Founded in Syracuse, New York in 1864, the National Equal Rights League (NERL) promoted full and immediate citizenship for African Americans. Created during the Civil War, the League based its call for full citizenship as compensation for military service in the Revolutionary and Civil Wars. … Read MoreNational Equal Rights League (1864-1921)
The National Council of Negro Women (NCNW) was founded on December 5, 1935, with the support of the leaders of 28 of the most notable black women’s organizations. The founder and president until 1949, Mary McLeod Bethune, envisioned a unified force of black women’s groups … Read MoreNational Council of Negro Women (1935- )
In 2000 Kathleen Brose led an organization called Parents Involved in Community Schools which filed a lawsuit against the Seattle School District, challenging its “tie-breaker” rule in Seattle Public Schools which gave preference to racial minorities in school assignments when all else was equal. The … Read MoreThe Tie Breaker Ruling in Perspective: A Plaintiff Looks Back on the Historic U.S. Supreme Court Decision of 2007
Cassandra Quin Butts is Deputy White House Counsel to President Barack Obama on issues relating to civil rights, domestic policy, healthcare, and education. She brought seventeen years of experience in politics and policy to her position. She is a long-time friend of the President, acting … Read MoreCassandra Quin Butts (1965- )
Alex Manly was editor of the Daily Record, a black newspaper from Wilmington, North Carolina at the time of the Wilmington Riot in 1898. Manly was born near Raleigh, North Carolina in 1866. He was reportedly a descendent of Governor Charles Manly and Corrine Manly, … Read MoreAlex Manly (1866-1944)
Joseph Charles Price, founder and first president of Livingston College, in North Carolina, was born free on February 10, 1854 in Elizabeth City, North Carolina. His mother, a free black woman named Emily Paulin, moved with her son to New Bern, North Carolina which was … Read MoreJoseph C. Price (1854-1893)
Entrepreneur Robert Bogle was the first of many African American caterers who served nineteenth-century Philadelphia’s white elite. Born in 1774, the 1810 federal census shows Bogle and five members of his family in Philadelphia’s South Ward, where the majority of the city’s African American residents … Read MoreRobert Bogle (1774-1848)
Ruby Bridges became famous in 1960 as the six-year-old who, escorted by Federal marshals, integrated a formerly all-white school in New Orleans, Louisiana. Bridges was born on September 8, 1954 in Tylertown, Mississippi, to Lucille and Abon Bridges. She was the firstborn of eight children. … Read MoreRuby Bridges (1954 – )
Lacey Kirk Williams was the President of the National Baptist Convention, U.S.A., Inc., from 1922 to 1940 and Vice President of the World Baptist Alliance between 1928 and 1940. He also succeeded in creating an interracial alliance which he called a “cooperative” between the wealthy … Read MoreLacey Kirk Williams (1871-1940)
Alonzo “Lonnie” Clayton reached stardom at the age of fifteen, when he became the youngest rider to win the Kentucky Derby. He was born on March 27, 1876, in Kansas City, Missouri to Robert and Evaline Clayton. Alonzo Clayton moved with his parents and eight … Read MoreAlonzo Clayton (1876-1917)
