Category: Key People

Fannie Lou Hamer (1917–1977) was a voting and women’s rights activist, community organizer, and leader in the civil-rights movement. She was an organizer with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and went on to become a co-founder of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP) in 1964. In that same year, she helped organize Freedom Summer, which brought hundreds of college students together to help with Black voter registration in the South, and announced her candidacy for the Mississippi House of Representatives. Although her candidacy was unsuccessful, she went on to help found the National Women’s Political Caucus in 1971 and set up a number of organizations to provide business opportunities, food, and child care for Black people.

Lorraine Hansberry (1930–1965) was a playwright and writer. Hansberry was the first Black person to have a play performed on Broadway. Her best known work, A Raisin in the Sun (1961), highlights the lives of Black people living under racial segregation in Chicago.

Ruby Doris Smith Robinson (1942–1967) was an activist who was heavily involved with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). She began as an administrative secretary for the SNCC’s Atlanta office before later becoming the executive secretary. She was the first and only woman to serve on the SNCC’s executive committee.

Laura Mae Dixie, also known as the Mother of the Movement, was an organizer of the Tallahassee Bus Boycott. According to Paul Ortiz, of Facing South: A Voice for the Changing South, “Dixie served as vice president of the Leon County National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, a board member of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), and was the founding president of the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) Local 2847.” During the 1956 Tallahassee Bus Boycott, “Dixie helped raise funds for carpools, provided transportation for people who needed rides to work, and exhorted her community to stay strong in spirit.”

Vel Phillips (1924–2018) was an attorney, politician, jurist, and civil-rights activist. She was the first Black woman to graduate from the University of Wisconsin–Madison Law School. She was also the first Black woman to win a seat on Milwaukee’s City Council (1956), the first to become a judge in Wisconsin (1971), and the first to become Secretary of State of Wisconsin (1978).

Georgia Gilmore (1920–1990) was a Black woman who, after being fired from the National Lunch Company due to how vocal she was about racism, set up a restaurant in her home. Through the Club from Nowhere, she and her friends sold food at boycott mass meetings and gave the proceeds to the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA), which helped sustain the Montgomery Bus Boycott.

Rosa Parks (1913–2005) was a civil-rights activist and secretary for the Montgomery chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). She is popularly known for refusing to surrender her seat on a segregated bus in Montgomery, Alabama—an act of defiance that sparked the onset of the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Parks also played a key role in investigating the rape and murder of Recy Taylor.

Claudia Jones (born Claudia Cumberbatch, 1915–1964) was a journalist, community leader, feminist, Black nationalist, and prominent member of the American Communist Party. Her family emigrated from Trinidad to New York City when she was eight years old. She became well-known for her involvement with both the civil-rights and women’s-rights movements. In 1955, she was arrested for giving a speech promoting peace and women’s rights, and was deported to England. In England, she founded the nation’s first Black newspaper, The West Indian Gazette, continued her work fighting racism and sexism, and founded the famous Notting Hill Carnival “to promote understanding between white Londoners and their Caribbean immigrant neighbors.” Her essay, “An End to the Neglect of the Problems of the Negro Woman” has become a cornerstone Black feminist text.

Addie L. Wyatt (1924–2012) was a civil-rights activist and a leader in the United States labor movement. Wyatt is known for being the first woman elected as the international vice president of a major labor union, the Amalgamated Meat Cutters Union. She was also one of the founding members of the National Organization for Women (NOW).

Eslanda Cardozo Goode Robeson (1895–1965) was an American anthropologist, orator, writer, author, actor, civil-rights activist, and world traveler. She was married to Paul Robeson and played a large role in his success as a singer, actor, and political pioneer. Her work is expansive, as it addresses a variety of significant topics, including the New Negro Movement in Harlem, global decolonization movements, the civil-rights movement, Cold War politics, and more. In 1949, she published the book American Argument alongside Pearl S. Buck.