In 1934, Arthur Wergs Mitchell became the first African American Democrat elected to Congress from any state. Mitchell served four terms as a Representative in Congress for the state of Illinois (1935-1943). Mitchell was born near Lafayette Alabama on December 22, 1883 and was educated … Read MoreArthur Wergs Mitchell (1883-1968)
Accomplished journalist and activist Noah Thompson became one of the most influential leaders in Los Angeles, California during the early twentieth century. Born in Baltimore, Maryland on June 9, 1878, Thompson fled Baltimore as a young adult in search of success in the United States’ … Read MoreNoah Thompson (1878-?)
Revered as one of the most influential people of the twentieth century, Rosa Parks is best known for her role in the Montgomery Bus Boycott in 1956. Parks was born on February 4, 1913, to Leona and James McCauley in Tuskegee, Alabama. Leona worked as … Read MoreRosa Parks (1913-2005)
Josiah Henson was born into slavery on June 15, 1789 in Charles County, Maryland. As a young boy he witnessed slavery’s cruelties inflicted on his immediate family. Young Henson watched his father receive fifty lashes for standing up to a slave owner and then witnessed … Read MoreJosiah Henson (1789-1883)
In 1958, Barbara Ann Posey, then a high school student, emerged as one of the most important youth leaders in the campaign which began that year to desegregate the major public accommodations in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Posey’s public stand against racial injustice began when she … Read MoreBarbara Ann Posey Jones (1943- )
Born in Louisville, Kentucky in 1884, Saint Elmo Brady became the first African American to earn a Ph.D. in the field of chemistry when he completed his graduate studies at the University of Illinois in 1916. The eldest child of Thomas and Celesta Brady, Saint … Read MoreSaint Elmo Brady (1884-1966)
A clubwoman, teacher, society leader, and race activist, Josephine Beall Willson Bruce was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on October 29, 1853, to Dr. Joseph Willson, a prominent dentist, and Elizabeth Harnett Willson, a singer and musician. In 1854 the family moved to Cleveland, Ohio where … Read MoreJosephine Beall Willson Bruce (1853-1923)
In the account that follows, Lawrence J. Pijeaux, Jr., the President and CEO of the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute describes the museum’s origins in the powerful and poignant story of the struggle for racial justice in Alabama’s largest city in the 1960s. In the late … Read MoreThe Birmingham Civil Rights Institute: A Brief History
Championship cross country runner Edward Gardner was born in Birmingham, Alabama in December 1898. Shortly after his birth, his family moved west and eventually settled in Seattle. Gardner returned to Alabama in 1914, to attend Tuskegee Institute, where he learned a trade as a steam … Read MoreEdward Gardner (1898-1966)
One of the most visible advocates of nonviolence and direct action as methods of social change, Martin Luther King, Jr. was born in Atlanta, Georgia on January 15, 1929. As the grandson of the Rev. A.D. Williams, pastor of Ebenezer Baptist church and a founder … Read MoreMartin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968)
