 |
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. minister, civil rights leader, intellectual, social reformer, author, recipient of countless accolades and awards, winner of the 1964 Nobel Peace Prize, parent, and charismatic leader seeking peace in the volatile social transformation taking place in America during the 1950's and 1960's - was suddenly taken from this earth at the hands of an assassin's bullet on April 4, 1968. This solitary man, within a span of thirteen years, did something that changed the way America viewed and treated a portion of its citizens, who were historically faced with racist, restrictive laws as part of their daily living. (Cited from: http://www.liu.edu/cwis/cwp/library/mlking.htm) |
|
Whitney M. Young, Jr. born in Lincoln Ridge, KY in 1921 was a social reformer. As executive director of the National Urban League (1961–1971) Young focused on gaining equality for blacks in business and politics and improving opportunities for the urban poor. He appealed to corporate leaders to support job programs, low-income housing, and education for African Americans. He also promoted huge government spending—a “Domestic Marshall Plan”—to address the country's racial issues. Young advised presidents Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon on race (Cited from: www.infoplease.com). |
|
Harriet Tubman was a runaway slave from Maryland who became known as the "Moses of her people." Over the course of 10 years, and at great personal risk, she led hundreds of slaves to freedom along the Underground Railroad, a secret network of safe houses where runaway slaves could stay on their journey north to freedom. She later became a leader in the abolitionist movement, and during the Civil War she was a spy for the federal forces in South Carolina as well as a nurse(Cited from www.pbs.org). |
|
Mary McLeod Bethune founded Bethune-Cookman College in Daytona Beach, Florida and served as an advisor on African American affairs to four presidents. She was appointed Director of the Division of Negro Affairs of the National Youth Administration by President Roosevelt. She was the first African American woman to hold so high an office in the federal government. The site features the three story Victorian town house which was her home when she was in Washington, DC and housed the offices of the National Council of Negro Women and a carriage house in which the National Archives for Black Women's History is located (Cited from aricanaonline.com). |
|
Malcolm X (Malcolm X Little; later El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz)(1925-1965) a leading figure in the 20th-century movement for black liberation in the United States, and arguably its most enduring symbol.Malcolm X has been called many things: Pan-Africanist (see Pan-Africanism), father of Black Power, religious fanatic, closet conservative, incipient socialist (see Socialism), and a menace to society. The meaning of his public life—his politics and ideology—is contested in part because his entire body of work consists of a few dozen speeches and a collaborative autobiography whose veracity is often challenged.(Cited from: www.africanaonline.com) |
|
Maya Angelou is hailed as one of the great voices of contemporary literature and as a remarkable Renaissance woman. Being a poet, educator, historian, best-selling author, actress, playwright, civil-rights activist, producer and director, Dr. Angelou continues to travel the world making appearances, spreading her legendary wisdom (Cited from www.mayaangelou.com). |
|
Ida B. Wells has been described as a crusader for justice, and as a defender of democracy. Wells was characterized as a militant and uncompromising leader for her efforts to abolish lynching and establish racial equality. Wells challenged segregation decades before Rosa Parks, ran for Congress and attended suffrage meetings with the likes of Susan B. Anthony and Jane Addams, yet most of her efforts are largely unknown due to the fact that she is African American and female. In 1893, Wells took her anti-lynching campaign overseas. For two months Wells toured England, Scotland and Wales, giving speeches and meeting with leaders. Wells was impressed by the progressive activities and civic groups of British women. She wrote to her readers back home urging them to become more active in the affairs of their community, city and nation through organized civic clubs. While In England, Wells established the London Anti-Lynching Committee. Back home in the US, she continued her organizing efforts by establishing the first Negro women's civic clubs in Chicago and Boston, and was influential in the formation of the National Association of Colored Women's Clubs. Also during this period, Wells was also becoming more active in the suffrage movement. She became a familiar face at various suffrage meetings around the country, befriending both Susan B. Anthony and Jane Addams(Cited from www.webster.edu). |
|
James Baldwin born in Harlem in 1924, started out working a short while with the railroad then Baldwin moved to Greenwich Village, where he came into contact with the well-known writer Richard Wright. Baldwin worked for a number of years as a freelance writer, working primarily on book reviews. Though Baldwin had not yet finished a novel, Wright helped to secure him a grant with which he could support himself as a writer in Paris. So, in 1948 Baldwin left for Paris, where he would find enough distance from the American society he grew up in to write about it. After the assassinations
of his friends Medgar Evers, Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., and Malcolm
X, Baldwin returned to France where he worked on a book about the disillusionment
of the times, IF BEALE STREET COULD TALK (1974). Many responded to the
harsh tone of IF BEALE STREET COULD TALK with accusations of bitterness.
But, even if Baldwin had encapsulated much of the anger of the times
in his book, he always remained a constant advocate for universal love
and brotherhood. During the last ten years of his life, Baldwin produced
a number of important works of fiction, non-fiction, and poetry, and
turned to teaching as a new way of connecting with the young. By his
death in 1987, James Baldwin had become one of the most important and
vocal advocates for equality. From GO TELL IT ON THE MOUNTAIN to THE
EVIDENCE OF THINGS NOT SEEN (1985), James Baldwin created works of literary
beauty and depth that will remain essential parts of the American canon
(Cited from www.pbs.org) . |
|
| E.
Franklin Frazier was born in Baltimore, Maryland on September 24, 1894, one of five children of James H. Frazier, a bank messenger, and Mary Clark Frazier, a housewife. Frazier attended Baltimore public schools before attending classes at Howard University in Washington, DC. He graduated with honors from Howard in 1916. Frazier began his career teaching mathematics at Tuskegee from 1916 to 1917, English and History at St. Paul's Normal and Industrial School in Lawrenceville, Virginia (1917-1918), and Franch and Mathematics at Baltimore High School (1918-1919). Frazier attended Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts where he earned a master's degree in 1920. The topic of his thesis was "New Currents of Thought Among the Colored People of America". It was during his time at Clark that Frazier first became acquainted with sociology. After spending 1920-1921 as a Russell Sage Foundation fellow at the New York School of Social Work (later Columbia University School of Social Work) and a year at the University of Copenhagen as a fellow of the American Scandinavian Foundation, Frazier accepted an appointment at Atlanta University where he served as the director of the Atlanta School of Social Work and an instructor of sociology at Morehouse College. During this time Frazier published a number of articles, including "The Pathology of Race Prejudice" in 1927. This article, which argued that racial prejudice was analogous to insanity, stirred such strong reactions among residents in Atlanta that Frazier was removed from his position. Frazier moved from Atlanta to Chicago where he received a fellowship from the University of Chicago's sociology department. His studies at Chicago culminated in his earning a Ph.D. in 1931. Frazier spent a few few years at Fisk University, followed by a move to Howard University in Washington, DC in 1934. In 1941 Frazier embarked on a year-long study of family life in Brazil. He was an American sociologist whose work on African American social structure provided insights into many of the problems affecting the black community (Cited from http://www.asanet.org/governance/frazier.html). |
|
| Sara
A. Fernandis a contemporary of Jane Addams, founded the first Black Social Settlement House in the United States in Washington, D.C. and received her MSW degree from New York University. Hers was a life long career of organizing social welfare and public health activities in the segregated Black communities of the period. She organized the Women's Cooperative Civic League in Baltimore which worked for improved sanitation and health conditions in Black neighborhoods. Ms. Fernandis became the first Black social worker employed by the Baltimore Health Department in the early 1900's. She lived to see her goal of "establishing the public purpose" begin to be achieved. (Cited from www.naswdc.org/diversity/women). |
|
|
| | Home | UI | Lib. Arts | Links | Faculty/Staff | Alumni | Tomorrow | |
 |