 1957 he founded the Nation of Islam newspaper Muhammad Speaks.

Malcolm X preached on the streets of Harlem and spoke at major universities, such as Harvard University and the University of Oxford. During the main phase of the civil rights movement from 1955 to 1965, he expressed the pent-up anger, frustration, and bitterness of many African Americans. He also criticized the mainstream civil rights movement. Malcolm argued that more was at stake than the right to sit in a restaurant or even to vote. He thought the most important issues were Black identity, integrity, and independence. While civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr., called for nonviolence, Malcolm X urged his followers to defend themselves "by any means necessary."

By the early 1960s the Nation of Islam had become nationally known. Malcolm X was its most effective national minister and its most recognized spokesperson. He was increasingly ignored, however, by Nation of Islam followers who accused him of seeking personal glory. In 1963 Malcolm X brought bad publicity to the movement for a remark he made about the assassination of U.S. President John F. Kennedy. Malcolm said it was a case of "the chickens coming home to roost," meaning that he thought the murder represented a violent society suffering the consequences of violence. In response to the remark, Elijah Muhammad ordered Malcolm to observe a 90-day period of silence.

Final Years
In 1964 Malcolm X broke completely with the Nation of Islam and began building his own Organization of Afro-American Unity (OAAU). He made the hajj, or pilgrimage to Mecca, Saudi Arabia, to learn more about Islam. Impressed by the fellowship he observed among pilgrims of all colors, Malcolm X came to believe that whites, like Blacks, were victims of a racist society. He thought that Islam could someday unite people of all races. After the hajj he adopted the name el-Hajj Malik el-Shabazz.

During later trips to African countries, where he was honored by their statesmen, Malcolm X began to advocate Pan-Africanism. He believed that Blacks all over the world should join to combat racism.

During the winter of 1964-65 Malcolm X received several death threats, and his home was bombed. On February 21, 1965, while speaking at an OAAU rally in Harlem, he was shot and killed. Three members of the Nation of Islam were convicted of the murder, though many people doubted the guilt of two of them. In 2021, after they had been in prison for many years, those two were cleared of the charges.

The death of Malcolm X saddened white and Black people alike who admired his tireless striving to build Black pride and who shared his hopes that all races might someday be joined in fellowship. Malcolm X was survived by his wife, Betty Shabazz, whom he had married in 1958. They had six daughters.

Malcolm X's autobiography, published after his death in 1965, was written with Alex Haley, author of Roots. The book was based on many interviews that Haley had conducted with Malcolm X shortly before his assassination. In 1992 director Spike Lee released the movie Malcolm X, starring Denzel Washington in the title role. The popular yet controversial film revived interest in the slain leader, especially among young African Americans.

Click here to read portions of a speech that Malcolm X gave in 1964 to a group of teenagers from Mississippi.

Additional Reading
Burlingame, Jeff. Malcolm X: Fighting for Human Rights (Enslow, 2018). Doeden, Matt. A Marked Man: The Assassination of Malcolm X (Twenty-First Century Books, 2013). Gormley, Beatrice. Malcolm X: A Revolutionary Voice (Sterling, 2008). Gunderson, Jessica, and Hayden, Seitu. X: A Biography of Malcolm X (Capstone Press, 2011). Myers, Walter Dean. Malcolm X: By Any Means Necessary (Scholastic Focus, 2020). Pinkney, Andrea Davis, and Pinkney, Brian. Hand in Hand: Ten Black Men Who Changed America (Jump at the Sun Books, 2013).

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(1925-65). A Black militant, Malcolm X championed the rights of African Americans and urged them to develop racial unity. He was known for his association first with the...

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Rosa Louise McCauley Parks (February 4, 1913 - October 24, 2005) was an African-American civil rights activist. She has been called "the mother of the modern-day American civil rights movement" and "the mother of the freedom movement." She was a member of the local chapter of National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).

Parks is best known for what she did in her hometown of Montgomery, Alabama, on December 1, 1955. While she sat in a seat in the middle of the bus behind the 10 front seats that were saved for white passengers, the bus driver told her to move to the back of the bus so a white passenger could take the seat toward the middle of the bus. During this time, when the seats reserved for white people on a bus were full, black people were told to get up from their seats. Parks refused to move. Like so many others, she was tired of being treated as a lower-class person because of her skin color.

Early Years

Rosa's father left home to find work when she was 2 years old. Her mother taught school in another town. Rosa and her brother Sylvester were raised by their grandparents.

Rosa started school in 1919 when she was 6 years old. At that time, schools were segregated. There were schools for black children and schools for white children. Later, Parks remembered how buses took white students to their school, but black students had to walk to theirs:

I'd see the bus pass every day... But to me, that was a way of life; we had no choice but to accept what was the custom. The bus was among the first ways I realized there was a black world and a white world.

In 1924, she went to the Montgomery Industrial School for Girls in Montgomery, Alabama. After 5 years, she left school and went to work in a shirt factory. She also took care of her grandmother.

In 1932, Rosa married Raymond Parks, a barber from Montgomery. Rosa worked many jobs, ranging from domestic worker to hospital aide. At her husband's urging, she finished her high school studies in 1933.

On December 1, 1955, Parks got onto a city bus to go home after work. She paid her 10¢ and sat down in the first row of seats behind the painted line on the floor that marked the beginning of the "colored" section. After several stops, more white passengers got on the bus and filled the first 10 seats that were saved for white passengers. The bus driver ordered Parks and three other black people to give up their seats so the rest of the white people could sit down closer to the front of the bus. The other three black people moved to the back of the bus, but Parks slid over to the window. She said she was following the law by sitting in the right section of the bus.

The driver stopped the bus and called the police. Two police officers arrested Parks and took her to jail for violating Alabama's bus laws.

Her mother called upon Edgar Nixon to bail her out. Nixon was the president of the local NAACP chapter. Rosa was a member of that chapter and Nixon's secretary. Nixon knew the danger Parks was in and immediately arranged her bail.

The local NAACP had been looking for a test case to challenge the bus segregation laws. Parks was a respected working woman. She was well-spoken, and her case would be a good way to challenge the law. It was decided that on December 5, the day that Rosa was scheduled to appear in court, a boycott of all the buses in Montgomery would be held.

The word was spread throughout the black community of the intended bus boycott. Black ministers told their congregations to support the boycott. On Monday, December 5th, Rosa Parks appeared in court and black passengers stayed off the Montgomery buses. The streets of Montgomery were filled with black people walking. That same morning, all Montgomery buses were assigned two motorcycle policemen to guard against any black gangs scaring passengers. There were no black gangs. The black community simply cooperated with the boycott. The buses remained empty all day. White passengers who feared trouble stayed off the buses as well.

Parks appealed her conviction. Her attorney, Fred Gray, and others in the NAACP brought an appeal named Browder v. Gayle. The appeals court ruled on June 19, 1956, in favor of the black citizens of Montgomery. The city, however, asked the Supreme Court to review the decision.

On September 13, 1956, the Supreme Court of the United States upheld the appeals court's ruling. After 381 days, the bus boycott ended. Black citizens of Montgomery could ride the buses and sit where they chose. Rosa Parks rode the bus again on December 21, 1956. This time it was an integrated bus. Ironically, she had the same bus driver who had her arrested the year before. In an interview, Parks said, "He didn't react (pause) and neither did I."

After the Boycott

After the Montgomery Bus Boycott, Parks went through many difficulties. She lost her job at the department store. Her husband was forced to quit his job.

In 1957, Parks and her husband left Montgomery for Hampton, Virginia, to find work. In Hampton, Parks found a job as a hostess in an inn at Hampton Institute, a historically black college.

In 1999, President Bill Clinton awarded Parks a Congressional Gold Medal. This is the United States' highest honor (most important award) for civilians.

Rosa and her husband Raymond never had children. They spent their entire lives dedicated to each other, their respective careers, and civil rights activities.

Parks died on October 24, 2005, at her home in Detroit due to dementia. On October 30, her casket lay in honor in the United States Capitol. This is a great honor for people in the United States.

Rosa Parks is still considered a heroine of the black community. While she didn't do it alone, her actions sparked a fire that led to great changes.

Rosa Parks quotes

"You must never be fearful about what you are doing when it is right."

"Each person must live their life as a model for others."

"I knew someone had to take the first step and I made up my mind not to move."

"Differences of race, nationality, or religion should not be used to deny any human being citizenship rights or privileges."

"I believe there is only one race - the human race."

"The only tired I was, was tired of giving in."

Interesting Facts about Rosa Parks

Rosa earned her high school diploma at a time when less than 7% of African Americans earned them.

Rosa Parks was an activist for civil rights 12 years before she refused to give up her seat to a white passenger.

The bus driver, James Blake, had driven away without her on purpose 12 years before she refused to give up her seat.

Rosa Parks was not the first person to refuse to give up her seat on a Montgomery public bus. 15-year-old Claudette Colvin was the first to be arrested for refusing to give up her seat and Parks was involved in raising funds for Colvin's defense.

Parks was not physically tired when she refused to give up her seat. She explained that she was "tired of giving in."

Rosa Parks became the secretary of the Alabama State Conference of the NAACP and served on the board of Planned Parenthood.

Rosa Parks and her husband, along with her mother, moved to Detroit.

Bus seats were left empty in New York City, Washington, D.C., and other cities on the 50th anniversary of Rosa's arrest to honor her and the results of her civil disobedience.

Questions kids ask about Rosa Parks

What is Rosa Parks famous for?
When she refused to give her bus seat to a white man, she helped initiate the Civil Rights Movement in the United States.

How is Rosa Parks a hero?
She was brave to peacefully refuse to leave her seat. She knew it wasn't right for her to have to give up her seat to a white passenger, but she also knew she would probably be arrested.

What was Rosa Parks's job?
Rosa Parks worked as a seamstress. She worked at the Montgomery Fair department store and was going home from there on the day she was arrested.

Why did Rosa Parks not give up her seat?
She was tired of having to give up a seat for which she had paid. She believed she shouldn't have to move just because of her race.

Where is Rosa Parks buried?
Woodlawn Cemetery (Detroit, Michigan), United States.

What did the Montgomery bus boycott lead to?
The boycott led to the Supreme Court declaring that Montgomery's segregation laws on buses were unconstitutional.

What is Rosa Parks's full name?
Rosa Louise McCauley Parks.

Who did Rosa Parks marry?
Rosa married Raymond Parks, a barber, in 1932.

Images for kids

In Spanish: Rosa Parks para niños

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Rosa Parks stood up for African Americans-by sitting down.

Although Abraham Lincoln 's 1863 Emancipation Proclamation granted slaves their freedom, for many years Black people were discriminated against in much of the United States. In southern states, for instance, most Black children were forced to attend separate schools from white kids in classrooms that were often rundown, with outdated books. African Americans also couldn't eat at the same restaurants as white people and had to sit in the back seats of public buses. Segregation-the separation of races-was enforced by local laws.

Rosa Parks was born on February 4, 1913. On December 1, 1955, she boarded a city bus in Montgomery, Alabama and sat in the middle, where Black passengers in that city were allowed to sit unless a white person wanted the seat. As the bus filled with new riders, the driver told Parks to give up her seat to a white passenger. She refused. The driver called police, and Parks was arrested.

Her arrest sparked a major protest. For more than a year, most Black people in Montgomery stood together and refused to take city buses. (One of the leaders of the boycott was a young local pastor named Martin Luther King, Jr.) Public vehicles stood idle, and the city lost money. Still, the Montgomery Bus Boycott didn't end until a 1956 Supreme Court decision ended racial segregation on public transportation throughout the United States.

Parks died on October 24, 2005. But throughout her life, her refusal to give up her seat inspired many others to fight for African-American rights and helped advance the civil rights movement of the 1950s and '60s.

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Rosa Parks stood up for African Americans-by sitting down.

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Kids learn about the biography of Rosa Parks, civil rights activist who refused to give up her seat on the bus.

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Martin Luther King Jr. (January 15, 1929-April 4, 1968) is considered one of history's greatest speakers and social activists. His leadership in peaceful protests helped end segregation during the American civil rights movement.

When Martin Luther King Jr. was born, his parents, Michael and Alberta, gave him a different name from the one we know today. They called him Michael. But Michael Sr. later changed his name and his son's to Martin Luther, after the famous religious leader. The middle-class family was very religious. Both Martin's father and grandfather were pastors in Atlanta, Georgia. The King children grew up in a loving home but experienced racism from an early age.

Separate Is Never Equal

King attended segregated public schools in Georgia. He skipped the ninth and eleventh grades and graduated from high school at 15. It was around that time that he joined the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), a civil rights organization. King's father led the NAACP's Atlanta chapter.

In 1948, King graduated from Morehouse College, in Atlanta. He went on to study religion at Crozer Theological Seminary, in Chester, Pennsylvania. In 1951, he graduated with honors and was class valedictorian. Soon after, he enrolled in a Ph.D. program at Boston University (B.U.), in Massachusetts. He met music student Coretta Scott in Boston. The couple married in 1953 and later had two sons and two daughters.

In 1954, while completing his degree, King moved to Montgomery, Alabama. He became pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church. Soon after, on December 1, 1955, a woman named Rosa Parks was arrested after refusing to give her seat to white passengers on a Montgomery city bus. In response, the NAACP chose King to lead a citywide bus boycott. For 381 days, members of the black community walked or carpooled to work. Many of them were attacked.

The NAACP filed a lawsuit against the city of Montgomery. They argued that segregation on city buses was unconstitutional. On November 13, 1956, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that such segregation was indeed illegal. The court based its decision, in part, on Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas. In that case, the court concluded that "separate is never equal."

One year later, King, along with 60 ministers and activists, founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC).

"I Have a Dream"

In the spring of 1963, King organized a protest in Birmingham, Alabama. The event drew nationwide attention. That's because city police officers blasted participants with fire hoses and let attack dogs loose. King and others were jailed.

After their release, King and other civil rights leaders laid plans for a demonstration in the nation's capital. The March on Washington attracted more than 200,000 people. On August 28, 1963, at the Lincoln Memorial, King gave his "I Have a Dream" speech. He spoke of a day when all men would be treated equally. King went on to win the 1964 Nobel Peace Prize. He was 35 years old and the youngest person to have received the honor.

Reaching the Promised Land

The fight for equal rights, however, was far from over. On March 7, 1965, demonstrators set off on a 54-mile march, organized by King, from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama. The event became violent when police met marchers with nightsticks and tear gas on the Edmund Pettus Bridge, in Selma. Seventeen people ended up in the hospital. King was not present, but he watched the scene unfold on TV. Soon after, President Lyndon Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The law stated that all citizens had a right to vote, no matter the color of their skin.

On April 3, 1968, King traveled to Memphis, Tennessee, in support of striking sanitation workers. In a speech there, he said, "I've seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land." The next day, he was shot while standing on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel, where he was staying. The assassination ended King's life. He was 39 years old. It sparked riots in more than 100 cities. The accused shooter, James Earl Ray, pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 99 years in prison.

"I've seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land." - Martin Luther King, Jr.

In the United States, King's birthday is observed as a national holiday on the third Monday in January. On that day, many Americans volunteer at shelters, schools, hospitals, and other community organizations to honor the civil rights leader's legacy of service and commitment.

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Martin Luther King Jr. (January 15, 1929-April 4, 1968) is considered one of history's greatest speakers and social activists. His leadership in peaceful protests helped end segregation during the American civil rights movement. When Martin Luther King Jr. was born,...

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Martin Luther King, Jr. (born Michael King, Jr.; January 15, 1929 - April 4, 1968) was an American pastor, activist, humanitarian, and leader in the Civil Rights Movement. He was best known for improving civil rights by using nonviolent civil disobedience, based on his Christian beliefs. Because he was both a Ph.D. and a pastor, King is sometimes called the Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King Jr. (abbreviation: the Rev. Dr. King), or just Dr King. He is also known by his initials MLK.

Led by Dr. King and others, many African Americans used nonviolent, peaceful ways to fight for their civil rights. These strategies included sit-ins, boycotts, and protest marches. Often, they were attacked by police officers or citizens of other races who did not want African Americans to have more rights. However, no matter how badly they were attacked, Dr. King and his followers never fought back.

King fought for equal rights from the start of the Montgomery Bus Boycott in 1955 until he was murdered by James Earl Ray in April 1968.

During King's lifetime, public places in Georgia were segregated. This meant that black and white people were not allowed to go to the same schools, use the same public bathrooms, eat at the same restaurants, drink at the same water fountains, or even go to the same hospitals. The places that served white people were usually better than the places where black people were allowed to go.

King first experienced discrimination when he was six years old. He was sent to an all-black school, and a white friend was sent to an all-white school. Later, when he was fourteen, King won a contest with a speech about civil rights. When he was riding the bus home, he was told to give up his seat and stand for the remainder of his bus ride so that a white person could sit down. Even the buses at the time were segregated. If a white person wanted a seat in the black section of the bus, they could take the seat from any African American. King later said having to give up his seat made him "the angriest I've ever been in my life."

Civil rights work

Montgomery Bus Boycott

King began his civil rights activism in 1955. At that time, he led a protest against the way black people were segregated on buses. Dr. King told everyone that people should only use peaceful ways to solve the problem.

March on Washington

Nobel Prize

In 1964, King was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. When presenting him with the award, the Chairman of the Nobel Committee said:
[King] is the first person in the Western world to have shown us that a struggle can be waged without violence. He is the first to make the message of brotherly love a reality in the course of his struggle, and he has brought this message to all men, to all nations and races.
Voting rights

The first march was on March 7, 1965. Police officers and people they had chosen to help them attacked the marchers with clubs and tear gas. Seventeen marchers had to go to the hospital, and 50 others were also injured. This day came to be called Bloody Sunday. Pictures and film of the marchers being beaten were shown around the world, in newspapers and on television. Seeing these things made more people support the civil rights activists. People came from all over the United States to march with the activists.

On August 6, 1965, the United States passed the Voting Rights Act. This law made it illegal to stop somebody from voting because of their race.

After this, King continued to fight poverty and the Vietnam War.

Assassination

King was rushed to St. Joseph's Hospital. His heart had stopped. Doctors there tried to make his heart start pumping again. However, they were unable to save King's life. He died at 7:05 p.m.

King's death led to riots in many cities.

After his death, King was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. King and his wife were also awarded the Congressional Gold Medal.

In 2003, the United States Congress passed a law allowing the beginning words of King's "I Have a Dream" speech to be carved into the Lincoln Memorial.

More than 900 streets in the United States have also been named after King. These streets exist in 40 different states, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico.

There are also memorials for King around the world. These include:

Martin Luther King Jr. quotes

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

"[After I die,] I'd like somebody to mention that day that Martin Luther King Jr. tried to give his life serving others."

"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."

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

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

"Forgiveness is not an occasional act. It is a permanent attitude."

"We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools."

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

"Let no man pull you so low as to hate him."

"I submit to you that if a man has not discovered something that he will die for, he isn't fit to live."

Interesting facts about Martin Luther King Jr.

He was born in his Grandparents house in Atlanta, Georgia.

He was named "Michael King" when he was born. He decided to change his name as a teenager to Martin Luther King Jr. after his father.

He graduated from high school early and entered college at just 15 years of age in 1944.

He earned $8,000 a year as a preacher ($80,724 in 2023), so he wasn't wealthy when he died.

In 1964, he was the youngest person (35 years) to have received the Nobel Peace Prize.

He won the Nobel Peace Prize for his nonviolent resistance to racial prejudice in in the United States.

His favorite foods were fried chicken and pecan pie.

Martin Luther King Jr. would be 94 years old today.

Related pages

Images for kids

In Spanish: Martin Luther King para niños

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Learn Martin Luther King Jr. facts for kids

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A hero is born

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was born in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1929. At the time in that part of the country, segregation-or the separation of races in places like schools, buses, and restaurants-was the law. He experienced racial predjudice from the time he was very young, which inspired him to dedicate his life to achieving equality and justice for Americans of all colors. King believed that peaceful refusal to obey unjust law was the best way to bring about social change.

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Civil Rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., never backed down in his stand against racism. Learn more about the life of this courageous hero who inspired millions of people to right a historical wrong.

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Kids learn about Martin Luther King, Jr.'s biography. A great civil rights leader.

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Kids learn about the biography of Malcolm X including his early life, joining the Nation of Islam, becoming a leader, the civil rights movement, and assassination.

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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.