Notable People / Figures (and their Works, Contributions, and Notable Biographical Information as well as their Significance)
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1825 - 1911 - Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
Influential abolitionist and women’s rights advocate, poet and novelist, and orator
Lectured on behalf of abolition and black education, capturing the excitement and sense of independence that came with achieving literacy
Her activism on behalf of both women’s rights and Black rights led her to become a founding vice president of the National Association of Colored Women
She is known for having took White feminists like Elizabeth Stanton “to task” for ignoring the reality of black’s women’s lives
She is significant because her life and work reflect a profound belief in and active commitment to both gender and racial equality and because she was one of the first African-American women in the United States to publish original work
Frances Ellen Watkins Harper: The Slave Mother
Work which examines the unique pain enslaved mothers endured
Frances Ellen Watkins Harper: Learning to Read
Poem about an elderly freeperson who is overjoyed by the prospect of literacy
Frances Ellen Watkins Harper (Works that Addressed Reconstruction)
Minnie’s Sacrifice
Sketches of Southern Life
Lola Leroy or Shadows Uplifted
1837 - 1921 - Pinckney Benton Stewart Pinchback
He was an American politician, publisher, and Union army officer
He is significant because he was the first African-American governor of the United States and one of the most prominent African-American officeholders during the Reconstruction Era
1847 - 1924 - Isaiah T. Montgomery
Founded Mound Bayou in 1887, an independent black community established by former slaves, it was one of the most highly concentrated communities of African-Americans historically
He is significant for participating in the 1890 Mississippi State Constitutional Convention where he voted for the adoption of a state constitution that effectively disenfranchised black voters for decades, using poll taxes and literacy tests to raise barriers to voter registration
It is in this sense that he was an accommodationist
1834 - 1915 - Bishop Henry McNeal Turner
Bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME), House Representative of Georgia, and Honorary Vice President of the American Colonization Society
He advocated for the civilizing and Christianizing mission of African American resettlement and the pride of race a Black nation in Africa could bring, having believed that Blacks would never receive fair treatment in the United States and fare better overseas
He was significant because he was one of his era’s most prominent Black supporters of Black emigration
1856 - 1915 - Booker Taliaferro Washington
He was / is seen as the leading African-American after Frederick Douglass’s death and was the most powerful Black man during his time
He was the era’s most powerful race leader because of his ability to voice Black people’s concerns while working with influential Whites by preaching racial conciliation
He was significant because he was the primary Black embodiment of Accommodationism, in which he advocated for gradual progress within existing political, economic, and social systems
He argued that economic self-sufficiency was the key to African-American progress and that building wealth and industrial skills should be prioritized over immediate political demands
He thus believed that Blacks could accommodate to life in the segregated South while gaining the industrial and vocational training that could bring them economic independence
He argued that this approach would ultimately yield interracial and intraracial progress
His college he founded in 1881, the Tuskegee Institute, focuses on vocational and industrial training and was / is a historically Black school
He was also well-known for his autobiography entitled “Up from Slavery”
1871 - 1938 - James Weldon Johnson
American Writer and Civil Rights Activist who became the first Black executive secretary of the NAACP
He initiated a nationwide campaign to sign up new members at $1 a year
As a result, the NAACP became overwhelmingly Black, while remaining committed to interracial cooperation
He was particularly successful in the dangerous work of establishing NAACP chapters in the Deep South, although these were subject to antiblack violence and some had to close or go underground
He is significant in African-American history for his writing the words to the poem “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” which became / is the Black national anthem
He is known for his famous work “God’s Trombones: Seven Negro Sermons in Verse” and “Black Manhattan”
1901 - 1967 - Langston Hughes
He is significant because he was the most well-known Black writer and poet of his time as a major figure in the Harlem Renaissance and achieved fame both in America and globally
A poet, his work vividly and perceptively explored Black life and culture from the perspective of everyday folk, from the bottom up rather than the top down
He was also known for having written in four authorial voices: Afrocentrism, Left Nationalism, Proletarian Realism, and Blues-Ballad
1899 - 1979 - Aaron Douglas
He was significant for being the preeminent artist of the Harlem Renaissance as a painter, muralist, and graphic artist
As an Afro-modernist, he was known for merging Egyptian, West-African, and European styles of art together in his pieces
He headed the Art Department at Fisk University
1809 - 1900 - Benjamin “Pap” Singleton
He is significant for being the most important proponent of the Black migration to Kansas
He detested sharecropping and promoted Black landownership as the most viable basis for Black self-government
He established the “Edgefield Real Estate and Homestead Association,” which spread word of available land and hospitable environments for Blacks in Kansas and helped promote settlement of freedmen in the western states
He escaped slavery and fled to New Orleans to avoid being sold by his master and worked as cabinetmaker, mostly finishing coffins
He also worked with William Sizemore and Benjamin Petway to organize a state convention to discuss westward migration of Blacks
Edward P. McCabe
He is significant for serving as Kansas state auditor, the highest office a Black man in Kansas could serve at the time
He planned to organize Black settlers to muster a majority in each representative and senatorial district in the proposed state
He predicted that within a few years, Oklahoma would send two Negro senators to Congress
He hoped to eventually be appointed governor or secretary of the Oklahoma Territory
He hoped to have a “Negro state governed by Negroes” in time and for encouraging the immigration of Blacks to outnumber Whites
He founded the city of Langston, Oklahoma
He was also a leader in the “Exodusters” Movement
1887 - 1940 - Marcus Mosiah Garvey
He was significant for his foundation of the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), which was the largest and most militant African-American organizations with an estimated 6M members worldwide during his lifetime
UNIA advocated for separatism over integrationism (like that of the NAACP)
He is known for his emphasis on racial pride and unity at a time when these messages resonated deeply with Blacks and reinvigorated Black Nationalism and Black Separatism,
Advocated for the unity, self-determination, and economic independence of people of African descent worldwide, in what is known as “Pan-Africanism”
He was convicted of mail fraud, imprisoned, and deported
He met the imperial wizard of the KKK, Edward Clarke, and invited him to Liberty Hall to speak, which frustrated some contemporary Black leaders
1867 - 1919 - Madame CJ Walker
She was the most successful Black businesswoman of her time
She created a hugely successful hair care business empire catering to Black women
She established schools that taught Black beauty methods and donated much of her considerable fortunes to various Black institutions
She was significant for providing opportunities for jobs and activism among Black women, in which her jobs made it possible for thousands of women to give up the washtub, the cook kitchen, and scrub work jobs that made them their living
At its peak, her hair care business employed 40K African-Americans
1888 - 1966 - Cyril Briggs
He ran a column called “The Crusader,” which was a Black Communist magazine that advocated for Africa’s right to self-determination and the idea of “Africa for the Africans,” having
Published articles based on African nationalism
Endorsed independent African economic development
Supported the end of European and Western colonization in Africa
Founded the African Blood Brotherhood, a small but historically important radical organization dedicated to advancing the cause of Pan-Africanism
1871 - 1951 - Oscar Stanton De Priest
He became the first African-American to serve in Congress (he was elected to the House of Representatives in 1928) since North Carolina’s George Henry White in 1901
He was elected as alderman for the Second Ward in Chicago by blacks on Chicago’s South Side, he received support from Ida B Wells
He developed his own contracting business and began participating in community affairs in Chicago in 1889
1895 - 1950 - Charles Hamilton Houston
He is significant for having revived and reenergized the NAACP after it alienated many Blacks for its denouncing the Communist party and after it was criticized for overlooking the needs of Black workers
In so doing, he created a legal division within the NAACP called the “Legal Defense and Educational Fund” in which the NAACP adopted his legal strategy
His plan was to demonstrate that the separate but equal doctrine established in 1896 by Plessy v. Ferguson denied Blacks their 14th Amendment rights to due process and equal protection under the law
He started with a series of suits demanding that all separate Black schools be made equal to White schools and that Black teacher salaries be made the same as White teacher salaries
He was the dean of Howard University Law School and had pioneered the field of civil rights law
He trained many Black lawyers including Thurgood Marshall
1865 - 1953 - (Reverend) Adam Clayton Powell Sr.
Led Harlem’s Abyssinian Baptist Church, the largest Protestant congregation in the country at the time, with 10K members
His church helped feed 2K people daily in its soup kitchen and handed out clothing and fuel
He helped organize the silent march of 1917
He is significant for using the term “Black Power” in reference to African-Americans for the first time
1908 - 1972 - Adam Clayton Powell Jr.
Outspoken advocate of civil rights who organized the famous “Don’t Buy Where You Can’t Work” campaign to pressure New York stores to hire Black employees
He was elected Democrat to the US House of Representatives in 1944 for his efforts
1875 - 1955 - Mary McLeod Bethune
Founded the Daytona Normal and Industrial Institute for Nego Girls in Florida in 1904
As head of the Division of Negro Affairs of the National Youth Administration evolved into her appointment to official division director, she, in this capacity, launched opportunities for vocational training and jobs in both the private and public sector for thousands of unemployed Black youths between 16 and 24
She used her influence to get the federal government to sponsor conferences highlighting Black problems and devising federal solutions
She organized the “Black Cabinet,” more formally known as the “Federal Council on Legal Affairs”
She also founded the National Council of Negro Women (NCNW)
Bayard Rustin
He was a longtime advisor of MLK Jr.
He organized the 1963 March on Washington
As a civil rights activist, he had to hide his homosexuality for fear of hurting the Black cause
1921 - 2017 - Robert Patterson
Plantation Owner in Mississippi who formed the first White Citizen’s Council in response to Brown v. Board of Education, it was essentially a White Supremacist organization
1903 - 1986 - Ella Baker
She helped students organize the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)
She was the first full-time staff member and interim director of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) but left due to the organization’s male-centeredness
She also wrote a scathing expose of the “Bronx Slave Market” - an extremely abusive labor system in the Bronx that exploited Black women domestics in which desperate Black women domestics lined the streets to be picked up by White women to work with or for them
She is accredited with the quote “strong people don’t need strong leaders,” emphasizing grassroots organizing, participatory democracy, and the empowerment of ordinary people to lead themselves and drive social change
1917 - 1977 - Fannie Lou Hamer
She was the principal organizer of and spokesperson for the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party
Elected vice chair of the party’s 68 delegates, who planned to challenge their state’s all-white segregationist delegation at the DNC
She was a desegregationist and believed Whites had an important role to play in the Civil Rights Movement
Over her lifetime, however, she became increasingly suspicious of white liberals
As an activist, the last thing she wanted was for white liberals, who controlled the Democratic convention, to seat the delegation that had been elected by the all-white Mississippi Democratic Party, which had no intention of supporting LBJ and the Civil Rights Act
1840s - Henry Adams
Inspired the Exodusters
Testified before US Senate Committee investigating the cause of the Exodus
He is significant for spearheading North Louisiana’s first civil rights campaign for African-Americans
1856 - 1928 - Timothy Thomas Fortune
He was the leading economist in the Black community during his time
He was the highly influential editor and owner of the nation's leading Black newspaper during his time, The New York Age
He was a long-time adviser and friend to Booker T. Washington
He founded the National Afro-American League
He was an ex-slave, the son of a Reconstruction political leader and his political career spanned more than 60 years
He is significant for authoring the first work of political economy by an African-American
He reprinted Ida B Wells’ articles in his newspaper and hired her to write for his paper, helping her to publish her research in a pamphlet entitled “Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases” and helped her campaign against lynching receive national and international attention
1856 - 1928 - Timothy Thomas Fortune: “The Present Relations of Labor and Capital”
Speech given days before “May Day 1886” - a national strike for the 8-hour work day, for which he strongly advocated
Speech where he calls for solidarity amongst workers
Speech where he argues that
Every person is entitled to life’s basic necessities because it is a self-evident right rather than privilege by virtue of persons being human beings
Capitalist monopolies and unrestrained property rights undermine democracy and the broader welfare of society
Growing inequality between laborers and capitalists is the greatest threat to democracy and social stability in the US
Speech with notable quotes including
“Labor has been and is the producing agency, while capital has been as is the absorbing or parasitical agency”
“Capital is entrenched behind ten centuries of law and conservatism, and controlled withal by the wisest and coolest heads of the world”
“The social and material differences” between men “are the creations of man, not of God”
1862 - 1931 - Ida B Wells
Most prominent outspoken opponent of lynching in the US
Journalist who ran a newspaper called “the Memphis Free Speech,” which was destroyed
1862 - 1931 - Ida B Wells: “Lynch Law in America”
Speech where she argues that
Lynching was once part of a just system in which people were tried before a court before they were lynched for heinous crimes, but that it was eventually used to excuse vengeance and cover crime
The North was no better than the South because lynchings were occurring above the Mason-Dixon line
The purpose of the advocates of the “unwritten law” were to intimidate, suppress, and nullify the Black person’s right to vote
Once the Black person’s right to vote was suppressed, the lynchings and mob murders should have ceased, and yet they continued, then without the political excuse of suppressing the Black vote
No Black Man, no matter his reputation or social standing, was safe from lynching if a White Woman accusing him of assault or insult
Lynchings of Black men were justified to prevent crimes against women
People already criminally disposed were able to get away with their crimes if they pointed the finger at Black people and while they got away with their crime, the Black people they accused were lynched
They scapegoated Blacks in every which way in order to excuse lynching and alleviate themselves of their own crime and in order to “prove the negro a moral monster and unworthy of the respect and sympathy of the civilized world”
“The negro has been too long associated with the white man not to have copied his vices as well as his virtues”
It is hypocritical to claim that the nation is “the land of the free and the home of the brave” because brave men do not gather together to torture and murder a single individual who can barely defend himself nor do brave men stand by and ignore their conscience and standby without protest as the torturing and murdering occurred
It is hypocritical that Americans fight for the freedoms of people being persecuted around the world, but not the freedoms of oppressed Americans themselves, that “Surely, it should be a nation’s duty to correct its own evils!”
Speech where she reinforced this claim by citing the French press’s response to the US’s protest against the Dreyfus Affair in which they said “Stop your lynchings at home before you send your protests abroad”
The United States has paid nearly .5M dollars in indemnities to lynching people from other nations within their own
The US had to pay China, Italy, and England for lynching its citizens visiting or living in the US
Speech where she compares the white Anglo-Saxon “Christian” men who butcher women and lynch to the very groups they accuse of savagery and being un-Christian like
She said that “These people [non-Christians] knew nothing about Christianity and did not profess to follow its teachings; but such primary laws as they had they lived up to. No nation, savage or civilized, save only the United States of America, has confessed its inability to protect its women save by hanging, shooting, and burning alleged offenders”
Speech where she claims that
The charge was made that homes of white families were in great danger in districts thickly populated with Black people
19th Century lynchings involved cutting off ears, toes, and fingers, stripping off flesh, and distributing portions of the body as souvenirs among the crowd and that leaders of the mob sometimes poured coal-oil over the body of the victim and roasted them to death
1861 - 1928 - Callie House
She founded and became secretary for the National Ex-Slave Mutual Relief, Bounty and Pension Association, which, at its peak had 300K members in the early 1900s
She is significant for her efforts to gain reparations for former slaves and is regarded as one of the earliest leaders of the reparations movement among African-American political activists
1811 - 1874 - Charles Sumner
He and Thaddeus Stevens led the Radical Republicans during Reconstruction, which
Pressed for more aggressive military campaigns during the war and a quicker to slavery
Helped pass the Wade-Davis Bill aiming to reverse Lincoln’s proposed leniency toward Confederates
Helped reauthorize the Freedmen’s Bureau and Civil Rights Act of 1866, which he strongly advocated and influenced its passage
He led the successful effort to end the 40-year prohibition against Blacks carrying US mail
He is significant because he was Blacks’ most effective spokesperson in Congress at the time along with Thaddeus Stevens
He also paved the way for John S. Rock to become the first Black man accepted to argue cases before the US Supreme Court in 1865
Beat by Preston S. Books in the Senate due to the furor over “Bleeding Kansas” which brought violence to the floor of the Senate
Argued for Roberts in the Roberts v. City of Boston Massachusetts Supreme Court case and his argument during the case inspired and influenced future developments despite the court siding with the City of Boston in the case
1792 - 1868 - Thaddeus Stevens
He and Charles Sumner led the Radical Republicans during Reconstruction, which
Pressed for more aggressive military campaigns during the war and a quicker to slavery
Helped pass the Wade-Davis Bill aiming to reverse Lincoln’s proposed leniency toward Confederates
Helped reauthorize the Freedmen’s Bureau and Civil Rights Act of 1866, which he strongly advocated and influenced its passage
He is significant for his, now lost to history / censorship, “HR 29, Reparations Bill,” which sought to punish the former Confederate states for waging war to preserve slavery and to provide material reparations to formerly enslaved people, the bill called for
Confiscation of Confederate State Lands
Seizure of Enemy Property
Commissions to Condemn Property
Land Redistribution to Formerly Enslaved People
Financial Reparations
Confiscated property would fund:
$50 per homestead to help build dwellings
$200M invested in US bonds to support pensions for Union war pensioners
$300M to compensate loyal Union citizens harmed by Confederate actions
He is also significant because he was Blacks’ most effective spokesperson in Congress at the time along with Charles Sumner
1875 - 1950 - Carter G. Woodson
Black historian who founded the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History (ASNLH), the foremost organization promoting African-American history among the lay public as well as within Black institutions; and published his “Journal of Negro History,” which made Black history accessible to educators, students, and general readers
His creation of “Negro History Week” laid the foundations for what we now know today as “Black History Month”
He is considered “the Father of Negro History”
He is significant for promoting the serious study of African-American history and culture
1853 - 1942 - Lucy Parsons
She is known for her leadership roles in the Anarchist and Radical Labor Movements
She is significant for having led the 1886 Strike or Haymarket Affair: “Eight Hour Day, no cut in pay”
She co-founded the International Workers of the World
1904 - 1971 - Ralph Bunche
He is significant as a Black Intellectual who called for the “reconstruction of history” in which he challenged empiricism and the cult of objectivity in which he argued that the modern historian selected the “historical facts” according to “his frame of reference, some complex of ideas, some social values, some ideology” and made interpretations and reached conclusions
He was the first Black person to hold a high-level position in the State Department and the first to win the Nobel Peace Prize, for his role in Middle East negotiations between Arabs and Jews
He sought to reform capitalism structurally and radically
1891 - 1960 - Zora Neale Hurston
Harlem Renaissance Writer who claimed fame for her work “Their Eyes Were Watching God,” which centered on the maturation of Janie, its protagonist, who found within herself the means to triumph over poverty, sexism, and racism
Other famous works of hers include
“How It feels to be Colored Me”
“Mule Bone” (w/ Langston Hughes)
“Mules and Men”
“Dust Tracks on the Road”
She also helped Franz Boas discover that there were no fundamental biological differences between Whites and Blacks, let alone all races
1890 - 1948 - Claude McKay
Leading luminary of the Harlem Renaissance
Well-known for his poems and novels that explored issues of Black identity and attacked American racism
He is significant for his poem “Outcast,” which looked back on Africa as a lost homeland
1858 - 1925 - Homer Plessy
Shoemaker who was 7/8 white who argued that he had been denied equal protection under the 14th Amendment when a Louisiana train conductor forced him to ride in the “colored car” rather than in the first-class car for which he had purchased a ticket and was arrested and charged with violating Louisiana’s “Separate Car Act”
He is significant because he was the plaintiff in his namesake court case, in which the court argued that the Louisiana Act was constitutional because having separate facilities did not violate one’s right to equal protection under the laws or imply the inferiority of Blacks, thus legitimizing and legalizing Jim Crow Laws
1889 - 1979 - Asa Philip Randolph
He is significant for having founded the “Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters (and Maids)”, the first predominantly African-American labor union
He used this union as an organizational base for promoting both the rights of Blacks and the rights of labor
He sought to leverage the power of Black wageworkers
He long advocated for interracial unionism
He had joined the Socialist Party because of its views on labor
He criticized the war as nothing but an effort to advance capitalist interests and wrote a public letter to Woodrow Wilson denouncing his justification for war abroad as about democracy given all the impediments to democracy at home like lynching, segregation, Jim Crow, discrimination in the armed forces, and the disenfranchisement of millions of Black people in the South
He argued that “for where you get your money you also get your ideas and control” as a basis for calling for “a leadership which is uncontrolled and responsible to no one but the Negro,” in other words, a leadership by Blacks for Blacks
Standing on this position, he soon left the National Negro Congress, resigning as president and leaving to form an all-black movement, the “March on Washington” Movement, the march in which he helped organize
He also pressured FDR into signing Executive Order 8802
He defined the “New Negro” politically, economically, and socially
He was a member of the Black Cabinet
He was president of the National Negro Congress
Editor the “Messenger,” a socialist magazine
1942 - 1989 - Huey P Newton
He is significant for his co-founding of the Black Panthers (“Black Panther Party for Self-Defense”)
He advocated for building communities in a socialist manner
He argued that the US was an Empire and acted like an Empire
1903 - 1938 - Sufi Abdul-Hamid
He is significant for his being the first successful Black Muslim activist
He advocated for a pan-Africanist position in which he argued that Blacks were oppressed by White imperialists
He organized the Negro Industrial and Clerical Union in 1934
He led mass pickets against Harlem merchants, many of which were Jewish
He declared “an open bloody war against the Jews who are much worse than all other Whites”
Harlem’s Jewish merchants charged him with Nazism
Interestingly, the German-American Bund (US Nazis) invited him to a meeting
However, the negatively publicity in which he associated himself with Nazis ruined his role in leading Black people towards jobs and that task was taken over by Rev. Adam Clayton Powell Jr.
1898 - 1976 - Paul Robeson
He served as the chair on the Council on African Affairs
Multi-talented man who, as an ardent internationalist and anticolonialist, he contributed to freedom struggles and left-wing causes around the world as a singer, actor, and celebrity and was a prominent civil rights activist and Pan-Africanist
He is significant for his determination in the idea that that Blacks would not take up arms against the Soviet Union and go to war in defense of Western imperialism, an ideology that has never supported Blacks or Black interests; especially when defiantly repeating that Blacks should not be going to war with the Soviet Union while being investigated in a House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC)
He formed a close friendship and political alliance with WEB DuBois
Under the Smith Act of 1940, he was banned from performing in the US and had had his passport taken and his income threatened, which declined from 100K to 6K per year and later imprisoned
1908 - 1960 - Richard Wright
He was the most famous artist to emerge from the “Chicago Renaissance” (of the 1930s and 1940s)
He is known for his position in
Rejecting the Harlem Renaissance writers due to their lack of social protest in their fiction
Criticizing the Harlem Renaissance writers as pandering to the interests of white audiences
Announcing a new agenda for writers, one in which the Negro should write for the Negro masses, rather than all of humanity
He joined the Community Party in Chicago before moving to New York, where he influenced Ralph Ellison; however he later repudiated the Community Party
He is famous for his work “Native Son,” which explored the forces of racial conflict and violence of the Jim Crow South and of the Chicago ghetto, while plumbing racial, class, gender, and emotional-psychological depths
1912 - 1992 - Jo Ann Robinson
Mobilized the Montgomery Bus Boycott
She is significant for having done this at a time during the early phases of the Black Power movement when the pressure on women to accept secondary roles became more pronounced as Black Nationalist ideas took hold and women were bombarded with demands to stop competing with men for jobs and to stay home and have babies for the revolution; expected to do menial chores such as make coffee and clean up after the men; if they objected, they were accused of allying with Whites or feminizing Black men
1941 - Present - Maulana Ron Karenga
He advocated for Cultural Nationalism (Kawaida), in which he believed that what affected Black people most was their views and values, not race
He synthesized African-American thought and practice with the Afrocentric worldview, emphasizing cultural revolution and self-determination for African people
He is known for creating the holiday of Kwanza, which 25M of the 48M African-Americans celebrate to this day
1888 - 1965 - Henry Wallace
He was Vice President for FDR and he ran for the Progressive Party against Harry Truman in the Election of 1948
He is significant to African-American history for his calls to eliminate racism from unions, business organizations, educational institutions, and employment practices
He favored aggressive government policies like those initiated during the New Deal to bring about equal access and opportunity for all Americans, believing that America had the world by demonstrating its commitment to the common person
He had no chance of winning against Truman, however
1933 - 1945 - Franklin Delano Roosevelt
Issued Execute Order 8802, which established the FEPC to investigate complains of discrimination and address grievances
However, he crippled the agency from the start by providing no enforcement apparatus, a very limited budget, and some leaders who were less than sympathetic to African-American complaints
1945 - 1953 - Harry Truman
Issued Executive Order 9808 which established the federal “Committee on Civil Rights” which led to the landmark report called “To Secure These Rights” and Executive Order 9981
Issued Executive Order 9981, which abolished segregation and discrimination in the U.S. Armed Forces based on race, color, religion, or national origin
Issued Executive Order 9806, which essentially laid the groundwork for McCarthyism in which it
Established the loyalty commission
Initiated security checks
Established the Attorney General’s “list of subversive organizations,” which eventually included the NAACP onto the list, which effectively made Black postal employees lost their jobs because of their membership to the NAACP
President of the US who went on record as supporting anti-lynching legislation, desegregation of the armed forces, legislation to prevent discrimination in voter registration, and abolition of the poll tax
President of the US who went on record ignoring or not endorsing fair housing, employment, and education
1925 - 1965 - Malcolm X
Maintained that the civil rights struggle needed a newer and broader interpretation, and that was Black Nationalism
He is significant for shifting the Black Liberation movement away from freedom and towards Black Power
In other words, he emphasized the shift away from nonviolence towards violence and contended that revolutions can only take place “with bloodshed”
He called out leaders like MLK as sellouts who were handpicked by White Liberals to keep Blacks in check
He argued that Blacks needed land, power, and freedom; not desegregation
He expanded the civil rights struggle to the level of human rights
And that the problem is not an American problem, it’s a human problem; that it’s not a Negro problem but a human problem, that it’s not a problem of civil rights, but a problem of human rights
He argued that if Black people pooled their resources; built their own hospitals, schools, and factories; and made their own neighborhoods good places to live; that it wouldn’t be necessary to integrate White establishments
He preached that this could happen only if Black people learned to love themselves, protect themselves, and build their own economic system
He also contended that Blacks should start to think of themselves as “Blacks” instead of “Negroes” because the term “Negro” he argued was invented to separate Blacks from their African and Asian brothers and he also argued that it made Black people hate themselves because of its association with slavery and docility
1941 - 1998 - Stokely Carmichael / Kwame Ture
He is known for his role as chairman of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), in which he shifted it from being nonviolent to more militant as well as separatist
He founded the Lowndes County Freedom Organization (LCFO)
He is significant for being one of the first Black activists to promote and employ the strategy of planning and forming new and independent Black Political Parties as a vehicle for change
In other words, he contributed to organizing independent Black political power
He advocated taking power instead of sharing power
In his 1966 “Black Power” Speech, he argued that Whites and Blacks should be working within their own communities both for the Black cause: Whites should be working within their own communities to eliminate racism within them and to separate themselves from Blacks who can work to change their own communities by themselves instead of Blacks continuously depending on desegregation and integration for progress
1929 - 1968 - Martin Luther King
He is one of the most well-known Civil Rights Activist
He worked (or conceded to) LBJ to get him to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965 from the marches he led
He is significant for his brand of activism of using nonviolence
He led the March on Washington March for Jobs and Freedom in 1963, the largest and most well-known Civil Rights March
He is significant for many reasons, one of which is due to his decisions that led to the decline of the civil rights movement and transition from that movement to the Black Power movement, including his
Decision to call off the protest against the shooting of Jimmie Lee Jackson to pander to LBJ in order to get the Voting Rights Act of 1965 passed
Decision to call off and have protesters retreat and turn around once they reached Edmund Pettus bridge in the Selma to Montgomery March of 1965 due to a court order
Notable absence during Bloody Sunday
1917 - 1963 - John F. Kennedy
His legacy is mixed:
He was the first president to propose the Civil Rights Act, which, would have likely passed had it not been for his assassination
He also federalized the Alabama National Guard and ordered guardsmen to protect two students who were blocked by Alabama governor George C. Wallace who stood in the University of Alabama doorway
He got on TV to reiterate his support for Black civil and voting rights and for desegregation and made a stirring speech that the nation would never be free until all citizens were free
Many African-Americans were pleased with his speech
However, he
Moved cautiously and slowly in Civil Rights matters
Favored negotiated mediation behind closed doors over direct-action demonstrations
Expressed anger at the actions of Civil Rights protestors
Reluctantly sent troops to quell the deadly riots that ensued after James Meredith’s “March Against Fear”
This was all due to his concern and fear of the impact of the negative publicity generated by American racism, especially in the context of the Cold War and convincing the world that America’s system of government was superior to the USSR’s
1925 - 1996 - Robert F. Williams
He is well known for promoting armed Black self-defense in the United States during the days of the Civil Rights Movement
However, he is more significant for laying the foundation for Black Power through his Black Nationalist ideology his strategy of “Tactical Flexibility” in which he rejected the idea that one approach or strategy was necessary to promote Black Power and advocated the idea that different strategies could be used depending on the situation
In other words, he was willing to use multiple strategies: nonviolent protests, armed self-defense, legal appeals, international advocacy, etc. depending on what the situation required in the struggle for Black freedom and rejected previous Black leaders’ insistence on using one fixed method
1908 - 1973 - Lyndon B. Johnson
President of the United States during the peak of the Civil Rights Movement and MLK known outside of Civil Rights for his War on Poverty and Great Society Reforms
He had argued that government jobs and antipoverty programs were compensatory measures needed to reverse past discrimination
He initiated and financed Community Action Programs (CAPs), which directed antipoverty agencies to involve poor people in solving the problems of their own communities
He also passed the Economic Opportunity Act, which established the Job Corps, Head Start, the Neighborhood Youth Crops, and Volunteers in Service to America (VISTA)
In African-American history, he is most significant for passing the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965
However, prior to his presidency, he blocked the passage and enforcement of civil rights law
Nonetheless, he is significant to African-American history for the same reasons that the Civil Rights Act he passed was significant
1856 - 1924 - Woodrow Wilson
US President known for his “Fourteen Points” and objective to “make the world safe for democracy”
He is significant for having premiered the racist and inaccurate “Birth of a Nation” film in the White House and praised it for its supposed historical accuracy
1931 - 1937 - Scottsboro Boys
9 Black teenage boys who were charged with assaulting White teenage boys and charged with raping two White teenage girls on a freight train during the Great Depression
They became known by the namesake, where their trial was held in Alabama
Despite compelling evidence that should have freed them, they suffered years in jail before eventually being freed
They and their case were significant because it eventually led to the landmark Supreme Court Case of Norris v. Alabama, which guaranteed the right to legal counsel and fair jury selection, setting precedents for equal protection under the law for African-Americans
1868 - 1963 - WEB DuBois
Unlike Booker T Washington who advocated for Accommodation; he advocated for Resistance
He was the first African-American to receive PhD
Black Writer, Historian, and Civil Rights Activist known for his many famous works documenting African-American history and thought including
“Black Reconstruction,” which was the first significant work to address Reconstruction from an African-American perspective and challenge the White supremacist interpretation of Reconstruction history
“The Souls of Black Folk,” which includes his critiques of Booker T. Washington and his concept of “double consciousness”
In “The Souls of Black Folk” he argued that Washington’s methods essentially produced disenfranchisement for Blacks and shift the problem onto Blacks themselves when, in his view, the problem belonged to the nation as a whole
He argued that Blacks must work to gain civil and political rights first instead of waiting for them like Washington’s Accommodationist method suggested for how could Blacks do better with jobs if they weren’t vying for political and civil power to allow them to get those better jobs?
Double Consciousness - Term that describes the internal conflict and "twoness" of African Americans seeing themselves through their own eyes and simultaneously through the prejudiced lens of a predominantly white, racist society, creating a fragmented sense of self where one feels both Black and American but alienated from both
“The Talented Tenth,” in which he conceptualized a select group of educated black individuals whom he believed could provide crucial leadership for the advancement of African Americans
He argued that, “the Negro race, like all races, is going to be saved by its exceptional men. The problem of education, then, among Negroes must first of all deal with the talented tenth; it is the problem of developing the Best of this race so that they may guide the mass away from the contamination and death of the worst, in their own and in other races”
He is significant due to the contributions he made to Black thought noted above
He co-founded the NAACP and organized the first Pan-African Conference (1900)
1808 - 1875 - Andrew Johnson
President of the US after Lincoln during Reconstruction
He maintained Lincoln’s lenient policies toward Confederates, in which he
Rapidly restored the civil government of the former Confederate states
Granted amnesty for former Confederates
Had an overall lack of interest in the protecting the civil rights of freed people
He is significant for antagonizing the Radical Republicans in Congress and slowing down the process of providing freedoms and rights to African-Americans
1911 - 2004 - Ronald Reagan
Demonized Black women with his “Welfare Queen” concept, popularizing the myth that single Black women were irresponsible, sexually promiscuous, and lived comfortably on the taxpayers’ dime
He acted on the principle or argument that welfare actually caused poverty by making recipients dependent and lazy
He cut child nutrition and job training programs - programs that both the Black AND White poor depended
He cut the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act (CETA), which provided more than 300K jobs for poor people, which caused 10% of welfare recipients to lose their welfare altogether and 300K families to have their welfare significantly reduced
He filled the Civil Rights Commission and Equal Employment Opportunity Commission with people opposed to civil rights and slashed their budgets
He encouraged school boards to resist court-ordered busing
He ordered the attorney general to fight affirmative action in the courts
He is most significant, however, for his War on Drugs, in which he passed punitive antidrug laws that allowed for imprisoning many first-time offenders and which disproportionately affected African-Americans via the Comprehensive Crime Control Act of 1984
His War on Drugs was so bas that the US turned to private industry (prisons for profit) to house prisoners
The explosion of arrests of African-Americans led people to believe that the joblessness, low-performing schools, deficient health care facilities, and decrepit housing present in Black neighborhoods were the result of drug use
This, he is significant for deeply, thoroughly and disproportionally negatively affecting African-Americans via his policies
1913 - 2005 - Rosa Parks
Lifelong Civil Rights Activist who helped free the Scottsboro Boys with Communist Party activists, investigated racial incidents like the 1944 gang rape of Recy Taylor, and organized the Montgomery Voters League
She is most significant, however, for refusing to give up her seat for a White man on a bus, which led to the Montgomery Bus Boycotts
1922 - 2021 - Gloria Richardson
Founded the Cambridge Nonviolent Action Committee (CNAC), whose initial goal was to desegregate public facilities but which progressed to issues of unemployment and incarceration
In 1963, she led a demonstration for jobs, housing, and desegregation; showing courage and defiance in the face of the National Guard
1944 - Present - Angela Davis
Female Black Panther and UCLA Philosophy Professor that was tried for aiding the escape of several prison inmates from a California courtroom, an incident during which a judge was killed and a prosecutor and a juror were wounded; but was acquitted
As a result of this trial and her actions as well as her signature Afro-hairdo, she became an iconic image of Black Radicalism’s challenge to America’s racism
1913 - 1980 - Jesse Owens
African-American track and field athlete who made history at the 1936 Olympic Games by winning four gold medals, setting Olympic records in each event
He is widely regarded as one of the greatest athletes in track and field history
He is significant because his athletic achievements and public symbolism challenged racist ideologies at home and abroad, opened doors for Black athletes, and reshaped the meaning of Black excellence in the 20th century
1919 - 1972 - Jackie Robinson
He is significant for being the first African-American to play in the MLB, having successfully integrated American baseball
1954 - Rayford Logan: The Betrayal of the Negro
Work which articulates the concept of the “Second Nadir” (1877 - 1923), the “lowest point in the Negro’s struggle for equal rights” and which identifies six processes through white white supremacists produced such a period including
Economic Exploitation
Disenfranchisment
Apartheid / Segregation
Discrimination
Lynching
Contempt
Work which is significant for arguing and introducing the idea that life was worse after slavery for Blacks because the legal and institutional protections in place for Blacks as slaves were eliminated and thus there was nothing stopping Whites from endangering their lives, which is seen by the fact that this period oversaw many lynchings, pogroms, etc. of Black people
1925 - Alain Locke: The New Negro
1944 - Gunnar Myrdal: An American Dilemma
Study of race relations authored by the namesake Swedish economist, who was chosen with the purpose of being able to give a more unbiased opinion
Work which was significant for describing in painstaking detail the obstacles to full participation in American society that American Blacks faced in the 1940s
Work in which the namesake author stated that “a veritable revolution in scientific thought on the racial characteristics of the Negro” had occurred
This derived from the fact that Blacks’ structural position as well as their racial theories and ideologies, had been transformed by the 1940s
Work which was also significant for having a greater impact on the sociological imagination than Cox’s “Caste, Class, and Race”
1967 - Stokely Carmichael and Charles Hamilton: Black Power, The Politics of Liberation
Work which argues that “‘Integration’ as a goal today speaks to the problem of blackness not only in an unrealistic way but also in a despicable way . . . [It] reinforces, among both black and white, the idea that ‘White’ is automatically superior and ‘Black’ is by definition inferior . . . For this reason, ‘integration’ is a subterfuge for maintenance of white supremacy . . . ‘Integration’ also means that Black people must give up their identity, deny their heritage . . . The fact is that integration, as traditionally articulated, would abolish the Black community. The fact is that what must be abolished is not the black community but the dependent colonial status that has been inflicted upon it”
Work which was significant for advancing the ideas of Black Power as articulated by the namesake authors in which the namesake authors define Black Power, present insights into the roots of racism in the United States and suggest a means of reforming the traditional political process for the future
1863 - 1929 - John Mitchell Jr.
Founder and Editor of the Richmond Planet Newspaper
1944 - Rayford Logan: What the Negro Wants
Work which argues that racism is maintained by deliberate policies, not “natural” social forces
Work which argues that African-Americans want full citizenship and complete political, economic, and social equality in line with the Constitution
Work which argues that America has failed to deliver on its democratic ideals
Work which was significant for representing the first major collective statement of Black demands during WWII
1963 - James Baldwin: The Fire Next Time
Work which argues that
Christianity, as practiced in America, has failed Black people
America’s racial problem is a moral and psychological crisis, not just a political one
White America must confront the truth about history or it will destroy itself
Black Americans must reject internalized racism and know their worth
Work which is significant because of its attack on American Christianity, which many Blacks, even in slavery, supported and embraced; so it makes for a bold and revolutionary idea
Work which is also significant because it became one of the most influential texts of the Civil Rights era, shaping how the nation understood Black struggle and the meaning of American democracy
1967 - Martin Luther King Jr.: From Chaos to Community
Work which argues that
Despite successes such as the Civil Rights Act, Voting Rights, and Brown v. Board, there is still lots of work to do in resolving
economic inequality
segregated housing
northern racism
white indifference
There is a need to shift now from “Civil Rights” to “Human Rights”
Racism still remained deeply embedded in the South
Poverty is still widespread and needs to be tackled with massive federal investment
Nonviolence is still the only moral and practical path forward
The Vietnam War should be condemned
Work which is significant because it
Represents the namesake author’s most radical and mature political thought
Marks a shift in the namesake author’s goals from civil rights to economic justice
Confronted the limits of northern Liberalism
Represented one of the earliest Civil Rights-based critiques of the Vietnam War
1969 - Robert Allen: Black Awakening in Capitalist America
1970 - Samuel Yette: The Choice, The Issue of Black Survival in America