Mississippi became the mecca of the Freedom Movement in the early 1960s due to local and out-of-state activists who formed or supported grassroots efforts to gain civil rights for its black citizens. One of those local activists was Benjamin Ellery Murph. Murph was born on … Read MoreBenjamin Ellery Murph (1908-1972)
Vernon Dahmer, one of the most powerful racial justice leaders in the Piney Woods of southeast Mississippi, was killed in 1966 for his civil rights activism. Born on March 10, 1908, Dahmer’s parents were George and Ellen Dahmer of Forrest County, Mississippi. He graduated from … Read MoreVernon Dahmer (1908-1966)
Harriette Vyda Simms Moore was an African American educator, Civil Rights leader, and the wife of Harry Tyson Moore who was the founder of the first National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) branch in Florida. She and her husband were killed on … Read MoreHarriette Vyda Simms Moore (1902-1952)
Harry Tyson Moore was an African American civil rights leader and founder of the Brevard County, Florida chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). He also served as president of the state chapter of the NAACP. On December 25, 1951, … Read MoreHarry T. Moore (1905-1951)
The shooting death of 31-year-old Corey Lamar Jones in 2015 by Pakistani-American police officer Nouman K. Raja when Jones was waiting by his disabled car contributed to the growth of the Black Lives Matter movement. The incident sparked national protests similar to those in the … Read MoreCorey Lamar Jones (1984-2015)
The shooting death of Samuel DuBose, an unarmed black man, by Ray Tensing, a University of Cincinnati police officer during a traffic stop for a missing front license plate and a suspended driver’s license, contributed to the growth of the Black Lives Matter Movement. The … Read MoreSamuel DuBose (1972-2015)
In the five years following the Civil War, the U.S. Congress passed and the states ratified the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution. These amendments permanently ended slavery and granted African Americans access to civil rights and suffrage as citizens of the United … Read MoreThe Enforcement Act of 1870 (1870-1871)
Alberta Jones was born on November 12, 1930, to Sarah (Sadie) Frances Crawford and Odell Jones, in Louisville, Kentucky. Jones attended Louisville Central High School and the Louisville Municipal College for Negroes, which in 1951 merged with the University of Louisville. She graduated third in … Read MoreAlberta Odell Jones (1930-1965)
Joseph (Joe) Martin, an African American man, was lynched by a mob of three hundred white men in Laramie, Wyoming on August 29, 1904. The Cheyenne Daily Leader headline read, “Joe Martin Taken from Jail After Desperate Battle and Hanged to Telegraph Pole.” Martin was … Read MoreJoseph (Joe) Martin (?-1904)
The Groveland Four case was a 1940s example of injustice toward young African American men falsely accused of raping white women. The Groveland Four were four young black men, Ernest Thomas, Charles Greenlee, Samuel Shepherd and Walter Irvin, who were accused of raping Norma Padgett, … Read MoreThe Groveland Four (1949)
