Acting on the presumption that rural southern blacks were generally more promiscuous and syphilitic than whites, and without sufficient funding to establish an effective treatment program for them, doctors working with the Public Health Service (PHS) commenced a multi-year experiment in 1932. Their actions deprived … Read MoreTuskegee Syphilis Experiment (1932-1972)
Over the past seven decades the exploits of the Tuskegee Airmen have been celebrated, occasionally mythologized, and used as a recent reminder of the patriotism and heroism of African Americans in times of national crisis. Mounting pressure by black leaders such as union activist A Philip … Read MoreTuskegee Airmen
Born in Orangeburg, South Carolina on July 11, 1877, McCants Stewart, the eldest son of the southern black leader, T. McCants Stewart, was molded from childhood by his father for leadership in both his family and in the African American community. McCants spent his formative … Read MoreMcCants Stewart (1877-1919)
Argued January 15-16, 1958. Decided June 30, 1958. MR. JUSTICE HARLAN delivered the opinion of the Court. We review from the standpoint of its validity under the Federal Constitution a judgment of civil contempt entered against petitioner, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored … Read More(1958) NAACP v. Alabama Ex Rel Patterson
June 5, 1956 OPINION BY: RIVES Statement of the Case The purpose of this action is to test the constitutionality of both the statutes of the State of Alabama n1 and the ordinances of the City of Montgomery n2 which require the segregation of the … Read More(1956) Browder v. Gayle
Dr. Lincoln J. Ragsdale, Sr. was a leading activist in the battle for civil rights in Arizona. After graduating from Tuskegee flying school in Alabama in 1945, he relocated to Luke Air Field in Litchfield Park, Arizona, becoming one of the first black pilots to … Read MoreLincoln J. Ragsdale Sr. (1926-1995)
Lester Oliver Bankhead was among a handful of pioneering black architects in Los Angeles in the 1950s. Although he faced the racial prejudice of his time, he was able to obtain work from Hollywood celebrities, such as actor Lorne Greene of the television series Bonanza; … Read MoreLester Oliver Bankhead (1912-1997)
John A. Coleman was born a slave in 1852 in Talladega County, Alabama. After he received his freedom at the end of the Civil War, Coleman attended the newly established Talladega College for three years. He worked on a Mississippi River steamboat and then migrated … Read MoreJohn A. Coleman (1852-?)
Born on March 1, 1913 in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma Ralph Waldo Ellison entered the world with a name that almost presumed for him a literary career. But his road to and in literature would be torturous. Many of the initial comforts enjoyed by Ellison vanished … Read MoreRalph Ellison (1913-1994)
A child of the early post-reconstruction south, Oscar DePriest was born in Florence, Alabama on March 9, 1871. In 1878 his family moved to Salina, Kansas. Sometime in the late 1880s DePriest moved to Chicago, Illinois where he found work as a house painter and … Read MoreOscar DePriest (1871-1951)
