List of civil rights leaders
Encyclopedia
Below is a list of some civil rights
leaders:
Civil rights
Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' freedom from unwarranted infringement by governments and private organizations, and ensure one's ability to participate in the civil and political life of the state without discrimination or repression.Civil rights include...
leaders:
- Abernathy, RalphRalph AbernathyRalph David Abernathy, Sr. was a leader of the American Civil Rights Movement, a minister, and a close associate of Martin Luther King, Jr. in the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Following King's assassination, Dr. Abernathy took up the leadership of the SCLC Poor People's Campaign and...
(1926–1990) clergyman, activist, Southern Christian Leadership ConferenceSouthern Christian Leadership ConferenceThe Southern Christian Leadership Conference is an African-American civil rights organization. SCLC was closely associated with its first president, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr...
(SCLC) official - Anthony, Susan B.Susan B. AnthonySusan Brownell Anthony was a prominent American civil rights leader who played a pivotal role in the 19th century women's rights movement to introduce women's suffrage into the United States. She was co-founder of the first Women's Temperance Movement with Elizabeth Cady Stanton as President...
(1820–1906) women's suffrage/voting rights leader - Baker, EllaElla BakerElla Josephine Baker was an African American civil rights and human rights activist beginning in the 1930s....
(1903–1986) - Bates, DaisyDaisy Bates (civil rights activist)Daisy Lee Gatson Bates was an American civil rights activist, publisher and writer who played a leading role in the Little Rock integration crisis of 1957....
(1914–1999) - Bevel, JamesJames BevelJames L. Bevel was an American minister and leader of the 1960s Civil Rights Movement who, as the Director of Direct Action and Director of Nonviolent Education of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference initiated, strategized, directed, and developed SCLC's three major successes of the era:...
(1936–2008) SCLC's main strategist, organizer, and Direct Action leader - Black,ClaudeClaude BlackClaude William Black, Jr. was an American Baptist minister and political figure. He was born the son of local Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters vice president Claude, Sr...
(1916–2009) - Bond, JulianJulian BondHorace Julian Bond , known as Julian Bond, is an American social activist and leader in the American civil rights movement, politician, professor, and writer. While a student at Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia, during the early 1960s, he helped found the Student Nonviolent Coordinating...
(1940–) activist, politician, scholar, lawyer, NAACP chairman - Brown, JohnJohn Brown (abolitionist)John Brown was an American revolutionary abolitionist, who in the 1850s advocated and practiced armed insurrection as a means to abolish slavery in the United States. He led the Pottawatomie Massacre during which five men were killed, in 1856 in Bleeding Kansas, and made his name in the...
(1800–1859) led slave revolt - Burns, LucyLucy BurnsLucy Burns was an American suffragist and women's rights advocate. She was a passionate activist in the United States and in the United Kingdom. Burns was a close friend of Alice Paul, and together they ultimately formed the National Woman's Party.-Early life and education:Lucy Burns was born in...
(1879–1966) women's suffrage/voting rights leader - Carmichael, StokelyStokely CarmichaelKwame Ture , also known as Stokely Carmichael, was a Trinidadian-American black activist active in the 1960s American Civil Rights Movement. He rose to prominence first as a leader of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and later as the "Honorary Prime Minister" of the Black Panther Party...
(1941–1998) - Chavez, CesarCésar ChávezCésar Estrada Chávez was an American farm worker, labor leader, and civil rights activist who, with Dolores Huerta, co-founded the National Farm Workers Association, which later became the United Farm Workers ....
(1927–1993) Chicano activist, organizer, trade unionist - Colvin, ClaudetteClaudette ColvinClaudette Colvin is a pioneer of the African-American civil rights movement. She was the first person to resist bus segregation in Montgomery, Alabama, preceding the better known Rosa Parks incident by nine months. The court case stemming from her refusal to give up her seat on the bus, decided by...
(1939–) pioneer student and independent activist - Cooke, MarvelMarvel CookeMarvel Cooke was an American journalist, writer, and civil rights activist. She was the first African American woman to work at a mainstream white-owned newspaper....
(1903–2000), journalist, writer, trade unionist, civil rights activist - Corona, Humberto Noe "Bert"Bert CoronaHumberto Noé "Bert" Corona was an American labor and civil rights leader. Throughout his long career, he worked with nearly every major Mexican-American organization, founding or co-founding several. He organized workers for the Congress of Industrial Organizations and fought on the behalf of...
(1918–2001) labor and civil rights leader - Cotton, DorothyDorothy CottonDorothy Cotton was a leader of the 1960s African-American Civil Rights Movement and a member of the inner-circle of one of its main organizations, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference...
(1930–) SCLC activist and leader - Cuney, Norris WrightNorris Wright CuneyNorris Wright Cuney, or simply Wright Cuney, was an American politician, union leader, and African American activist in Texas in the United States. He became active in Galveston politics serving as an alderman and a national Republican delegate...
(1846–1898), Texas politician and leader of the Texas Republican Party - Debs, Eugene (1855-1926), American Labor Union organizer and Socialist, campaigned for the rights of the poor, women, dissenters, and prisoners
- Du Bois, W. E. B. (1868–1963), writer, scholar, founder of NAACP
- Evers, CharlesCharles EversJames Charles Evers is a prominent American civil rights advocate. The older brother of slain civil rights activist Medgar Evers, Charles Evers is a leading civil rights spokesman within the Republican Party in his native Mississippi. In 1969 he became the first African American since the...
(1922–) - Evers, MedgarMedgar EversMedgar Wiley Evers was an African American civil rights activist from Mississippi involved in efforts to overturn segregation at the University of Mississippi...
(1925–1963) NAACP official - Farmer, JamesJames L. Farmer, Jr.James Leonard Farmer, Jr. was a civil rights activist and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement. He was the initiator and organizer of the 1961 Freedom Ride, which eventually led to the desegregation of inter-state transportation in the United States.In 1942, Farmer co-founded the Committee...
(1920–1999) CORE leader and activist - Forman, JamesJames FormanJames Forman was an American Civil Rights leader active in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, the Black Panther Party, and the International Black Workers Congress...
(1928–2005) SNCC official and activist - Foster, MarieMarie FosterMarie Foster was a leader in the Civil Rights Movement in the U.S. during the 1960s. She was instrumental in helping to register many African American voters in Selma, Alabama, and was one of the primary local organizers of the Selma to Montgomery marches in 1965...
(1917–2003) activist, local leader in Selma Movement - Friedan, BettyBetty FriedanBetty Friedan was an American writer, activist, and feminist.A leading figure in the Women's Movement in the United States, her 1963 book The Feminine Mystique is often credited with sparking the "second wave" of American feminism in the twentieth century...
(1921–2006) writer, activist, feminist - Hall, PrathiaPrathia HallPrathia Hall was a leader and activist in the 1960s Civil Rights Movement. She did her main work while a member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee , and was particularly active in Southwest Georgia, in the Albany Movement, and as a speaker at movement events.-See also:*Timeline of...
(1940–2002) SNCC activist, civil rights movement speaker - Hamer, Fannie LouFannie Lou HamerFannie Lou Hamer was an American voting rights activist and civil rights leader....
(1917–1977) activist in Mississippi movements - Hendricks, LolaLola HendricksLola Mae Hendricks was corresponding secretary for Fred Shuttlesworth's Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights from 1956 to 1963. She assisted Wyatt Walker in planning the early portions of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference's involvement in the 1963 Birmingham Campaign during the...
(1932–) activist, local leader in Birmingham Campaign - Herer, JackJack HererJack Herer was an American cannabis activist and the author of The Emperor Wears No Clothes, a book which has been used in efforts to decriminalize cannabis.-Biography:...
(1939–) pro-hemp activist, organizer, author - Hill, RobertRobert L. HillRobert Lee Hill was an African American sharecropper from eastern Arkansas and founder of the Progressive Farmers and Household Union of America....
(1892–?) - Hobson, Julius WilsonJulius HobsonJulius W. Hobson was the People's Party Vice Presidential candidate in 1972. Benjamin Spock was the People's Party Presidential candidate. They polled 0.1014% of the popular vote and no electoral votes....
(1919–1977) organizer, agitator, researcher, plaintiff - Horton, MylesMyles HortonMyles Horton was an American educator, socialist and cofounder of the Highlander Folk School, famous for its role in the Civil Rights Movement . Horton taught and heavily influenced most of the era's leaders. They included Dr...
(1905–1990) teacher of nonviolence, pioneer activist - Howard, T.R.M. (1908–1976) founder of the Regional Council of Negro Leadership in Mississippi.
- Huerta, DoloresDolores HuertaDolores C. Huerta is the co-founder and First Vice President Emeritus of the United Farm Workers of America, AFL-CIO , and a member of the Democratic Socialists of America.-Early life:...
(1930– ) labor and civil rights activist - Jackson, JesseJesse JacksonJesse Louis Jackson, Sr. is an African-American civil rights activist and Baptist minister. He was a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1984 and 1988 and served as shadow senator for the District of Columbia from 1991 to 1997. He was the founder of both entities that merged to...
(1941–) clergyman, activist, politician - Jordan, JuneJune JordanJune Millicent Jordan was a Caribbean American poet, novelist, journalist, biographer, dramatist, teacher and committed activist...
(1936–2002), writer, poet, civil rights activist, feminist - King, Coretta ScottCoretta Scott KingCoretta Scott King was an American author, activist, and civil rights leader. The widow of Martin Luther King, Jr., Coretta Scott King helped lead the African-American Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s.Mrs...
(1927–2006) - King Jr., Martin LutherMartin Luther King, Jr.Martin Luther King, Jr. was an American clergyman, activist, and prominent leader in the African-American Civil Rights Movement. He is best known for being an iconic figure in the advancement of civil rights in the United States and around the world, using nonviolent methods following the...
(1929–1968) clergyman, SCLC co-founder and president, activist - Lawson, James (1928–) teacher of nonviolence, activist
- Lafayette, BernardBernard LafayetteBernard Lafayette Jr. is a longtime civil rights activist and organizer, who was a leader in the 1960s Civil Rights Movement...
(1940–) SCLC and SNCC activist and organizer - Lewis, JohnJohn Lewis (politician)John Robert Lewis is the U.S. Representative for , serving since 1987. He was a leader in the American Civil Rights Movement and chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee , playing a key role in the struggle to end segregation...
(1940–) - Lincoln, AbrahamAbraham LincolnAbraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States, serving from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. He successfully led his country through a great constitutional, military and moral crisis – the American Civil War – preserving the Union, while ending slavery, and...
(1809–1865), 16th President of the United StatesPresident of the United StatesThe President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....
, promulgated Emancipation ProclamationEmancipation ProclamationThe Emancipation Proclamation is an executive order issued by United States President Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863, during the American Civil War using his war powers. It proclaimed the freedom of 3.1 million of the nation's 4 million slaves, and immediately freed 50,000 of them, with nearly... - Lowery, JosephJoseph LoweryJoseph Echols Lowery is a minister in the United Methodist Church and leader in the American civil rights movement. He later became the third president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, after Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King and his immediate successor, Rev. Dr...
(1921–) SCLC leader, activist - Luper, ClaraClara LuperClara Shepard Luper was a civic leader, retired schoolteacher, and a pioneering leader in the American Civil Rights Movement...
(1923–) Sit-in movement leader, activist - McIntosh, William S.W. S. McIntoshWilliam Sumpter "W. S." McIntosh was a civil rights leader from Dayton, Ohio. In 1960, McIntosh went to Atlanta, Georgia to observe the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and on February 26, 1961, he led one of the first major civil rights protests in the Dayton, Ohio community...
(1921–1974) Dayton, Ohio leader, activist, and organizer - Meredith, JamesJames MeredithJames H. Meredith is an American civil rights movement figure, a writer, and a political adviser. In 1962, he was the first African American student admitted to the segregated University of Mississippi, an event that was a flashpoint in the American civil rights movement. Motivated by President...
(1933–) independent student leader and self–starting activist - Milk, HarveyHarvey MilkHarvey Bernard Milk was an American politician who became the first openly gay man to be elected to public office in California when he won a seat on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors...
(1930–1978) politician, gay rights activist - Moses, RobertRobert Parris MosesRobert Parris Moses is an American, Harvard-trained educator who was a leader in the 1960s Civil Rights Movement and later founded the nationwide U.S. Algebra project.-Biography:...
"Bob" (1935–) leader, activist, and organizer - Nash, DianeDiane NashDiane Judith Nash was a leader and strategist of the student wing of the 1960s Civil Rights Movement. A historian described her as: "…bright, focused, utterly fearless, with an unerring instinct for the correct tactical move at each increment of the crisis; as a leader, her instincts had been...
(1938–) SNCC and SCLC activist and organizer - Nixon, EdgarEdgar NixonEdgar Daniel Nixon was an African American civil rights leader and union organizer who played a crucial role in organizing the famous Montgomery Bus Boycott in Montgomery, Alabama. Nixon also led the Montgomery branch of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters union, known as the Pullman Porters...
(1899–1987) - Orange, JamesJames OrangeJames Edward Orange, MLK March website biography. Accessed 2008-02-17. was a pastor and a leading civil rights activist in the 1960s Civil Rights Movement in America.-Personal life:...
(1942–2008) SCLC activist and organizer, trade unionist - Parks, RosaRosa ParksRosa Louise McCauley Parks was an African-American civil rights activist, whom the U.S. Congress called "the first lady of civil rights", and "the mother of the freedom movement"....
(1913–2005) NAACP official, activist - Paul, AliceAlice PaulAlice Stokes Paul was an American suffragist and activist. Along with Lucy Burns and others, she led a successful campaign for women's suffrage that resulted in the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in 1920.-Activism: Alice Paul received her undergraduate education from...
(1885–1977) women's suffrage/voting rights leader - Peratrovich, EizabethElizabeth PeratrovichElizabeth Peratrovich , Tlingit nation, was an important civil rights activist; she worked on behalf of equality for Alaska Natives...
(1911-1958) Alaska civil rights activist, working on behalf of equality for Alaska Native peoples. - Randolph, A. PhilipA. Philip RandolphAsa Philip Randolph was a leader in the African American civil-rights movement and the American labor movement. He organized and led the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, the first predominantly Negro labor union. In the early civil-rights movement, Randolph led the March on Washington...
(1889–1979) socialist, labor leader - Robinson, Amelia BoyntonAmelia Boynton RobinsonAmelia Platts Boynton Robinson was a leader of the American Civil Rights Movement in Selma, Alabama. A key figure in the 1965 march that became known as Bloody Sunday, she later became vice-president of the Schiller Institute affiliated with Lyndon LaRouche. She was awarded the Martin Luther King,...
(1911–) voting rights activist - Rustin, BayardBayard RustinBayard Rustin was an American leader in social movements for civil rights, socialism, pacifism and non-violence, and gay rights.In the pacifist Fellowship of Reconciliation , Rustin practiced nonviolence...
(1912–1987), civil rights activist - Sharpton, AlAl SharptonAlfred Charles "Al" Sharpton, Jr. is an American Baptist minister, civil rights activist, and television/radio talk show host. In 2004, he was a candidate for the Democratic nomination for the U.S. presidential election...
(1954–) clergyman, activist - Sherrod, CharlesCharles SherrodCharles Sherrod was a key member and organizer of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee during the 1960s Civil Rights Movement. He became the first SNCC field secretary and SNCC director of southwest Georgia. His leadership there led to the Albany Movement...
civil rights activist, SNCC leader - Shepard, JudyJudy ShepardJudy Shepard is the mother of Matthew Shepard, a 21-year-old student at University of Wyoming who was murdered in October 1998...
(1952–) gay rights activists, public speaker - Shuttlesworth, FredFred ShuttlesworthReverend Fred Shuttlesworth, born Freddie Lee Robinson, was a U.S. civil rights activist who led the fight against segregation and other forms of racism as a minister in Birmingham, Alabama...
(1922–2011) clergyman, activist - Stanton, Elizabeth CadyElizabeth Cady StantonElizabeth Cady Stanton was an American social activist, abolitionist, and leading figure of the early woman's movement...
(1815–1902) women's suffrage/voting rights leader - Steinem, GloriaGloria SteinemGloria Marie Steinem is an American feminist, journalist, and social and political activist who became nationally recognized as a leader of, and media spokeswoman for, the women's liberation movement in the late 1960s and 1970s...
(1934–) writer, activist, feminist - Stone, LucyLucy StoneLucy Stone was a prominent American abolitionist and suffragist, and a vocal advocate and organizer promoting rights for women. In 1847, Stone was the first woman from Massachusetts to earn a college degree. She spoke out for women's rights and against slavery at a time when women were discouraged...
(1818–1893) women's suffrage/voting rights leader - Vivian, C.T. (1924–) student leader, SNCC activist
- Williams, HoseaHosea WilliamsHosea Lorenzo Williams was a United States civil rights leader, ordained minister, businessman, philanthropist, scientist and politician...
(1926–2000) civil rights activist, chief field organizer for SCLC, led Selma to Montgomery campaign - Walker, Wyatt TeeWyatt Tee WalkerWyatt Tee Walker is a United States black pastor, national civil rights leader, theologian, and cultural historian. He was a Chief of Staff for Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and in 1958 became an early board member of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference . He helped found the Congress for...
, clergyman, activist: NAACP and CORE in Virginia, Executive Dictator, SCLCSouthern Christian Leadership ConferenceThe Southern Christian Leadership Conference is an African-American civil rights organization. SCLC was closely associated with its first president, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr...
(1960–1964) - Wells, Ida B.Ida B. WellsIda Bell Wells-Barnett was an African American journalist, newspaper editor and, with her husband, newspaper owner Ferdinand L. Barnett, an early leader in the civil rights movement. She documented lynching in the United States, showing how it was often a way to control or punish blacks who...
(1862–1931) journalist, women's suffrage/voting rights activist - White, Walter FrancisWalter Francis WhiteWalter Francis White was a civil rights activist who led the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People for almost a quarter of a century and directed a broad program of legal challenges to segregation and disfranchisement. He was also a journalist, novelist, and essayist...
(1895–1955) NAACP executive secretary - Wilkins, RoyRoy WilkinsRoy Wilkins was a prominent civil rights activist in the United States from the 1930s to the 1970s. Wilkins' most notable role was in his leadership of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People ....
(1901–1981), NAACP executive secretary/executive director - Willard, FrancesFrances Willard (suffragist)Frances Elizabeth Caroline Willard was an American educator, temperance reformer, and women's suffragist. Her influence was instrumental in the passage of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution...
1839–1898) women's rights, suffrage/voting rights leader - Williams, Robert F.Robert F. WilliamsRobert Franklin Williams was a civil rights leader, the president of the Monroe, North Carolina NAACP chapter in the 1950s and early 1960s, and author. At a time when racial tension was high and official abuses were rampant, Williams was a key figure in promoting both integration and armed black...
(1925–1996), organizer - X, MalcolmMalcolm XMalcolm X , born Malcolm Little and also known as El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz , was an African American Muslim minister and human rights activist. To his admirers he was a courageous advocate for the rights of African Americans, a man who indicted white America in the harshest terms for its...
(1925–1965), author, activist - Young, Andrew (Andy) Jr.Andrew YoungAndrew Jackson Young is an American politician, diplomat, activist and pastor from Georgia. He has served as Mayor of Atlanta, a Congressman from the 5th district, and United States Ambassador to the United Nations...
(1932–) clergyman, SCLCSouthern Christian Leadership ConferenceThe Southern Christian Leadership Conference is an African-American civil rights organization. SCLC was closely associated with its first president, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr...
activist and executive director. - Young, Whitney M., Jr. (1921–1971), Executive Director of National Urban LeagueNational Urban LeagueThe National Urban League , formerly known as the National League on Urban Conditions Among Negroes, is a nonpartisan civil rights organization based in New York City that advocates on behalf of African Americans and against racial discrimination in the United States. It is the oldest and largest...
; advisor to Presidents Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon
See also
- Timeline of the African-American Civil Rights Movement
- Timeline of women's suffrageTimeline of women's suffrageWomen's suffrage has been achieved at various times in various countries throughout the world. In many countries women's suffrage was granted before universal suffrage, so women from certain classes or races were still unable to vote, while some granted it to both sexes at the same time.The...
- African American Civil Rights Movement
- Chicano MovementChicano MovementThe Chicano Movement of the 1960s, also called the Chicano Civil Rights Movement, also known as El Movimiento, is an extension of the Mexican American Civil Rights Movement which began in the 1940s with the stated goal of achieving Mexican American empowerment.-Origins:The Chicano Movement...
- Women's SuffrageWomen's suffrageWomen's suffrage or woman suffrage is the right of women to vote and to run for office. The expression is also used for the economic and political reform movement aimed at extending these rights to women and without any restrictions or qualifications such as property ownership, payment of tax, or...