Moranda Smith was a union organizer and rank-and-file leader of tobacco workers in North Carolina, who throughout the 1940s initiated a challenge to the racial discrimination, disfranchisement, and economic exploitation of workers in the South. The first African-American woman to sit on an international union’s … Read MoreMoranda Smith (1915-1950)
On February 1, 1960, four Black college students in Greensboro, North Carolina, demanded service at a Woolworth’s lunch counter. When the staff refused to serve them, they stayed until the store closed. In the following days and weeks, this “sit-in” idea spread through the South. … Read MoreStudent Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, SNCC (1960-1973)
Charles Fuller was born on March 5, 1939 to parents Charles H. Sr. and Lillian Anderson Fuller of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Fuller was the oldest of three children, but would see his parents welcome some twenty foster children into their home over the years. Fuller attended … Read MoreCharles Henry Fuller Jr. (1939- )
Paul Chiles is the youngest of three children, born to Ruth and Raymond Chiles in Spokane, Washington on April 11, 1949. Raised in Seattle, he graduated from Garfield High School. Chiles was drawn to civil rights at an early age and founded the Black Student … Read MorePaul Chiles (1949- )
Image Courtesy of Suzie Dod Thomas Author and activist Piri Thomas became one of the first Americans of Puerto Rican descent to win literary acclaim when he published his 1967 memoir Down These Mean Streets. Born Juan Pedro Tomas to Cuban and Puerto Rican parents … Read MorePiri Thomas (1928-2011)
William Thaddeus Coleman, Jr., a prominent Republican lawyer and businessman, served as Secretary of Transportation under President Gerald Ford. Born on July 7, 1920 to a middle class Philadelphia, Pennsylvania family, Coleman attended a segregated elementary school. When he moved to Germantown High School he … Read MoreWilliam T. Coleman Jr. (1920-2017)
Ernest J. Gaines was born on January 15, 1933 on River Lake Plantation near Oscar, Louisiana, in Point Coupee Parish. His parents, Manuel and Adrienne worked as sharecroppers on the same plantation their ancestors had labored as slaves. Ernest was the oldest of seven children … Read MoreErnest James Gaines (1933-2019)
Charles Gordone was born Charles Edward Fleming on October 12, 1925 in Cleveland, Ohio to parents William and Camille Fleming. He took his stepfather’s surname of Gordon when his mother remarried when he was five years old. The family moved to Elkhart, Indiana, his mother’s … Read MoreCharles Gordone (1925-1995)
The grandson of a British explorer and the son of a pharmacist, Augustus Freeman “Gus” Hawkins was born in Shreveport, Louisiana but moved with his family to Los Angeles, California in 1918. He earned a degree in economics from the University of California at Los … Read MoreAugustus Hawkins (1907-2007)
Charles Diggs was born in Detroit, Michigan in 1922. His father was Charles Coles Diggs and his mother was Mayme Jones Diggs. Young Diggs had an upper middle class background; his father, a prominent mortician and real estate developer, served in the Michigan State Senate. … Read MoreCharles Diggs (1922-1998)
