When Jack Roosevelt (Jackie) Robinson took the field on April 15, 1947 wearing a Brooklyn Dodgers uniform, he became the first African American in over fifty years to play on a major league baseball team. In the process, he broke through baseball’s color line that … Read MoreJackie Robinson (1919-1972)
Franklin D. Burgess’s remarkable life as a star basketball player at Gonzaga University and a Federal Judge in Western Washington earned him the description “a legend on two courts.” Franklin Burgess was born on March 9, 1935 in Eudora, Arkansas. Raised with seven siblings, he … Read MoreFranklin D. Burgess (1935-2010)
The Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA) was established on December 5, 1955 in Montgomery, Alabama as a grassroots movement to fight for civil rights for African Americans and specifically for the desegregation of the buses in Alabama’s capitol city. The MIA was the first of its … Read MoreMontgomery Improvement Association (1955–1969)
Early 20th Century Seattle civil rights activist Letitia Ann Dennie Graves was born in 1863 in Illinois to Martha Murphy and George Dennie. Very little is known about Graves’s early life other than the fact that she and her husband, John Henry Graves, a Kansas … Read MoreLetitia A. Graves (1863-1952)
The Ligue Universelle pour la Défense de la Race Noire (LUDRN) was a Pan-African association created on April 30, 1924, by Kojo Tovalou Houénou, known as Tovalou, descendant of the last king of Dahomey (now Benin). The headquarters of the association was located in Paris … Read MoreLigue Universelle pour la Défense de la Race Noire (1924)
Broadway stage comedian Tim Moore, whose career as an entertainer spanned more than 50 years, is best remembered as George “Kingfish” Stevens on the classic Amos ‘n’ Andy series. Born in Rock Island, Illinois in December 1888, Moore began his career dancing on the sidewalks … Read MoreTim Moore (1888-1958)
Vancouver, Washington Branch 1139 is the 1139th charter organization of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). The Vancouver Branch was founded in 1943 during the surge in the African American population in the Portland, Oregon-Vancouver, Washington area in response to defense … Read MoreNational Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) Vancouver Branch
Born into poverty and racial segregation in Meridian, Mississippi in 1912, Ted Watkins became a civil rights and union activist and led an anti-poverty agency in Los Angeles, the Watts Labor Community Action Committee (WLCAC). Watkins left Mississippi as a young man to avoid a … Read MoreTed Watkins (1912-1993)
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)
Born in Washington, D.C. on August 8, 1934, Julian Dixon represented part of Los Angeles in the U.S. House of Representatives for twenty-two years. After serving in the U.S. Army from 1957 to 1960, Dixon attended California State University, Los Angeles. He earned a bachelor’s … Read MoreJulian Dixon (1934-2000)
