Civil Rights Activists

Martin Luther King Jr.

Martin Luther King Jr is the most well-known activist of the Civil Rights Movement in the United States, but he represented one group of the collective Civil Rights Movement. His faith-based position on non-violent protests moved the nation through his speeches and writings. King's lectures are still studied as guiding materials for those learning public speaking!

In 1963, King gave what might've been the most important speech of his career, the "I Have a Dream" speech. This speech showcased King's abilities as an orator and is considered a turning point during the Civil Rights Movement! This speech elevated the Civil Rights Movement from a Southern issue to a National cause!

Five years later, King was assassinated in Memphis, TN, by James Earl Ray. King was an influential activist during his lifetime. He was an excellent orator, and his speeches continued to influence people after his death.

W. E. B. Du Bois

On February 23, 1868, William Edward Burghardt Du Bois, W. E. B. Du Bois was born in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. He was a sociologist who combated racism with polemic, a style of persuasion that argues a specific stance using direct evidence to undermine opposing views. Du Bois challenged lynching, discrimination in education, and the Jim Crow laws. He believed that Black Americans should be able to pursue any area of education they desired, not limited to agricultural or industrial trades. His observations were not only on the home front but also on the experiences of Black soldiers in France during WWI.

Fig 2: W. E. B. Du Bois

In 1908, Du Bois attended a conference organized by white activists to address racial violence against Black people. Du Bois, Ida B. Wells, and other notable activists founded the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People or the NAACP. This organization was created to fight for the rights of African Americans guaranteed in the Constitution and Amendments. This organization still exists today!

Black Civil Rights Activists

Malcolm X

Malcolm X was born Malcolm Little in Omaha, Nebraska, on May 19, 1925, to Earl and Louis Little. In 1946, Malcolm was convicted of theft. While in prison, he became a member of the Nation of Islam. Though Malcolm's views changed throughout his lifetime, he tirelessly supported the civil rights movement. Like King, Malcolm was assassinated. He died on February 21, 1965, in Manhattan, New York.

Fig 3: Malcolm X

John Lewis

John Lewis worked in many roles to move civil rights forward in his lifetime. Lewis was the chairperson of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, founded in 1960. He was the leader of the march on Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, in 1965. The marchers faced police violence when they attempted to cross the bridge. This event is known as Bloody Sunday.

Fig 4: John Lewis

Lewis was an integral part of the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

After the 1960s, he became a member of the US House of Representatives in 1986 until he died in 2020.

Female Civil Rights Activists

Rosa Parks

On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama, to a white man.

The bus driver, James F. Blake, ordered her and two other African Americans to stand in the back of the bus so that one white man could sit down. Parks refused and was arrested. She was the face of the desegregation of public buses because of her refusal to comply with the racist standards put forth by society.

Fig 5: Rosa Parks

Park's arrest sparked the Civil Rights Movement needed to start the fire. Martin Luther King and many other activists organized the Montgomery Bus Boycott, which lasted 381 days. These peaceful protests marked the start of the Civil Rights Movement!

Ida B. Wells

Ida B. Wells was born in 1862 and was an enslaved person. Wells found freedom after the Civil War and remained in the South. She documented the terror of living in the South as a Black person in Southern Horrors. Wells wrote about lynching and white violence against African Americans. Wells was forced to flee from the South but continued her activism in the North.

Fig 6: Ida B. Wells

Native American Civil Rights Activists

The oppression of Native Americans began when Europeans began to explore the Americas. Historically, legislation happened around indigenous people, and their preferences weren't considered. This hasn't stopped Native American activists from participating in legislation and politics.

Richard Oakes

From 1969 - 1971, Native Americans occupied Alcatraz Island under the leadership of Richard Oakes. The Indians of All Tribes needed a location to meet after their building burned down. The Treaty of Fort Laramie gave Native Americans the ability to occupy deserted government buildings. Oaks led the Indians of All Tribes to occupy the abandoned Alcatraz prison. Oakes' involvement ended when a tragic accident on the island claimed his step-daughter's life.

Fig 7: Richard Oakes

White Civil Rights Activists

White allies have contributed to the civil rights movement alongside black activists. The Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee members were white and black; white activists also participated as Freedom Riders in the segregated South, along with sit-ins.

Jonathan Daniels

Jonathan Daniels, an Episcopal minister, answered Martin Luther King, Jr.'s call for allies. He joined King's march around Selma, Alabama, to the state capital in Montgomery. The following summer, Daniels was arrested with a group of protestors who participated in a picket of a segregated store in Fort Deposit, Alabama.

When they were released, some members, including 17-year-old Ruby Sales, went to a nearby desegregated store to purchase refreshments. However, the group was met by a special deputy officer who aimed a shotgun at the group. Daniels pushed Sales out of the way of the shot and received a fatal wound. King said he died performing a heroic Christian act, and the Episcopal church later made Daniels a martyr.

Fig 8: Jonathan Daniels

Civil Rights Activists Groups

National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)

In 1909, following an outbreak of racial-based violence in Springfield, Illinois, Black civil rights leaders were called to meet and address the immediate danger to people of color in the United States. The leaders knew organizing on a large scale was necessary to enact change. Black civil rights leaders of the time, like Ida Wells and W. E. B Du Bois, as well as influential white allies like Charles Edward Russell and Florence Kelley, came together to form the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).

The NAACP has continued to be a leading non-profit advocate for the civil rights of all people. Today the NAACP has over 2,000 groups across the country with over 2 million advocates. They seek to achieve equal rights for all people by voting, setting court precedence, and local boots-on-the-ground interventions.

Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)

Ella Baker, an inspirational African American activist, met with college activists in North Carolina on behalf of Martin Luther King, Jr. King and Baker saw the young activists as allies. King wanted them to join his organization and commit non-violence, but Baker had different goals. She encouraged them to do what they believed was best and be the activists they wanted.

The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee was founded in the spring of 1960 to build on the success of student sit-ins in Greensboro, North Carolina. The SNCC didn't join King's organization because they had different ideas of what direct action included. The SNCC focused on grass-roots interventions organized to produce long-lasting change.

Fig 9: Greensboro Sit-In

National Congress of American Indians

The National Congress of American Indians was formed in 1944 in Denver, Colorado. The charter members had gathered to discuss how to resist the United States federal government's efforts to push assimilation onto the native tries. This push for control over Native American/Indigenous People's affairs conflicted with the pre-existing treaties between the two. The NCAI has continued to represent the interests of Native Americans as the oldest American Indigenous People's civil rights organization.

Civil Rights Activists

Throughout the history of the Civil Rights Movement in the United States, many organizations have formed to oppose those who seek to limit free om. Figureheads led these organizations in the Civil Rights Movement, whose individual impacts on the movement were monument al. Beginning with W. E. B. Du Bois and Ida Wells, both men and women of color and white allies, have continued to strive for equality for all. The history of the United States cannot be discussed without acknowledging the impact of these leaders.