Martin Luther King Jr. — History.com Articles, Video, Pictures and Facts. The second child of Martin Luther King Sr. (1899-1984), a pastor, and Alberta Williams King (1904-1974), a former schoolteacher, Martin Luther King Jr. was born in Atlanta, Georgia, on January 15, 1929. Along with his older sister, the future Christine King Farris (born 1927), and younger brother, Alfred Daniel Williams King (1930-1969), he grew up in the city’s Sweet Auburn neighborhood, then home to some of the most prominent and prosperous African Americans in the country. A gifted student, King attended segregated public schools and at the age of 15 was admitted to Morehouse College, the alma mater of both his father and maternal grandfather, where he studied medicine and law.
Although he had not intended to follow in his father’s footsteps by joining the ministry, he changed his mind under the mentorship of Morehouse’s president, Dr. Benjamin Mays, an influential theologian and outspoken advocate for racial equality. MalcolmX.com. Malcolm X was born Malcolm Little on May 19, 1925 in Omaha, Nebraska. His mother, Louise Norton Little, was a homemaker occupied with the family's eight children. His father, Earl Little, was an outspoken Baptist minister and avid supporter of Black Nationalist leader Marcus Garvey.
Earl's civil rights activism prompted death threats from the white supremacist organization Black Legion, forcing the family to relocate twice before Malcolm's fourth birthday. Regardless of the Little's efforts to elude the Legion, in 1929, their Lansing, Michigan home was burned to the ground. Two years later, Earl's body was found lying across the town's trolley tracks. Police ruled both incidents as accidents, but the Littles were certain that members of the Black Legion were responsible. Louise suffered emotional breakdown several years after the death of her husband and was committed to a mental institution, while her children were split up among various foster homes and orphanages. Thurgood Marshall. Angela Y. Davis at UC Santa Cruz. Biography, Education and Training Angela Y. Davis is known internationally for her ongoing work to combat all forms of oppression in the U.S. and abroad.
Over the years she has been active as a student, teacher, writer, scholar, and activist/organizer. She is a living witness to the historical struggles of the contemporary era. Professor Davis's political activism began when she was a youngster in Birmingham, Alabama, and continued through her high school years in New York. But it was not until 1969 that she came to national attention after being removed from her teaching position in the Philosophy Department at UCLA as a result of her social activism and her membership in the Communist Party, USA.
In 1970 she was placed on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted List on false charges, and was the subject of an intense police search that drove her underground and culminated in one of the most famous trials in recent U.S. history. Who Was Ella Baker? “The major job was getting people to understand that they had something within their power that they could use, and it could only be used if they understood what was happening and how group action could counter violence…” - Ella Jo Baker We build on Ms. Baker’s legacy by supporting people to create solutions for one of the biggest drivers of injustice today: mass incarceration. Private prison companies, the War on Drugs, and anti-immigrant policies are all part of an economy and justice system focused on punishment and destruction, rather than safety and prosperity. Through our Books Not Bars campaign, the Ella Baker Center successfully mobilized families of incarcerated youth to win change in California’s costly, broken youth prison system and stop the building of new jails.
Our current justice system worsens cycles of poverty, violence, and incarceration, and deepens racial and economic inequality. Wherever you are, you can join us to build safe, healthy, strong families and communities. SNCC-People: Ella Baker. Ella Baker was born on December 13, 1903, in Norfolk, Virginia. Baker developed a sense for social justice early in her life. As a girl growing up in North Carolina, Baker listened to her grandmother tell stories about slave revolts.
As a slave, her grandmother had been whipped for refusing to marry a man chosen for her by the slave owner. Baker studied at Shaw University in Raleigh, North Carolina. As a student she challenged school policies that she thought were unfair. She graduated in 1927 as class valedictorian and then moved to New York City. Baker began joining social activist organizations.
In 1940, Baker began her involvement with the NAACP. In 1957, Baker moved to Atlanta to organize Martin Luther King's new organization, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). " Baker left the SCLC after the Greensboro sit-ins. Ruby Bridges. Ruby Bridges Biography. Ruby Bridges the Movie (1998) “Ruby Bridges” is a Disney TV documentary-drama written by Toni Ann Johnson about Bridges experience as the first black child to integrate into an all-white Southern elementary school. The two-hour film, shot entirely in Wilmington, North Carolina, first aired on January 18, 1998 and was introduced by President Bill Clinton and former Disney head Michael Eisner in the Cabinet Room of the White House. Book on Ruby Bridges In 1995, Robert Coles, Ruby Bridges' child psychologist and a Pulitzer-Prize winning author, published The Story of Ruby Bridges, a children's picture book depicting her courageous story.
Soon after, Barbara Henry, her teacher that first year at Frantz School, contacted Bridges and they were reunited on The Oprah Winfrey Show. Normal Rockwell Painting In 1963, painter Norman Rockwell recreated Ruby Bridge’s monumental first day at school in the painting, “The Problem We All Live With.” When and Where Was Ruby Bridges Born? Early Life. About | Alice Walker. Alice Walker is an internationally celebrated author, poet and activist whose books include seven novels, four collections of short stories, four children’s books, and volumes of essays and poetry.
She’s best known for The Color Purple, the 1983 novel for which she won the Pulitzer Prize—the first African American woman to win the Pulitzer Prize in Fiction—and the National Book Award. The award-winning novel served as the inspiration for Steven Spielberg’s 1985 film and was adapted for the stage, opening at New York City’s Broadway Theatre in 2005, and capturing a Tony Award for best leading actress in a musical in 2006. Walker has written many additional best sellers; among them, Possessing the Secret of Joy (1992), which detailed the devastating effects of female genital mutilation and led to the 1993 documentary “Warrior Marks,” a collaboration with the British-Indian filmmaker Pratibha Parmar, and We are the Ones We Have Been Waiting For: Inner Light in a Time of Darkness.(2009).
Toni Morrison Biography. Toni Morrison is a Nobel Prize- and Pulitzer Prize-winning American novelist. Among her best known novels are 'The Bluest Eye,' 'Song of Solomon,' 'Beloved' and 'A Mercy.' Synopsis Born on February 18, 1931, in Lorain, Ohio, Toni Morrison is a Nobel Prize- and Pulitzer Prize-winning American novelist, editor and professor. Her novels are known for their epic themes, vivid dialogue and richly detailed African-American characters. Among her best known novels are The Bluest Eye, Sula, Song of Solomon, Beloved, Love and A Mercy.
Morrison has won nearly every book prize possible and has also been awarded an array of honorary degrees. Background and Education Born Chloe Anthony Wofford on February 18, 1931, in Lorain, Ohio, Toni Morrison was the second oldest of four children. Living in an integrated neighborhood, Morrison did not become fully aware of racial divisions until she was in her teens. At Howard University, Morrison continued to pursue her interest in literature. Literary Star. Frederick Douglass.
Frederick Douglass stood at the podium, trembling with nervousness. Before him sat abolitionists who had travelled to the Massachusetts island of Nantucket. Only 23 years old at the time, Douglass overcame his nervousness and gave a stirring, eloquent speech about his life as a slave. Douglass would continue to give speeches for the rest of his life and would become a leading spokesperson for the abolition of slavery and for racial equality. The son of a slave woman and an unknown white man, "Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey" was born in February of 1818 on Maryland's eastern shore.
He spent his early years with his grandparents and with an aunt, seeing his mother only four or five times before her death when he was seven. Douglass spent seven relatively comfortable years in Baltimore before being sent back to the country, where he was hired out to a farm run by a notoriously brutal "slavebreaker" named Edward Covey. Previous | next. The Official Muhammad Ali Website. Do One Thing - Black History Heroes. Great Black Heroes. NPR - Black History Heroes. Encyclopædia Britannica's Guide to Black History.