Activist and writer Ida B. Wells-Barnett first became prominent in the 1890s because she brought international attention to the lynching of African Americans in the South. Wells was born a slave in Holly Springs, Mississippi, in 1862. At the age of sixteen, she became primary … Read MoreIda Wells-Barnett (1862-1931)
A radical theoretician, anti-colonialist, labor organizer, and civil rights activist, Harry Haywood was one of the most prominent and influential African American Communists of the twentieth century. Haywood, the son of former slaves, was born in South Omaha, Nebraska in 1898. He migrated to Chicago … Read MoreHarry Haywood (1898-1985)
Although he never held public office, George S. Jeffrey barber, orator, and post-reconstruction civil rights leader, emerged as one of the most important African American political figures in late 19th Century Connecticut. Jeffrey was born in Middletown, Connecticut in 1830, to free parents George W. … Read MoreGeorge S. Jeffrey (1830-1906)
Isaiah Edwards was a community activist and advocate in Seattle’s Central Area. Isaiah Edwards and his wife, Marie, moved from Topeka, Kansas, to Seattle in 1942 to work at Boeing. Edwards worked for 40 years at Boeing as a maintenance dispatcher without missing a day, … Read MoreIsaiah Edwards (1913-1994)
Prominent civil rights attorney Hayzel B. Daniels earned his B.S. in Social Sciences in 1939 and an M.A. in Education in 1941 from the University of Arizona. He taught at Fort Huachuca, Arizona where his father was stationed with the 10th Cavalry. Daniels served in … Read MoreHayzel B. Daniels (1913-1992)
George W. McLaurin provided the Oklahoma civil rights case that damaged the 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson “separate but equal” legal position beyond repair. He held a master’s degree from the University of Kansas and taught at the all-black Langston University until 1948. NAACP attorney Thurgood … Read MoreGeorge W. McLaurin (1887-1968)
In 1938 Frances Mary Albrier became the first woman elected to the Alameda County Democratic Central Committee. She also founded the East Bay Women’s Welfare Club whose goal was to get black teachers hired in the Berkeley schools. This campaign saw success with the hiring … Read MoreFrances Mary Albrier (1898-1987)
The Fannie Jackson Coppin Club was established in 1899 by members of the Beth Eden Baptist Church, one of Oakland, California’s oldest African American religious institutions (est. 1889). The club was named in honor of Fannie Jackson Coppin (1837-1913) who was born a slave in … Read MoreFannie Jackson Coppin Club
Ernest William Chambers, Africana intellectual, has lived in the semi-segregated community of North Omaha, Nebraska for his entire life. A community activist in the 1960s, Chambers rode into office in the Nebraska State Legislature on the crest of new-black electoral power in 1970. As a … Read MoreErnest William Chambers (1937- )
Dr. Endesha Ida Mae Holland was born into abject poverty in Greenwood, Mississippi on August 29, 1944. She experienced extreme racism, lack of options, and little support to change her life. As a teenager she quit school, turned to prostitution and theft as a way … Read MoreEndesha Ida Mae Holland (1944-2006)
