Civil Rights

Born Betty Dean Sanders....

Spelman College and Yale Law School graduate, the first black woman admitted to the Mississippi Bar (1964), founder of the Children's Defense Fund, and the first woman alum elected to the Yale University Corporation, Marian Wright Edelman has dedicated her life to advocating for children's rights and serving her community.

Yolande Cornelia “Nikki” Giovanni

School Desegregation Advocate.

Educator, Palmer Memorial Institute

The incomparable Lena Horne,

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was a landmark legislation that formally ended segregation and dismantled the Jim Crow system by banning discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin in various aspects of American life, including employment, education, and public accommodations.

Organized the March on Washington

On July 9, 1860, the Clotilda, a two-masted 86 foot schooner anchored off Point of Pines in Grand Bay, Mississippi carrying 110 enslaved Africans in spite of the 1807 Act Prohibiting the Importation of Slaves. It was the last known U.S. slave ship, and among its youngest passengers was two-year-old Matilda McCrear, who would survive until 1940, becoming one of the last living links to the transatlantic slave trade.

In 1991, Harlins was murdered, shot in the back of the head from a distance of three feet by a Korean grocery store owner in Los Angeles, California.

On July 24, 1903, Maggie L. Walker became the first Black woman to serve as president of a U.S. bank, as well as the first woman founder of a U.S. bank, when she rallied members of the Independent Order of St. Luke to charter and capitalize the St. Luke Penny Savings Bank in Richmond, Virginia.

Investigative journalist who fearlessly investigated and exposed horrific realities of lynchings in the United States in the 1890s.

Oretha and her sister, Doris Jean Castle, were vital leaders of the civil rights movement in New Orleans.

Queen Mother Moore

This "parade" of 10,000 on 5th Avenue was one of the first major demonstrations by the African American community. It was organized by the NAACP to address violence and discrimination and most acutely, it was a response to the East St. Louis riots of 1917.

Women’s Political Council, co-founder

Keys v. Carolina Coach Company - A historic court ruling that struck down racial discrimination in interstate travel.

Bloody Sunday, Alabama.

Jackson was a civil rights activist, social worker, and journalist who played a significant role in the Civil Rights Movement.

Civil Rights Non-Violent Activist

March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom where Martin Luther King Jr's I Have a Dream speech took place.

Clayton is a retired broadcasting executive, talk show host, philanthropist and lifelong civil rights activist and leader. She worked closely with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and played a significant role in the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s. She has remained committed to honoring and advancing the cause of racial equality and empowering African American communities throughout her career.

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Formidable civil rights advocate, Choir Director, Musician, and mother of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Judge Motley (1921-2005) was a woman of firsts. She was the first Black woman to argue a case before the U.S. Supreme Court, to serve as a federal court judge (Southern District of New York), and to sit in the New York State Senate. She was also the first woman to hold the office of President of the Borough of Manhattan. Earlier in her career she was a law clerk to Justice Thurgood Marshall and the NAACP Legal Defense fund's first woman attorney. She also represented Dr. Martin Luther King and the Freedom Riders.

Ku Klux Klan bombing of 4 little girls in Birmingham, Alabama - Denise McNair (11), Addie Mae Collins (14), Carole Robertson (14), and Cynthia Wesley (14).

Author

Educator, Author

Activist

"A white woman has only one handicap to overcome - that of sex. I have two - both sex and race. ... Colored men have only one - that of race. Colored women are the only group in this country who have two heavy handicaps to overcome, that of race as well as that of sex."

Vetted and recruited by Daisy Bates, President of the Arkansas branch of the NAACP, nine students were selected to integrate Central High School in Little Rock in 1957 (September 4, 1957-September 25, 1957).