Civil rights activist Diane Judith Nash was born on May 15, 1938 in Chicago, Illinois to Leon Nash and Dorothy Bolton Nash. Nash grew up a Roman Catholic and attended parochial and public schools in Chicago. In 1956, she graduated from Hyde Park High School … Read MoreDiane Nash (1938- )
Unita Blackwell, a civil rights activist and the first black female mayor in the state of Mississippi, was born the daughter of sharecropping parents in Coahoma County, Mississippi on March 18, 1933. She worked throughout the civil rights era urging and recruiting blacks to register … Read MoreUnita Blackwell (1933-2019)
The Lowndes County Freedom Organization (LCFO), also known as the Black Panther Party, was started in 1965 under the direction of Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) activist Stokely Carmichael. In 1965, Lowndes County in Alabama was 80% black but not a single black citizen was … Read MoreLowndes County Freedom Organization (1965- )
Cleveland Sellers was born on November 8, 1944 in Denmark, South Carolina. Cleveland became interested in the Civil Rights Movement with the murder of Emmett Till in 1955. In 1960 at 15, he organized his first sit-in protest at a Denmark, South Carolina lunch counter, … Read MoreCleveland Sellers (1944- )
Civil Rights activist Gloria Hayes Richardson was born Gloria St. Clair Hayes on May 6, 1922 in Baltimore, Maryland to parents John and Mabel Hayes. During the Great Depression her parents moved the family to Cambridge, Maryland, the home of Mabel Hayes. Young Gloria grew … Read MoreGloria Richardson (1922-2021)
Eleanor Holmes Norton was born on June 13, 1937 in Washington, D.C. to parents Coleman and Vela Holmes. Both her parents were government employees. Growing up in a well educated and politically conscious household caused Eleanor Holmes to be very aware of the surrounding struggles … Read MoreEleanor Holmes Norton (1937- )
Bernice Johnson Reagon, singer/ composer, cultural historian, author, and producer, was born on October 4, 1942 in Dougherty County, Georgia, to Reverend Jessie Johnson and Beatrice Johnson. The third child of eight, she began singing at the age of five in her father’s church. As … Read MoreBernice Johnson Reagon (1942- )
Born in Harlem, New York on January 23, 1935, Robert Parris Moses was an educator and an icon of the Civil Rights Movement. He was one of three children born to Gregory H. Moses, a janitor, and Louise Parris Moses, a homemaker. He graduated with … Read MoreRobert P. Moses (1935-2021)
Civil rights leader and political activist James Forman was an instrumental leader in the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), sending demonstrators to the South for the Freedom Ride protests. Forman, who was born in Chicago, Illinois on October 4th, 1928, lived with his grandmother in … Read MoreJames Forman (1928-2005)
Born in Hattiesburg, Virginia on November 5, 1926, Victoria Jackson Gray Adams became one of the most important Mississipians in the Civil Rights Movement. Her activities included teaching voter registration courses to domestics and sharecroppers, opening of the Freedom Schools during Mississippi’s Freedom Summer of … Read MoreVictoria Jackson Gray Adams (1926-2006)
