People, Locations, Episodes

Jefferson Thomas, Activist, and Accountant born

*Jefferson Thomas was born on this date in1942. He was an African American accountant and activist.

From Little Rock, Arkansas he was the youngest of seven children to Mr. and Mrs. Ellis Thomas. Thomas was a track athlete at all-Black Horace Mann High School in Little Rock (Pulaski County) when he chose to volunteer to integrate all-white Central High School in 1957 as a sophomore.

Wendell Gunn, Corporate Executive born

*Wendell Gunn was born on this date in 1942.  He is a retired Black corporate executive and Administrator.  Wendell Wilkie Gunn was born on Decatur Street in Tuscumbia, Alabama.   The midwife reported his birth two days late, which he only discovered when he met his future wife and discovered they shared the same birthday.  One of four children, his father was […]

Gloria Cecelia Ray Karlmark, Chemist, Educator, and Activist born

*Gloria Cecelia Ray Karlmark was born on this date in 1942. She is a Black chemist, educator, and member of the Little Rock Nine. Born in Little Rock, she was one of the three children of Harvey C. and Julia Miller Ray; she was 15 when she attempted to enter Little Rock Central High School, where […]

Bernice Johnson Reagon, Singer and Activist born

*Bernice Johnson Reagon was on this date in 1942. She is a Black folk song leader, composer, scholar, and social activist. Bernice Johnson was the daughter of Beatrice and J.J. Johnson, a Baptist minister. She was born and raised in southwest Georgia, where church and school were an integrated part of her life, with music heavily intertwined […]

Leila Foley, Public Servant born

*Leila Foley was born on this date in 1942. She was a politician and activist. From Taft, Oklahoma, she was a divorced mother of five, surviving on welfare. In January 1973, Foley ran for a position on the school board of Taft, Oklahoma, an all-Black town of 600 people. She lost the election, but shortly […]

James Hood, Teacher, and Activist born

*James Hood was born on this date in 1942. He was an African American educator and activist.

Harry Edwards, Sociologist and Activist born

*Dr. Harry Edwards Jr. was born on this date in 1942. He is a Black sociologist, author, and civil rights activist. Edwards was born in east St. Louis, Illinois. He is the son of Harold Thomas Barksdale Edwards of Pine Bluff, Arkansas, and Adelaide (Cruise) Edwards in Hattiesburg, MS.  Edwards graduated from East St. Louis […]

Carlotta Walls LaNier, Realtor and Activist born

*Carlotta Walls LaNier was born on this date in 1942. She is a Black realtor and youth administrator and was the youngest of the Little Rock Nine. Carlotta Walls was born in Little Rock, Arkansas, to Juanita and Cartelyou Walls. Her father was a brick mason and a World War II veteran; her mother was a […]

Donald DeFreeze, Thief, and Radical born

*Donald DeFreeze was born on this date in 1943.  He was a Black radical bank robber.  He was also known as Cinque Mtume, using the nom de guerre “Field Marshal Cinque,”   Donald David DeFreeze was born in Cleveland, Ohio, to Louis and Mary DeFreeze, the eldest of eight children.  His mother was a registered nurse at a convalescent home.  His […]

Linda Brown, Topeka’s Daughter born

*Linda Brown Thompson was born on this date in 1943. She was a Black activist, educational consultant, pianist, music teacher, and public speaker. From Topeka, Kansas, Linda Brown was the oldest of three children born to Oliver and Leola Brown. She graduated from Central High School in Springfield, Missouri, and received certification in early childhood […]

Sala Udin, Political Activist born

*Sala Udin was born on this date in 1943. He is a Black politician, activist, and administrator.  Born Samuel Wesley Howze in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to William and Mary Howze, he was raised in the Hill District of the city; he was one of eleven children. In 1961, Udin graduated from Port Richmond High School in […]

Cordell Reagon, Singer and Activist born

*Cordell Reagon, born Cordell Hull Reagon in Nashville, Tennessee, was born on this date in 1943. He was a Black singer and activist. In 1959, Reagon was 16 years old when his powerful tenor voice spread the message of the American Civil Rights movement throughout the United States and Canada. James Forman, executive secretary of […]

Elaine Brown, Black Panther Activist born

*Elaine Brown was born on this date in 1943. She is a Black incarceration activist, writer, singer, and former Chairwoman of the Black Panther Party. Elaine Brown grew up in the inner city of North Philadelphia with her mother, Dorothy Clark, and an absent father. Despite desperate poverty, Brown’s mother worked hard to provide for […]

James Chaney, Activist born

On this date we remember the birth of James Chaney, an African American civil rights activist, in 1943.

Chaney was born in Meridian, MS, the son of Ben and Fannie Lee Chaney. His parents instilled a strong and resilient sense of racial pride in him at an early age. In 1959, he and a group of friends were suspended from high school for wearing buttons criticizing the local chapter of the NAACP for its unresponsiveness to racial issues. Chaney was expelled a year later for a similar incident and went to work with his father as a plasterer.

H.”Rap” Brown, Black Panther, and SNCC Activist born

On this date in 1943, H. Rap Brown was born. He is an African American activist, writer, and spiritual leader.