He lived most of his childhood living with his grandparents and his 12 siblings him being the ninth, during this time he thought his sister was his biological mum, which was not right. Since his family was a rich family, he had leaders of different groups that didn’t support things like racism so at a young age he was being influenced. As he got older he joined a collage and started a strike and were expelled from that collage, as he get even older he had joined many groups to support black people from being accused of the wrong thing. After a few years he started to learn music, got a music scholar ship, due to that, he was asked to join a band and he took it.

After years of trying to give black people an easier life in America he gave a big speech in the middle of Washington. Then not long after he was the lead strategist in the civil rights march on Washington to get these problems of racism to the politicians instead of them not even thinking about it he lead about 250,000 people in this march. Because of him doing this worked he got the politicians in the white house to give the black people of America more equal rites. This impact has lasted until this day making the black people of America have rights. But due to this he was put in jail for planning this riot.   

Thurgood Marshall 

              Thurgood Marshall was born on July 2, 1908 from enslaved peoples. His father was a railroad worker and his mom a teacher. But his father would always take him to courts and see cases fought. They would raise family debates after dinner about current events. 

              Thurgood Marshall once expressed that it is his father who really led Thurgood to becoming a lawyer, “he turned me into one. He did it by teaching me to argue, by challenging my logic on every point, by making me prove every statement I made.” 

              In September 1929, Marshall married Vivien Buster Burey and began to study much more seriously. Marshall wanted to study in his hometown, the University of Maryland School of Law, but failed because of the school’s segregation policy. So Thurgood attended Howard University School of Law. This is the place where his views about discrimination started to form. In 1933, he graduated first in his law class at Howard. 

              During his university school years from 1925 to 1933, he saw, experienced, learnt about racism. After graduating, he worked at the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, short for NAACP. 

              In one case, Murray v. Pearson, Marshall represented Donald Murray, a black student with excellent grades get into the University of Maryland Law of School by denying its segregation policies with his great law knowledge. 

              His most famous case is Brown v. 

Billy Holiday was born on the 7^th of April, 1915 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania by the name of Eleanora Fagan and died on the 17^th of July, 1959 in New York City’s Metropolitan Hospital Centre due to an overdose of substance abuse. She lived her childhood with her mother, Sadie in Baltimore. Despite no official records of who her father might be, many speculate that it might be Clarence Holiday, who also became a successful jazz musician himself. 

 Billie had started skipping school after the failed marriage of her mother and a man named Phillip Gough , and by the age of nine years old, Billie was sent to live in the House of Good Shepherd for troubled African American girls. She returned back to her mother in August of the same year. In the late 1920s, they both moved together to New York and Billie had to resort to prostitution for money. 

Despite her rough childhood, she was able to find peace while listening and singing to music. 

D.O.B- 21^st February 1933

Date of death- 21^st April 2003

Description of early years- 

Born Eunice Kathleen Waymon on February 21, 1933, in Tryon, North Carolina, Nina Simone took to music at an early age, learning to play piano at the age of 3 and singing in her church's choir. Her music teacher helped her establish a special fund to pay for her education and, after finishing high school, Simone used the same fund was used to send the pianist to New York City's famed Juilliard School of Music to train. Simone taught piano and worked as an accompanist for other performers while at Juilliard, but after a while she had to leave school after she ran out of funds. Simone then moved to Philadelphia, she lived with her family to save money and go to a more affordable music program. Her career took an unexpected turn, however, when she was rejected from the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia; she later claimed the school denied her admittance because she was African-American. After a while she took a turn from Classical music, she started playing American standards. Before long, she started singing along with her music at the behest of a bar owner. She took the stage name Nina Simone—"Nina,"

Her movement-

In the mid-1960s, Simone became known as the voice of the Civil Rights Movement. She wrote "Mississippi Goddam" in response to the 1963 assassination of Medgar Evers and the Birmingham church bombing that killed four young African-American girls. She also wrote "Four Women," about the complex histories of four African-American female figures, and "Young, Gifted and Black," borrowing the title of a play by Hansberry, which became a popular anthem.

 

Civil rights cause-

Simone's inspiration to become involved in the Civil Rights Movement was due to an incident at her first concert at the age of 12 she had always included songs that drew upon her African-American origins.

 

Harriet Tubman’s birth name was Araminta Ross, she had 10 other siblings and they were all born into slavery in Dorchester County, Maryland. When she was young she was “hired out” to be a nursemaid for a baby. From a very young age determined to gain her freedom. She was involved in an incident that left a deep scar and she suffered from seizures for the rest of her life. In 1844, she got married and took his last name “Tubman” and she also changed her first name to her mother’s name “Harriet”.

Harriet Tubman escaped the South to the North in 1894. She became a famous abolitionist. She guided hundreds of slaves to their freedom along the route of the Underground Railroad. She a very famous “conductor”. 

Malcolm X (originally Malcolm Little) 

Born: May 19, 1925

Died: February 21, 1965

 

Malcolm X was an American civil rights figure during the 50’s and 60’s best known for his leadership and his emphasis on the concept of black nationalism. Malcolm had a rough childhood. He was only six years old when his father was killed by a car, assumed to be an act of white supremacy. This led his mother to fall apart, as she was later committed to an insane asylum. As a foster child, he did well in school. However, in year 8, a teacher directed a racial based comment to him, angering him and leading him to drop out. Malcolm then later began to involve himself in petty crimes, until he was jailed for theft.

 

 In this time, he was introduced by his brother to the Nation of Islam, an African American movement combining black nationalism and Islamic ideas. When Malcolm was released from prison, he became a prominent member of the Nation, founding the paper and setting up temples in major cities in the north-east of America. The Nation of Islam took a more aggressive approach to civil rights. Malcolm wrote about the Nations Islamic views, as well as writing about the “inherent evil of whites and the natural superiority of blacks.” Malcolm quickly became an influential outspoken activist. As a natural leader, he encouraged the black population to take a stand against racism and to defend themselves “by any means necessary.” His ideas on what should be done to achieve change were juxtaposed to the preaching’s of another key figure at the time, Martin Luther King.

 

Whilst Malcolm X’s approach to civil rights, all be it a more aggressive, demanding approach really had a huge effect on people, especially the African American population in the northern states. He taught many people about “black empowerment”, inspiring African Americans of all ages to view themselves differently and really question the state of society at the time. Therefore, he is now acknowledged as a key influential figure during the American civil rights movement. 

Angela Yvonne Davis (Angela Davis) was born on the 26^th of January 1944, in Birmingham, Alabama, U.S. He father, Frank, was the owner of a service station and her mother, Sallye, was an elementary school teacher and a member of the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People (NAACP). Angela lived in a middle-class neighbourhood called ‘Dynamite Hill’ because many homes were bombed by the Ku Klux Klan. She attended the segregated Carrie A. Tuggle Elementary School and Parker Annex, which was a branch of middle schools connected with the Parker High School located in Birmingham. In Junior Year she was accepted into the American Friends Service Committee Program. This program placed African American students into integrated schools. She was placed in the Elisabeth Irwin High School in Greenwich Village in New York City. at this school she was introduced to socialism and communism. She was also recruited by a Communist youth group. Later in her schooling she moved north and went to the Brandeis university in Massachusetts. Here she studies philosophy. 

She has been part of many movements concerning race and gender. She has also been associated with several groups, some of which included the Black Panthers. 

She is most famous for being imprisoned due to assumptions of her relation to the prison outbreak. Davis was a strong supporter of three prison inmates, they were known as the Soledad brothers (because that was the prison, they were all in), they were John W. Chuchette, Fleeta Drumgo and George Lester Jackson. These three men were accused with killing a prison guard, after several other African American inmates had been killed by other prison guards. On the day of Jackson's trial, he tried to escape, and several people were killed. Davis was charged with 🤬, kidnapping and conspiracy for her alleged part in the event. Two pieces of evidence that was used against her was that the gums used were registered under her name, but also that she was apparently in love with Jackson. She spends 18 months in jail for this event she was released in 1972. 

After her imprisonment in the 1970’s she became a famous speaker and an African American activist. This allowed her to share her opinion and help change the lives of people whose lives were unfair due to racism. 

Davis’s work has had both long- and short-term effects on people’s lives. She has helped the world understand the effects of racism and helped change how people are treated. 

Holiday’s childhood was spent travelling from towns and cities with her mother and living in and out of community homes. While living in New York, she had to resort to prostitution for a living as her mother alone could not provide for the both of them. Despite her rough adolescence, she was able to find peace while listening and singing to music. In the ‘30s she started singing in local jazz clubs and renamed herself to “Billie” after the actress Billie Dove. This is where her passion for jazz and blues began, and after a fateful encounter with producer John Hammond, she was able to turn that passion into a fruitful career. 

In 1939, Billie had debuted her rendition of Abel Meeropol’s poem, “Strange Fruit”, which detailed very vividly about lynching happening in the South. As the topic was seen as taboo to talk about at the time, Billie had thought that the poem was perfect to bring attention to such a serious and yet wildly unspoken about issue. Many now see “Strange Fruit” as being one of the first ever protest songs made, and while controversial, it was also very influential in the civil rights movement and anti-lynching movement.  The anti-lynching movement was a civil rights movement that protested for the complete abolition of lynching. Along with Ida B. Wells - an African-American journalist, Holiday stood with many in support of this movement, and her song, “Strange Fruit” is seen as a major factor in the movement’s success. 

Holiday’s song is extremely effective in capturing the true horror that was lynching in the South by comparing people who were lynched to fruit, and harshly contrasting the sweet lyrics of Southern flowers and trees with gruesome details of the bodies of those who were lynched. It serves as a permanent reminder of what monstrosities humanity is capable of. Today, Billie is known as a legendary jazz singer, and the emotions of absolute sorrow and terror in “Strange Fruit” still communicate very well to those of us listening to it now. 

Rosa Parks grew up on a farm living with her grandparents, her mother and brother Sylvester. Her and her family were all members of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, a century-old independent black denomination that was founded by free blacks in Philadelphia in the early nineteenth century. Around the 20^th century the former confederate states had adopted new constitutions and electoral laws that effectively stopped black people from voting. After this the racial discrimination started to grow, racial segregation was in place in public facilities and retail stores in the south and including public transportation. Bus and train companies were forced to create seating policies with separate sections on the transportation vehicles for black and white people. 

In December 1943, Rosa Parks became active in the civil rights movement. She joined the Montgomery chapter of the NAACP, and was elected secretary. 

In 1955, a black teenager named Emmett Till was murdered after flirting with a young white girl while he was visiting relatives in Mississippi. On November 27^th Parks attended a meeting at Dexter Avenue Baptist church in Montgomery. The meeting was to address the Emmett Till case as well as the recent murders of the activists George W. Lee and Lamar Smith. The featured speaker brought up the recent news of the two men who murdered Emmett. Rosa was deeply saddened and furious over the tragic news as this case had gathered much more attention than any other cases she and her tea at NAACP had worked on and still the two men got to walk free. 

In 1900 Montgomery busses and implied a law to segregate bus passengers by race. The bus drivers were empowered to assign seats to achieve that goal. Law stated that, no passengers would be required to move or give up their seat and stand if the bus was crowded and no other seats were available. However Montgomery bus drives adopted the practice of requiring back riders to move when there were now white-only seats left. The first 4 rows if seats would be reserved for white people only and generally in the rear of the bus was the “coloured” section. If the white section filled up they were allowed to sit in the coloured section. 

On Thursday December 1^st 1955 Rosa boarded the bus after a long day at work, she paid for her fare and then went and sat in the first row at the back reserved for “blacks”. And the bus went on the white section started to fill up and the bus driver realized that. He moved the coloured section sign behind where Rosa was sitting and demanded that 4 blacks were to move. She was asked to move again and she stood up for herself and said “I don’t think I should have to stand up”. The bus driver called the police, when the police man came to arrest her she said “why do you push us around” and said “I don’t know but the laws the law” parks was arrested and charged with segregation of the Montgomery law. After her arrest she became part of the civil rights movement. 

Without her actions African Americans would still be getting miss treated like they were, what she did was a major turning point in America. 

Name: Medgar Wiley Evers (Medgar Evers)

Birth Date: 2^nd July 1925

Assassination Date: 12^th June 1963 (age of 37)

Medgar Evers, an American civil rights activist, was born on the 2^nd of July in Decatur, Mississippi. He was the third of five children (two of which were from his mother’s previous marriage). In his youth, Evers grew up in a farming family. At the age of 18, he enlisted in the U.S. Army and fought in both France or Germany in World War II. In 1946, he received an honourable discharge. Two years later he and his brother enrolled at Alcorn College (now Alcorn State University) in Lorman, Mississippi. During his senior year in 1951, he married fellow student, Myrlie Beasley. After graduating in 1952, Evers moved to Philadelphia, where he started work at as an insurance salesman. At the same time, he and his brother Charles, began organising local affiliates and worked on behalf of the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People). He soon became involved in the RCNL (Regional Council of Negro Leadership). This was his first experience as a civil rights organiser and managed the group’s boycott against gas stations that refused to let black people use their restrooms. In 1954, Evers quit the insurance business and applied, but was denied admission to the University of Mississippi Law School. This unsuccessful effort, sparked attention from NAACP’s national office. Later that year, he moved to Jackson to become NAACP’s first field secretary in Mississippi.

He was one Mississippi’s most prominent civil rights activists, while practically unknown everywhere else. He fought racial injustices in many forms, including how the state and local legal systems handled crimes against African Americans. He called for a new investigation regarding the lynching in 1955 of Emmett Till, a 14 year old African American boy who supposedly whistled at a woman outside a store, who was then abducted and lynched by the lady’s family. and protested the conviction of his fellow Mississippi civil rights activist Clyde Kennard on theft charges in 1960.

These efforts made Evers a target for those who opposed racial equality and desegregation. He and his family were exposed to many threats, including a firebombing of his house in May 1963, only two months before his assassination.

After his assassination in 1963, his brother Charlie immediately requested and was granted to take his brother’s position at the NAACP, and afterward became a major political figure in the state. His wife, was also the first woman to supervise the NAACP from 1995 to 1998.

He has had a long lasting impacts and his contributions to the civil rights movement have been honoured in many ways. His wife created what is now known as the Medgar and Myrlie Evers Institute in Jackson, Mississippi to continue their commitment to social change.

In 2017, Barack Obama designated Ever’s home a national historic landmark.