Shirley Anita St. Hill Chisholm, an advocate for the rights of people of color and for women’s rights, became the first black woman elected to the United States Congress in November 1968. Four years later, she became the first black person to seek a major … Read MoreShirley Chisholm (1924-2005)
Johnnie Tillmon was born in Scott, Arkansas, in 1926. A migrant sharecropper’s daughter, she moved to California in 1959 to join her brothers and worked as a union shop steward in a Compton laundry. Tillmon organized workers and became involved in a community association called … Read MoreJohnnie Tillmon (1926-1995)
Activist and writer Ida B. Wells-Barnett first became prominent in the 1890s because she brought international attention to the lynching of African Americans in the South. Wells was born a slave in Holly Springs, Mississippi, in 1862. At the age of sixteen, she became primary … Read MoreIda Wells-Barnett (1862-1931)
The Fannie Jackson Coppin Club was established in 1899 by members of the Beth Eden Baptist Church, one of Oakland, California’s oldest African American religious institutions (est. 1889). The club was named in honor of Fannie Jackson Coppin (1837-1913) who was born a slave in … Read MoreFannie Jackson Coppin Club
Hester Jeffrey, an organizer and activist who became involved in the women’s movement in the city of Rochester, New York, was born in Norfolk, Virginia around 1842. Jeffrey was the daughter of free parents Robert and Martha Whitehurst. In 1860 Jeffrey, along with her brother … Read MoreHester C. Jeffrey (1842-1934)
