= African or African descent | Chick here for other symbols. | Click here for human rights. | Click here for monuments related to slavery. | Click here for abolitionists.
c1797-1883 - Sojourner Truth - Abolitionist & women's rights activist. Born into slavery. Delivered "Ain't I a Woman?" speech in 1851. 
1804-1878 - George Thompson - Abolitionist & civil rights advocate.
1800
c1818-1895 - Frederick Douglass - Abolitionist. Former slave. Wrote "classic" autobiography in 1845. See slavery monuments.
1850
1855-1944 - Fannie Barrier Williams - Addressed Parliament of the World's Religions in 1893 about the "Colored Race." 
1855-1947 - Richard Robert Wright - Army officer, college pres, banker & civil rights advocate. Born a slave. Created National Freedom Day.
1856-1915 - Booker T. Washington - Educator, author, orator & political leader. Headed Tuskeegee Institute from 1881. First black invited to White House.
1857-1938 - Clarence Darrow - Lawyer. Leader of American Civil Liberties Union. Defended Leopold & Loeb in 1924 & John Scopes in 1925. 
1862-1931 - Ida Bell Wells-Barnett - Journalist & anti-lynching activist. Edited "Memphis Free Speech." A founder of the NAACP in 1909.
1864-1922 - Charles Young - Third Black West Point graduate, lst Black national park superintendent, 1st Black military attaché, 1st Black colonel.
Home in Wilberforce, Ohio.
1868-1963 - W.E.B. DuBois - Civil rights activist, sociologist, historian, author & editor. Taught in Wilberfore, Ohio. Organized 1st Pan-African Congress in 1919.
1875
1875-1955 - Mary McLeod Bethune - Educator & civil rights leader. Started what became Bethune-Cookman Univ. Advised FDR.
1885-1967 - A. J. Muste - Clergyman & political activist. Worked in labor, pacifist & civil rights movements. 
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1966 
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1887-1940 - Marcus Garvey - Publisher, journalist, entrepreneur & orator. Staunch proponent of Black Nationalism & Pan-Africanism.
1889-1979 - A. Philip Randolph - Civil rights leader. Founded Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters. Video | Museum 
1970
1891-1981 - Mary Parkman Peabody - Civil rights activist & civil volunteer. Mother of Massachusetts governor. Arrested in St. Augustine, FL, in 1964.
1898-1976 - Paul Robeson - Athelete, concert singer & actor. Social justice activist. Received Stalin Peace Prize in 1952. 
1898-1987 - Septima Poinsette Clark - Educator & activist. Ran literacy & citizenship workshops. Known as "Queen mother" or "Grandmother of the American Civil Rights Movement."
1897-1993 - Marian Anderson - Celebrated Contralto. Sang at Lincoln Memorial in 1939 after DAR refused use of Constitution Hall.
1899-1981 -
Howard Thurman - Theologian & civil rights leader. Dean of Theology & chapels at Howard & Boston Univs. Visited Gandhi in India. Taught MLK, Jr.
1900
1902-1967 - Langston Hughes - Poet, social activist, novelist, playwright, & columnist. Best known for work during Harlem Renaissance.
1903-1986 - Ella Baker - Civil rights & human rights activist beginning in the 1930's. Helped found Southern Christian Leadership Conference.
1905-1990 - Myles Horton - Founded Highlander Research & Education Center in Tennessee in 1932. Husband of Zilphia Horton (qv). 
1910-1956 - Zilphia Horton - Musician & educator, Highlander Center. Civil Rights activist & folklorist. Wife of Myles Horton (qv). See Guy Carawan.
1910-1993 - Glenn Smiley - Methodist minister & civil rights activist. Field secretary for Fellowship of Reconciliation.
1910-1995 - Lawrence D. Reddick - History professor. Wrote biography of Martin Luther King, Jr., in 1958. Accompanied King to India in 1959.
1911-Alive - Amelia Boynton Robinson Civil Rights leader. Key figure of 1965 march in
Selma, AL ("Bloody Sunday"). Awarded the MLK Freedom Medal in 1990.
1911-1930 - Abram Smith - Shoeshine boy. Lynched by white mob in Marion, Indiana. Photo of him & Thomas Shipp is an iconic document of US racism. 
1912-1930 - Thomas Shipp - Foundry worker. Lynched by white mob in Marion, Indiana. Photo of him & Abram Smith is an iconic document of US racism.
1912-1987 - Bayard Rustin - Leader in social movements for civil rights, socialism, pacifism, non-violence & gay rights. Advised Martin Luther King, Jr. 
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1912-1996 - Marion Coddington Bromley - Secretary of A.J. Muste [qv]. Tax resistance & civil rights activist. Married Ernest Bromley [qv]. Arrested desegregating Coney Island in 1952. 
1912-1997 - Ernest Bromley - Minister. Civil rights & peace activist. Founding member of Freedom Riders, Organized rallies in Cincinnati which protested the Vietnam War & segregation.
1912-2010 - Dorothy I. Height - African-American civil rights activist. Received Congressional Gold Medal.
1913-2005 - Rosa Parks. "Mother of the Civil Rights Movement." Sparked bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama. 
1991 
1996
Year?
1917-1977 - Fannie Lou Hamer. Civil rights activist. Democratic delegate. Click here for peace monuments in Alabama (USA).
1917-2003 - Marie Foster - Civil Rights leader in 1960's. Got many African Americans registered to vote. A primary organizer of Selma to Montgomery marches in 1965.
1918-2000 - Morris Abram - Lawyer, civil rights activist & president of Brandeis University. Father of Ruth J. Abram (founder of ICSC). 
1919-1995 - William Kunstler - Self-described "radical lawyer" & civil rights activist. Co-founder of Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR).
1919-2014 - Pete Seeger - Iconic folk singer & social activist. Rang Japanese Peace Bell at United Nations headquarters in 19___. 
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1920-1999 - James L. Farmer, Jr. - Co-founded Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) in 1942. 1998
1921-1992 - Alex Haley - Author. Wrote "The Autobiography of Malcolm X" in 1965 & "Roots" in 1976. See monuments in GA, MD & TN.
1921-2011 - Matthew J. Perry - First Black from Deep South to be Federal judge.
(Born in Columbia, SC. Appointed by Jimmy Carter.)
1921-Alive - Joseph Lowery. 3rd pres. of Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). Husband of Evelyn Gibson Lowery (qv).
2006 2009
1922-2001 - Leon Sullivan - Civil rights leader & anti-Apartheid activist.
1922-2011 - Fred L. Shuttlesworth - Minister & civil rights leader. Co-founded Southern Christian Leadership Conference.
1924-2006 - Anne Braden - Civil rights advocate in Kentucky. Worked to desegregate hospitals & housing.
1924-Alive - C. T. Vivian - Minister, author & close friend & lieutenant of Martin Luther King, Jr., during Civil Rights Movement.
1925
1925-1963 -
Medgar Evers - Civil rights worker. Shot & killed in his driveway in Jackson, Mississippi, on June 12, 1963, by a member of the White Citizens' Council. 
1925-1965 - Viola Liuzzo - Civil rights volunteer. Murdered just after voting rights march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama. Monument on highway. See James Reeb.
1925-1968 - Robert F. Kennedy - US attorney general 1961-1964 & senator 1965-1968. Assassinated (2 months after MLK) in Los Angeles while running for president. 
1925-1989 -
Malcolm X - Muslim minister & militant human rights activist. Gunned down at meeting in NY City.
1926-1990 - Ralph Abernathy - Civil rights movement (USA).
1926-2012 - Jesse Hill, Jr. - Cvil rights leader, business executive & actuary. Confidant of Martin Luther King, Jr. Helped desegregate Georgia University System.
1927-1965 - James Reeb - UU minister. Killed in Selma, Alabama, while supporting Black voting rights. Two monuments in Selma. See Viola Liuzzo.
1927-1993 - César Chávez - Labor leader & civil rights activist. Co-founded National Farm Workers Association. Husband of Helen Chávez (qv). 1989
1927-2006 - Coretta Scott King - Wife of Martin Luther King, Jr. 
1991
1927-2013 - Evelyn Gibson Lowery. Wife of Joseph Lowery (qv). Has erected many monuments honoring individudal civil rights leaders.
1927-Alive - Guy Carawan - Folk musician, Highlander Center. Popularized "We Shall Overcome." Wife is Candie Carawan. Honored at National Civil Rights Museum, Memphis.
1928-Alive - James Lawson - Civil rights movement (USA).
2004
1929-1968 - Martin Luther King, Jr. - Iconic figure in the advancement of civil rights.
1964 1977 Posthumous
1929-2013 -
Alton T. Lemon - Civil rights activist whose objection to state aid to religious schools gave rise to a watershed 1971 Supreme Court decision (the "Lemon test").
1929-Alive - Israel Si Dresner - President of Education Fund for Israeli Civil Rights & Peace. Friend of MLK, Jr. Called "the most arrested rabbi in America."
1930-2008 - Odetta Holmes - Singer, actress, guitarist, songwriter & human rights activist. Often referred to as the "Voice of the Civil Rights Movement."
1930-2009 - Chrles Morgan, Jr. - Civil right lawyer. Incurred hatred by telling Birmingham day after 4 girls were killed that "we are all guilty."
1930-Alive - Dolores Huerta - Labor leader & civil rights activist who, along with César Chávez [qv], co-founded United Farm Workers (UFW).
1931-Alive - Toni Morrison - Novelist, editor & professor at Princeton University. Wrote "Beloved" in 1987 about a slave. 
1993
1932-2008 - Miriam Makeba - Singer & civil rights activist. First artist from Africa to popularize African music in US & around the world. Campaigned against apartheid.
1932-Alive - Andrew Young - Disciple of MLK, Jr. Congressman. US Rep to UN. Mayor of Atlanta. 
1981 Year? 1996
1936-2000 - Albert Turner - Bricklayer & graduate of Alabama A&M. A leader of the 1965 Voting Rights March in Selma, AL, on "Bloody Sunday." Chosen by SCLC to lead mule train at MLK's funeral.
1936-2009 - Mary Travers - Social activist. Member of trio Peter, Paul and Mary.
1936-2014 - Marion Barry - Civil rights leader in Nashville & Knoxville. First chair of Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). Later disgraced when mayor of Washington, DC.
1937-Alive - Eleanor Holmes Norton - District of Columbia delegate to US House of Representatives. Civil rights activist. Aide to Bayard Rustin (qv). 
1937-Alive - Tom Paxton - Folk singer & songwriter. Involved with causes that promoted human, civil & labor rights. Associated with Pete Seeger (qv).
1937-Alive - Noel Paul Stookey - Social activist. Member of trio Peter, Paul and Mary.
1938-1965 - Jimmie Lee Jackson - Civil rights activist & a Baptist deacon in Alabama. Beaten & shot by state troopers 13 days before James Reeb (qv).
His death inspired the Selma to Montgomery marches.
1938-2012 - Juan Valdez - Land grant activist in New Mexico. Helped spark the Chicano Civil Rights Movement in the 1960's.
1938-Alive - Peter Yarrow - Social activist. Member of trio Peter, Paul and Mary.
1939-1964 - Michael (Mickey) Schwerner - Civil rights worker. Murdered by Klu Klux Klan near Philadelphia, Mississippi, with James Chaney & Andrew Goodman.
1939-Alive - Marian Wright Edelman - Founded Childrens Defense Fund in 1973.
1988
1990
1993
1995
2000
1939-Alive - Tom Hayden - Activist in
animal rights, anti-war & civil rights movements. Chicago Eight in 1968. Husband of Jane Fonda (qv).
1940-1994 - Wilma Rudolph - Athlete in 1956 & 1950 Olympic Games. "Fastest woman in the world." Civil rights & women's rights pioneer. 
1940-Alive - Bernard Lafayette. Civil rights movement (USA).
1940-Alive - John Lewis - Freedom rider. Civil rights leader. US Congressman. 2004
1941-1955 - Emmett Till - African-American boy from Chicago. Murdered in Mississippi at age 14 after allegedly flirting with a white woman.
1941-Alive - Joan Baez - Folk singer. Civil rights activist. Had relationship with Bob Dylan (qv). Married to David Harris (qv) 1968-1973. P
1941-Alive - Bob Dylan - Singer-songwriter. His "Blowin' in the Wind" & "The Times They Are a-Changin'" were anthems for the civil rights & anti-war movements.
1942-2008 - James Edward Orange - Pastor & a leading civil rights activist in the 1960's Civil Rights Movement.
1942-Alive - Muhammad Ali - Heavyweight boxer. Born Cassius Clay. UN Messenger of Peace. See museum in Louisville, Kentucky. CO
1942-Alive - Bernice Johnson Reagon - Singer, composer, social activist & history professor. Founded a cappella ensemble Sweet Honey in the Rock in 1973.
1943-1964 - James Earl Chaney - Civil rights worker. Murdered by Klu Klux Klan near Philadelphia, Mississippi, with Andrew Goodman & Michael (Mickey) Schwerner.
1943-1964 - Andrew Goodman - Civil rights worker. Murdered by Klu Klux Klan near Philadelphia, Mississippi, with James Chaney & Michael (Mickey) Schwerner.
1944-Alive - Angela Davis - Civil rights activist, educator & author.
Member of Black Panther Party. Founded Critical Resistance in 1998.
1944-Alive -
Alice Walker - Author, poet & activist. Best known for writing "The Color Purple" in 1982.
1997
1948-Alive - Benjamin Chavis - Civil rights leader. Led Wilmington Ten in 1971. Active in NAACP, Million Man March, Hip-Hop Summit Action Network, etc.
1949-1963 - Addie Mae Collins - Child. Killed with 3 other Black children by white supremicist bomb at 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama.
1950
1950-2000 - Earl T. Shinhoster - "A tireless & versatile foot soldier for civil rights." Youth council member in 1960's. Acting executive director of the NAACP. Killed by blowout of a Firestone tire.
1951-Alive - Gilbert Baker - Artist & civil rights activist. Designed the Rainbow Flag (often used as a symbol of gay pride in LGBT rights marches) in 1978.
1953-1999 - Lenny Zakim - Religious & civil rights leader. Boston's Leonard P. Zakim Bunker Hill Bridge is named in his honor.
1961-Alive - Barak Hussein Obama II - 44th US president. First African-American US president. Passed health care law in 2010.
2009
1965-2012 - Rodney King - Beaten March 3, 1991, by Los Angeles police officers. A videotape of the beating aroused public anger, & he famously asked "Can we all get along?"
1971-Alive - Chen Guangcheng - Civil rights activist. Self-taught lawyer. Blind. Advocates for women's rights, land rights & welfare of the poor. Escaped house arrest in 2012 & went to USA.
