People, Locations, Episodes

Clyde Kennard, Activist born

*Clyde Kennard was born on this date in 1927. He was an African American civil rights pioneer and martyr.

Kennard was born in Hattiesburg, Mississippi in 1927; he moved to Chicago at the age of 12 to aid his injured sister, Sarah. He stayed and graduated from Wendell Phillips High School, then entered the U.S. Army. After serving as a paratrooper during the Korean War, he returned to Chicago and started college at the University of Chicago.

John Seigenthaler, Journalist, and Author born

*John Seigenthaler was born on this date in 1927. He was a White American journalist and civil rights activist.

The Girl Friends, Inc. is Formed.

*The Girl Friends, Inc., is celebrated on this date in 1927. It is one of the oldest social organizations for African American women in the United States. It was founded in New York City by Eunice Shreeves, a Cheyney Normal School for Teachers student. It was her idea to “stay in touch” with her close friends while […]

C. DeLores Tucker, Activist born

*C. DeLores Tucker was born on this date in 1927. She was an African American politician and civil rights activist. Born in Philadelphia to a minister and a “Christian feminist mother, Cynthia DeLores Nottage was the tenth of eleven children.

The Negro Worker Newspaper is Published

*The Negro Worker is celebrated on this date in 1928. This was the newspaper of the International Trade Union Committee of Negro Workers. The International Negro Workers’ Review was launched in 1928, but the name was changed in March 1931. It ceased publication in 1937. It was edited first by George Padmore until 1931 and then by […]

Robert Graetz, Pastor, and Activist born

*Robert Graetz was born on this date in 1928. He was a white-American Lutheran clergyman and activist.  Robert S. Graetz, of German descent, was born in Clarksburg, West Virginia, and educated in Columbus, Ohio. He graduated from Capital University in Bexley, Ohio, in 1950 and received a B.D. in 1955 from Evangelical Lutheran Theological Seminary […]

Cecilia Suyat Marshall, Activist born

*Cecilia Suyat Marshall, of Filipino descent, was born on this date in 1928. She was an Asian-American activist and historian.   Cecilia “Cissy” Suyat was born in Pu’unene, Maui, in Hawaii.  Her parents emigrated from the Philippines in 1910. Her father owned a printing company; her mother died when she was young. She was raised […]

Anne McCarty Braden, Journalist, and Activist born

*Anne McCarty Braden was born on this date in 1924.  She was a white-American civil rights activist, journalist, and educator.    Anne McCarty was born in Louisville, Kentucky, to Gambrell N. McCarty & Anita D. (Crabbe) McCarty and raised in rigidly segregated Anniston, Alabama; Braden grew up in a white, middle-class family that accepted southern racism wholeheartedly. A devout Episcopalian, […]

Fatima Meer, South African Coloured Activist, born.

*Fatima Meer was born on this date in 1928. She was a South African Coloured writer, academic, screenwriter, and activist. Fatima Meer was born in the Grey Streets of Durban, South Africa, into a middle-class family of nine. Her father was Moosa Ismail Meer, a newspaper editor of The Indian Views. Her mother, Rachel Farrell, was orphaned […]

Joan Maynard, Preservationist born

*Joan Maynard was born on this date in 1928.   She was a Black commercial artist, art administrator, and community preservation activist.   Joan Cooper Bacchus Maynard was born in Brooklyn, NY, and was the daughter of John W. Cooper, a ventriloquist, and Juliana St. Bernard Cooper of Grenada. She graduated from Bishop McDonnell Memorial High School and […]

James Lawson Jr., Professor, and Activist born

*James Lawson, Jr. was born on this date in 1928.  He is a Black activist and university professor.   James Morris Lawson, Jr. was born to Philane May Cover and James Morris Lawson, Sr. in Uniontown, Pennsylvania. He was the sixth of nine children. He grew up in Massillon, Ohio. Both Lawson’s father and grandfather were Methodist ministers. Lawson […]

James Forman, Activist born

On this date in 1928, James Forman was born. He was an African American civil rights activist who is credited with giving the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) its organizational base.

Martin Luther King Jr., Minister, and Visionary born

This date marks the birth of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in 1929. He was an African American minister and activist.

Robert Hicks, Laborer and Activist born.

*Robert Hicks was born on this date in 1929. He was a Black laborer and activist in Bogalusa, Louisiana. Robert ‘Bob’ Hicks was born in Pachuta, Mississippi, the youngest child of Quitman and Maybell Crawford Hicks. He moved to Bogalusa, Louisiana, with his family as a child. In 1947, Hicks graduated from the segregated Central Memorial […]

Israel Dresner, Rabbi, and Activist born

*Israel Seymour Dresner, a white Jewish-American Reform rabbi and global activist, was born on this date in 1929 on the Lower East Side of New York City. He was raised in Brooklyn, attending an Orthodox yeshiva (day school). At the age of 13, he joined Habonim Dror, a Labor Zionist youth movement, and in his […]