Barack Obama Biography. Barack Obama is the 44th and current president of the United States, and the first African American to serve as U.S. president. First elected to the presidency in 2008, he won a second term in 2012. Synopsis Born on August 4, 1961, in Honolulu, Hawaii, Barack Obama is the 44th and current president of the United States. He was a civil-rights lawyer and teacher before pursuing a political career. He was elected to the Illinois State Senate in 1996, serving from 1997 to 2004. He was elected to the U.S. presidency in 2008, and won re-election in 2012 against Republican challenger Mitt Romney. Early Life Barack Hussein Obama was born on August 4, 1961, in Honolulu, Hawaii.
Barack Obama's father, Barack Obama Sr., was born of Luo ethnicity in Nyanza Province, Kenya. Obama did not have a relationship with his father as a child. In 1965, Dunham married Lolo Soetoro, an East–West Center student from Indonesia. Education Ten years later, in 1981, tragedy struck Obama Sr. Law Career U.S. Jesse Jackson Biography. Jesse Jackson is an American civil rights leader, Baptist minister and politician who twice ran for U.S. president. Synopsis Jesse Jackson was born October 8, 1941, in Greenville, South Carolina. While an undergraduate Jackson became involved in the civil rights movement. In 1965, he went to Selma, Alabama to march with Dr. Early Years A pioneering and controversial civil rights leader, Jesse Jackson was born as Jesse Louis Burns on October 8, 1941, in Greenville, South Carolina.
A year after Jesse's birth, his mother married Charles Henry Jackson, a post office maintenance worker, who later adopted Jesse. "There was no grass in the yard," Jackson later recalled. Jackson, though, showed promise and potential. "Jesse was an unusual kind of fella, even when he was just learning to talk," Noah Robinson told The New York Times in 1984.
In school Jackson was a good student and an exceptional athlete. Dr. In 1964, Jackson graduated from college with a degree in sociology. Political Involvement. Martin Luther King Jr. Biography. Martin Luther King Jr. was a Baptist minister and social activist, who led the Civil Rights Movement in the United States from the mid-1950s until his death by assassination in 1968. Martin Luther King Jr. Facts Martin Luther King Jr. was born in 1929 in Atlanta, Georgia. King, a Baptist minister and civil-rights activist, had a seismic impact on race relations in the United States, beginning in the mid-1950s. Among his many efforts, King headed the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Through his activism and inspirational speeches he played a pivotal role in ending the legal segregation of African-American citizens in the United States, as well as the creation of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. King received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964, among several other honors.
Early Years Born as Michael King Jr. on January 15, 1929, Martin Luther King Jr. was the middle child of Michael King Sr. and Alberta Williams King. King attended Booker T. 'I Have a Dream' Ralph D Abernathy Biography. Ralph D. Abernathy was a Baptist minister who co-founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and was a close adviser to Martin Luther King Jr. Synopsis Born on March 11, 1926, in Linden, Alabama, Ralph D. Abernathy was a Baptist minister who, with Martin Luther King Jr., organized the historical Montgomery bus boycotts. He co-founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and was a major civil rights figure, serving as close adviser to King and later assuming SCLC presidency. Later returning to the ministry, Abernathy died on April 17, 1990, in Atlanta, Georgia. Early Years Ralph David Abernathy Sr. was born on March 11, 1926, in Linden, Alabama, the 10th of 12 offspring born to Louivery Abernathy and William Abernathy, a farmer and deacon.
Following his military service, in 1948, Abernathy became an ordained minister while pursuing his education. Close Allies With Martin Luther King Jr. In 1954, when Martin Luther King Jr. became a minster at nearby church, Ralph D. Joseph Lowery Biography. Early Life Born Joseph Echols Lowery on October 6, 1921, (some sources say 1924) in Huntsville, Alabama. For more than 50 years, Reverend Joseph Lowery has fought against prejudice and discrimination on behalf of the African-American community. He earned himself the nickname the "dean of the civil rights movement. " Lowery, the son of a teacher and a businessman, grew up in the segregated South. He knew firsthand the hardships and cruelty that many African-Americans experienced. Civil Rights Career An ordained Methodist minister, Lowery returned to Alabama in 1952 to serve as pastor for the Warren Street United Methodist Church in Mobile.
In 1957, Lowery worked with the Reverend Dr. He and several members of the SCLC were sued for libel by a Montgomery commissioner because of a 1960 newspaper ad that made critiques of the city's police department. Lowery moved to Birmingham, Alabama, in 1964, becoming the pastor for St. Fannie Lou Hamer Biography.
Fannie Lou Hamer was a civil rights activist who helped African Americans register to vote and who co-founded the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party. Synopsis Fannie Lou Hamer was born on October 6, 1917, in Montgomery County, Mississippi. In 1962, she met civil rights activists who encouraged blacks to register to vote, and soon became active in helping. Hamer also worked for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, which fought racial segregation and injustice in the South. In 1964, she helped found the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party.
Hamer died in 1977. Early Life Civil rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer was born Fannie Lou Townsend on October 6, 1917, in Montgomery County, Mississippi. Around the age of 12, Hamer dropped out of school in order to work full-time and help out her family. Civil Rights Activist In the summer of 1962, Hamer made a life-changing decision to attend a protest meeting. Such bravery came at a high price for Hamer. Death and Legacy.