People, Locations, Episodes

Desmond Tutu, Anglican Archbishop born

Desmond Tutu was born on this date in 1931. He is a Black South African priest and activist.

Born in Klerksdorp, Transvaal, Desmond Mpilo Tutu and his family moved to Johannesburg when he was 12 years old. Although he wanted to become a physician, his family could not afford the cost and he followed his father’s footsteps into teaching. In 1951, Tutu studied at the Pretoria Bantu Normal College and went on to teach at Johannesburg Bantu High School, where he remained until 1957.

Stuart M. Hall, Educator, and Theorist born

*Stuart Hall was born on this date in 1932. He was a Black British Marxist sociologist, cultural theorist, and political activist. Stuart McPhail Hall was born in Kingston, Jamaica, into a middle-class Jamaican family of African, British, Portuguese, Jewish, and Indian descent. He attended Jamaica College, receiving an education modeled after the British school system. In […]

Andrew Young, Ambassador, and Activist born

*Andrew Young was born this date in 1932. He is an African American Civil Rights activist, former mayor of Atlanta, Georgia and American ambassador to the United Nations.

Benjamin Karim, Historian, and Activist born

Benjamin Karim was born on this date in 1932. He was an African American Muslim minister, author, orator, and aide to Malcolm X.

He was born Benjamin Goodman, in Suffolk, VA., the son of Wilbur Bryant and Mary Goodman. Young Goodman was a U.S. Air Force veteran of the Korean War. After serving in the military, Goodman worked as a recording engineer with a record company when he first heard Malcolm X speak in 1957, and his experience caused him to convert to the Nation of Islam (NOI), cease many secular activities, change his diet, and become sober.

Dick Gregory, Comedian, and Activist born

Dick Gregory was born on this date in 1932. He is an African American comedian and activist.

Walter Fauntroy, Pastor, and Activist born

*Walter Fauntroy was born on this date in 1933. He is a Black politician, pastor, and civil rights activist. The fourth of seven children, Walter Edward Fauntroy, was born and raised in Washington, D.C. His mother, Ethel (Vines) Fauntroy, was a homemaker. His father, William Thomas Fauntroy, Sr., was a clerk in the U.S. Patent […]

Myrlie Evers-Williams, Administrative Activist born

*Myrlie Evers-Williams was born on this date in 1933. She is a Black civil rights activist, journalist, and administrator.  She was born Myrlie Louise Beasley in Vicksburg, Mississippi. She was the daughter of James Van Dyke Beasley, a delivery man, and Mildred Washington Beasley, who was 16 years old. Her parents separated when she was just a […]

Norman Hill, Labor Activist born

Norman Hill was born on this date in 1933. He is an African American administrator, activist and labor leader.

James Meredith, Conservative Activist born

James Meredith was born on this date in 1933. He was an African American politician and activist.

Jean Childs Young, Educator born

*Jean Childs Young was born on this date in 1933.  She was a Black educator activist for racial justice and equitable education.   Jean Childs was born in Marion, Alabama. Her father, Norman Lorenzo Childs, worked at a family-owned grocery store and bakery in Marion, sometimes traveling around Alabama to sell the store’s homemade peanut brittle […]

William Gibson, Dentist, and Activist born

The birth in 1933 of Dr. William F. Gibson, an African American dentist and civil rights leader, is celebrated on this date.

He was born in Greenville, SC, the son of a brick mason and a schoolteacher. He became a dentist at Harlem Hospital in New York, returning to his hometown in 1959. While attending a voter registration meeting at Springfield Baptist Church in 1961, he decided to devote his life to civil rights. He organized the Black Council for Progress which helped get blacks into local and state political offices during the 1970s.

Frederick Douglass Kirkpatrick, Activist, and Musician born

*This date in 1933 is celebrated as the birth date of Frederick Douglass Kirkpatrick, a Black Folk musician, activist, and minister. Named after the abolitionist Frederick Douglass, Kirkpatrick was born in Haynesville, northern Louisiana. His father, John L. Kirkpatrick, was a minister, and his mother died young. He had four sisters and a brother who survived […]

William Lucy, Union Activist born

*William Lucy was born on this date in 1933. He was a Black engineer and trade union leader. William Lucy was born to Susie and Joseph Lucy in Memphis, Tennessee, and grew up in Richmond, California. In the early 1950s, he studied civil engineering at the University of California, Berkeley. He worked for Contra Costa […]

Donald Woods, South African Journalist born

The birth of Donald Woods in 1934 is marked on this date. He was a white South African journalist and activist.

A fifth-generation South African, he grew up the way most Whites of his generation did, as a believer in apartheid. Wood, from Transkei in remote South Africa, spoke English and Xhosa. In 1950, after hearing a parliamentary debate, his conservative views changed because of what he called “the great obscene lie of apartheid.” He was a law student, but he later turned to journalism.

Roy Innis, Public Policy Activist born

*Roy Innis was born on June 6, 1934.  He was a Black activist and politician.   Roy Emile Alfredo Innis was born in Saint Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands, in 1934.  In 1947, Innis moved with his mother to New York City, where he graduated from Stuyvesant High School in 1952.  Innis joined the U.S. Army, […]