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)
Charles Fuller was born on March 5, 1939 to parents Charles H. Sr. and Lillian Anderson Fuller of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Fuller was the oldest of three children, but would see his parents welcome some twenty foster children into their home over the years. Fuller attended … Read MoreCharles Henry Fuller Jr. (1939- )
Image Courtesy of Suzie Dod Thomas Author and activist Piri Thomas became one of the first Americans of Puerto Rican descent to win literary acclaim when he published his 1967 memoir Down These Mean Streets. Born Juan Pedro Tomas to Cuban and Puerto Rican parents … Read MorePiri Thomas (1928-2011)
William Thaddeus Coleman, Jr., a prominent Republican lawyer and businessman, served as Secretary of Transportation under President Gerald Ford. Born on July 7, 1920 to a middle class Philadelphia, Pennsylvania family, Coleman attended a segregated elementary school. When he moved to Germantown High School he … Read MoreWilliam T. Coleman Jr. (1920-2017)
Charles Gordone was born Charles Edward Fleming on October 12, 1925 in Cleveland, Ohio to parents William and Camille Fleming. He took his stepfather’s surname of Gordon when his mother remarried when he was five years old. The family moved to Elkhart, Indiana, his mother’s … Read MoreCharles Gordone (1925-1995)
The Niagara Movement was a civil rights group organized by W.E.B. Du Bois and William Monroe Trotter in 1905. After being denied admittance to hotels in Buffalo, New York, the group of twenty-nine business owners, teachers, and clergy who comprised the initial meeting gathered at … Read MoreNiagara Movement (1905-1909)
Victoria Earle Smith was an accomplished journalist, author, lecturer, clubwoman, social worker, and missionary. She was born on May 27, 1861 in Fort Valley, Georgia, to Caroline Smith, a slave, and a man who was believed to be the family’s master. Caroline fled the plantation … Read MoreVictoria Earle Matthews (1861-1907)
During the summer of 1930 street vendor Wallace D. Fard appeared in Detroit, Michigan‘s Paradise Valley community, proclaiming himself to be the leader of the Nation of Islam (NOI) and proselytizing among his customers according to his Islamic beliefs. Fard’s doctrine revolved around the claim … Read MoreNation of Islam (1930– )
Selma Hortense Burke was a nurse, a teacher, and an influential American artist. Born in Mooresville, North Carolina, she was one of ten children born to Neal Burke, a Methodist minister and chef, and Mary Jackson Burke, a homemaker and teacher. She attended high school … Read MoreSelma Hortense Burke (1900 -1995)
Born Eunice Kathleen Waymon in Tyron, North Carolina in 1933, Nina Simone began playing the family piano at the age of three. Her mother Mary Kate Waymon, a minister and choir director at a Methodist church in Tyron, interpreted her daughter’s gift as a God-given … Read MoreNina Simone (1933-2003)
